The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination (47 page)

12:35–1:00 p.m.:
In separate incidents, police arrested or detained two men at the Dal-Tex building, across Houston Street from the Book
Depository. Some researchers believe that one or more shots may have been fired from a window of the Dal-Tex building near the corner of Elm and Houston, where the line of sight to JFK’s limo would not have been obstructed by tree branches as it was from the Depository. Some witnesses stated that “when the shots were fired [at JFK], they sounded as if they came from the direction of the Dal-Tex building.” One of the men arrested at the Dal-Tex was a young man wearing a black leather jacket and black gloves. He was later released, and no records were kept of his arrest.

The other man arrested at the Dal-Tex was Eugene Hale Brading (aka Jim Braden), from Los Angeles. Brading was on parole at the time, and some authors have alleged that he was a courier for the Mafia. Anthony Summers linked Brading to a gangster who “knew Jack Ruby well” and was “an acquaintance of both Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante.” Brading sometimes did business from the seventeenth floor of the Pierre Marquette Building in New Orleans, and “in his work for Marcello, [David] Ferrie worked out of” a different office on the same floor. Some of Braden’s activities the day before the assassination parallel those of Jack Ruby. After giving police only his “Jim Braden” alias, Brading would be released within hours.

In all, at least twelve men—possibly more—were detained by police, then released. In some cases, no records were kept about their detainment. In addition, some men from the Book Depository, besides Oswald, were questioned very closely by police.

12:35 p.m. (approx.):
“Officer J. D. Tippit, who had been parked at” a Texaco service “station watching traffic . . . suddenly sped off towards Oak Cliff,” according to “three attendants” at the station interviewed by former FBI agent William Turner. The station was
located “on the Oak Cliff end of the Houston Street Viaduct that the fleeing Oswald traveled in a taxi . . . just a few blocks west of the triple underpass in Dealey Plaza.”

12:37 p.m.:
At Parkland Hospital, JFK was rushed into the trauma room, where faint signs of life were detected. The first doctor to see Kennedy, and the only one to see him before his clothes were removed, Dr. Charles J. Carrico, noticed a small, round bullet-entry wound (3–5 millimeters wide) in his throat, above his shirt and tie. Other doctors soon joined Carrico, and they noted the huge head wound, which they estimated to be about 35 square centimeters (by the time the autopsy on Kennedy is performed that night, this wound will be described as four times bigger). In their later statements they characterized this wound, at the right rear of the head, as an exit wound (indicating that the shot came from the front). At the small, round bullet-entry wound in his throat, a neat tracheotomy incision was made. Also, external cardiac massage was performed. Emergency room doctors had no immediate need to turn Kennedy’s body over, so they didn’t notice the wound in his back. Connally lay wounded in a second trauma room a few yards away.

JFK’s limo was left unattended in the parking lot and was soon surrounded by people. Eventually someone, apparently a Secret Service agent, started scrubbing the blood off the President’s limo, unintentionally removing what would have been crucial evidence.

12:40 p.m. (approx.):
Jack Ruby was seen again at the
Dallas Morning News
building. “Hugh Aynesworth, reporter,
Dallas Morning News
,” told the FBI that “shortly after” Jack Ruby had been “missed, people began to come to the office of the newspaper announcing the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy and Ruby appeared shortly thereafter and feigned surprise at this announcement.”

12:44 p.m.:
The Dallas Police broadcast a description of the President’s attacker, which sounded too old and heavy to be a good description of Oswald: white, 5' 10", 160 pounds, thirty years old, armed with a .30-caliber rifle.

12:45 p.m.:
Officer Tippit was ordered into the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, though some consider the veracity of this transmission problematic, since it was missing from some early accounts of the Tippit incident. Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald lived in different parts of the small Oak Cliff neighborhood.

12:45 p.m. (1:45 EST):
J. Edgar Hoover called Robert Kennedy, who was having lunch at his home in Virginia, to tell him that “the President has been shot. I think it’s serious. I am endeavoring to get details. I’ll call you back when I find out more.” RFK called CIA Director John McCone at Langley CIA Headquarters and asked him to come right over (it was only about a mile away).

12:50 p.m.:
Secret Service agent Forrest Sorrels, who was in the motorcade, arrived at the Book Depository after leaving Parkland Hospital. He was able to enter the rear of the building without presenting any identification.

12:54 p.m.:
Officer Tippit radioed that he was in the Oak Cliff area, and he was instructed to “be at large for any emergency.”

12:58 p.m.:
Police Captain Will Fritz arrived at the Book Depository after leaving Parkland Hospital. Twenty-eight minutes after the shooting, Fritz finally ordered the building sealed off.

12:59 p.m. (approx.):
Two men working at a record shop in Oak Cliff said Tippit hurried into the shop, made a call, apparently got no answer, and hung up after about a minute and rushed from the store. Dallas reporter Earl Golz interviewed the two men, whose shop was one block from the Texas Theatre (where Oswald would be apprehended) and seven blocks from where Tippit would be killed. The men knew Tippit because he sometimes stopped in the store to use their phone.

1:00 p.m.:
Despite the extreme severity of the President’s head wound, which left him no chance of meaningful survival, the Dallas doctors had done everything humanly possible to save him, but to no avail.

John F. Kennedy received the last rites of the Catholic Church and was pronounced dead at Parkland Hospital.

*
It’s ironic that before the Cuban Revolution, Castro’s villa had belonged to the family of Ethel Kennedy, Robert Kennedy’s wife.

*
There’s also a myth that JFK had to cancel his motorcade in Miami on November 18, where he gave a speech after his visit to Tampa. But the House Select Committee looked into that as well and found there was not a motorcade planned for Miami.

*
James McCord was a CIA Security Officer at the time. After retiring from the CIA, he would later be convicted as one of the Watergate burglars. In contrast to Hunt, Kennedy aides like Harry Williams had only positive things to say about McCord.

*
It’s interesting to speculate what could have happened if Oswald had run into Ruby, when Oswald left the Book Depository: It would have been easy for Ruby to claim he’d shot a would-be thief, only to be proclaimed a hero because the man he killed had apparently shot JFK.

*
Adams’s account was verified by her supervisor, Miss Garner, who later stated “that after Miss Adams went downstairs, she [Miss Garner], saw Mr. Truly and the policeman [Baker] come up” the same stairs.

*
Claims that Hunt and Fiorini were two of the “three tramps” photographed in Dealey Plaza were investigated by the Rockefeller Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations and found to be groundless. The identities of the actual tramps were later released by the Dallas Police and confirmed by photos of the men.

CHAPTER 15

Officer Tippet Is Killed and Problems Arise for Marcello

I
N NEW ORLEANS at 1 p.m. (CST, as are all times in this chapter unless noted), Carlos Marcello and David Ferrie were still in federal court, waiting for the judge to begin his charge to the jury. While they had a perfect alibi for JFK’s murder, it’s ironic that they also had no way to know for sure what had happened in Dallas. It would be up to Guy Banister, who was not in court, to monitor the news and field any reports from Dallas.

JFK’s death would not be announced for another thirty minutes, but by 1:00 p.m. Lee Oswald must have realized that things had gone horribly wrong. Yet Oswald may have felt that he still had a mission to complete. We may never know how much of that mission was real, and how much had been simply made up or exaggerated by men like Ferrie and Banister. It most likely involved leaving work after lunch and going to a prearranged meeting at the Texas Theatre, as part of getting to Mexico and on to Cuba. As someone who had accepted the risks involved in defecting to Russia at the height of the Cold War, Oswald would have known the value of following orders and the danger of his current situation.

At 1:00 p.m. in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper at Oswald’s rooming house, saw Oswald run inside. Also at 1:00, Dallas Police headquarters radioed the patrol car of Officer J. D. Tippit, but he did not answer. At 1:02, Roberts saw a Dallas Police car pull slowly up to the rooming house, park directly in front of it, sound its horn twice, and then slowly pull away. She said she saw two policemen in the car. However, ex-FBI agent William Turner points out that Tippit’s uniform jacket “was on a hanger in the car’s window,” and she could have mistaken that for a second officer. The housekeeper, who had poor eyesight, said she thought the car’s number was “107”—Tippit’s number was “10.”

At 1:05 p.m., Roberts saw Oswald run out of the rooming house. Oswald had probably changed shirts, to a long-sleeved rust-brown shirt with a white T-shirt beneath it. He was also probably carrying a concealed revolver by this time. The housekeeper last saw him waiting at a stop for a bus that would take him back downtown. At 1:08, Tippit radioed headquarters, but headquarters didn’t reply.

Two witnesses at the Texas Theatre, Butch Burroughs and Jack Davis, said they observed Oswald inside the theater as early as 1:15, according to researcher Larry Harris. He wrote that “Burroughs, who was working the concession counter, remembered waiting on Oswald.” However, sometime between 1:10 and 1:15—most likely around 1:12—Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit was shot at the 400 block of East Tenth Street, between Denver and Patton streets.

As described by researcher Michael T. Griffith, the official Warren Commission story says that after Tippit saw a man who matched the description of JFK’s assailant that had been broadcast over police radio, Tippit “drove up slowly behind the man, pulled up alongside him, and then asked him to come over to the driver’s window for what
was described as having the appearance of a ‘friendly chat.’” Oswald, the ex-serviceman turned killer, then pulled out his pistol, shot the officer, and fled.
*

However, many other witnesses gave different accounts of Tippit’s slaying. According to eyewitness Acquilla Clemons, Tippit was shot by a man who was “kind of short” and “kind of heavy,” and wearing “khaki and a white shirt.” This man then motioned another man with him to “go on.” Another witness saw a man with a long coat, ending just about at his hands, looking at Tippit’s body, then running to his car (described as gray, 1950–51, maybe a Plymouth) and driving off. Also, most witnesses say that the man who talked with Tippit had been walking west—toward Oswald’s rooming house, not away from it.

Numerous problems with the evidence in the Tippit slaying have been noted for decades. For example, instead of immediately fleeing, the shooter took the time to empty four spent shells from his revolver at the crime scene. Two of the shells were made by Remington-Peters and two by Winchester-Western. However, of the four bullets taken from Tippit’s body, just one was Remington-Peters and three were made by Winchester-Western. There were also problems with the chain of custody of the shells, as well as with the initial descriptions of the gun itself and a discarded jacket.

Noted journalist Henry Hurt pointed out that “one of the oddest assumptions of the Warren Commission was that Officer Tippit stopped Oswald because he was able to identify him as the man
described in the police broadcasts that started about 12:45 p.m. . . . The description itself was of a ‘white male, approximately thirty, slender build, height five feet, ten inches, weight 165 pounds,’ believed to be armed with a .30-caliber rifle. This description missed Oswald by six years and about fifteen pounds.” Michael Griffith points out that “the police description could have fit a good quarter to a third of the male population of Dallas.” And yet “none of the witnesses who saw Tippit’s assailant just before Tippit stopped him said the man was walking unusually fast or in any way acting strange or suspicious.”

Witnesses sometimes changed their stories, possibly because they were intimidated or threatened. For example, two days after the Tippit slaying, a policeman told witness Acquilla Clemons that she might get hurt if she told anyone else what she saw, and she never spoke to the Warren Commission about it. As noted by Anthony Summers, witness “Warren Reynolds was shot in the head two days after telling the FBI he could not identify Oswald,” and after his recovery Reynolds “agreed he thought the fleeing gunman had been Oswald after all.” The chief suspect in the Reynolds shooting was a heroin addict named Darrell Wayne Garner. Though Garner drunkenly boasted of the shooting and confessed to being at the scene, he was released when provided with an alibi by Nancy Mooney, a former employee of Jack Ruby. Eight days later, Mooney was arrested; she “was later found hanged in her cell” by her pants, “presumably a suicide.” Another Tippit slaying witness, Domingo Benavides, “was anonymously threatened after the Tippit killing,” and “his brother Edward was murdered by an unknown assailant” soon afterward. Carlos Marcello’s men in Dallas were very capable of having key witnesses intimidated or attacked.