My new book, "Into the Nightmare"

[Joseph McBride]

I've only heard of McBride as a film historian. Good to hear someone else is focused on the Tippit murder.

The late Larry Ray Harris (who died in a mysterious car crash in 1996) was supposed to be the expert on the subject. He lived in Dallas, and even took jobs at the TSBD and as a letter carrier in Oak Cliff to help his research.

Jack White posted this on the EF: "My friend and great researcher Larry Ray Harris has been dead since 1996, and his research was by no means complete. In fact the whereabouts of his extensive files is not known ever since the one-car accident which killed him (reports are that his most serious injury was a broken leg)."

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg ...tem 02.pdf

Larry Ray Harris was indeed a major researcher on Tippit. I conducted a lengthy interview with him in 1992. He generously shared his findings and insights with me. He said he had wanted to do a book on Tippit, called THE OTHER MURDER, but couldn't solve enough questions to his satisfaction. He turned up a lot of fresh evidence. He was a fine man and a diligent researcher whose work was an inspiration, and I was very sad over his untimely death. We all owe him a great debt.

I also was given generous assistance by another major Tippit researcher, Greg Lowrey, who has done extensive research on the case and turned up many leads that he also shared for me to follow in my own dogged research over many years. His associate Bill Pulte gave me valuable help as well. And so did Jack White, Penn Jones, Gary Shaw, and others in Texas who have done important work. They helped me as I made my way through the labyrinth of evidence and "so-called evidence" in this case; the case is so complex that it took me three decades to put together my findings. We should all help each other, as these people did with me. That's how understanding of the case advances. I would also mention a researcher I haven't met but whose work on Tippit I admire, Gary Murr, who wrote the groundbreaking 1971 monograph THE MURDER OF DALLAS POLICE OFFICER J. D. TIPPIT. Dale Myers's book on Tippit is the Warren Report of this murder, and though it is devoted to covering up and obfuscating what happened, he did provide useful research leads, as the Warren Commission did in its twenty-six volumes.

[Joseph McBride]

Joseph, nice to see you here and like Jim below I was kind of surprised to see your name attached to this. I've read a couple of your other books (on Ford and Welles, both of which I greatly enjoyed) and it took a double-take upon visiting the Amazon page to see that Joseph McBride was indeed that Joseph McBride. It's a pleasant surprise, anyway.

I plan to order your book this coming Friday, and then to Oz it'll take another near fortnight by post, then a week to read it. Hopefully you may still be around to answer questions then as I'm sure actually reading the book will raise a few.

Page 659 of your book (c/o the Amazon 'look inside' feature) lists a respectable list of authors and websites that you've noted as helpful and indicates to me immediately that you're made a genuine and careful attempt to connect to the quality research in the field. (Jim D gets a mention, as does CTKA, the Education Forum, William Kelly, John Armstrong and others). I just have a passing query as to how conspiratorial your overall viewpoint is regarding other political and historical events outside the JFK assassination. For example, what is your view on some of the later US political assassinations? (Or other 'deep events', as Peter Dale Scott calls them - there are a number of those to pick from). Also, could you make a comment as to which books by the above authors and others proved particularly useful to you? I'm just curious.

Anthony,

Thanks much for your interest in my book. I go into a fair amount of detail and analysis about how
the Kennedy assassination is part of the overall pattern of political murders since then and the degeneration
of our democracy that followed it. It would be impossible to summarize my views in a short space, so I am glad you will be reading the book. Peter Dale Scott helped educate me on "deep politics"; see my chapters on the Texas rightwing political milieu in 1960s and on Oswald's connections with U.S. intelligence and Ruby's connections with the underworld and overworld. My George H. W. Bush research is part of this study. I influenced Russ Baker's book, which starts with my discovery of Bush's early CIA involvement, and his book in turn influenced me, and I report on previously unknown aspects of Bush's involvement with the events surrounding the assassination and his associations with Houston and Dallas rightwingers who were investigated by the FBI after the assassination.

As a longtime investigative reporter, I've always believed in following stories that are inadequately reported or understood, as I did, for example, with my biography FRANK CAPRA: THE CATASTROPHE OF SUCCESS, a project that deconstructs the mythic persona Capra created with the help of the media. I wrote a great deal about Capra as a political artist and about the blacklist period in that book, and I have long been as interested in American political history as in film history, so I always combine those two interests in my work. In INTO THE NIGHTMARE I write about films and TV programs that deal with the assassination and discuss the role of the media in distorting the case, another major interest of mine.

I mentioned in another post some authors who influenced me. David Lifton's BEST EVIDENCE provided a major paradigm shift in my thinking on the case. Josiah Thompson's book helped me understand the physical evidence. Douglas Horne's recent books are of great value in advancing the case. John Armstrong's book provided another key paradigm shift for me. I may differ with some views in these books and others, but the role of a researcher is to learn from those who have ploughed the ground before and then test every piece of evidence for himself/herself while combining previous findings with new findings turned up in fresh research. We learned from this case to be skeptical of everything and not take anything for granted. I always do that; with my Capra research, I took nothing for granted and checked every "fact" that had been reported, finding most of them wrong. I do exhaustive study of documents and many interviews to help me find the truth.

[David Healy]

welcome Mr. McBride...
David Healy

[Joseph McBride]

welcome Mr. McBride...
David Healy

Thank you, Mr. Healy. Good to be here.

Joe

[Tracy Riddle]

Hey, I found Gary Murr's monograph on Tippit's murder in John Armstrong's archives:

http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm...m/id/11869

[Jim DiEugenio]

Hi jim any idea when your new book will be out ....

I didn't know he credited CTKA.




Well, turnabout is fair play.

In my upcoming book, Reclaiming Parkland, I credit him. But not for what you would think.

I used his biography of Spielberg, since Hanks and Spielberg are buddies. In more ways than one.

I should add, that biography is the best one on Spielberg you will read anywhere.

It is supposed to be timed with the release of the Parkland film. ANd I am trying very hard to make that deadline.

Joseph's book on Spielberg was helpful to me. I took a lot of notes on it. It was really interesting to find out how close Hanks and Spielberg were to Clinton and now to Obama. The other thing that was important to me was how Spielberg had always thought of himself as an outsider. Well, when I found out about Hanks' childhood, I could see why the two bonded: because they both wanted to be insiders once they got successful. Which is not true of everyone who becomes successful, even in that business e.g. Stanley Kubrick hated Hollywood.

But anyway, this should be Joseph's thread. His book it out right now. Since he was nice enough to drop in, he should have the stage.

Joseph: Did you build on Armstrong's work, which seems to imply that Tippit was waiting for Oswald on a bus? DId you confirm that was true?

[Joseph McBride]

Hi jim any idea when your new book will be out ....

I didn't know he credited CTKA.




Well, turnabout is fair play.

In my upcoming book, Reclaiming Parkland, I credit him. But not for what you would think.

I used his biography of Spielberg, since Hanks and Spielberg are buddies. In more ways than one.

I should add, that biography is the best one on Spielberg you will read anywhere.

It is supposed to be timed with the release of the Parkland film. ANd I am trying very hard to make that deadline.

Joseph's book on Spielberg was helpful to me. I took a lot of notes on it. It was really interesting to find out how close Hanks and Spielberg were to Clinton and now to Obama. The other thing that was important to me was how Spielberg had always thought of himself as an outsider. Well, when I found out about Hanks' childhood, I could see why the two bonded: because they both wanted to be insiders once they got successful. Which is not true of everyone who becomes successful, even in that business e.g. Stanley Kubrick hated Hollywood.

But anyway, this should be Joseph's thread. His book it out right now. Since he was nice enough to drop in, he should have the stage.

Joseph: Did you build on Armstrong's work, which seems to imply that Tippit was waiting for Oswald on a bus? DId you confirm that was true?

Jim,

Thanks for your comments on my Spielberg book. I am glad it has been helpful to you. Faber and Faber published the third edition last fall.

The evidence tends to indicate that Tippit did not see the bus, though he may have been watching for it or a cab; Oswald instead may have been driven to Oak Cliff by the station wagon that departed from Dealey Plaza. The officer left his observation post at the Gloco station to try to find Oswald elsewhere in Oak Cliff. It was shortly after leaving the gas station that Tippit stopped a car on West Tenth Street and then went to the Top Ten Records store. He seemed frantic. There were other policemen around
Oak Cliff at the time, and I track some of their movements as well. Not every movement can be fully accounted for, but I examine all that can
be traced. There was a lot of activity around Oak Cliff at the time.

[Magda Hassan]

A warm welcome to the DPF Joseph! Congratualtions on your new book. I look forward to reading it. It is certainly an area that has much of interest.

I am curious about what attracted you to Tippett in the first place and hypothetically if time was unlimited what other people in this event that are under-researched or overlooked that you would have some interest in and why?

[Joseph McBride]

A warm welcome to the DPF Joseph! Congratualtions on your new book. I look forward to reading it. It is certainly an area that has much of interest.

I am curious about what attracted you to Tippett in the first place and hypothetically if time was unlimited what other people in this event that are under-researched or overlooked that you would have some interest in and why?

Magda,

Thanks for the welcome and the good words. I'm glad to be here and getting thoughtful questions.

I was drawn to the Tippit area of the case because my instincts as a longtime investigative reporter are to be alert to aspects of stories that are inadequately covered or largely ignored. It bothered me that the murder of Tippit was treated so cursorily in official investigations and in most writings on the assassination, when it was clearly crucial to the case in many ways. Sylvia Meagher wrote in ACCESSORIES AFTER THE FACT (1967), still perhaps the best book on the assassination, "Tippit, the policeman and the man, is a one-dimensional and insubstantial figure -- unknown and unknowable. The [Warren] Commission was not interested in Tippit's life, and apparently interested in his death only to the extent that it could be ascribed to Oswald, despite massive defects in the evidence against him."

Indeed, my research has shown that the Dallas police focused on trying to pin the Tippit murder on Oswald partly because they knew it would be hard to prove a case against him for shooting Kennedy, but that they did a poor investigation of the Tippit case as well and mostly dropped the investigation after the first weekend. I had revealing interviews with former District Attorney Henry Wade and Detective James Leavelle, who was in charge of the Tippit investigation, as far as it went, and managed to get them to admit to many of the problems with both cases and to help me demolish what Oswald called the "so-called evidence" against him. Watergate taught us that the coverup is often the key to the crime. The deliberate inattention paid to the Tippit case helped alert me to its great importance. I took Meagher's words as a challenge to show that Tippit was not unknowable. I found much about the case that had not been known and am able to demonstrate much about what he was actually doing that day.

As for your question about other people deserving of more study, I would like to see more about Ruth and Michael Paine -- Carol Hewett has done excellent work on the Paines, and I hope more would be done on them. Some others who come to mind who should be subjects of further research: Curtis LeMay; Guy Banister; General Edwin Walker; Richard Helms; Cord Meyer, Jr.; Dan Rather. I wish Bill Moyers would finally write his memoirs.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Joseph:


FIrst, who do you think was the most important witness in the Tippit case?

Second, should we trust any of the radio log transcripts?

I ask because Barry Ernest's book quotes Wiggins as saying the shots rang out at 1:06. But according to the logs Tippit made a a call at 1:08.

Would you like to do an interview on Black Op Radio?

JIM D