My new book, "Into the Nightmare"

[Joseph McBride]

Joseph McBride,

I want to make clear that I meant no disrespect with regard to mentioning "Who Killed Kennedy?" I have always thought that it made sense Tippitt was involved in the plot on some level. Can I take it from your non response that you weren't aware of the '64 book's claim and it didn't inspire your research? Perhaps I am ignorant and there is a long tradition of suspicion falling on Tippitt.

If you don't reply I still am ordering your book and look forward to reading it. I have your Capra book and found the research masterful.

Matthew,

Thanks for your questions. I didn't think you were being disrespectful but asking good questions
about a key early researcher. Thanks too for your comment on my book FRANK CAPRA: THE CATASTROPHE OF SUCCESS -- I appreciate it. That was another huge
research job and a most revealing one.

Buchanan's 1964 book anticipated some later revelations, though he engaged in speculation, and parts of it don't hold up. He was a journalist and computer technician living in Paris and followed the news analytically. He said he also had some sources in Texas and elsewhere.


His book WHO KILLED KENNEDY? does not name Tippit as a shooter in Dealey Plaza (although Léo Sauvage thought Buchanan had originally hinted that in the articles on which the book was based), but the book names Tippit as an accomplice in the conspiracy. Buchanan refers to a theory that Tippit was meant to help Oswald escape, thinking he was a minor criminal, and doublecrossed him when the officer learned that the president had been shot. In this theory, Tippit was then shot by Oswald. The theory was proposed by Serge Groussard, a French journalist. Buchanan, however, leans toward the theory that Tippit was assigned to provoke a shootout with Oswald and kill him in the process. Buchanan points to problems with the official theory of the case that lead him to doubt that Oswald murdered Tippit.


What is most remarkable in the midst of Buchanan's mostly speculative and convoluted scenario is that he speculated that Tippit "knew where Oswald had been and where he was going" and was tailing him. Buchanan writes that Tippit died "while attempting to obey the orders which he had received from his superiors in the Dallas Police Department." In the course of my long investigation of the Tippit murder, I was able to find evidence to prove that hypothesis in INTO THE NIGHTMARE, although I also don't believe that Oswald shot Tippit.

[Charles Drago]

Joseph,

I have read and considered with the utmost care your argument that the so-called Badge Man figure firing at JFK could very well be J. D. Tippit.

Here is a splendid case-in-point in which the application of a refined and encompassing conspiracy model informed by not just the facts of the assassination as we know them, but also by a broad and deep understanding of deep political systems and methodologies, can lead us to valuable insight.

Has your unarguably valuable research uncovered evidence of Tippit possessing world-class marksmanship skills of the sort associated with snipers firing at moving targets while operating as part of a military style, two- or three-person team?

Here's why I ask: I'm not alone in having concluded that the conspirators (at the Sponsor and Facilitator levels, at least) understood that, once initiated, the attack on JFK must succeed if their own security and that of the institutions they represented were to be preserved.

Accordingly, only the most accomplished snipers in the world would have been entrusted with the assignment of fatally wounding the president.

If it can be documented that Tippit possessed such rare skills, then you're on to something.

If not, then Tippit-as-Badge-Man either was shooting blanks (perhaps as a diversionary tactic) or was servicing an as yet poorly understood aspect of the ambush.

To put it another way: Absent proof of Tippit's sniping prowess, identifying him as one of the JFK shooters is as foolhardy as naming the likes of Johnny Roselli, Charles Nicoletti, James Files, and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Thank you, Charles. I'm not sure why you wonder
if there is proof of Tippit's shooting prowess in the book, because there is.
See the references to J. D. Tippit's
marksmanship, including the story told me by his father about
his son's uncanny skill in hitting a small target at a long distance. The
retaining wall where Badge Man was firing was relatively close to the position of the limousine. Kennedy was
hit at least twice from the Grassy Knoll. There probably were two
shooters there. That too is covered extensively in the book.

I understand.

But I was not asking after Tippit's skills relating to "hitting a small target at a long distance."

Rather, I specifically referenced "world-class marksmanship skills of the sort associated with snipers firing at moving targets while operating as part of a military style, two- or three-person team."

A world of difference.

Charles, I find it hard to argue about whether or not topics are discussed
in my book when in fact I do discuss a subject at different points in the book; I mentioned one such piece of information. Please look up the references to this
subject in my book.

Your presumption that I have not "looked up" the relevant "references" in your book is falsified by the simple fact that I have read -- more than once -- the claims made by Tippit the elder regarding the marksmanship of Tippit the younger.

You seem to resort to the following default position: If one challenges you on your conclusions, then by definition the challenger has not read your work.

Again, I'm utterly disinterested in Tippit's skills relating to "hitting a small target at a long distance."

As you should be.

Rather, and for the third time, I ask if you have discovered proof that Tippit possessed "world-class marksmanship skills of the sort associated with snipers firing at moving targets while operating as part of a military style, two- or three-person team."

WHY do I press this issue?

Because we don't need to put Tippit on the GK as a shooter to prove conspiracy. And because your wholly unconvincing efforts to do so likely will prove damaging to the prosecution of our case -- if it ever is meaningfully prosecuted.

[Matthew Poe]

Joseph McBride,
Thank you for answering, it was well worth the wait. In my follow-up, I was just clarifying that I had no problem with your thesis and was not attempting a sly dig at it by mentioning Buchanan's flawed work. Because while most sources maintain he was a blacklisted communist journalist working as a computer analyst in Paris there have been suspicions voiced (at least over at EF) that he was actually affiliated with the Agency somehow. Was not perhaps Sauvage (or was it Joeston?) raising that possibility when--in a review of "WHO KILLED KENNEDY?"--he mused that Buchanan had blamed every interest that could have potentially benefited from JFK's assassination except the big one--the one that mattered the most: i.e. the Warfare State. Any thoughts in that direction, i.e. that the book would have been an attempt to take highly skeptical Europeans in the wrong direction, away from the military/CIA to the southern racists is pure speculation however, not keeping in the spirit of your work. And no matter how you slice it looking back from the generations his hunch (inside info?) about Tippitt is indeed remarkable.

I look forward more than ever to reading your book and I'm glad you are busy doing press for it.

I recommend FRANK CAPRA: THE CATASTROPHE OF SUCCESS to anyone enamored with classic movies and interested in studio history. Along with a couple of others, it is in my accounting, the highest manifestation of the genre.

[Joseph McBride]

Joseph McBride,
Thank you for answering, it was well worth the wait. In my follow-up, I was just clarifying that I had no problem with your thesis and was not attempting a sly dig at it by mentioning Buchanan's flawed work. Because while most sources maintain he was a blacklisted communist journalist working as a computer analyst in Paris there have been suspicions voiced (at least over at EF) that he was actually affiliated with the Agency somehow. Was not perhaps Sauvage (or was it Joeston?) raising that possibility when--in a review of "WHO KILLED KENNEDY?"--he mused that Buchanan had blamed every interest that could have potentially benefited from JFK's assassination except the big one--the one that mattered the most: i.e. the Warfare State. Any thoughts in that direction, i.e. that the book would have been an attempt to take highly skeptical Europeans in the wrong direction, away from the military/CIA to the southern racists is pure speculation however, not keeping in the spirit of your work. And no matter how you slice it looking back from the generations his hunch (inside info?) about Tippitt is indeed remarkable.

I look forward more than ever to reading your book and I'm glad you are busy doing press for it.

I recommend FRANK CAPRA: THE CATASTROPHE OF SUCCESS to anyone enamored with classic movies and interested in studio history. Along with a couple of others, it is in my accounting, the highest manifestation of the genre.

Hi, Matthew,

Thanks again for the good words about the post and about my Capra book. I think that's my best
biography, so am happy you recommend it.

I don't have any particular knowledge about Buchanan other than what I have read on him, which is sketchy. I admire
most of the skeptical people who tackled the story early, when information was hard to come by, and made
something valuable of their research, if only by raising questions that weren't being asked in most of the mainstream media. Whatever gaps and flaws there may be in Buchanan's book,
his insight about Tippit pursuing Oswald proved shrewd. M. S. Arnoni had already asked some
similar questions about Tippit in his December 1, 1963, article "Dark Thoughts about Dark Events" in "The Minority of One."
In my research in FBI files in the National Archives, I learned that Maggie
Daly of Chicago's American raised the possibility in her December 7, 1963, column that Tippit might have been sent
to silence Oswald. The FBI contacted her managing editor and got her to back off and retract the story. I trace
these early efforts and others over the years to try to crack the mystery of the Tippit killing.

[Tracy Riddle]

One of the most fascinating parts of Thomas Buchanan's book: He interviewed Nicholas Katzenbach in March 1964, who stood by the description of JFK's wounds at that time (that the back wound was a separate shot and the throat wound was related to the head shot): "he said that it was based on an exhaustive study of the President's autopsy, and that there could be no doubt about it...He felt certain any person who had studied this autopsy would have reached the same conclusions. I asked him if I could see a copy of it, but he said that he could not release it...when the President's Commission issued its report, the explanation of the wounds had changed completely..." (p91-92)

[Joseph McBride]

[URL="http://artsfuse.org/88827/fuse-book-review-into-the-nightmare-an-epic-account-of-the-assassination-of-john-f-kennedy/"]

http://artsfuse.org/88827/fuse-book-revi...f-kennedy/[/URL]

[Lauren Johnson]

Charles:

The intensification of the LBJ-as-mastermind operation has been noted for some months now and is openly scheduled to continue through the fall. The work of one of its prime Facilitators, "author" Phillip Nelson (prime exponent of the "mastermind" characterization), recently was referenced on this forum and prompted a generally admirable JFK assassination author to note that we are obliged by the dictates of professional courtesy not to challenge the motives of our fellow correspondents, but rather to bow from the waist (my description) and politely "agree to disagree" with them when necessary.

Where does such courtesy end?

I presume you are referring to McBride here. I found this call for a polite disengagement to be disappointing on his part. Saying we must 'agree to disagree' should only come after every effort has been expended to be understand the argument of the other. But when the concern is to promote a book, one would never want to engage in a genuine dialogue which would expose its weaknesses. It would hurt business.

[Joseph McBride]

Charles:

The intensification of the LBJ-as-mastermind operation has been noted for some months now and is openly scheduled to continue through the fall. The work of one of its prime Facilitators, "author" Phillip Nelson (prime exponent of the "mastermind" characterization), recently was referenced on this forum and prompted a generally admirable JFK assassination author to note that we are obliged by the dictates of professional courtesy not to challenge the motives of our fellow correspondents, but rather to bow from the waist (my description) and politely "agree to disagree" with them when necessary.

Where does such courtesy end?

I presume you are referring to McBride here. I found this call for a polite disengagement to be disappointing on his part. Saying we must 'agree to disagree' should only come after every effort has been expended to be understand the argument of the other. But when the concern is to promote a book, one would never want to engage in a genuine dialogue which would expose its weaknesses. It would hurt business.

Lauren Johnson,

You probably have heard the quote attributed to Henry Kissinger that academic "disputes are so bitter because the stakes are so small." I see that happening too often in my other field, film studies. In the field of assassination research, one could say that disputes sometimes become so bitter because the stakes are so large.

But I don't think personal attacks advance the scholarly discussion or the cause of understanding the truth about the assassination and related events. Richard Hofstadter in November 1963ff helped pioneer the deployment of ad hominem attacks on critics who hold "conspiracy theories," a method furthered by the infamous 1967 CIA memo ("Countering Criticism of the Warren Report") that laid out the playbook followed by many in the mainstream media ever since, i.e., to use pseudo-psychiatric diagnoses (made by persons unqualified to do so) and to otherwise impugn the personal motives of critics (such as by accusing them of being "politically interested" or "financially interested") as a way of avoiding engagement with the issues. I analyze all this MO in considerable detail in INTO THE NIGHTMARE in studying how the coverup works.

So when I call for civility rather than abuse and for people listening to each other's arguments and then agreeing
to disagree if they can't reach a consensus, I don't think I am trying not to engage in a genuine dialogue. I think
that I am doing exactly the opposite. I am trying to keep the discussion on the facts of the case and what they
mean. The case is too important to descend into name-calling and mudslinging. I find personal abuse directed at me or other researchers, whatever their beliefs and arguments may be, simply tiresome and at worst a calculated distraction from issues. Such abuse has ruined many a forum. I try to avoid engaging with such people in both fields in which I work. Also unhelpful is criticizing a book without reading it. That
is simply absurd, as well as unscholarly, and it's hard for an author to respond to someone who is ignorant of the book's contents
and in some cases refuses to read what the author has written but prefers to keep a closed mind. I am always happy to entertain reasoned
criticism of what I write, or to take into account additional information or new insights, but simple uninformed invective serves no real purpose.

[Magda Hassan]

Charles:

The intensification of the LBJ-as-mastermind operation has been noted for some months now and is openly scheduled to continue through the fall. The work of one of its prime Facilitators, "author" Phillip Nelson (prime exponent of the "mastermind" characterization), recently was referenced on this forum and prompted a generally admirable JFK assassination author to note that we are obliged by the dictates of professional courtesy not to challenge the motives of our fellow correspondents, but rather to bow from the waist (my description) and politely "agree to disagree" with them when necessary.

Where does such courtesy end?

I presume you are referring to McBride here. I found this call for a polite disengagement to be disappointing on his part. Saying we must 'agree to disagree' should only come after every effort has been expended to be understand the argument of the other. But when the concern is to promote a book, one would never want to engage in a genuine dialogue which would expose its weaknesses. It would hurt business.

Not exactly Lauren. It was more Charles bringing off forum discussions here and due to recent correspondence I take it as a jab at Dawn and putting words in her mouth of which she never said. But you are not to know that. Just because Charles has declared war on Phillip Nelson doesn't mean every one else is required to enlist in that fight any more than Charles is required to give Nelson the time of day just because others might. On the other hand the merits or lack of merits of any book are absolutely fair game. Attacking the forum members is not. The distinction needs to be made and understood. You've been on the receiving end of attacks Lauren and I don't think it was pleasant for you. I and many others certainly were appalled at the way you were abused. Anyway, if Charles or you or any one else feels their questions have not been adequately answered you are free to note that or to reiterate the question/s again in case they have been missed first time around. Others will note the response and draw their conclusions. Or not. But keeping the means of basic civil communication open is important. Personal attacks just shut it all down.

[Charles Drago]

So when I call for civility rather than abuse and for people listening to each other's arguments and then agreeing
to disagree if they can't reach a consensus, I don't think I am trying not to engage in a genuine dialogue. I think
that I am doing exactly the opposite. I am trying to keep the discussion on the facts of the case and what they
mean. The case is too important to descend into name-calling and mudslinging.

Do you "agree to disagree" with Bugliosi? Posner? Ken Rahn? John McAdams?

Where do you draw the line? How do you draw the line?

I find personal abuse directed at me or other researchers, whatever their beliefs and arguments may be, simply tiresome and at worst a calculated distraction from issues. Such abuse has ruined many a forum. I try to avoid engaging with such people in both fields in which I work. Also unhelpful is criticizing a book without reading it. That is simply absurd, as well as unscholarly, and it's hard for an author to respond to someone who is ignorant of the book's contents and in some cases refuses to read what the author has written but prefers to keep a closed mind. I am always happy to entertain reasoned criticism of what I write, or to take into account additional information or new insights, but simple uninformed invective serves no real purpose.

Twice now I have challenged your hypothesis that J. D. Tippit very well may have been the "Badge Man" figure allegedly firing at JFK from behind the picket fence. I have argued that the ability to hit a stationary target at a great distance under relaxed, non-life threatening circumstances does not equate to the ability to hit a moving target under the most pressure-packed, life-threatening circumstances imaginable.

Rather than address this point, you repeatedly choose to accuse me of not having read your book. You do it again above.

You can run, sir, but you can't hide.

I've read your book. Every word. And for your information, I am widely recognized to be one of the most outside-the-box thinkers in JFK research.

My criticism is based on scholarship, informed by decades of research, and utterly reasoned.

My mind is wide open.

Please answer my questions.