My new book, "Into the Nightmare"

[Joseph McBride]

Hello, friends and fellow researchers at Deep Politics Forum:

I am happy to report that my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE: MY SEARCH
FOR THE KILLERS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY AND OFFICER J. D. TIPPIT, thirty-one years in the works, is now out
via Amazon.com. I would be happy to take questions on it.

I think researchers will find much fresh information here. I sometimes find people lamenting
that it's hard to find new material in the case, since so many people involved in it
are now gone, but with the long gestation of this book, I was
able to obtain revealing interviews with such people as Henry
Wade, Senator Ralph Yarborough, Austin Cook, Johnnie Maxie
Witherspoon, and Edgar Lee Tippit, the officer's
father. He had never been interviewed before and provided some
of the most important insights. I did a great deal of archival
research in Washington and elsewhere and benefited from the work of many other researchers in
the field who helped me understand these deeply complex events.
In the course of the book, I have exonerated some suspects in both killings (including Oswald) and pointed to others
while providing a theoretical overview, drawn from both existing and new evidence,
critically examined, that may help make more sense of the many contradictions in the case. The
book delves into what Peter Dale Scott calls the "deep politics" of the assassination
and examines in detail the Texas rightwing milieu in which the murders occurred, drawing
some surprising connections and pointing to key suspects in the planning, some seldom discussed.

I long ago realized that the underexplored Tippit killing is central to the
case and that studying it would provide many new insights, as indeed it did in my research.
I followed the advice Penn Jones gave me and other researchers, "Pick
one aspect of the case, one that hasn't been studied enough, and research the hell out of it."




Here is the information on the book:

Publication date: June 15, 2013
675 pages; Publisher: Hightower Press (available from Amazon.com (enter in Books: "joseph mcbride nightmare")
"AMERICA'S NEED TO WALK INTO THE NIGHTMARE . . .".
. . was how Norman Mailer predicted the tumultuous period that led to President John F. Kennedy's 1963 murder on a public street and the fifty years of controversy that have followed that turning point in our nation's history. Journalist and historian Joseph McBride, a volunteer in JFK's 1960 Wisconsin presidential primary campaign, began studying the assassination minutes after it happened. In 1982, McBride launched his own investigation. Both epic and intimately personal, Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit incorporates rare interviews with key people in Dallas, archival discoveries, and what novelist Thomas Flanagan, in The New York Review of Books, called McBride's "wide knowledge of American social history." McBride chronicles his evolving skepticism about the official story and shines a fresh, often surprising spotlight on Kennedy's murder and on one of the murkiest, most crucial aspects of the case, its "Rosetta Stone," the Tippit killing.

Joseph McBride has been a journalist since 1960, writing for such publications as Life, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and, on this subject, The Nation. An internationally renowned film biographer and historian, he has written acclaimed biographies of John Ford, Frank Capra, and Steven Spielberg. McBride lives in Berkeley, California, and is a professor at San Francisco State University.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Joseph: You did the article in The Nation right? The one that drove John Hankey nuts.

When you say you have been working on your book 31 years, I mean that isn't literal right?

Because you have done a lot of other things in the meantime.

The other things is, I don't think many of us knew you were a secret JFK researcher.

Clue us in: How did that start?

[Anthony Thorne]

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.

[Dawn Meredith]

Joseph: Welcome to DPF. I agree that the murder of Tippet has been ill -covered. My own theory is that Tippet was the officer who honked in front OF LHO's rooming house, the person seen by Earlene Roberts. That Tippit had been sent there to silence the alleged assassin. When he failed, he was killed. Pure speculation on my part.

I hope you will answer questions about your book. Sounds like you have made a very exhaustive study. Another to add to my must read list.

Dawn

[Tracy Riddle]

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%...m%2002.pdf

[Jim DiEugenio]

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.

[Edwin Ortiz]

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.

[Edwin Ortiz]

Thanks for info just ordered book

Hello, friends and fellow researchers at Deep Politics Forum:

I am happy to report that my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE: MY SEARCH
FOR THE KILLERS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY AND OFFICER J. D. TIPPIT, thirty-one years in the works, is now out
via Amazon.com. I would be happy to take questions on it.

I think researchers will find much fresh information here. I sometimes find people lamenting
that it's hard to find new material in the case, since so many people involved in it
are now gone, but with the long gestation of this book, I was
able to obtain revealing interviews with such people as Henry
Wade, Senator Ralph Yarborough, Austin Cook, Johnnie Maxie
Witherspoon, and Edgar Lee Tippit, the officer's
father. He had never been interviewed before and provided some
of the most important insights. I did a great deal of archival
research in Washington and elsewhere and benefited from the work of many other researchers in
the field who helped me understand these deeply complex events.
In the course of the book, I have exonerated some suspects in both killings (including Oswald) and pointed to others
while providing a theoretical overview, drawn from both existing and new evidence,
critically examined, that may help make more sense of the many contradictions in the case. The
book delves into what Peter Dale Scott calls the "deep politics" of the assassination
and examines in detail the Texas rightwing milieu in which the murders occurred, drawing
some surprising connections and pointing to key suspects in the planning, some seldom discussed.

I long ago realized that the underexplored Tippit killing is central to the
case and that studying it would provide many new insights, as indeed it did in my research.
I followed the advice Penn Jones gave me and other researchers, "Pick
one aspect of the case, one that hasn't been studied enough, and research the hell out of it."




Here is the information on the book:

Publication date: June 15, 2013
675 pages; Publisher: Hightower Press (available from Amazon.com (enter in Books: "joseph mcbride nightmare")
"AMERICA'S NEED TO WALK INTO THE NIGHTMARE . . .".
. . was how Norman Mailer predicted the tumultuous period that led to President John F. Kennedy's 1963 murder on a public street and the fifty years of controversy that have followed that turning point in our nation's history. Journalist and historian Joseph McBride, a volunteer in JFK's 1960 Wisconsin presidential primary campaign, began studying the assassination minutes after it happened. In 1982, McBride launched his own investigation. Both epic and intimately personal, Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit incorporates rare interviews with key people in Dallas, archival discoveries, and what novelist Thomas Flanagan, in The New York Review of Books, called McBride's "wide knowledge of American social history." McBride chronicles his evolving skepticism about the official story and shines a fresh, often surprising spotlight on Kennedy's murder and on one of the murkiest, most crucial aspects of the case, its "Rosetta Stone," the Tippit killing.

Joseph McBride has been a journalist since 1960, writing for such publications as Life, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and, on this subject, The Nation. An internationally renowned film biographer and historian, he has written acclaimed biographies of John Ford, Frank Capra, and Steven Spielberg. McBride lives in Berkeley, California, and is a professor at San Francisco State University.

[Joseph McBride]

Joseph: You did the article in The Nation right? The one that drove John Hankey nuts.

When you say you have been working on your book 31 years, I mean that isn't literal right?

Because you have done a lot of other things in the meantime.

The other things is, I don't think many of us knew you were a secret JFK researcher.

Clue us in: How did that start?

Hi, Jim,

Good to hear from you. Your work has long been valuable to my research. I was a devoted
reader of Probe and have read your books and posts with great interest.

Yes, I wrote the two articles on Bush in The Nation and a third they rejected
that detailed his involvement with James Parrott (I discuss this in the book). There
are fresh revelations about Bush in the book. I have a lengthy chapter on
the rightwing Texas milieu that surrounded this case.

Indeed I have done a lot else since 1982, including numerous books and articles and documentaries and
teaching at San Francisco State University. But I have always been studying the assassination
as an avocation (at least as much of an interest of mine as film history), and began researching it in earnest in 1982. I made research trips to Dallas and Washington and other places over the
years and interviewed numerous people. The writing of this book has occupied me for
the last nine years, even while I was working on other books. The book has benefited
from its long gestation because my understanding of this complex series of events and its historical context has continually deepened
through my research and that of others in the field.

I worked for Kennedy as a volunteer in his Wisconsin primary campaign
and met him three times, once when he was president. So I have been
following his story since then and have always been interested in the
assassination from the time it occurred. The very first day, I realized
Oswald was innocent. I wavered somewhat after being misled by
the Warren Report but gradually returned to my initial skepticism, which
deepened with the help of many fine writers on the case, such as
Mark Lane and Sylvia Meagher among the early researchers (John
Kelin's book is an excellent study of those pioneers). Over time I have
been influenced by Penn Jones, who served as a mentor of mine
in Texas, and numerous other important writers on the case. We may
agree to disagree on some issues, but I learn from most serious
researchers, while always scrutinizing each argument or piece of evidence
critically.

My friend Abraham Polonsky, the blacklisted writer-director who was part of the OSS in World War II,
once called me "a secret man." I learned to keep this
project close to the vest -- until now.

[Joseph McBride]

Joseph: Welcome to DPF. I agree that the murder of Tippet has been ill -covered. My own theory is that Tippet was the officer who honked in front OF LHO's rooming house, the person seen by Earlene Roberts. That Tippit had been sent there to silence the alleged assassin. When he failed, he was killed. Pure speculation on my part.

I hope you will answer questions about your book. Sounds like you have made a very exhaustive study. Another to add to my must read list.

Dawn

Thank you, Dawn. It's good to be on this excellent forum. I always learn a lot from other researchers. I am glad you focus on Tippit, as I do in much of this book. I came up with important revelations about what he was doing that day. I show that he was indeed pursuing Oswald through Oak Cliff at a time when Oswald's identity officially was not known to the Dallas Police Department, though that supposed ignorance was no doubt a cover story. It can't be proven whether or not Tippit was in the car that honked outside Oswald's rooming house, and he was seen at Top Ten Records around that same time. I examine his movements that day
in microscopic detail. In doing so, much about what he was doing becomes clear for the first time, although some mysteries still remain.

Yes, I will be happy to answer questions about the book.