why did Tippit have to die?

[Brian Castle]

Why did Tippit have to die?

Here you are, you've just shot the president, and you're trying to get away - why would you shoot a cop? And then deliberately leave incriminating physical evidence all over the crime scene?

An interesting way to look at this question is, what would have happened if Tippit hadn't been shot?

If Tippit hadn't been shot, then there would have been no Texas Theater scene. Oswald wouldn't have been arrested, at least not there at that time.

Instead, the investigation would have proceeded according to the evidence "found" at the TSBD. The rifle would have been linked to Alek Hidell who would have been linked to Oswald, and by that time the rumors of Oswald being a communist and a no-good defector would have been all over the airwaves - and of course this person would now be "gone", to parts or places unknown, so the public hysteria and the media frenzy would have been quite noticeable...

Oswald, it seems, was supposed to die. Or get spirited out of the country, one or the other, or both. According to mob logic death should have been the result, and the sooner the better, so if you believe the mob did it the logical thing would have been to silence the shooter. If you believe Mike Robinson who overheard those cops in the bathroom, it seems there was one layer of cops watching over another layer of cops, to make sure the operation went as planned.

But it didn't go as planned, did it? I have a hunch that the Tippit portion of the crime scene involved a "nudge" by a different set of players, not the same players who were involved in the JFK shooting. The shooting of the police officer itself may have been the crossover point, from that moment forward there was an "adjustment" to the plan, that involved Oswald ending up at the Texas Theater, arrested instead of dead.

What was the purpose of the wallet drop? Why would anyone be interested in identifying Oswald right at that time? What did it matter? Well, one likely answer is, they didn't know how the Texas Theater scene was going to go, they couldn't be 100% certain it would work, so they may have wanted some kind of fallback evidence with which they could link Oswald to Hidell and therefore to the JFK rifle, in case something went wrong at the Texas Theater.

The Robinson story has interesting logic to it. "You idiot, you were supposed to kill Lee, and you end up shooting a cop". And then the response, "Tippit wouldn't do what he was told. He had to be killed." So now.... this is kind of interesting, when you consider that Tippit had his service revolver drawn at the time he exited his squad car. Whatever it was that Tippit intended to do, he had his weapon drawn, so either he was expecting trouble, or maybe he had an "armed and dangerous" on this particular suspect, or maybe he just smelled a rat and it was a reflexive move to address a level of confusion.

But at the Texas Theater, there's only one report of any of the cops having their weapons drawn. Here they are chasing a cop killer, and the man who just assassinated the president, and no one draws their weapons? Isn't that noticeably unusual behavior on the part of exasperated police officers?

The ranking Dallas police officer on the scene was Capt William Westbrook from the Personnel department, ordinarily not a crime scene investigator nor an officer in the field, and FBI agent Bob Barrett is on the scene but he has no jurisdiction, at this point they're still chasing a cop killer which is a local matter. And there are a bunch of newsmen, some of whom rode with the cops to the scene.

The Tippit killing is what sent the cops to the Texas Theater. Without the Tippit killing, Johnny Brewer wouldn't have been able to ID the guy he heard about on the radio. There would have been no reason to be suspicious enough of Oswald to follow him to the Texas Theater.

If Tippit was supposed to kill Oswald... well... he had his weapon drawn... so... these cops must be talking about something else. What they're saying would make sense if Tippit was supposed to kill the other Oswald. The real one, the one with the brown shirt. Instead he went looking for the other guy, the one with the white shirt. He refused to do as he was told, so he had to be killed... hm... so if that's the case, these individuals acted with full confidence that the murder weapon could later be tied to Oswald.

There is one interval where shells could have been switched, and there are two intervals where a weapon could have been switched or planted. If you believe the wallet was dropped at the scene, then you're looking at a very small number of Dallas cops who fit into all three scenarios. Westbrook and Gerald Hill are on the list. Hill was working for Westbrook at the time, in the Personnel division, he wasn't even supposed to be out in the field (just like Westbrook, who wasn't supposed to be out in the field either).

Based on the weight of the evidence, my tentative conclusion is, that the purpose of the Tippit killing was to make sure Oswald got arrested (as distinct from being killed, or spirited out of the area or out of the country). And, this serves multiple purposes - time being one of them, time enough to bring events back under control - plus you have one of the principals under control too, which effectively means you have some measure of control over "all" the players - AND, you have an excuse for J Edgar to start going after Oswald's high school records and etc - none of which would have been possible without Tippit.

The speaker in Mr. Robinson's bathroom scenario, is probably a double agent. He's with the people who originally wanted Oswald dead, but he's also with the people who tweaked the Tippit scene and let Oswald "escape" so he could be arrested at the theater.

If my nose is any good, this person, whoever he was, was a member of the 488th military intelligence reserve. Capt Westbrook was also associated with this unit. So were Lumpkin, Revill, and Gannaway. The nexus between the 488th and the DPD occurs exactly in the DPD Personnel Division, which is where Westbrook is in charge and Sgt Gerald Hill has just been temporarily assigned after returning from a month-long recruiting trip at the local college campuses. Westbrook is also the one who has to hire Roscoe White, which happened just a month earlier in October. Three people - the guy who yelled out Hidell's name while he was holding the wallet at the Tippit scene, and the only guy who had an opportunity to switch the shells and the revolver between the time the cops arrived at the Tippit scene and the time the weapon ended up on Westbrook's desk.

On Sunday after the assassination, Gerald Hill flew to San Antonio, home of the 112th MIG (and Col Robert E Jones who testified to the HSCA) - supposedly he flew there to attend some kind of hoaky "professional conference" but... y'know... I'm not aware that anyone's checked to see whether he actually came home with the t-shirt.

[Drew Phipps]

You also should mention the angry mob outside, who also didn't ride with the officers, yet somehow had time to collect there and holler for a lynchin'.

You discount this possibility: someone might have actually wanted Oswald to escape, to subsequently be captured or killed in a more "incriminating" location (on his way to Cuba, perhaps?). Tippet might have had second thoughts, if his "job" was to help Oswald escape.

[Brian Castle]

You also should mention the angry mob outside, who also didn't ride with the officers, yet somehow had time to collect there and holler for a lynchin'.

You discount this possibility: someone might have actually wanted Oswald to escape, to subsequently be captured or killed in a more "incriminating" location (on his way to Cuba, perhaps?). Tippet might have had second thoughts, if his "job" was to help Oswald escape.

True. However the evidence indicates there were two Oswalds in the theater. One was wearing a brown shirt, he's the one who was sitting on the main floor, he's the one who got arrested (I'll call him the "real Oswald"). Then there was another one, who was wearing a white shirt, and he was up in the balcony (I'll call the white-shirted one the "decoy", for lack of a better term and for the purpose of discussion).

The evidence I'm aware of says, Butch Burroughs saw the real brown-shirted Oswald enter the theater at 1:06 or 1:07, he paid for his ticket like any ordinary customer, and then sat down near a succession of other theatergoers, each one just briefly, as if he was looking for someone.

Whereas, the white-shirted decoy is the one who was seen by Julia Postal and by Butch Burroughs running up the stairs from the ticket taker directly up to the balcony. This may or may not have been the same person seen by the witnesses at the Tippit shooting, who also say the shooter was wearing a white shirt.

The real brown-shirted Oswald gets involved in the scuffle on the main floor, and is thereafter taken out the front of the theater, whereas the white-shirted decoy is taken out the back of the theater and placed in a police car and driven away.

We then have the further complication of the Wes Wise story and the '57 Plymouth with PP4537 plates, which was seen being driven by someone who closely resembled the white shirted decoy. And, the whole point here, is that the white shirted decoy was the spitting image of the real Oswald. Six different witnesses use the term "identical twin" to describe the white-shirted decoy as he relates to Oswald, .... they look "identical", impossible to tell apart, at least from any distance...

So what he have here, it seems to me, is two competing theories. The first theory says, the Tippit shooting was a mistake, that he screwed up somehow or refused to obey orders or "something" happened to where he had to be killed by his minder(s). The second theory says that the Tippit shooting was an essential part of the frame of Oswald, that it was planned in advance and that subsequent events were planned around the success of the Tippit outcome.

[Magda Hassan]

Why did Tippit have to die?

Hi Brian have you read Joseph McBride's book on Tipppit?

[Brian Castle]

Why did Tippit have to die?

Hi Brian have you read Joseph McBride's book on Tipppit?

Hi Magda, haven't read that yet, but I've watched McBride's video where he talks about the book.

This is part of what I was alluding to in the OP - "on the surface" we have the stuff that McBride is talking about, the relationships with Jack Ruby and so on - but underneath the surface there seems to be an entirely different guiding hand, one that involves people of the 488th like Westbrook who asked Bob Barrett about Hidell's name when the wallet was given to him -

So this latter piece of evidence (which as I recall dates to '92?) would tend to cast doubt on Mr. Tippit Sr's allegation that JD was sent to hunt down Oswald. If the DPD already knew who Oswald was, then obviously Westbrook wouldn't have had to ask. It more likely seems that the "hunting" story is something that might have been told to a grieving widow and passed on to a proud father.

McBride's allegation linking the lack of eye contact to some form of PTSD is interesting too. I'm going to research that one, that's an interesting area of research. Many of the players in this story are either dyslexic or borderline autistic or in general report specific symptoms that could be specifically diagnosed today, whereas in 1963 they might have been called "slightly retarded" and left at that. Perhaps Jack Dougherty is one such person, he sounds like a true case of ADD instead of the armchair version that every bored elementary school kid gets treated for these days.

[Tracy Riddle]

The Tippit murder is just as frustrating as the JFK murder.
Brian, have you heard of Stuart Reed, who just happened to be outside the Texas Theater taking photos, after earlier taking photos of the "Oswald Bus" on Elm Street?

[Jim Hargrove]

Early JFK researcher Leo Sauvage said he interviewed assistant Dallas DA Jim Bowie who said the police received "half a dozen calls" about Oswald at the theater, including one from Julia Postal. If this is true, it clearly suggests that the brown-shirted Oswald's appearance at the theater was scripted in advance.


Oswald was also probably instructed to get on the Marsalis bus from the TSBD, because if his immediate goal was to return to the boarding house on North Beckley, the nearby Beckley bus would have saved him a mile or more of walking. But ....


J.D. Tippit appears to have been waiting for brown-shirted Oswald at the Gloco station, where Oswald probably would have gotten off to walk to the rooming house. Tippit's behavior when Oswald failed to get off McWatters' bus near the Gloco station clearly suggests this scenario. And if all this doesn't seem scripted enough, we have, as Tracy just pointed out, the remarkably prescient Stuart Reed, who, on a single roll of 35mm film, managed to capture two shots of the "getaway bus," a very professional shot of the TSBD and the sixth floor window, and shots of brown-shirted Oswald being pulled out of the Texas Theater. What luck that Mr. Reed would soon be back at the Canal Zone!


As for the alleged conversation overheard by a 14-year-old boy in the Dallas PD bathroom, without any kind of corroboration, I just don't see how it can be regarded as factual.

[Brian Castle]

The Tippit murder is just as frustrating as the JFK murder.
Brian, have you heard of Stuart Reed, who just happened to be outside the Texas Theater taking photos, after earlier taking photos of the "Oswald Bus" on Elm Street?

Hi Tracy - yeah, interesting fellow. Executive Director of the Panama Canal Zone Civil Service System, 32 years in the Army.

And he just happened to be all those interesting places that day.... ain't that interesting.

Civil Service... has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Sounds almost like.... "Civil Affairs". Hm. Administration of the Canal Zone. Check.

So now, this fellow would probably be in a position to observe petroleum movements through the Canal, would he not?

And as such, the 488th Strategic Intelligence Detachment would have been very interested in him, say around 1958 or 9 or so. Yes?

[Brian Castle]

J.D. Tippit appears to have been waiting for brown-shirted Oswald at the Gloco station, where Oswald probably would have gotten off to walk to the rooming house. Tippit's behavior when Oswald failed to get off McWatters' bus near the Gloco station clearly suggests this scenario.

Hi Jim - are you hinting that it wasn't the DPD that tooted their horn in front of the rooming house?

If Tippit missed Oswald at the Gloco, wouldn't the logical thing to do have been, to go the rooming house?

If the instructions were to maintain radio silence, then it seems Tippit might have panicked, and gone to the Top Ten store against orders. Even though Tippit didn't say anything into the phone, the call might have gone through anyway, and someone might have said something "to" him. A loose cannon during a critical phase of the operation would have been dangerous.

[Jim Hargrove]

Seems highly possible to me that Tippit honked his horn near the boarding house, and he may even have driven brown shirted Oswald to the theater, but we'll never be able to prove it. John Armstrong believes Tippit knew both Oswalds, and therefore knew too much to live. Again, proof is difficult.