THE TIPPIT MURDER II

May 20, 2012


WHITEWASH-the report on the Warren Report by Harold Weisberg, Chapter 6: The Tippit Murder II


Knoxville, Tennessee (JFKASSASSINATION) Today this blog continues our report on Chapter 6 of Harold Weisberg's book "Whitewash--the report on the Warren Report", published in 1965. 

The title of Chapter 6 is The Tippit Murder.


Harold Weisberg discusses some of the conflicts in the testimony before the Commission by witnesses who saw Lee Harvey Oswald in his movements out of downtown Dallas.


The cab driver, for example, who picked up Oswald, William Whaley, gave testimony which had him taking the suspect to 3 different addresses.  One of these, according to Weisberg, included an intersection of two streets that run parallel.


The Commission chose the one at Neely & Beckley Avenues.  Weisberg recounts that the cab ride took 6 minutes so that Oswald would have arrived at his rooming house around 1 p.m. (CST).


The Tippit shooting took place shortly after 1:15 p.m. at the corner of 10th & Patton Streets.


The last eyewitness to see Oswald at the rooming house was the housekeeper, Mrs. Earlene Roberts, who said that she last saw the suspect standing at the bus stop out in front of the house.


She did not, however, know how long he stayed there nor the direction he took when he left.*


*The location at 10th & Patton Streets where Tippit was shot was 9/10 of a mile from Oswald's rooming house on Beckley Avenue. It was determined by the Commission that a 13 minute walk was required to reach that location.


We do know, according to the Warren Report itself, that before Oswald left the rooming house "a police car stopped in front of the house (and)....signaled with the horn 'several times,' & then drove off."


Another interesting bit of information included in this chapter is that the location of Officer Tippit's last radio report was just 9 blocks from the rooming house & only 1 block from Jack Ruby's** apartment.


**Jack Ruby was the Dallas nightclub owner who shot & killed Lee Harvey Oswald on Sunday morning, Nov 24, 1963.


Mr. Weisberg speculates from the evidence provided by the Commission that the police car which signaled with the horn could well have been Officer Tippit's.***


***In our next posting, the murder of Officer Tippit will be analyzed by Harold Weisberg.