After the assassination of President Kennedy Oswald arrived at police headquarters at 2:00 PM, which is 3:00 eastern standard time.
One hour later, at 4:01 PM, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover telephoned Attorney General Robert Kennedy at home and said he thought they had the man who killed the President in Dallas. Hoover said, "We have a case on Oswald as he has been involved in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee."
The day after the assassination, on Saturday morning, Hoover sent a letter to James Rowley, Chief of the United States Secret Service. Hoover wrote, "There are enclosed the results of our inquiry into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and background information relative to Lee Harvey Oswald."
The next day, on Sunday, FBI Associate Director Clyde Tolson sent a memo to FBI official Alan Belmont. Tolson wrote, "results of the investigation have been reduced to written form. We can prepare a memorandum to the Attorney General to set out the evidence showing that Oswald is responsible for the shooting that killed the President. We will show that Oswald was an avowed Marxist, a former defector to the Soviet Union and an active member of the FPCC, which has been financed by Castro. We will set forth the items of evidence which make it clear that Oswald is the man who killed the President."
The FBI had already decided that Oswald was guilty, even though the Dallas Police never arraigned Oswald for the murder of President Kennedy. The FBI was determined to find, collect, and when necessary fabricate evidence to show the public that Oswald was responsible for murdering both President Kennedy and officer J.D. Tippit. Following are a few examples of the FBI's direct involvement in fabricating evidence as to HARVEY Oswald's background, his employment, and his alleged involvement in the murders of President Kennedy and Police Officer J. D. Tippit.
In August, 1963, only three months before the assassination, 35 mm photographs were taken of HARVEY Oswald as he passed out FPCC literature in New Orleans. Charles Hall Steele, an active FBI informant and an active Dallas Police informant, was helping Oswald pass out leaflets. Orvie Aucoin, the TV cameraman who filmed the event, was also an active FBI informant. Thanks to these two FBI informants the American public was able to watch Oswald on television within days of the assassination, showing that Oswald favored communism and Castro. Millions of people quickly formed an opinion of Oswald as they watched this former defector to the Soviet Union, with his Russian wife and child, and an admitted Marxist as he passed out communist literature on the streets of New Orleans. But the public was never told that Lee Harvey Oswald was likely an FBI informant
In the summer of 1963 Oswald had the use of Guy Banister's office for his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities. But the FBI never told the Warren Commission that Guy Bannister was the former head of the FBI's office in Chicago, and a close friend of FBI Director Hoover.
Within hours of the assassination the Dallas Police confiscated 225 items of evidence that belonged to HARVEY Oswald from Ruth Paine’s garage and from Oswald’s rooming house. The original 225 items were collected, dated, and initialed by Dallas Police officers. A handwritten list of these items, and a typewritten list of these 225 items, were prepared by the Dallas Police. Later that evening the Dallas Police transferred those 225 items of evidence to FBI headquarters in Washington DC.
During the next three days the FBI examined the 225 items of evidence that belonged to HARVEY Oswald. However, on November 26, the FBI returned a total of 455 items to the Dallas Police. The FBI had added an additional 230 items to the original 225 items of evidence collected by the Dallas Police. Identifying the additional 230 items of so-called evidence that were added by the FBI is simple. None of the 230 items added by the FBI, which are now in the National Archives, were dated nor initialed by the Dallas Police. Some of these 230 items belonged to LEE Oswald, some of these items were fabricated, and some of these items were used to link HARVEY Oswald to Castro and Cuba.
Among the 230 items added by the FBI were fabricated W-2 forms, created for the purpose of fabricating the dates of Oswald's employment in 1955 and 1956. The typewritten text on each of these W-2 forms is identical, which means they were fabricated using the same typewriter, even though these W-2 forms were from three different companies and two different years. A list of these 455 items was published by the Warren Commission and identified as Commission Exhibit 2003.
One of the items found by police was a Minox spy camera, yet the FBI tried to identify the Minox spy camera as a light meter.
The appearance of a 2nd wallet at 10th & Patton, with Oswald’s identification, was witnessed by FBI Agent Bob Barrett but never mentioned by the FBI.
Fabricated identification cards from that wallet, with the name Alek James Hidell, were quietly and secretly placed in Harvey Oswald's arrest wallet that was laying on Capt. Fritz's desk. These fabricated ID cards were instrumental in connecting Oswald with the Mannlicher-Carcado rifle that was allegedly ordered by Hidell, shipped to Oswald's post office box in Dallas, and then found on the 6th floor of the book depository.
In the early morning hours of November 23 FBI agents arrived at Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago to review company records on microfilm. From those microfilm records documents were fabricated to make it appear as though Oswald purchased a rifle from Kleins. In the National Archives I asked to see the original roll of Klein’s microfilm. I wanted to look for alterations and/or splicing of the microfilm. But I was given a photograph of a small yellow cardboard Kodak box which supposedly held the microfilm. But the microfilm had disappeared.
The day after the assassination FBI agents went to Stripling Junior High school in Ft. Worth. Assistant Principal Frank Kudlaty gave the agents HARVEY Oswald’s 9th grade school records in 1954, which soon disappeared. These school records had to disappear, because in 1954 LEE Oswald was attending Beauregard Junior High in New Oswald, with a near perfect attendance record. My interview with Mr. Kudlaty is available on YouTube.
Oswald’s original school records--elementary, junior high, and high school--were all confiscated by FBI agents and disappeared. All that remains of Oswald’s school records at the National Archives are black and white photographs, no originals.
The week following the assassination a federal agency picked up LEE Oswald’s driver’s license file from the Dept of Public Safety in Austin, and the file disappeared. HARVEY Oswald never had a drivers license. But LEE Oswald did have a Texas driver's license. On the morning of the assassination LEE Oswald purchased a beer at the Jiffy Store on Industrial Blvd. in Dallas, and showed store clerk Fred Moore his drivers license for identification.
Early on Monday morning, the day after Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby, FBI agents arrived at Dolly Shoe in New Orleans and confiscated all original employment records for HARVEY Oswald from January through April, 1955. Those original records disappeared.
LEE Oswald’s time cards from his employment at the Gerard Tujague company from June, 1955 thru September, 1956 were confiscated by the FBI. Most of those time cards disappeared because they conflicted with HARVEY Oswald attending Warren Easton High School in New Orleans, in the fall of 1955, at the same time LEE Oswald was working at Tujague's on Canal Street.
The Warren Report told us that Oswald worked at the Pfisterer Dental Lab in New Orleans “for several months” in the spring of 1956, but without a thread of evidence. In reality HARVEY Oswald worked at the Pfisterer Dental Lab from October, 1957 thru May, 1958, while at the same time LEE Oswald was in the Marines in Japan. On Monday following the assassination the FBI visited the Pfisterer Dental Labs and confiscated all employment records related to HARVEY Oswald.
Those records disappeared, while the FBI fabricated 1956 W-2 forms in an attempt to show that Oswald worked at the dental lab in 1956 instead of 1957 and 1958 as reported by Palmer McBride and fellow employees at the dental lab.
Warren Commission attorney John Hart Ely was assigned to gather information related to Oswald’s family and background. Mr. Ely later wrote a memo in which he said, "devising a coherent and credible theory to explain what happened in Dallas on November 22,1963--one that isn't forced to hypothesize a number of duplicate Lee Harvey Oswalds....has proved quite a difficult matter."
Mr. Ely was obviously aware of the possibility, in his own words, of duplicate Lee Harvey Oswalds.
Staff attorney Albert Jenner wrote to Warren Commission General Counsel J. Lee Rankin and said, "there are details in Mr. Ely's memoranda which will require MATERIAL ALTERATION and, in some instances, OMISSION." The FBI and a few select members of the Warren Commission understood that many things about Oswald’s background had to be hidden from the public. This is why Oswald’s original school records and teenage employment records disappeared. LEE Oswald’s drivers license file disappeared. The second wallet, found at the Tippit murder scene with ID cards for Alex James Hidell, disappeared. Documents related to HARVEY Oswald’s living in Stanley, North Dakota in the summer of 1953, disappeared because at the same time LEE Oswald was living in New York city. Items such as the dark blue jacket that Oswald wore to the book depository on November 22 was switched with the light colored jacket found in the Texaco parking lot a few hours later. The result of this manipulation and alteration of evidence was misunderstood and often confusing, but allowed the FBI to feed the public a false narrative for Lee Harvey Oswald and his background.
William Sullivan, the #3 man in the FBI, understood the manipulation of evidence. Sullivan said, "When an enormous organization like the FBI with tremendous power still can sit back and shuffle the deck of cards and pick up the card they want to show you it may be you're not going to get the entire picture as fully as you would otherwise.... If there were documents that possibly he (FBI Director Hoover) didn't want to come to the light of the public, then those documents no longer exist, and the truth will never be known." The FBI decided what evidence would survive and how that evidence was interpreted. Their job was to convince the public that Oswald was guilty, no matter the expense, no matter the effort, just convict Oswald. In the Tippit murder, a major effort was made by the FBI to make a a few minor changes in time to the typewritten transcripts relating to the shooting of officer Tippit. But these changes in time, from 1:06 PM to 1:16 PM, now gave Oswald enough time to walk from his rooming house to 10th & Patton and shoot Tippit. The FBI's revised and altered transcript was relied upon by the Warren Commssion to conclude that Oswald murdered officer Tippit.
Since 1964 researchers have continually argued as to whether or not the man arrested by Dallas Police had enough time to walk from his rooming house at 1:00-1:03 PM to 10th & Patton by 1:16 PM. Most researchers were relying on 1:16 PM as the correct time of Tippits’s murder, noted on the FBI's revised 109 page typewritten transcript that was given to the Warren Commission on August 25, 1964. Known to researchers as CE 1974 this document placed the time of Tippit's murder at 1:15-1:16 PM. Since 1963 researchers have argued and debated as to whether or not there was enough time for Oswald to have walked from his rooming house at 1:01-1:03 PM to 10th & Patton at 1:15 PM. Now, the following presentation is focused on the time frame of 1:00 PM to 1:19 PM on November 22, 1963 as it relates to the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit.
In 1963 there were two radio channels used by the Dallas Police dispatcher to communicate with police motorcycles and patrol cars. The call sign for the Dallas police radio was KKB364. Both Channel 1 and Channel 2 were connected to recording devices. Dallas Police Channel 1 was connected to a Dictabelt Recorder that used vinyl belts for recording. Each belt recorded 15 minutes of continuous conversation. Channel 2 was connected to an Autograph Disk recorder that used round vinyl disks for recording. These vinyl disks could record conversations for either 9 minutes or 13 minutes, and looked similar to a small phonograph record.Dallas Police Radio Channels
Officer Tippit was shot at 1:06 PM
Now, officer Tippit was shot at 1:06 PM. As we begin to review the evidence, it is very important for us to remember the time of the Tippit shooting, as reported by several witnesses as 1:06 PM and first recorded on the dictaphone recorder at 1:08 PM, just two minutes after Tippit was shot. As we begin to review the evidence, it is very important for us to remember the time of the shooting, as reported by several witnesses, was 1:06 PM. Two minutes later a witness to the shooting tried to contact the police dispatcher using the police radio in Tippit's squad car, which was recorded by the police dictaphone at 1:08 PM. After listening to the dictaphone recording FBI officials realized that Oswald could not have walked .9 of a mile from his rooming house at 1:01 to 1:03 PM to 10th & Patton by 1:06 PM. You can't walk .9 of a mile in two or three minutes. Witnesses who said that Tippit was shot at 1:06 PM had to be ignored, which was easy for the FBI. But the time of the Tippit shooting, as recorded by the Dallas dictabelt recorder, had to be changed in order to show there was enough time for Oswald to have walked from his rooming house to 10th & Patton and shoot Tippit.
At 1:00 PM on the afternoon of November 22, 1963 a Dallas Police dispatcher placed a radio call to Officer J. D. Tippit using channel 1. On CE 705, page 15, the police dispatcher tried to contact Tippit, "78 location," but Officer Tippit did not answer. At 1:00 PM Officer Tippit was likely in the Top 10 record store on Jefferson Blvd. using the telephone. Tippit left the record store and six minutes later parked his patrol car directly in front of a driveway near 10th & Patton.
About 1:05 pm Helen Markham was walking south on Patton St. to catch a city bus at 1:15 PM. She was standing on the northwest corner of 10th & Patton when a police car drove slowly past in front of her.
Barbara Davis and her sister Virginia were in the living room of their house, on the southeast corner of 10th & Patton. Mr. & Mrs. Frank Wright were in their home at 501 E. 10th St, and taxi driver William Scoggins was sitting in his taxi cab on the southeast corner of 10th & Patton. Barbara Davis heard gunshots and ran to the telephone to call the police. Frank Wright ran outside while Mrs. Wright called the police. Mrs. Higgins was listening to the radio when the radio announcer said the time was 1:06 PM. She heard gun shots and called the police. Taxi driver William Scoggins was sitting in his taxi as the police car drove past in front of him.
Scoggins watched as the police car drove slowly to the curb while at the same time a young man walked over to the police car and began talking to the policeman. Moments later Scoggins saw the young man shoot the police officer. Scoggins notified his dispatcher, who notified the police of a shooting. Barbara Davis, Mrs. Wright and the taxi dispatcher were the first people to call the police at 1:06 to 1:07 PM. The police quickly dispatched three ambulances to the murder scene--ambulance #602 from Dudley Hughes, #603 from Baylor, and ambulance #605 from the Veterans Administration (VA).
Seconds before the shooting, Domingo Benavides and Jack Tatum were driving west on 10th St. in separate vehicles. When Benavides saw a man fire gunshots at a police officer he drove his Chevrolet pickup to the curb and stopped, about 15 feet from Tippit's patrol car. Benavides ducked down onto the seat of his truck as the gunshots were fired. When Jack Tatum heard gunshots he was 5 or 6 car lengths ahead of Benavides and stopped his red Ford Galaxie near the corner of 10th & Patton.
When the shooting ended Benavides watched as (LEE) Oswald turned around and began unloading his gun as he walked away.
Benavides said that he got a good look at (LEE) Oswald from the front, and when (LEE) Oswald began to walk away Benavides noticed that his hairline was "squared off" above his collar.
But photographs of Harvey Oswald in the police station showed that Harvey Oswald's hair was well below his collar.
Benavides, worked part time as a barber, and said that the man he saw, the shooter Oswald, needed a haircut. Benavides watched as (LEE) Oswald began walking west on the sidewalk while unloading the empty shells from his gun.
As (LEE) Oswald hurried around Virginia Davis's house on the corner, and then across Patton St., Benavides got out of his truck and walked 15 feet to the front of Tippit's patrol car. He grabbed the microphone in Tippit’s patrol car and, at 1:08 PM, tried to contact the police dispatcher by pushing the button on the microphone. But Benavides did not know how to operate the microphone in Tippit’s patrol car. When Benavides pressed the button on the police microphone his attempt to contact the police dispatcher was recorded by the dictabelt recorder. Benavides tried twice to contact the police dispatcher but a conversation was not recorded because Benavides did not know how to use the police radio.
Two minutes later, at 1:10 PM, Mr. Temple Bowley arrived on site and grabbed the microphone from Benavides. Bowley knew how to use the police radio and was able to report the shooting of a police officer to the police dispatcher, which was recorded on the vinyl dictabelts from channel 1.
Bowley gave a statement to the Dallas Police and said that when he arrived at the scene he, "looked at my watch and it said 1:10 PM." Bowley's watch and the time recorded by the police Dictabelt of Bowley's contact with the dispatcher was 1:10 PM.
At 1:10 PM the police dispatcher received a message, “602 code 5.” 602 was the number assigned by the Dallas police to the Dudley Hughes ambulance, and "code 5" meant the ambulance was en route to 10th & Patton. Seconds later the Dudley Hughes ambulance arrived on site at 10th & Patton. At 1:10 PM, the dispatcher received the message, "603-code 5." 603 was the number assigned to ambulances from Baylor and "code 5" meant the ambulance was en route to 10th & Patton. At 1:10 PM the dispatcher received the message, "605-code 5." 605 was the number assigned to ambulances from the Veterans Administration, and code 5 meant the ambulance was en route to 10th & Patton. All contact between the dispatchers and the three ambulances were recorded at 1:10 PM by the Dictaphone machine on channel 1. Therefore, the shooting of Officer Tippit had to have occurred several minutes before 1:10 PM.
After Bowley's brief contact with the police dispatcher at 1:10 PM the Dudley Hughes ambulance arrived. Driver Jason Butler removed a dark blue jacket from Tippit's body, and together with Bowley loaded Tippit's body into the ambulance.
Butler said he was on the scene for one minute or less, and then drove to the Methodist Hospital. Butler hurried to the Methodist Hospital where Tippit was taken to the emergency room for examination.
Tippit was pronounced dead by Dr. Liquori at 1:15 PM. We can now begin to understand the importance and significance of 1:08 PM and 1:10 PM, as recorded by the Dallas Police disks and transcripts on channel 1, as they relate to the time of the Tippit murder. Tippit was shot at 1:06 PM, a couple of minutes before Benavides finally got out of his pickup, walked to Tippit’s patrol car, and tried to contact the police dispatcher at 1:08 PM.
Police dispatcher Murray Jackson, who worked 20 years at the Dallas Police department, told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that after his shift ended on November 22, 1963 police Chief Lumpkin had the dictabelts from channel 1 and the discs from channel 2 placed in sealed envelopes and taken to his office.
On November 29 the vinyl belts from Channel 1 and vinyl disks from Channel 2 were given by Lumpkin to the Secret Service for transcribing. The Secret Service copied the belts and disks with a tape recorder and then gave the original belts and disks to the FBI. Dallas Police Communications director James Bowles also made tape recorded copies of the belts and disks, but said the FBI did not return the original belts and disks to the Dallas Police until March, 1964. Mr. Bowles told researcher Gary Mack he was not sure if these belts and disks were the original belts and disks given to the FBI in late November, 1963.
In early December the Secret Service, Dallas Police and FBI agents began listening to the original vinyl dictabelt and vinyl disc recordings, but their attention was focused on events and situations related to the assassination of President Kennedy, and was not focused on the murder of Officer Tippit.
On December 3, 1963 a brief 10 page transcript was prepared and given to Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry. Transcribed from channel 2 this transcript included information about the President's arrival, the motorcade, the shooting, the escort to Parkland Hospital, and the Tippit shooting. This document was published in the Warren Volumes as Sawyer A.
Two days later, On December 5, 1963, a very brief 2 page transcript was prepared by Sgt. Henslee from channel 2 "pertaining to the incident," and very briefly described a portion of the Tippit shooting. This document was published in the Warren Volumes as Sawyer B.
In early 1964 James Bowles made a tape recorded copy of channel 1 and channel 2. Bowles kept one copy for himself and gave one copy to the FBI. FBI personnel listened to the DPD recordings and likely made transcripts of conversations from both channel 1 and channel 2. It seems that little attention, if any, was given to the Tippit murder.
Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper at HARVEY Oswald’s rooming house, told the FBI that Oswald left the house a minute or two after 1:00 PM, while zipping up his dark colored jacket. A dark colored zip up jacket. The FBI knew the distance from the rooming house to the Tippit murder scene was .9 mile. The FBI also knew it was not possible for Oswald to have left the rooming house at 1:01-1:02, walked .9 mile to 10th & Patton in 3 or 4 minutes, and shot Tippit at 1:06 PM. This created a big problem, because the FBI now realized that Oswald, who was dead, could not have shot Tippit. The FBI now had to change the time of the Tippit shooting.
Changing the time of the shooting
The original Dallas Police dictabelts and disks given to the Secret Service on November 29, 1963 were authentic. After the Secret Service gave the vinyl dictabelts and vinyl disks to the FBI we know they were copied onto a tape recorder. A tape recording could be played over and over without degradation, whereas the vinyl dictabelts and vinyl disks were degraded when played over and over. Changes cannot be made to original vinyl dictabelts or disks. However, changes can be made to a dictabelt if conversations from the dictabelt and vinyl disks are first recorded onto a tape recorder, and then changes can be made to the new tape recording. A new tape recording, with with alterations, can then be played back onto new vinyl belts and new vinyl disks. The new belts and disks, with alterations, would then appear to be genuine. James Bowles told researcher Gary Mack that he could not be sure that the belts and disks returned by the FBI to the Dallas Police in March, 1964 were the same that the FBI received from the Secret Service on November 29, 1963.
Changing the times on paper transcripts, however, is much easier. Simply draw a line thru the time recorded on the paper transcript and then hand write in a different time, but that would be noticable.
A third way to change the times on a typewritten transcript would be to simply prepare a new transcript and make sure all of the time entries were sequential. It appears that the first transcript given to the Warren Commission by the FBI in March, 1964, had a few changes, both hand-written and typed.
When reading a revised transcript the reader would assume the transcript is a continuous thread of discussion between a police dispatcher and patrol units. If the reader happened to notice that one or two pages out of a 100 page transcript showed an incorrect time, the reader would probably assume this was a mistake or perhaps a typographical error.
J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel for the Warren Commission, read the 2 page transcript of channel 1 given to Chief Curry that was prepared by Sgt. Henslee on December 3, 1963. It would appear that when Rankin read this 2 page transcript (Sawyer B), he realized that he had never been given a complete transcript of Dallas police channel 1 & police channel 2. In early January, 1964 James Bowles gave the FBI original tape recordings of Dallas police channels 1 and 2, but the FBI never gave those to the Warren Commission.
On March 3, 1964 Rankin wrote to FBI Director Hoover requesting the Bureau obtain transcripts of all radio transmissions from channel 1 and channel 2 from Dallas Police radio station KKB364 covering the period 12:20 PM to 6:00 PM on November 22, 1963.
On March 6, 1964, in response to Rankin’s letter of March 3, Hoover wrote a letter to the Dallas Police requesting transcripts. On March 20, 1964 the Dallas Police furnished a transcript of channel 1 and channel 2 to the FBI.
Two weeks later, on April 7 the FBI gave a 96 page document to the Warren Commission consisting of typewritten transcripts from channel 1 and channel 2. Channel 1 consists of pages 1 thru 66. Channel 2 consists of pages 67 thru 96. The first page of the FBI transcript reads “Dallas police department made available the following transcripts of all radio transmissions from channel 1 and 2 of Dallas Police Radio Station KKB 364 covering the period 12:20 PM, November 22, 1963, to 6:00 PM, November 22.” The FBI gave Mr. Rankin two transcripts of each channel. But the FBI was apparently unaware that the transcript they sent to the Warren Commission contained timing entries that conflicted with the FBI's time of 1:16 PM that they had established as the time of the Tippit murder.
Rankin knew the FBI had interviewed several people who witnessed the Tippit shooting. Agents filed dozens of reports, examined Tippit's medical records and his time of death. Rankin knew the FBI reported 1:16 PM as the time of the Tippit shooting to the Warren Commission. But in the 96 page transcript Rankin found several unexplained timing errors.
On page 19 of the channel 1 transcript the police dispatcher had contact with the 3 ambulances dispatched by the Dallas Police to the site of the Tippit shooting. All of these contacts were recorded at 1:10 PM. A private citizen, Domingo Benavides, tried to contact the police dispatcher at 1:08 PM, followed by Temple Bowley's contact with the dispatcher at 1:10 PM when Bowley said, “it’s a police officer. Somebody shot him.” These entries were on the original Dallas Police dictabelt from channel 1, as transcribed by James Bowles. The timing entries of 1:08 PM by Benavides and 1:10 PM by Temple Bowley proves that Tippit was shot a couple of minutes before Benavides made contact with the police dispatcher at 1:08 PM.
Warren Commission General Counselor Rankin did not understand how the FBI could fix the time of the Tippit shooting at 1:16 PM, when the Dallas police recordings showed that someone using Tippit's police radio had contacted the police dispatcher at 1:08 PM and again at 1:10 PM. Rankin was not happy and perhaps beginning to mistrust the FBI.
In an attempt to circumvent the FBI, and get original transcripts from the Dallas Police, Rankin drafted a letter on May 28 to Forrest Sorrels, the Special Agent In Charge of the Secret Service in Dallas. Rankin asked Sorrels if he would “please arrange to record the Dallas Police Department tapes of radio broadcasts over police channels 1 and 2 on November 22, 1963, between the hours of 12:30 and 2:00 pm.” Sorrels likely notified Hoover of Mr. Rankin’s request, because Sorrels never responded to Rankin's letter.
A month and a half later, without hearing from Mr. Sorrels, Rankin had no choice but to ask the FBI to to obtain the radio broadcasts from the Dallas Police. On July 16, 1964 Rankin wrote to Hoover and said, "We call your attention to the fact that in the channel one transcript there appears to be an error on page 19 immediately following the words "what's that address on Jefferson." There appears to be a time entry of 1:10 PM. This would be inconsistent with the known time of the Tippit shooting and judging from the time entries on the preceding page this would appear to be a typographical error." Rankin then requested that Hoover “Obtain the original tapes of the radio broadcasts and prepare a new transcript from these tapes….During the course of preparation of a new transcript we ask that you attempt to clarify this apparent discrepancy.”
In 1964 Mr. Rankin was questioning the time of 1:10 PM on the police transcripts just as we are questioning the time of 1:10 PM in 2024.
CE 1974--the FBI creates a revised timeline
Commission Exhibit 1974 is a typewritten transcript created by the FBI for their revised timeline.
On July 21, 1964 Dallas Police Chief Curry made a series of sixteen channel 1 dictabelts and five channel 2 disks available to an unidentified FBI agent. This unidentified agent then reviewed and transcribed the dictabelts from channel 1 and transcribed the disks from channel 2 at Dallas police headquarters. The FBI agent finished this work on July 24. The FBI now had two tape recorded copies of police channels 1 & 2 and typewritten paper transcripts from channel 1 and channel 2.
Protecting the FBI’s image
The FBI needed to protect their image, which was very important to Mr. Hoover.
After reading Mr. Rankin’s letter FBI officials realized, probably for the first time, that the Warren Commission knew there was a timing problem. Earlene Roberts told the FBI that Oswald left the rooming house at 1:00 to 1:03 PM. Dallas police tapes recorded Benavides and Bowley contacting the police dispatcher at 1:08 and again at 1:10 PM to report that a policeman had been shot. Three ambulances were dispatched by the police to 10th & Patton by the police dispatcher and at 1:10 PM the ambulances notified the police dispatcher they were en route to the murder site
The FBI knew the distance between the rooming house and 10th & Patton was .9 of a mile. They also knew that Oswald could not possibly have walked .9 of a mile in 3 or 4 minutes and shot Tippit at 1:06 PM as reported by several witnesses. At this point senior FBI officials realized the man arrested by the Dallas Police could not have shot Officer Tippit. However, Oswald was dead and he was their only suspect. In order to protect the FBI's image, and prove to the public that Oswald killed Tippit, senior FBI officials made the decision to fabricate the time that Tippit was murdered. The FBI's conscious decision to fabricate evidence and blame HARVEY Oswald for the Tippit murder is only one part of their complicity in helping to cover up the true facts of the assassinations of Officer Tippit and of President Kennedy.
Rankin requested Dallas police transcripts from the FBI on July 24, 1964. Nearly a month later, on August 20, the FBI had still not given the transcripts to the Warren Commission. It appears that FBI officials were intentionally withholding their revised transcript, with numerous changes in time, knowing that the government printing office would soon begin printing the Warren Report. By waiting as long as possible before giving their revised transcript to the Warren Commission, FBI officials knew the Commission would have little or no time to question the accuracy of their revised transcript.
On August 20, Hoover wrote to Rankin and advised that a new transcript had been made. Hoover also told Rankin, "However, due to the badly worn condition of the original tapes, certain portions are being checked for accuracy. The transcription will be furnished to you in the immediate future.”
On August 25, 1964 the FBI’s revised transcripts were given to the Warren Commission. Following are pages from the FBI’s revised transcript. It is worth noting that police dispatchers for channels 1 and 2 are now identified by name.
The original Dallas police transcript, Commission Exhibit 705, shows that at 1:08 PM Domingo Benavides tried to use Tippit's police radio, call unit #78, to contact the police dispatcher. On page 48 of the revised FBI report the number 78 was changed to the number 58, which is the Dallas police call number for an unknown automobile unit. The second number 78 was changed to number 488, a number assigned by the Dallas police to supervisors and detectives of the Special Service Bureau. The changes from number 78 to number 58 and from number 78 to number 488 was an attempt by the FBI to hide contact between the police dispatcher and Domingo Benavides who tried to use the police radio in Tippit's patrol car at 1:08 PM. The FBI reported the conversation between the police dispatcher and #58 and #488 as “garbled.”
The original Dallas police transcript shows the police dispatcher’s contact with Mr. Bowley at 1:10 PM. The newly revised FBI transcript changed the time Mr. Bowley contacted the police dispatcher from 1:10 PM to 1:16 PM.
There are quite a few other changes that were made by the FBI and I will list them.
1) The original Dallas police transcript, Commission Exhibit 705, shows the dispatcher's contact with the Dudley Hughes ambulance #602, while en route to the murder scene, at 1:10 PM. The revised FBI report, Commission Exhibit 1974, changed the dispatcher's contact with Dudley Hughes from 1:10 to 1:19 P.M.
2) The original Dallas police transcript, Commission Exhibit 705, shows the dispatcher's contact with Baylor ambulance #603, en route to the murder scene at 1:10 PM. The revised FBI report, Commission Exhibit 1974, changed the dispatcher’s contact with the Baylor ambulance from 1:10 to 1:19 PM.
3) The original Dallas police transcript, Commission Exhibit 705, shows the dispatcher's contact with the Dudley Hughes ambulance #602 when arrived at the murder site at 1:10 PM. The revised FBI report, Commission Exhibit 1974, changed the dispatchers contact with Dudley Hughes from 1:10 to 1:19 PM.
4) The original Dallas police transcript, Commission Exhibit 705, shows the dispatcher's contact with both the Dudley Hughes and with the Baylor ambulance at 1:10 PM. The revised FBI transcript report, Commission Exhibit 1974,changed the dispatchers contact with both ambulances from 1:10 to 1:19 PM.
5) The original Dallas police transcript shows the Dudley Hughes ambulance #602 arrived at the scene at 1:10 P.M. The revised FBI transcript changed the time of the Dudley Hughes ambulance arrival from 1:10 PM to 1:19 PM.
6) The original Dallas police transcript shows the Veterans Administration ambulance #605 was en route to the scene at 1:10 PM. The revised FBI transcript report changed the dispatcher's contact with the Veterans Administration ambulance from 1:10 PM to 1:19 PM.
7) The original Dallas police transcript shows the dispatcher's contact with Veterans Administration ambulance #605 at 1:10 PM. The revised FBI transcript report changed the dispatcher’s contact with the Veteran's Administration ambulance from 1:10 PM to 1:19 PM.
8) The original Dallas police transcript shows the dispatcher's contact with Dudley Hughes ambulance 602 at 1:10 PM. Ambulance driver Jason Butler tells the dispatcher, “from out here on 10th St., 500 block. This police officer’s just shot. I think he’s dead.” The revised FBI transcript report changed the dispatcher's contact with Dudley Hughes from 1:10 PM to 1:19 P M.
The FBI’s revised transcript, which later became Commission Exhibit 1974, was given to the Warren Commission on August 25, only one month before the Warren Commission Report was released. No more letters from Mr. Rankin. The Warren Commission ignored the Dallas Police transcript, CE 705, and based the time of the Tippit shooting at 1:16 from the FBI's revised transcript CE 1974. These changes in time were never questioned by the Warren Commission and were barely noticeable in the FBI's 106 page document. But the timing changes made by the FBI were, in fact, very significant. Changing the time the shooting was first reported by Bowley from from 1:10 PM to 1:16 PM gave Oswald just enough time to walk from his rooming house at 1:01 PM to 10th & Patton at 1:16 PM and shoot Tippit.
In accordance with the above analysis,the following two documents show that Tippit was declared dead at Methodist Hospital by Dr. Richard Liguori at 1:15 pm.
Police officer R. A. Davenport was en route to 10th & Patton when he saw an ambulance racing to the hospital. Davenport reported, “Met the ambulance carrying the wounded officer to Methodist Hospital. We assisted in getting the officer to the Emergency Room.” And observed the doctors and nurses trying to bring the Officer back to life. At 1:15 pm Dr. Richard Liquori pronounced Tippit dead.
These two documents offer additional evidence to show that the time stamps on the original Dallas Police transcripts, Commission Exhibit 705, were changed by the FBI. From the FBI’s amended transcript and the FBI reports of carefully selected witnesses the Warren Commission concluded, “the shooting of Tippit has been established at approximately 1:15 or 1:16 p.m.” A seemingly small adjustment of time in the time of the Tippit shooting was all the FBI needed to show the Warren Commission that Oswald walked .9 of a mile from his rooming house to 10th & Patton and shot Tippit at 1:16 PM. Since 1964 researchers have mistakenly relied upon the FBI's revised transcript, Commission Exhibit 1974, as to the time of the Tippit murder at 1:16 PM.
John Hart Ely
John Hart Ely, at age 26, was the youngest member to serve on the staff of the Warren Commission. Following the Warren Commission Mr. Ely was a professor of law at Yale for 5 years, at Harvard law for 9 years, Stanford law dean for 14 years, and was recognized as one of the most important constitutional scholars of his generation.
Mr. Ely’s assignment for the Warren Commission was to investigate the history and background of Lee Harvey Oswald and his family. It is important for us to remember that on April 10, 1964 Commission attorney Albert Jenner wrote to General Counsel Rankin, and I quote, “there are details in Mr. Ely’s memoranda which will require material alteration and, in some cases, omission.” Alteration and omission of evidence relating to the background of Lee Harvey Oswald was required.
In 1975, Mr. Ely wrote, “But devising a coherent and credible theory to explain what happened in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963—one that isn't forced to hypothesize a number of duplicate Lee Harvey Oswalds—has proved quite a different matter.” "Mr. Ely was obviously aware of the possibility, in his own words, 'of duplicate Lee Harvey Oswalds.'"
Mr. Ely wrote, “We were all more innocent a decade ago. Since that time, to our collective sorrow, we have learned many things. We have learned, contrary to what once seemed common sense, that persons in high places will, at substantial risk to themselves, cover up for the misdeeds of subordinates who seem of little consequence.
"In 1964, one had to be a genuine radical to take seriously the thought that other Federal agencies were withholding significant information from the Warren Commission. In 1975, it would take a person of unusual naiveté to ignore that possibility.
"We have learned that investigative agencies are not the monoliths we once thought they were. Perhaps there is no realistic possibility that those in possession of the facts bearing on this issue will ever reveal them. But even that is something we are entitled to know. Every American is entitled to be angry about the recent disclosures and accusations, but perhaps our entitlement is the greatest of all."
Every American is entitled to know the facts and the truth about the assassination of President Kennedy and of Officer J.D. Tippit.
