Tippit Part 5
Something happened in the 2nd floor balcony at the Texas Theater
There had to be an essential purpose for the conspirators to send LEE Oswald to the Texas Theater, just as it was essential for LEE to be seen holding a rifle while appearing in the 6th floor window of the Book Depository minutes before the shooting began. Both of these locations were high-risk, and had the potential of exposing HARVEY and LEE in the same place at the same time. In the Book Depository LEE Oswald was seen by Mrs. Reid wearing a white t-shirt, while a few minutes later HARVEY Oswald was seen wearing a long sleeve brown shirt. The Warren Commission was never able to resolve this discrepancy. In the Texas Theater HARVEY Oswald was arrested wearing his long sleeve dark brown shirt, while LEE Oswald was arrested wearing dark pants and a white pull-over shirt. LEE Oswald was sent to the theater with the Tippit murder weapon. HARVEY Oswald was sent to the theater to be arrested, or killed, with the Tippit murder weapon in hand. Both men were seen by Butch Burroughs.
After entering the Texas Theater Deputy Sheriff Bill Courson hurried up the stairs to the balcony and was "reasonably satisfied in his own mind" that he met Lee Harvey Oswald on the front stairs. Lt. Cunningham and Detective J.B. Toney encountered the same young man and began to question him. As Deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers rushed up the stairs to the balcony, he saw these two police officers questioning the young man.
Sgt. Jerry Hill and Det. Paul Bentley were in the alley checking the fire escapes from the balcony. When Sgt. Hill opened the exit door to the fire escape Sgt. Stringer, standing in the alley below, heard someone inside the theater yell "We got him." The police officer inside the theater may have thought the man on the staircase, being questioned by Lieutenant Cunningham and Detective Toney, was under arrest which caused him to shout "we got him." This young man may have been wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants, which matched the description of the suspect as reported by the police dispatcher. But then something unusual happened .... an unknown person, who identified himself to the police as the "manager on duty," said the young man being questioned by Cunningham and Toney had been in the theater since 12:05 PM. This was impossible, because the theater did not open until 12:45 PM. This unidentified "manager on duty" may have been an accomplice who provided LEE Oswald with a much needed alibi, but this person was not the manager of the theater. This person may have been Jack Ruby, who was seen a few minutes later sitting in the orchestra section watching as police arrested HARVEY Oswald. John Callahan was the theater manager and, according to cashier Julia Postal, Callahan left the theater before the police arrived and never returned. The only employees of the theater when the police arrived were Julia Postal, Butch Burroughs, and movie projectionist Reuben White. Sgt. Stringer, standing below in the alley behind the theater, asked Hill once again if the suspect had been arrested. Hill looked back into the theater and said, "No, we haven't got him."
LEE OSWALD IS ARRESTED IN THE BALCONY
Butch Burroughs, the ticket taker and concession stand operator, watched as the police took HARVEY Oswald out the front of the theater. A few minutes later Burroughs saw a second arrest occur in the Texas Theater. Burroughs said the second man arrested "looked almost like Oswald, like he was his brother or something." Burroughs saw the second Oswald placed under arrest, handcuffed, and taken out the back of the theater and into the alley. Capt. Westbrook was likely one of the police officers who escorted LEE Oswald, in handcuffs, out the rear of the theater.
Burroughs told the story of a 2nd Oswald arrest to researcher Jim Marrs in the early 1990's. In 2008 Burroughs was interviewed by author James Douglass and told him the story of a 2nd Oswald in the Texas Theater. In his book, JFK and the Unspeakable, Douglass wrote:
Butch Burroughs, who witnessed Oswald’s arrest, startled me in his interview by saying he saw a second arrest occur in the Texas Theater only “three or four minutes later.” He said the Dallas Police then arrested “an Oswald lookalike.” Burroughs said the second man “looked almost like Oswald, like he was his brother or something.” When I questioned the comparison by asking, “Could you see the second man as well as you could see Oswald?” he said, “Yes, I could see both of them. They looked alike.” After the officers half-carried and half-dragged Oswald to the police car in front of the theater, within a space of three or four minutes, Burroughs saw the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed. The Oswald look-alike, however, was taken by police not out the front but out the back of the theater.Before arriving at the Texas Theater Capt. Westbrook witnessed his co-conspirator, LEE Oswald, murder Officer Tippit at 10th Patton and then drove him to the Texas Theater. LEE Oswald purchased a ticket, walked up the stairs to the balcony, but was not seen by Butch Borroughs who was working at the concession stand.
A police officer is trying to cover
Oswald's face with his white hat
When HARVEY Oswald was arrested in the lower section of the theater Capt. Westbrook told police officers to "cover his face" as they were taking HARVEY Oswald out the front of the theater. Westbrook didn't want theater patrons to see the man arrested in the theater and then see another nearly identical man taken out the back of the theater. A few minutes later Butch Burroughs saw the second Oswald (LEE) placed under arrest, handcuffed, and taken out the back of the theater and into the alley.
Bernard Haire, the owner of a hobby shop two doors east of the theater, saw police cars congregating in the alley behind the theater. Mr. Haire watched as police escorted a young man out the rear of the theater and placed him in a police car that quickly drove away. For the next 25 years Mr. Haire thought he had witnessed the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald. Bernard Haire and Butch Burroughs both saw a young man, in handcuffs, taken out the back of the theater. Who, if not Captain Westbrook, was responsible for escorting the 2nd Oswald (LEE) out the back of the theater?
The unidentified young man was not taken to police headquarters. He was released and quickly driven away in a police car. Who at the Texas theater, if not Westbrook, had the authority to quickly release this young man and make sure that no police reports were filed? As the senior police officer at the Texas Theater Capt. Westbrook could have explained to fellow officers in the alley that the suspect in the murder of Officer Tippit had been arrested in the lower section of the theater and was already en route to police headquarters. The man taken out the back of the theater was arrested in the balcony by mistake, and was to be released. Westbrook may have ordered fellow police officers to forget about this incident, in order to avoid public criticism for arresting and handcuffing the wrong man. Not surprisingly nothing was mentioned by the police about a man arrested by police and escorted out the rear of the Texas Theater, just like there was no mention by police of the 2nd Oswald wallet displayed by Capt. Westbrook to fellow officers at 10th & Patton.
It is important to remember that Cunningham and Toney were the two police officers who talked with the young man who Dep Sheriff Bill Courson thought was Oswald. Capt. Westbrook ordered Lt. Cunningham and Det. Toney to interview and make a list of all patrons in the Texas Theater. The list of theater patrons should have been given to their supervisor, Capt. Westbrook. But when questioned by the Warren Commission about the list Capt. Westbrook said, "I don't know who has the list." Neither Lt. Cunningham nor Det. Toney were called to testify before the Warren Commission.
There are two DPD documents that identify the young man arrested in the balcony as LEE Oswald. This was the same person identified a few minutes earlier by Deputy Sheriff Bill Courson as Oswald when he was questioned by Cunningham and Toney. The first document, published in the Warren Volumes, is a Homicide Report prepared by Capt. C.E. Talbert that states, "Suspect was later arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater." Capt. Talbert was questioned extensively by the Warren Commission, but was never asked about his presence or his activities at the Texas Theater. The second document, also published in the Warren Volumes, is a memo/letter written by L.D. Stingfellow of the Criminal Intelligence Section to Capt. D. P. Gannaway and Lt. Jack Revill that states "On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater." A copy of the Homicide Report was included with the letter. Neither Stringfellow, Gannaway, nor Revill were questioned by the Warren Commission about this letter.
Det. Stringfellow, Capt. Gannaway, Capt. Talbert, Lt. Revill, Dep Sheriff Courson, Officer Cunningham, Officer Toney, Capt. Westbrook, and numerous police officers in the alley behind the Texas Theater knew about the arrest of LEE Oswald in the balcony of the Texas Theater. The resulting silence that was imposed on police officers who knew about the arrest of a 2nd suspect in the Texas Theater was similar to the silence imposed on police officers who knew about the 2nd Oswald wallet at 10th & Patton. These were two very serious "coverups" that were planned and engineered by the Dallas Police. And who was the Dallas Police officer whose nefarious actvities created the need for these two coverups? Capt. Westbrook.
Where did the young man go after leaving the Texas Theater?
Who was the driver/police officer who drove the young man away in a police car? Who was the young man if not LEE Oswald? Where did this young man go after leaving the Texas Theater? Whoever drove this Oswald "look a like" away from the Texas Theater in a police car was more than likely Westbrook or Croy.A short while later Mr. T.F. White, a 60 year old auto mechanic who worked many years at Mac Pate's garage, watched as a 1961 red Ford Falcon was speeding back and forth on Davis St., only 5 blocks north of the Texas Theater.
A few minutes later the driver parked the car, with the engine running, in the El Chico parking lot across the street. Mr. White continued to watch the car, and noticed the driver was wearing a white t-shirt. Mr. White then walked across the street and approached the car. When Mr. White was 10-15 yards from the driver's side of the car the driver looked directly at Mr. White and then sped off quickly. Mr. White got a good look at the man and wrote down the license plate number of the red Ford Falcon, which was PP4537. Later that afternoon, when Mr. White saw pictures of Oswald on television, Mr. White told his boss the man he saw in the car was Lee Harvey Oswald. White's boss, Mac Pate, relayed this story to local news reporter Wes Wise who then contacted the FBI.
The Dallas County Tax Office advised that license plate PP4537 was registered to a 1957 Plymouth, owned by Carl Mather, 4309 Colgate, in Garland, TX. Somehow the license plates from Mather's 4 door blue Plymouth were on the 1961 red Ford Falcon on November 22nd, driven by a young man identified by Mr. White as Lee Harvey Oswald. Carl Mather and his family were close friends with Officer J. D. Tippit, who LEE Oswald had shot and killed only an hour and a 1/2 earlier. When the Mather's heard that Tippit had been murdered, they went to the Tippit home to console Mrs. Tippit.
Carl Mather worked for Collins Radio, an international company based in Dallas, that specialized in radio telecommunications. In the 1950's and 1960's Collins Radio was involved in many clandestine operations in conjunction with the CIA. In 1963 Collins Radio leased a ship, ostensibly used for electronic and oceanographic research, but the ship was really being used to transport illegal shipments of firearms and munitions to anti-Castro Cuban rebels. At the same time Collins Radio was building a vast military communications network in Laos and Indochina. Mather, while working for Collins Radio, was assigned to work at Andrews Air Force Base in Brandywine, Maryland on Air Force Two, the plane used by Vice President Lyndon Johnson.
Mather was never questioned by the Dallas Police or the FBI about the license plates from his car being used on a red 1961 Ford Falcon, nor was he interviewed by the Warren Commission. In 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations briefly looked into the claim by Mr. White that he saw Lee Harvey Oswald driving a red Ford Falcon while at the same time HARVEY Oswald was in jail at police headquarters. Mather was given immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony, but he was never interviewed.
The unanswered question is who removed one or more Texas license plates from Carl Mather's 1957 4 door blue Plymouth and put them on the red 1961 Ford Falcon driven by LEE Oswald. Was Mather aware that one or both his license plates were missing from his car on the afternoon of November 22 ? A few minutes after 2:00 PM, while HARVEY Oswald was handcuffed and sitting in Dallas police headquarters, Mr. White saw a man who he believed to be Lee Harvey Oswald speeding back and forth on Davis St. in the red Ford Falcon. What was the extent of Carl Mather's involvement in the events of November 22 and his personal relationship with Officer J. D. Tippit and LEE Oswald?
Another employee of Collins Radio, Ken Porter, quit his job after the assassination, divorced his wife, and married Oswald's widow, Marina.
ROBERT VINSON
The fate of HARVEY Oswald, in Dallas Police custody until he was killed by Jack Ruby two days later, is well-known. But LEE Oswald's whereabouts following the assassination are difficult to follow. One intriguing account of his possible escape from the Dallas area comes from a decorated U.S. Air Force 20-year veteran named Sgt. Robert G. Vinson.
Vinson said that on the afternoon of November 22 he was a passenger on a nearly deserted C-54 cargo plane that departed from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland en route to Denver. Soon after the assassination the plane was diverted and landed on what appeared to be a road under construction near the Trinity River south of Dallas. Vinson soon saw a Jeep with two men and a driver pull up to the plane and the two passengers boarded the cargo plane. Vinson said the taller man might have been Cuban and, after he saw televised pictures of Lee HARVEY Oswald, he said the shorter man "looked an awful lot like Oswald." Could the Cuban looking man have been the same man, driving a Rambler station wagon, who picked up LEE Oswald in Dealey Plaza as seen by Roger Craig? As the two men sat together, behind the cockpit, they were completely silent. The flight continued to Roswell Air Force Base in New Mexico, where all the passengers deplaned. Vinson said the entire base was on lockdown, yet the C-54 cargo plane was allowed to land. A few hours later the lockdown was lifted and Vinson was given directions to a bus stop. Additional background information on Robert Vinson can be seen on YouTube.
A FINAL NOTE ON CAPTAIN WESTBROOK
Capt. Westbrook knew a lot about HARVEY Oswald and his background before November 22. Westbrook also knew LEE Oswald, and was involved with the pre-planned murder of officer Tippit, the planting and discovery of LEE Oswald's jacket and the Alek James Hidell ID cards in LEE Oswald's wallet that were used to frame HARVEY Oswald for the murder of Officer Tippit. Westbrook was also involved with covering up the presence of LEE Oswald in the balcony of the Texas Theater, covering up the 2nd Oswald wallet, and making sure that none of the police officers at 10th & Patton said a word to anyone about the 2nd wallet.
But Capt. Westbrook and Croy's involvement with Tippit's murder did not end their nefarious involvement with HARVEY Oswald. I read Croy's Warren Commission testimony and was somewhat shocked at what I read. Few questions were asked of Croy about his presence at the Tippit murder scene. Most of the questions related directly to Croy's presence and his activities in the basement of the Dallas Police station on November 24th, when HARVEY Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby. Croy told the Warren Commission that he was standing next to Ruby in the basement, and tried to stop Ruby when Ruby suddenly lunged forward and shot Oswald. Warren Commission attorney Burt Griffin had reviewed films of the shooting and knew Croy was not telling the truth. After reading Croy's testimony, I am convinced that Croy was likely the person who assisted Ruby in gaining entrance to the basement, and I believe that it was Westbrook who alerted Capt. Fritz that Ruby had finally arrived in the basement of the police station. I urge everyone to read Croy's Warren Commission testimony and draw your own conclusions as to whether or not Croy helped Ruby gain access to the basement.
Westbrook (far right) with David Morales
In August 1966, three years after the assassination of President Kennedy, Capt. Westbrook relocated to South Vietnam where he was a CIA-sponsored advisor to the Saigon Police Dept. He is pictured above with David Sanchez Morales, who worked for the CIA under the cover of Army employment. Morales was involved in the CIA's 1954 overthrow of the Guatemalan government, and rose to become Chief of Operations at the CIA's large JMWAVE facility in Miami. In that role, he oversaw operations undertaken against the regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba. Morales was involved in other covert operations of the CIA, including plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, the training of intelligence teams supporting the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the CIA's secret war in Laos, the controversial Operation Phoenix operation in Vietnam, and the hunting down and murder of Che Guevara in Bolivia.
After Morales' retirement in 1975 he returned to his native Arizona, and died of a heart attack in 1978, the same year in which Westbrook died. HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi traced Morales to Wilcox, Arizona shortly after Morales' death, and spoke with his lifelong friend Ruben Carbajal and a business associate of Morales' named Bob Walton. Walton told Fonzi of an evening, after many drinks, when Morales went into a tirade about Kennedy and particularly his failure to support the men of the Bay of Pigs. According to Mr. Walton, Morales finished this conversation by saying "Well, we took care of that son of a bitch, didn't we?" Carbajal, who had also been present during the conversation, corroborated Morales's statement. Morales was also named by long time CA agent E. Howard Hunt as a participant in the JFK assassination.
Now we finally realize and understand that Westbrook was working for the CIA, the agency in which rogue hi-level individuals such as David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, and likely Allen Dulles planned and carried out the assassination of President Kennedy.
In July 1986 David Phillips told Washington investigator Kevin Walsh, quote: "My private opinion is that JFK was done in by a conspiracy, likely including American intelligence officers." There is no doubt, at least in my mind, that Capt. Westbrook, and to a lesser degree Sgt. Croy, were deeply involved as co-conspirators in the murder of Officer Tippit and the setting up of HARVEY Oswald as the "patsy" who was falsely accused of killing Officer Tippit and of killing President Kennedy. Following the assassination, Westbrook, Croy, and Capt. Fritz were all involved in the coverup, manipulation of evidence, destruction of evidence, and withholding of vital evidence (2nd wallet, Alex Hidell ID, arrest of LEE Oswald at the Texas Theater).
Richard Sprague, chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations said, "If he had it to do over again, he would begin his investigation of the Kennedy assassination by probing 'Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency.'" Sen. Richard Schweiker said, "We do know Oswald had intelligence connections. Everywhere you look with him, there are fingerprints of intelligence." In 1996 former counsel Robert Tanenbaum told the Assassination Records Review Board, "the major area, and I can't overemphasize this, focused on the government and what the government knew about Lee Harvey Oswald... and what the CIA was doing with Lee Harvey Oswald." Mr. Tanenbaum's words were as true and correct today as they were in 1996: WHAT DID THE GOVERNMENT KNOW ABOUT LEE HARVEY OSWALD AND WHAT WAS THE CIA DOING WITH LEE HARVEY OSWALD?
Exposing and understanding Harvey Oswald and Lee Oswald will answer many questions related to the Kennedy assassination, and it will help us understand the capabilities and influence of our intelligence agencies. It provides insight as to how and why certain government agencies concealed, and still conceal, their knowledge and involvement with HARVEY Oswald and LEE Oswald. It helps us understand why witness testimony was ignored, altered, and in many cases omitted. It helps us understand why evidence was altered, fabricated and destroyed. We begin to understand why so many witnesses disappeared, died mysteriously or committed suicide. We realize that HARVEY Oswald could never have been allowed to stand trial, and absolutely had to be eliminated. As the years go by more and more pieces to this puzzle fall into place and allow us to better understand who HARVEY Oswald and LEE Oswald really were, who created and directed them, and who was responsible for the assassination of John Kennedy.
Rosetta Stone
We can now understand that Warren Commission attorney David Belin was correct when he called the Tippit murder the "rosetta stone" of the Kennedy assassination. The Tippit murder shows there were two men involved who closely resembled Lee Harvey Oswald, two wallets, two sets of identification, two arrests in the Texas Theater, and two murders which resulted in HARVEY Oswald being charged with the murder of both Tippit and President Kennedy. Investigation of the Tippit murder allowed us to identify and name certain members of the Dallas Police who were corrupt, identify evidence that was created, evidence that was manipulated, evidence that was destroyed, and understand that HARVEY Oswald was clearly framed for murdering Tippit. This pattern of corruption, coverup, manipulation and destruction of evidence by the Dallas Police follows a similar pattern of corruption, coverup, manipulation and destruction of evidence by the FBI, CIA, and the Warren Commission in the assassination of President Kennedy. HARVEY Oswald's background as a Russian speaking communist, a “defector” to the Soviet Union, a supporter of Castro and Cuba with a Russian wife was planned and directed by the CIA. When the decision was made to assassinate President Kennedy, HARVEY Oswald was the ideal "patsy." His clandestine work for both the CIA and the FBI is the reason thousands of government documents were and still are withheld by the IRS, Social Security, the CIA, the FBI and other government agencies. Understanding the two Oswald’s and their involvement in the Tippit murder may indeed be the "rosetta stone" that finally allows us to see thru the smoke and mirrors of the President's murder and subsequent coverup that has persisted for 60 years.
