Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination

by Richard Belzer

  .com/index.php?showtopic=2342

  42 Edward T. Haslam, Dr. Mary’s Monkey: How the unsolved murder of a doctor, a secret laboratory in New Orleans and cancer-causing monkey viruses are linked to Lee Harvey Oswald, the JFK assassination and emerging global epidemics (TrineDay: 2007).

  43 Ibid, 46.

  44 Ibid, 60.

  And as you will see in the Jack Ruby chapter which soon follows, he so desired.

  Also, please bear in mind the specific contexts of some of the other so-called “coincidences” in contemporary history as you read about the individual cases. For example, writer and researcher Kathleen Collins posits that the murder of Karyn Kupcinet, the daughter of super-popular Chicago newspaper columnist Irv Kupcinet, may have been a “shock murder” to draw attention away from the links that “Kup” was investigating between the Chicago Mob and Jack Ruby’s “muting by murder” of Lee Harvey Oswald, which happened shortly before the Kupcinet murder. Whether intended as such or not, that was the effect achieved: The murder of Karyn Kupcinet took over the headlines and eliminated any would-be discussion of Jack Ruby’s very extensive links to the Chicago Mob.45 So the possibility of it having been a shock crime is certainly plausible.

  Ms. Collins also established that shortly after Ruby silenced Oswald, Irv Kupcinet telephoned a fellow Chicagoan, long-time Mob-connected Paul “Red” Dorfman, who was vacationing in Palm Springs, California, at the same time as Karyn, Irv’s daughter. Kupcinet specifically asked Dorfman what he thought about Ruby’s silencing of Oswald.46 As veteran JFK researcher Tom Scully notes, whether it was distraction by design or not, the same result was achieved: Kup’s columns never mentioned Jack Ruby’s links to the Chicago Mob. He didn’t write about the assassination until being infuriated by Oliver Stone’s film, JFK. Kupcinet simply stuck to the scripted story that it was Oswald who shot Kennedy—period.

  If Paul Dorfman was giving Irv Kupcinet a message in reaction to Kupcinet’s call to him about Ruby, by killing Karyn Kupcinet, it worked because Kupcinet stopped asking questions or including any mention of Ruby in his columns after November 25, 1963.47

  Likewise, it’s been speculated that the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. in early December of 1963 may have been another “shock crime” to take the heat off of “Chicago,” just as one victim had warned.48 Casino owner Jack Zangetty predicted to friends that Ruby would kill Oswald and that Sinatra’s son would later be “kidnapped” in order to distract attention. Both of those events actually occurred shortly after his prediction, so Zangetty clearly appeared to have pre-knowledge of those events. He was also brutally murdered shortly after making those uncannily accurate predictions.49

  45 Kathleen Collins, “Irving Kupcinet and Karyn Kupcinet,” 11 Nov 2011, The Ducation Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=18151

  46 Kathleen Collins, “Deaths of Witnesses,” 11 Dec. 2005, The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=603&st=120

  47 Tom Scully, “Deaths of Witnesses,” 3 January 2009, The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=603

  48 Craig Roberts & John Armstrong, JFK: The Dead Witnesses (Consolidated Press International: 1995), 16. Kathleen Collins, “Deaths of Witnesses, 21 Oct 2007, The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=603&st=105

  49 Roberts & Armstrong, The Dead Witnesses, 16.

  There were a number of things that people—even at the time it grabbed ­headlines—felt were “fishy” about the Sinatra kidnapping in much the same way that the public felt the televised murder of Oswald was very fishy:

  • Sinatra’s son disappeared from a casino hotel linked to the Mob;

  • He loaned gas money to his kidnappers;

  • The kidnappers only asked for a $240,000 ransom even though Sinatra had publicly offered a million dollars for his son’s safe return.50

  It was another case of “something rotten in Denmark.” The money was paid and his son was released, unharmed. But things seemed so out of kilter that, even at the time, a lot of people speculated that it was possibly all a publicity stunt. Ruby’s bizarre assassination of Oswald, right on live TV, had been a topic on everyone’s minds and lips at that strange moment in history, and it’s not at all outrageous to suspect that other events may have taken place to spin off the public’s attention on those matters.

  The cases in this book basically appear in the chronological order in which they impacted the case; i.e., the police officer shot right after the President’s assassination, the murder of the President’s alleged killer, the man who murdered the President’s alleged killer, the man who correctly predicted the murder of the alleged killer, etc. However, it’s also very interesting to note that the numerous “coincidental” deaths linked to the JFK assassination can also be successfully separated into only four categories:

  • Witnesses to the crime;

  • Reporters investigating the case;

  • U.S. Intelligence linked to the matter;

  • Mafia linked to the crime and/or to U.S. Intelligence.

  An examination of the evidence in the primary cases follows, leading to (necessarily) different conclusions; some cases are clearly linked to a “clean-up operation” after the murder of President Kennedy (and were even “national security assassinations”). Others clearly were the result of other forces. We detail the differences of the cases and delineate their broader implications.

  It is very noteworthy that several of the witnesses eliminated were among those who were operating closest to Lee Harvey Oswald and were intricately involved in that strange nexus that enabled the assassination of President Kennedy: David Ferrie, Dr. Mary Sherman, George de Mohrenshchildt (who appears to have had considerable “assistance” with his so-called suicide), as well as Jack Ruby, were all directly linked.

  Many of the murdered witnesses were also mobsters and we were not oblivious to the point that mobsters often die violent deaths; in fact, we concluded that some of those mobster deaths indeed were simply the result of inner Mob workings. However, some were clearly related to extremely sensitive information they possessed regarding the JFK assassination and were not the result of common machinations within the Mafia.

  Put simply, we followed the evidence, not the rumors.

  On a final note, bear in mind that whatever “hits” may have been ordered by representatives of the U.S. government in a damage control or clean-up operation headed

  50 Kara Kovalchik, “TRUE CRIME: The Incompetent Kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Jr.,” 20 Aug 2008, http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/17723

  by President Johnson after the JFK assassination, the Mafia may have had their own “hit list” for the purpose of ensuring the Sicilian code of silence known as omertà. That would certainly seem to be the obvious case, inasmuch as mobsters like Sam Giancana, Chuck Nicoletti, and Johnny Roselli, who all had vital information pertaining to the anti-Cuba intelligence links to the JFK assassination, were murdered as they were slated to testify as witnesses. The HSCA was specifically investigating the evidence that the assassination plot was hatched from anti-Castro U.S. intelligence operations in Florida. It became evident that, in an attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro, the CIA had employed members of the Chicago Crime Family—specifically, Roselli, Giancana and hitman Nicoletti—and that operation was reportedly “hijacked” and re-targeted at JFK. Roselli told Senator Frank Church’s House Select Committee on Intelligence Activities that “a CIA hit team had been ‘turned’ and used to kill Kennedy.”51 That investigation led to the formation of the HSCA, which was actively seeking testimony from Roselli and the other mobsters involved. Roselli was then warned by a friend that Florida Mob boss Santo Trafficante had put out a murder contract on him and, in July of 1976, Roselli’s body was found floating in an oil drum off the coast of Florida—his throat had been garroted, his legs sawn off, and stuffed into a barrel.52 Then, after the murder of Sam “The Man” Giancana in his suburban Chic
ago home, an FBI wiretap picked up Santo Trafficante, saying “Now there are only two people who know who shot Kennedy. And they aren’t talking.”53 Trafficante’s statement was quite apparently in reference to himself and New Orleans Mob boss, Carlos Marcello. Omertà.

  Columnist Jack Anderson of the Washington Post printed a story on September 7, 1976 in which he revealed that, shortly before his death, Roselli had told him:

  When Oswald was picked up, the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald.54

  51 John Simkin, “John Roselli: Biography,” Spartacus Educational, (accessed 10 Sept. 2012): http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKroselli.htm

  52 Ibid.

  53 Spoken telephonically on FBI wiretap, 1975: Jerome A. Kroth, Conspiracy in Camelot: A Complete History of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Assassination (Algora Publishing, 2003), 190.

  54 John Simkin, “John Roselli: Biography,” Spartacus Educational, (accessed 10 Sept. 2012): http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKroselli.htm

  Victim

  J. D. Tippit, veteran officer, Dallas police department

  Cause of Death

  Multiple Gunshots

  Official Verdict

  While on patrol shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy, Officer Tippit stopped a suspect who fit the description of JFK’s killer that was being broadcast over the police radio. That suspect was Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot and killed Officer Tippit.

  Actual Circumstances

  Officer Tippit was out of his assigned patrol area and behaving in an extremely erratic manner, which some have even described as frantic.

  Inconsistencies

  1. Officer Tippit was not where he was directed to be after the assassination of President Kennedy, and he even lied about his whereabouts when asked his exact location by police dispatch. He was not just a little bit out of his area, either—he was in a dramatically different location.

  2. Mere minutes after the assassination of the President, a Dallas police car pulled up and stopped in front of Oswald’s apartment window, honked twice, and then left. Right after the police car honked, Oswald left his apartment. If it was an authentic Dallas police car, the only car in that area was Tippit’s.

  3. In the minutes before his death, Officer Tippit behaved in a wild, seemingly erratic manner, as though he was frantically searching for something.

  4. The “suspect” Officer Tippit stopped did not match even the very broad description of the President’s assailant broadcast on the police radio.

  5. According to eyewitnesses, Officer Tippit conversed amiably with the “suspect” for about a minute. Witnesses assumed they were friends and that there was nothing out of the ordinary taking place.

  6. Due to a timing issue which we cover in detail below, it is virtually impossible that Oswald could have been in the location where Tippit stopped the suspect at the time that the incident took place.

  7. Officers at the scene described the murder weapon at the Tippit crime scene as an “automatic”; Oswald was found with a revolver and there are dramatic ballistics differences between the two different types of pistols.

  8. Officers also found a wallet at the Tippit crime scene containing IDs with the names “Lee Harvey Oswald” and “Alek Hiddel.” The name “Alek Hiddel” was a well-known “floating alias” used by military intelligence covert operatives at that time.

  9. The great majority of eyewitness descriptions at the crime scene identified Officer Tippit’s assailant as very unlike Lee Harvey Oswald. Some witnesses also saw two men involved in shooting Officer Tippit.

  10. Witness testimony that did not fit the official version that Oswald shot Tippit was roundly rejected by would-be investigators. Witnesses were threatened, intimidated, and, in some cases, even shot at. It is little wonder, under those circumstances, that some witnesses eventually changed their testimony to fit the official version of events.

  1

  Dallas police department Officer J. D. Tippit

  Officer J. D. Tippit,

  November 22, 1963

  •

  People tend to forget that the first mysterious death associated with the JFK assassination was actually that of Dallas police officer, J. D. Tippit, which occurred very shortly after the shots were fired at President Kennedy.

  Officer Tippit was one of the few Dallas police officers not assigned to the area of the President’s motorcade. He was patrolling the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, in accordance with his orders for that day. Shortly after 1:00 p.m., Tippit, alone in his patrol car, was seen stopping his car near an individual who was walking along East 10th Street. Witnesses who clearly observed the incident reported that there did not seem to be any trouble. To the contrary, Officer Tippit simply seemed to be chatting amiably with the man; in fact, the unidentified man was standing near the curb and leaning down with his hands on the passenger side door of the car, which apparently had the passenger window down, as the two conversed. As further evidence that it did not appear to be a confrontational situation, witnesses observed that at no time did Officer Tippit draw his weapon, nor did he direct the individual to adopt a less casual position; i.e., there was no “Hands on the car, feet back and spread them,” or anything of that nature. For all intents and purposes, the two simply seemed to be talking amiably.1

  At that point, Officer Tippit got out of the car and began walking toward the front of his squad car toward the man on the other side, with his hand placed on the butt of his gun. Before Officer Tippit even reached the front of the car, the man fired three shots into Tippit’s chest, then walked around the back of the car and fired a fourth shot directly into his head, killing him instantly. The suspect appeared to be very professional and confident: He calmly walked away “and he took the shells up in his hand, and as he took off, he threw them in the bushes more or less like nothing really . . .”2

  That was the way an eyewitnesses reported the event. It later became “scripted” in the official version that Officer Tippit had stopped a suspect who fit the description going over the police radio of President Kennedy’s assassin and that the individual was Lee Harvey Oswald, and that Oswald shot Tippit. Evidence not fitting what became that official version of the event was basically tossed aside. However, that official version simply does not stand up to scrutiny:

  In the commission’s account, J. D. Tippit, who was a “fine, dedicated officer,” was driving his patrol car when he saw a man who fit the general description of the suspect wanted in the murder of President Kennedy. This “fine, dedicated officer,” who had the chance to make the arrest of a lifetime, did not try to arrest this dangerous suspect, nor did he draw his gun (according to the wanted description broadcast over the police radio, the suspect was carrying a 30.06 rifle). Instead, he called the man over to his car and began having a casual conversation.3

  1 John Simkin, “Biography: J. D. Tippit,” The Education Forum (accessed 13 Sept. 2012) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKtippit.htm

  2 Domingo Benavides (eyewitness) , “The Warren Report: Part 3,” 27 Jun 1967, CBS Television

  3 Michael L. Kurtz, Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination from a Historian’s Perspective (University of Tennessee Press: 1993)

  Timeline: The Shooting of Officer J. D. Tippit

  “On the morning of November 22, J. D. Tippit hugged his oldest son Allen and said, ‘No matter what happens today, I want you to know that I love you.’ Such overt signs of affection toward his son were uncharacteristic of Tippit. This was the last time young Allen Tippit saw his father alive. Sometime later, Lee Harvey Oswald was seen at the Top Ten Record Store—a block from the Texas Theater. Oswald returned a short time later and was in the small record shop at the same time J. D. Tippit was there.”1

  There are, in fact, many dramatic inconsistencies in the scripted version that Lee Harvey Os
wald shot Officer J. D. Tippit:

  • Contrary to the conclusions of the Warren Commission, it has been established that Officer Tippit was friends with both Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald; the three were often seen having breakfast together.2

  • Tippit’s police unit was officially assigned to be patrolling the central Oak Cliff area of Dallas on the day of the assassination. Instead, Tippit’s police unit was seen in North Oak Cliff all that afternoon, a district to which he was not assigned.3 Additional to that point is that Tippit was not a little bit out of his assigned area;

  1 John Armstrong, “Harvey, Lee and Tippit: A New Look at the Tippit Shooting,” Probe Magazine, January-February 1998 (Vol. 5 No. 2): http://www.ctka.net/pr198-jfk.html

  2 Harrison E. Livingstone, The Radical Right and the Murder of John F. Kennedy: Stunning Evidence in the Assassination of the President (Trafford: 2006) and Dixie Dea, “J. D. Tippit: Was he part of the conspiracy?,” 11 Jan 2005: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2862

  3 Ibid.

  Although Officer J. D. Tippit was ordered to patrol in District 78 (the area outlined), his actual locations on the afternoon of the assassination were far to the northwest.

  • he was way out of it. As the previous map clearly delineates, central Oak Cliff and far North Oak Cliff are distinctly different areas.1

  • The actions of Officer Tippit in relation to the assassination of President Kennedy also bear noting. At 12:20 p.m., he reported on his police radio: “78 Clear”; which meant that he was done with lunch and back on patrol.2 At 12:45 p.m. (note that this is only fifteen minutes after the President of the United States had been shot), Officer Tippit was clearly seen in his car, sitting at the Good Luck Gas Station (also known as the GLO-CO Station, acronym for Good Luck Oil Company) in North Oak Cliff. His car was parked on the south end of the Houston Street Viaduct, and he was observing the cars coming off the ramp of the Houston Street Viaduct from downtown Dallas (where the assassination had taken place). Several gas station employees saw him sitting there: “Tippit stayed at the station ‘for about ten minutes, somewhere between 12:45 and 1:00, then he went tearing off down Lancaster at high speed . . .’” Oswald’s cab driver, William Whaley, testified that he took the ramp down from the Houston Street Viaduct when he drove Oswald, and that was during the time period that Tippit was watching the ramp.3