Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit

by Joseph McBride

“AMERICA’S NEED TO WALK INTO THE NIGHTMARE . . .” . . . was how Norman Mailer predicted the tumultuous period that led to President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 murder on a public street and the fifty years of controversy that have followed that turning point in our nation’s history. Journalist and historian Joseph McBride, a volunteer in JFK’s 1960 Wisconsin presidential primary campaign, began studying the assassination minutes after it happened. In 1982, McBride launched his own investigation. Both epic and intimately personal, Into the My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit incorporates rare interviews with key people in Dallas, archival discoveries, and what novelist Thomas Flanagan, in The New York Review of Books, called McBride’s “wide knowledge of American social history.” McBride chronicles his evolving skepticism about the official story and shines a fresh, often surprising spotlight on Kennedy’s murder and on one of the murkiest, most crucial aspects of the case,! its “Rosetta Stone,” the Tippit killing. Joseph McBride has been a journalist since 1960, writing for such publications as Life, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and, on this subject, The Nation. An internationally renowned film biographer and historian, he has written acclaimed biographies of John Ford, Frank Capra, and Steven Spielberg. McBride lives in Berkeley, California, and is a professor at San Francisco State University.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, True Crime

677 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 15, 2013

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

History is more than an accumulation of facts: it is a story. This book is not quite a history, sort of a who dun-nit and sort of a conspiracy non fiction. Joseph McBride is a journalist by calling and profession and has written many books about the great American Movie Directors. When he writes about what the assassination of Kennedy meant to him on a personal level and what it meant to America, he writes compellingly and well. He tries to marry a story which is both his, Kennedy's and America's with a forensic analysis of the assassination. I suspect he wants the facts of the case to overwhelm the reader much like 'The Gulag Archipelago' which swamps the reader with crime after crime of the Soviet state apparatus.

What he does is build up a series of evidentially based disconcerting discrepancies with the official lone nut theory. I always thought there was a conspiracy but after reading this book I am convinced of it. But it is not only discrepancies it is the continual attempts by the security services to hide and obfuscate the truth that is also a give away.

It is layer after layer of conjecture and evidence, which is analyzed and reanalyzed. Often there is the problem of false trails laid by people with other agendas. This is hard going because it is so meticulous. For instance there is a two page analysis whether a button was nicked with a bullet when Officer Tippit had the shirt on or was it when it was hanging up in his squad car?

One of the coincidences of that fateful day in Dallas is that there was two current Presidents Kennedy and then Johnson and two future Presidents in Nixon and George H. Bush present. This is the sort of coincidence that McBride tends to obsess over and which I coincidentally know something about. I had read a biography of Nixon a few months before and Nixon was between Texas and New York when the assassination happened. Nixon also made a public appeal earlier in the day for Texans to mind their manners. So this dark coincidence means nothing. I wonder how many other instances there where in the book that were simply coincidences and not conspiracies?

In the end if you are like me and the vast majority of the English speaking world and sort of think the official version of the Kennedy assassination just does not make sense but can't put your finger on why precisely read this book. This.Is.A.Very.Thorough.Book.
It is a slog but it is worth it.

[Joe Nicholl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit (2012) by Joseph McBride is a well written, personal and intense look at the JFK assassination and the killing of Dallas Police Department Officier J.D. Tippit. McBride approaches his book with two authorship tools; First is from the title, "My Search", where his decades long research & interviews reveal his own unique look at the cases, and, Second, he takes the approach of separating the possible from the impossible (Oswald murdering Officer Tippet) and deriving from that what could have taken place. Nightmare is a personal book for McBride because he & his family were members of the Milwaukee Democratic party in the early '60's and he met JFK as a teenager. The book is 650 pages (reads like a 1,000) and the first 250 are a look into McBride's life (which I found to be very interesting)...his investigation doesn't even start until after this point of the book. After a look at the JFK shooting McBride delves into the Tippit killing with a microscopic lens. He calls the Tippit case the "Rosetta Stone" of the whole affair. He charts out Tippit's life in detail up to & past his death and I learned a lot about the his case that I had not heard before. NOW...having said this, from McBride's writing I found he shined a whole new light on Jack Ruby and I believe strongly he is the "Rosetta Stone" of the JFK case. McBride clearly pointed out how Ruby had the entire city of Dallas wrapped around his finger (DPD, the Dallas Press, the Commerce Elite by way of The Carousel Club), he was very, very organized, and he definitely had a planned agenda. An example of this, which was new to me, is, Jack Ruby had a relationship with nearly EVERYBODY who was in the vicinity of the Tippit killing as it took place (as well as Oswald's landlady). This is also where I felt author McBride was lax in his writing. Jack Ruby has been presented in the past, and in this book, as part of the Chicago mob....Ruby's real last name is Rubinstein, he was Jewish and took orders from the Jewish Mob (Meyer Lansky, etc.). The only mention of this by McBride is a one time mention of Ruby's Dallas synagogue. This sheds an entirely different light on the whole JFK & Tippit killings by who in-fact Ruby was taking orders from, and, with the possibility of ties to Israel through Meyer Lansky (read Final Judgement by Michael Collins Piper). I felt McBride, with all his research, missed half-the-boat by not delving deeper into Ruby's mob connections. Past that missing piece though, of interest, McBride states that Marina Oswald, before meeting & marrying Lee Harvey, was a prostitute working for the KGB. Interesting, I need to research that one further....-Soooo, good book...well written & very interesting...I learned a lot more about 22 NOV 1963 that I didn't know before....4 Strong Stars!!!

[Jeff Mohr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to reading this book as I wanted to know more about the death of officer Tippit. The second half of the book provided that information and tied together a lot of research by previous investigators. This book could’ve benefited in my view by the contribution of a skilled editor. The first half of the book was basically the author’s story about how he got interested in the JFK case. I also felt there was a lot of repetition throughout the book and again would’ve benefited from good editing. This is certainly a worthy read, but anyone who is interested should be aware of these issues.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazone

The Murder of Officer Tippit: More than Chance and Misfortune

Very fine work indeed by Professor Joseph McBride, biographer and historian, who has produced this incredibly gripping book, both academically researched and clearly written which I recommend to any student of the Kennedy assassination.

This book compares very favourably with the works of James W Douglass and Peter Dale Scott.

Professor McBride having been a Kennedy volunteer in Wisconsin in 1960 has tried to the very best of his ability, over a long period of research and writing, to advance the process of understanding started by other researchers soon after those events occurred and taken further forward since by many admirable scholars of the case.

By the author's own admission, he does not claim to have solved the assassination of President Kennedy and the murder of Patrolman JD Tippit, but his work sheds far greater light on the overall conspiracy and previously obscure aspects of the murder in Oak Cliff shortly after the death of the president.

Some of the key points raised by Joe McBride.

- Penn Jones once said that anyone planning to research the conspiracy to murder President Kennedy should take one aspect that so far has been neglected and then research the Hell out of it. For this aspect of the Kennedy assassination has been woefully investigated. So much for the due care and diligence the DPD had for one of its own, they couldn't even investigate this murder properly. What does that tell us?

- There are those who say that Lee Harvey Oswald murdered both President Kennedy and Patrolman JD Tippit. Any evidence for this is contradictory. From a legal viewpoint, is Oswald's guilt beyond reasonable doubt?

Is it not more likely that Oswald was a patsy for both murders that took place on November 22nd 1963? Is it not much more likely that Tippit was playing a significant role in the conspiracy himself before he was shot in Oak Cliff at 1.06/1.09/or even as late as 1.15pm? For anyone new to this, these timings are crucial if we are to pin the blame on Oswald.

- Tippit was not assigned to Oak Cliff so why was he there?

Was he to meet Oswald in Oak Cliff?
To kill him, to help him escape?

How did any member of the DPD know that they were to look for Oswald, when Oswald's identity only became known to them at 1.46pm?

Was Oswald already at the Texas Theatre when Tippit was gunned down?

- A lot of the evidence in this case is a mess. Both the physical evidence and eye witness accounts contradict each other very starkly and the description of Tippit's killer or killers are very different.

Almost as if there were two sets of witnesses, as some described two people running away after the shooting which had all the characteristics of a professional hit.

Subsequent paraffin tests on Oswald did not indicate he had fired any weapons that day.

- Just how many wallets did Oswald have? It seems highly suspicious that he just happened to leave one of them at the scene of Tippit's murder.

Oswald was found to have a wallet on his person when he was arrested.

Following his arrest he was found to have two diffirent sets of ID, so his real identity wasn't known for sure by around 2pm.

There are strong suspicions that Oswald was a paid informant for both the FBI and CIA.

- The four bullets found at the scene could not be matched to Oswald's gun. And of these there were two different makes of ammunition. How can this be explained?

Does this not indicate that there were two shooters?

Witness Aquilla Clemmons saw two different gunmen running off in two different directions.

Virginia Davis heard the shots and saw two police officers already at the scene, when official records state that no police showed up until 1.22pm.

Was one of the guns an automatic which Jim Leavelle believed when looking at the location of the spent and unmarked cartridges

So the ballistics evidence is worthless in that it cannot connect Oswald with Tippit's shooting. In fact that evidence exonerates Lee Harvey Oswald.

- The Tippit murder was almost like something staged and co-incidentally took place very closely to where Jack Ruby lived. Just two blocks away.

A lot of the witnesses to Tippit's death had connections to Jack Ruby.

- What about Tippit's background? Was he the devoted father and family man as described in his eulogies in 1963? He was possibly on the verge of divorce at that time.

Tippit certainly had one mistress in Johnnie Maxie Witherpoon and maybe others. He was financially overburderned having two mortgages at the time of his death.

He suffered from PTSD following his war service during WW11. He was seen as someone who had a very rough side in the way he treated teenagers at Austins, where he worked on a part time basis.

Allen Dulles former CIA Chief asked Chief Curry at the Warren Commission if Tippit had any involvement with narcotics. A strange question.

Tippit's career as a police officer was undistinguished, never having been promoted in his 11 years service. Could this have given Tippit the financial incentive to become involved in the conspiracy to murder John F Kennedy? It is also interesting and odd that Tippit took instructions not just by police radio but by public pay phone also.

- So there is a much darker side to Tippit to the one we have been made to believe. Tippit was seen as an excellent marksman and at the time of his death only photos of Tippit in his youth were released. Why?

Earlier that morning on November 22nd, 1963, Tippit hugged his 13 year old son Allen and said 'No matter what happens today, I want you to know that I love you'. Something seen as unusually affectionate for a man for whom this was quite uncharacteristic.

What did Tippit mean by that remark?

- So quite a different picture of Tippit emerges. Who could have killed Tippit? If not Oswald then who? Possible suspects worth further scrutiny are Harry Olsen DPD Officer who quickly left Dallas for California in early December 1963. Darrell Wayne Garner who had attempted to shoot another witness to Tippit's murder. Could he have been in Oak Cliff?

- Finally take a look at 'Badgeman' who can be seen in the Mary Moorman photograph and then take a look at photographs of Tippit at age 39 and see his distinctive hairline. Is this connection really possible? Why was Tippit's gun removed from the scene of his death? This should be considered. The key is to establish what is credible. After 51 years, establishing the truth is what researchers must continue to do. They must do the job the Warren Commission, FBI, HSCA and many parts of the US media did not do. The academic community must keep trying to shed much more light on aspects of the assassination conspiracy that have remained in darkness for much too long.

In his book November 22, 1963: You Are the Jury (1973), David Belin, Assistant Counsel to the Warren Commission and one of the chief defenders of the Warren Report, asserts that

"The Rosetta Stone to the solution of President Kennedy's murder is the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit.... Once [it] is admitted that Oswald killed Patrolman J. D. Tippit, there can be no doubt that the overall evidence shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of John F. Kennedy."

As this book demonstrates, Mr Belin was right about the Tippit murder being the Rosetta Stone to the solution of President Kennedy's murder but not for the reasons he proposed.

G. Lloyd

[Pete daPixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joseph McBride has compiled a superb contribution to the unravelling mysteries of the JFK assassination. A mighty tome, correctly classified under History/Memoir, a work of heart that has been over thirty years in the writing.
There are few alive today who can claim to have met JFK and worked for the Kennedy presidency. In his early teenage years McBride did just that and the first hundred pages of this book document those times with the author's personal account of his volunteer work for the 1960 Wisconsin presidential campaign.
'Into the Nightmare:My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit' is the result of a lifetime's cathartic probing into the darkness of November '63.
Once into the flow, I found this book to be compelling reading. Over very many years McBride has worked with other author/researchers on this case, many based in Dallas, as well as obtaining interviews with persons caught up in this nightmare. I have read very many books on this subject, and can tick off most of the publications listed in the author's 'Sources', yet I have learned many new things here, particularly concerning the Tippit murder. (Although I know something regarding Dallas P.D. Car # 100 that isn't included in this book.)
Certainly value for money and a well recommended addition to this genre.

[James W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The One I was Waiting For.

I’ve read many,many books on the Kennedy Assassination and most focus on the Dealy Plaza events and just glaze over the murder of Officer Tippit less than an hour later. Someone described that murder as the Rosetta Stone of the case. Unraveling one would open the door to the other.
Joe McBride tries to do just that. Much of the second half of this book is focused on the Tippit shooting, and that was just what I was hoping for. I started with just the basic knowledge of Tippit but after finishing I feel like I have gotten to know him as many of the residents of Oak Cliff May have known him. I’m not saying he was a wonderful person, honestly he probably wasn’t. But he seems so real to me now.
I have a feeling I’m going to come back to this and revisit it from time to time. So if you’re as curious about the slaying as I was ,and you may even wonder if Tippit may have played a part in the assassination, then I think you should sit down with this book and find out for yourself.

[Jeff Russo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminds me of JFK and the Unspeakable in a couple ways. For one, the personal nature of a lot of the writing. Two, McBride, like Douglas, is all-in on what can be considered controversial at best lines of theorizing on the case - he's pretty all-in on Badge Man, robustly in on Harvey & Lee stuff, in on the Lifton/Horne alteration theories - gotta admire it.

Enjoyable, dragged a bit at one or two points. Worth a read for sure.

[Joseph Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dazzlingly researched and smoothly written memoir, giving a compelling account of a journalist and film scholar who finds that the official story of the Kennedy assassination cannot withstand scrutiny.

Full review:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Pe...

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall it is a good book with plenty of detail.
I was disappointed with the first 30% where the author concentrates on himself and his connection to JFK and the reactions at the time of the assination. I was expecting this book to be an investigation and provide details and facts, something which it does do subsequently very well. IMO, the first 30% was not what I was expecting and not so relevant.
After that, the author builds on other investigators and gives each a mention. This he does very well and there is a lot of detail. He also keeps a balanced view citing both sides of where the evidence might point and not pushing any one outcome.
The one thing I would have loved to see at the very end of the book is the author's own opinion of what he thinks happened based on his investigation. He leaves things up to the reader to decide for yourself.

[Anthony Mattioli · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I am writing about is called "Into the Nightmare: My search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit" By Joseph McBride. This story is non-fiction for it was a real life event. The story is about a man named Norman Mailer who had predicted the death of Kennedy. This was definitely a five star book for me. It was filled with action, suspense and grief.