OSWALD-TIPPIT ASSOCIATES Staff Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations U.S. House of Representatives Ninety-fifth Congress Second Session March 1979 (33) CONTENTS Paragraph Foreword ___________________________________________________________ 1 I. Approach __________________________________________________________ 2 ITppit. Marie Ti Thomas-------------------------------------___________ (7) III. Murray James Jackson________________________________________________ (8) IV. William Anglin------------------------------------------------------ (9) V. Morris Brumley______________________________________________________ (10) VI. Basil Robinson_______________________________________________________ (11) VII. Calvin Owens________________________________________________________ (12) VIII . Mrs. Johnnie Marie Witherspoon_____________________________________ (13) IX. Mary Ada Dowling___________________________________________________ (14) X. The Wise allegation__________________________________________________ (15) XL Austin's barbeque_______r------------------------------------------- (39) (34) FOREWORD (1) Even though the Warren Commission indicated that no credible evidence was found proving that Lee Harvey Oswald and Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit knew one another prior to the assassina- tion, speculation has continued over the years about the circumstances of Tippit's murder on the afternoon of November 22,1963. This specu- lation has grown because of the circumstances surrounding Tippit's death : Questions have persisted about why Oswald would have been in that neighborhood, including, had Tippit received enough informa- tion on the suspected assassin of President Kennedy to have been able to identify Oswald as the possible suspect, and was there anything suspicious about Tippit's location in that part of Dallas after the assassination, when other police officers had been ordered to the Dealey Plaza area or Parkland Hospital immediately after the assassination? I. AFFROACH (2) Because there was little direct evidence to answer any of these questions, the committee concluded that the most effective way to learn if Oswald and Tippit knew one another would be to investigate the associates of the two men. Over the years, rumors have persisted that Oswald and Tippit were seen together at various public places. No effective way to investigate or verify those claims exists because of the passage of time and the general unreliability of such identifications. (3) On the other hand, the committee concluded that if the two men had any associates in common, the fact of that association could be more easily discerned and might shed light on the nature of the relationship, if any, between the two. (4) The committee undertook to compile the names of the asso- ciates and relatives of Lee Harvey Oswald and J. D. Tippit. Each associate interviewed was asked for the names of other persons each man was known to have associated with closely. Special attention was paid to the possibility of "overlaps" on the two lists, that is, persons who appeared to be associates of both men. After the lists were com- piled, the committee requested data on each associate from the fol- lowing Government agencies : Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Secret Service and, where appro- priate, Departments of Defense and State. (5) On the basis of the initial investigation of the associates of each man and the review of the Agency files, further investigation was con- ducted where warranted either to clarify a relationship or probe a possible association. (6) No relative or associate of J. D. Tippit had been called to testif7 before the Warren Commission about Tippit's associations or activi- ties. Despite the fact that confusion existed even at the time of the Warren Commission about the transcriptions of the Dallas Police (35) 36 Department radio dispatches that contained information about Tip- pit's location and activities on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, none of the police officers with whom Tippit worked were called to testify about the details of his assignment m Oak Cliff. (1) The com- mittee interviewed nine persons who were reported to have had close personal and working relationships with Tippit. II. MARIE TIPrrr THOMAS (7) Tippit's widow, Marie Tippit Thomas, reported in an interview to the FBI in May 1964 that her husband's only associates were fellow police officers. (2) She stated that her social life with him involved the families and wives of many of those same officers. (3) Mrs. Thomas was interviewed by the committee on October 12, 1977.(4) At that time, she could provide no new information about Tippit's associates. She did mention that Tippit's closest friend had been Bill Anglin, another Dallas police officer who lived a few houses away on Glen- cairn Street in Dallas. (5) She further stated that his other close friends were Charlie Harrison, Bud Owens, and Richard Stovall. Mrs. Thomas also repeated her earlier information that Tippit had been employed at the time of the assassination part-time at Austin's Bar- beque in Dallas. (6) Tippit worked as a security guard at the restau- rant on Friday and Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. (7) III. MURRAY JAMES JACKSON (8) The committee interviewed members of the Dallas Police Force who were purported to have been personal associates of J. D. Tippit. The first of these was Murray James Jackson. Jackson was working the dispatch system on the Dallas police radio when Tippit was killed. (8) Jackson reported to the committee that he had worked with and come to know J. D. Tippit very well over a 20-year period. (9) He stated that they "socialized when off duty". (10) Officer Jackson is the officer who was responsible for having sent Tippit into the Oak Cliff area according to the transmissions from the dis- patches. (11) IV. WH.LIAM ANaraN (9) The committee also contacted William Anglin. Anglin indi- cated that he socialized with J. D. Tippit. (12) He said in the inter- view that "he and J. D. had coffee or tea at `The Old Drive-In'" about 11 :30-11 :45 on the morning of November 22. (13) V. MORRIS BRUMLEY (10) Another of Tippit's associates who was spoken to was Morris Brumley. Brumley had known Tippit since 1934 when they attended school m Fulbright, Tex.(14) Brumley indicated that he had no information concerning the outside interests, -associates, or attitudes of J. D. Tippit. (15) Brumley described Tippit as a good family man and conscientious in his work but not very sharp. (16) Brumley stated that Basil Robinson, another Dallas police officer assigned to the Oak Cliff section was also a good friend of Tippit's. (17) 37 VI. BASIL ROBINSON (11) Basil Robinson was another member of the Dallas Police De- partment who had a rather long association with J. D. Tippit. Tippit's acquaintance with Robinson dated back to the Tippit stay at Bogata, Tex. (18) When interviewed by the FBI, Robinson indicated that he had been a "close personal friend" of Tippit and his family. (19) He said that Tippit had few outside interests because he was working all the time. (°20) VII. CALVIN OWENS (12) Sergeant Calvin Owens was Tippit's immediate supervisor at the Dallas Police Department. (201) When questioned by the FBI, Owens indicated that Tippit was strictly a family man. He also said that he knew of no associates of Tippit's except members of the police force. ($2) VIII. AIRS. JOHNNIE MAXIE WITHERSPOON (13) Committee investigators also interviewed Mrs. Johnnie Maxie Witherspoon. (2,3) Mrs. Witherspoon stated that she became ac- quainted with Officer Tippit during his employment at Austin's Bar- beque. (244) Mrs. Witherspoon informed the committee that she and Tippet engaged in a relationship and started dating for a couple of years. (25) She said that the relationship ended in the summer of 1963 when her husband returned home. (,96) She also indicated that Bill Anlrlin was an associate of J. D. Tippit's. (27) IX. MARY ADA DOWLING (14) One other person who was interviewed about Tippit was Mary Ada Dowling, a waitress for the Dobbs House Restaurant on North Beckley Street.. She indicated to the FBI that Tippit had a habit of coming into the Dobbs House each morning. (N8) She also indicated that on one occasion when Tippit was in the restaurant, Lee Harvey Oswald came in to be served. (29) She did not know if they knew each other. (30) X. THE WISE ALLEGATION (15) The committee also learned of an allegation about the assassi- nation involving an associate and friend of J. D. Tippit's which was not reported in the Warren Commission Report. Interviews were con- ducted by the FBI in December 1963 about that allegation, and were furnished to the Warren Commission, but the substance of those inter- views was not included in the report made public by the Commission. (16) In February 1977, the committee received information from Wes Wise, a reporter with KRLD-TV in Dallas at the time of the assassination and later mayor of Dallas, that he had received informa- tion about a car near the scene of the Tippit shooting that was traced to Carl Mather, a close friend of Tippit's. According to Wise, on De- cember 4, 1963, he was giving a speech at the El Chlco Restaurant in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. (31) After the subject of the speech had turned to events surrounding the assassination, a man in the audi- ence named Pate approached Wise and said a mechanic who worked 38 for Pate had observed a car in the parking lot of the El Chico Restau- rant on the afternoon of November 22 after radio reports were being broadcast about the shooting in Dealey Plaza. (32) (17) Wise went to Pate to discuss the story with the mechanic. (33) The mechanic told Wise that after the assassination there were sirens blaring and police cars "all over the area" near the garage. (3!y) He noticed a man sitting in an irregularly parked car in the restaurant parking lot ; the car was slightly hidden by a billboard.