The Single Bullet Fact

Why the Conspirati Will Never Embrace the Truth

By DALE K. MYERS

It’s been nearly twenty-years since I described the single bullet theory as “a single bullet fact” on the 2003 ABC-TV Special Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy.

 

“It’s not even a single bullet theory, in my opinion,” I said. “It’s a single bullet fact.”

 

Of course, I prefaced my remark with “in my opinion,” but what does that matter? The conspirati – and in particular, James DiEugenio – have never been able to let it go.

 

Case in point, Jimmy D’s latest rant entitled, “Dale Myers and his World of Illusion,” posted on his own Kennedy & Kings website a few days ago.

 

I generally don’t bother addressing Jimmy’s “long-on-wind-and-short-on-facts” diatribes, but this one is so full of nonsense, that I thought it might be fun to trip down memory lane and set Jimmy straight on a couple of things, though I don’t for a minute think it will drag him any closer to reality.

 

You see, Jimmy and I have a long history of disagreement on the Kennedy and Tippit cases that stretches back nearly thirty years. For you long-in-the tooth types, you’re well-aware of the skirmishes. This is aimed at the neophytes who might think there’s something to Jimmy D’s admonishments. There isn’t.

 

Ancient history

 

Jimmy D and I first scuffled at a lecture he gave in a backroom at Sully’s Bar in Dearborn, Michigan, on November 20, 1994. A handful of people were there and heard Jimmy claim CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite was part of the cover-up. I challenged him. He wasn’t happy. You can read all about it HERE.

 

I would have been satisfied to leave our little tussle in the privacy of that backroom, but Jimmy D thought it wise to attack me and friend Gus Russo in an Internet posting in 1999. Gus and I responded accordingly. Read all about it HERE and HERE.

 

Gus and I were happy to let things go at that point – after all, we had our say – but Jimmy just couldn’t let it go.

 

In 2008, Jimmy D referred to yours truly, Todd W. Vaughan and Gus Russo as “The Gang of Three” – oooo, they sound dangerous. Our crime? As new evidence became available, we dared to refine our thinking about the so-called vast conspiracy to assassinate the President. (Good gawd, we can’t have that!) Read all about it HERE.

 

A few days after my response to the “Gang of Three” charge, Jimmy D fired another air-headed volley in my direction. In response, I mused:

As I’ve come to expect, Mr. DiEugenio only manages to run the same ol’ vitriol nonsense up the flagpole to see who he can get to salute. I’m sure there will be a few.

Like a lot of anti-government zealots who have hijacked the JFK assassination case to further their own political ideology, Mr. DiEugenio spends the vast majority of his time trying to diminish anyone who disagrees with his agenda.

The chief weapon of these zealots is ignorance. They prey on those poor unfortunate souls who can be convinced that the opinions of three non-experts outweigh the expert, that the disposition of those involved in the creation of documentaries and books on the case can be gleaned by outsiders through phrenology, and that they themselves are so important that a vast conspiracy has formed to prevent them from revealing the truth.

Of course, the only thing these disillusioned souls manage to prove is how far out on the limb they’ve climbed.

I know. It’s all a little silly and childish. Most of the time, I ignore Jimmy’s gibberish because in the long run what he has to say about me and people I know doesn’t matter one whit.

 

On the other hand, now and then, I feel compelled to draw the curtain back and show the newcomers to the big conspiracy that the Wizard is only a Kansas con man.

 

He’s back

 

A few days ago, Jimmy D decided it was time once again to take a few shots at Mr. Single Bullet Fact.

 

In “Dale Myers and his World of Illusion,” Jimmy claims that I “attacked” his savior, Oliver Stone, and his new documentary JFK Revisited with a series of “groundless” claims. You can read what I actually wrote HERE.

 

Using my review as an excuse for his diatribe, Jimmy claims that I made “a career out of giving the MSM what it wants” concerning the JFK assassination and the Tippit murder. To support this charge, Jimmy offers a rambling, nearly incoherent series of claims that amount to this:

• I just had to get back at Oliver Stone and write a bad review of his new documentary JFK Revisited.
• I used ABC-TV in 2003 to broadcast my computer “simulation” and acoustic analysis in an effort to push my bias against conspiracy theories
• I foisted the dubious Tippit shooting eyewitness Jack Ray Tatum on the public via the 1993 PBS / Frontline special “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?”
• I’m a liar and generally a bum who shouldn’t be believed about anything

Okay. Let’s take ‘em one at a time.

 

Revisited

 

As for my review of JFK Revisited, Jimmy claims I couldn’t properly count the running length of the DVD package – he says the four-hour and two-hour versions have overlap so my claim that I reviewed “almost ten hours of material” was wrong. Really? I guess Jimmy forgot about all the ancillary video interviews included in the package. Duh!

 

Jimmy then claims that I “slipped up” and criticized the Stone documentary for something it didn’t include, namely, the Tippit murder. Jimmy writes: “He [Myers] then acknowledges that some might think this is not fair, but he brushes this off with another of his patently bombastic pronouncements: “I think this is the heart of why the film comes off like a stacked-deck.”

 

Of course, Jimmy D doesn’t mention what I wrote next:

I get that Oliver Stone would rather focus on the why behind the JFK assassination, but how can you get to the why if you don’t know the who and the what? 

 

Author James DiEugenio offers this explanation in his semi-annotated book: “Although our film does not deal with the murder of Tippit, it is highly unlikely Oswald was the killer.” Well, I guess that solves it.

 

What does DiEugenio offer to back up his statement? Answer: His own 2018 article, “The Tippit Case in the New Millennium,” which in fact borrows heavily from the embarrassing writings and musings of John Armstrong, Bill Simpich, Joseph McBride and Farris Rookstool. I say embarrassing because you couldn’t find four of the worst sources for truth and fact in the Tippit case anywhere on the planet. I know. I’ve written about what they’ve done with the case on this very blog and in my 1998 book With Malice – ad nauseum. Pick any aspect of the case – I dare you – and I’ll show you how they’ve avoided the truth and injected their own brand of crazy.

 

And if DiEugenio’s own article isn’t enough to convince you that Oswald is innocent of the Tippit murder, he suggests you read “a much longer treatment” by Joseph McBride. I can only presume that he refers to McBride’s book Into the Nightmare – a dizzying collection of irrational and illogical thought that defies description. I pointed out just a small fraction of McBride’s idiocy on this subject in a blog review you’ll find HERE and HERE.

 

Oliver Stone and James DiEugenio won’t deal with the Tippit murder because it is the snare that entrapped Lee Harvey Oswald. It was Tippit’s murder that made Oswald a prime suspect in the JFK assassination. How can anyone taking a serious ten-hour look at JFK’s murder ignore it?

Must Jimmy D always cherry-pick to make his points? Answer: Yes.

 

Peter Jennings and acoustics

 

Jimmy D claims I was hired by PBS in 1993 and ABC in 2003 to do “what he could do to support the Warren Commission. He dealt with three main areas in those two appearances – the Tippit case, the acoustics, and his so-called Dealey Plaza ‘simulation’ of the shooting.” Sounds like he considers me a triple threat! Uh-oh.

 

Allow me to say a few things about my television work. First, I know Jimmy and company can’t wrap their heads around the simple idea that someone might have a passion for something that media people see value in and want to get those ideas to a larger audience. No sell-outs required.

 

For every program that finds Oswald guilty I can point to many others that find him innocent. Has anyone heard of “The Men Who Killed Kennedy” series? That’s television, folks. They’re not interested in solving the case. It’s about eyeballs and making money. The Internet is television on steroids. So, please, spare me the sell-out analogy.

 

Second, if you’ve read anything that I’ve written then you know I’m not a die-hard Warren Commission supporter by any stretch of the imagination. The Commission got some things right, in my opinion, and got some things wrong. I’m more interested in filling in the gaps and getting to the truth. Only simpletons try to cast everything as group think.

 

Finally, my computer animation is a reconstruction of the crime, based on the Zapruder film, not a simulation. In computer parlance, “simulations” are animations in which variables are input and the computer calculates what would happen given certain variables (i.e., physics, etc.).

 

Now, as for the blow-hard at hand, Jimmy D likes to point out that I don’t have the credentials of famed forensic scientist Dr. Henry C. Lee (as if I’m supposed to before embarking on the creation of a forensic animation) and concludes that I have no business discussing trajectories, wound ballistics, and the like.

 

Ironically, then, Jimmy trots out Millicent Cranor, Pat Speer, Bob Harris, and others to take pot shots at my animation work. What are their credentials in the field of computer animation? Answer: Nada.

 

The credentials I hold in my chosen field are solid. My computer animation work was evaluated and vetted by Z-Axis Corporation in 2003. They concluded that the methods I used to match the path of the limousine to the Zapruder and other film and photographic sources were sophisticated and accurate; that I did an excellent job of matching the positions of Kennedy and Connally in the car; that my use of a straight line for the trajectory of the single-bullet was a reasonable assumption given the speed and relatively short distance the bullet could have traveled; that errors in wound placement based on the autopsy and operative reports of JFK and JBC were properly constrained by the use of an error cone which was well thought out and accurately created; and that the methods used to determine the source of the head shot were sound and logical. In summary, they wrote, “Mr. Myers has taken a comprehensive and reasoned approach to animating this event and has successfully incorporated many diverse visual records into a unified and consistent recreation. We believe that the thoroughness and detail incorporated into his work is well beyond that required to present a fair and accurate depiction.” (emphasis added)

 

What does Jimmy D do with the Z-Axis Corporation’s report? He ignores it, of course! Instead, he substitutes a strawman argument that I am unqualified in the field of forensic science.

 

Jimmy gushes that entomologist Don B. Thomas destroyed the basis of the acoustic argument I made in the 2003 ABC-TV special (but didn’t reveal the particulars of until 2007) in Thomas’ book, Hear No Evil.

 

First, ABC television was never going to allow me time to pontificate about all things acoustic in their 2003 special. (Does Jimmy even know how television works?) They did see a demonstration of my argument, however, and were impressed enough to include a few minutes of the final result because of it’s easy-to-understand visual appeal. That’s television.

 

In 2007 (and revised in 2010), I published a 192-page graphic report (available HERE for free) that explained my analysis of amateur films of the motorcade and how it proved that no motorcycle was in a position to broadcast the sounds of gunshots over the police radio as the HSCA Acoustics Panel claimed and that their acoustic evidence was therefore invalid. 

 

Jimmy D’s latest rant claims that Don Thomas destroyed my argument that Dallas Police Motorcycle Officer H.B. McLain would had to have been “riding at 200 mph to be in the correct spot” to capture the sounds of the gunshots as presented by the HSCA.

 

Actually, what I concluded was much more sophisticated and destructive to the HSCA and Thomas.

 

You see, we know McLain’s speed as he entered Houston street. It was 14.7 mph as he rounded Main onto Houston. We also know when this happened in relationship to the HSCA’s own acoustic timing – just 0.6 seconds before the first shot! And according to the HSCA, McLain was traveling at the speed of the motorcade – 10.5 mph – between shots 1 and 2.

 

That means – if the HSCA’s acoustic evidence is valid – then McLain would have to accelerate from 14.7 mph to a speed significantly greater than 198 mph in just 0.2 seconds and then slow down to 10.5 mph before reaching the first shot position – all of this during the allotted 0.6 seconds! Does that sound possible to anyone with a fifth-grade education in science and physics?

 

More importantly, Jimmy D fails to mention that in Appendix V of my report (pp.155-181), I dedicated 26-pages to Thomas’ arguments and demonstrate that each and every one is hollow and without merit. But what does that matter, when you’re cherry-picking your argument?

 

Jack Tatum and Tippit

 

As for the Tippit shooting, Jimmy’s claim that I used Jack Ray Tatum as my chief witness in the 1993 PBS / Frontline special “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” infers that I had something to do with Tatum being on the PBS special. I was hired as a consultant and on-camera talking-head. Producer Mike Sullivan made all the decisions regarding the production. In fact, the Tatum segment was filmed before I arrived in Dallas to do my part.

 

I know Tatum was one of many witnesses in my book “With Malice,” and certainly not my choice for “chief witness.” So, I don’t know what Jimmy D is talking about, and frankly, I don’t think he does either.

 

Regardless, Jimmy D points his readers to the work of Jack Myers (no relation) who claims that Tatum’s eyewitness account is suspect largely because he claimed to have seen Tippit’s killer from a distance of 10-15 feet and positively identified him as Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

But wait! The gunman was never closer than 100 feet of Tatum’s position when he heard the shots and stopped his car, we are assured. Consequently, Jack questions whether Mr. Tatum was even a witness and that the inclusion of him in the Frontline special was producer Mike Sullivan’s own twist on the truth.

 

Slow down, Hoss. Even a bone-head knows that Tatum drove past Oswald as he looked into Tippit’s squad car from the passenger side. That put Tatum at 10-15 feet from Oswald as he passed, just like he said in Frontline. (By the way, Tatum told me the same thing in 1983.) Are people pontificating on this subject really that stupid? Answer: Yes.

 

Jimmy D writes that had he included the Tippit shooting in Oliver Stone’s documentary, he would have relied on the work of Joseph McBride featured in his June 2013 book Into the Nightmare. Yeah, that sounds about right.

 

This is where Jimmy D trots out one of the dumbest arguments ever offered to undermine my credibility as an expert on the Tippit case. Jimmy writes:

For instance, it turns out that -- in all the decades he says he worked on the Tippit case -- he never interviewed the murdered policeman’s father. If Joe McBride found him, why couldn’t Dale? When McBride quoted Edgar Lee Tippit as stating things that would contradict the Myers/Warren Report version of the Tippit shooting, Dale did a funny thing. He now wrote that Edgar Lee was somehow mentally afflicted. As McBride points out, that information was garnered from a sister of J. D. ten days after Myers ordered McBride’s book. In other words, Myers somehow could not locate the man in some 35 years, but now—oh so conveniently-- he finds out it did not matter…

 

Myers wants to belatedly discredit Edgar because he brings out evidence that indicates Tippit, and another officer, “Had been assigned by the police to hunt down Oswald in Oak Cliff.” Edgar then added that the other policeman did not make it to the scene since he stopped for an accident. As McBride also reveals, former DA Henry Wade seemed to corroborate Edgar. He told Joe: “Somebody reported to me that the police already knew who he [Oswald] was, and they were looking for him.” McBride goes further and states, with convincing evidence, that the other officer, who did not get to the scene, was William Duane Mentzel.

Again, Jimmy D does some serious cherry-picking to make his point – surprise! – culling key information to prevent you from deciding what’s true and what’s not true.

 

First, neither Jimmy D (nor McBride for that matter) has ever acknowledged that I interviewed numerous family members – brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews – and friends of Officer Tippit in 1999 – fourteen years before McBride’s book went on sale. Much of what they told me was published in the 2013 edition of “With Malice,” so Jimmy and Joe know all about those interviews. Instead, they focus on the one who got away – Edgar Tippit, the father of J.D., who was senile and in the throes of Alzheimer’s disease by the time I met him in 1999.

 

McBride’s excuses for not following up on his own allegation about Tippit’s alleged complicity in the JFK assassination was laid bare in my 2014 blog-post cited above. But if you are too busy to click the link, here’s the section that Jimmy D refers to;

[from Joseph McBride’s 2014 article: “Dale Myers and his ‘so-called evidence’” ]

 

…Myers conveniently, and falsely, tries to discredit Edgar Lee Tippit by claiming that he was suffering from "a dash of dementia" when I interviewed him and therefore cannot be trusted. …Myers wrote, "Little is known about Tippit's parents, Edgar Lee and Lizzie Mae Tippit." That situation could have been corrected if Myers, who claims he has been researching the Tippit case since 1978, had ever interviewed Mr. Tippit, but the second edition also shows no sign that happened. Perhaps Myers was reluctant to find out what Edgar Lee had to say. As a source for the allegation that Mr. Tippit was demented, Myers cites Joyce Tippit DeBord, a sister of J. D. whom he reports having interviewed on July 11, 2013. That was ten days after Myers ordered a copy of my book. So, he apparently felt the belated need to quickly dig up a family source willing to help him discredit Mr. Tippit and his revealing interview…

I suppose that the idea that Tippit’s sister would work with yours truly to discredit her own father makes perfect sense in the world of jackasses, but where I come from that notion lifts absurdity to new levels. For those interested in reality – Mr. Tippit’s account is an obvious skewed version of what we know to be true, so obvious in fact, that even a child of five can see it. I can only assume that Mr. Tippit’s extreme age at the time of McBride’s claimed interview, the fact that nearly thirty-years had passed since the events he was recalling, and the fact that he was suffering the onset of dementia (according to his daughter), might have been contributing factors. Apparently, McBride was less curious and more eager to embrace any claim that supported his belief that Tippit was involved in the so-called “big conspiracy” that not only did he lap up Mr. Tippit’s belated recollection without any critical thinking but he studiously avoided contacting the only source who could corroborate the story – the one person, who by McBride’s own account, was the primary source of the claim – i.e., Marie Tippit. How’s that for due diligence?

[more McBride:]

 

…After my book appeared, I found what I consider the clinching information that Mentzel was the other officer besides Tippit who was hunting down Oswald, and I found it in a surprising place, i.e., the second edition of Myers’s book….

Happy to help – again. Am I the only one who finds it strange that McBride’s idea of research is to read someone else’s book (even if it is mine) – which amounts to a secondary source? Why didn’t McBride contact Officer Mentzel about the allegation while he was alive? Or contact his widow? Better still, why didn’t McBride bother to reach out to the primary source of Mr. Tippit’s claim, Marie Tippit? And what does McBride conclude from the new information he read about in my book? According to McBride, it’s more “proof” that Mentzel was working with Tippit to gun down Oswald. Reality check: The information demonstrates to the sane that Mentzel was neither a co-conspirator nor a would-be murderer – labels that McBride is happy to slap on the dead without anything that would remotely resemble proof.

[still more McBride:]

 

…Myers correctly notes that I wrote Mrs. Tippit on March 5, 2013, to request an interview, and that she did not respond. Somehow, he twists that to blame me for not talking with her for my book, which I was continuing to write until shortly before its publication that June…

I “twisted” nothing. I merely made note of the obvious – that between 1992 and 2013 – a period of twenty-one years – McBride failed to contact the primary source of one of the most outrageous and patently absurd allegations ever made against Officer Tippit – an allegation that is the heart and soul of McBride’s own book. What? Too busy writing to do what any high school newspaper reporter would have done? There’s no way to sugarcoat or dodge that failing. The result is nothing short of propaganda.

 

I had a suggestion at the time for Mr. McBride that might’ve clear all this up: I suggested that he telephone or visit Mrs. Tippit and ask her the questions that bother him so about her and her deceased husband? I also wrote: “Be sure and send her a copy of Into the Nightmare in advance so she can be up to speed on your areas of interest.”

 

He later wrote that he approached her during one of her 50th anniversary appearances and tried to get an audience with her but he was rebuffed by her “handlers.” Yeah, no kidding. Her “handlers” was well-aware of who McBride was and what he had written.

 

And just to be clear, I’ve learned quite a bit about Edgar Tippit and his family over the last 23-years and I can assure you that if Mr. Tippit knew what McBride planned to write about his son, he would have kicked that fool right out the door!

 

Here’s a tip for you would-be researchers: Don’t make public allegations and then ask for an interview.

 

But then, McBride and Jimmy D aren’t really interested in the truth. Are they? For them, and the people who gravitate toward them and the forums where they post, the allegations are enough.

 

A big fat liar

 

Recently, Jimmy D has taken to calling me a liar regarding a phone call I made to Dr. David W. Mantik in the wake of his review of my 1995 VHS video release “Secrets of a Homicide: Research Edition,” which contained a collection of sequences from my animated reconstruction of the JFK shooting.

 

Dr. Mantik wrote a negative review of the video based on an article published in Video Toaster User magazine. I thought it unconscionable to write a review without actually seeing the work and telephoned Dr. Mantik at his office. When he came to the telephone, I explained who I was, that I had read his review, and wondered if I could answer any questions he might have about my work. He was a doctor after all. Clearly, he must be smart! He wasn’t.

 

His response to my query was short and sweet: “No.”

 

Okay, I said, and hung up.

 

Mind you, I called him to answer any questions he might have had about the video he hadn’t seen. I don’t think that’s how investigative journalism is supposed to work.

 

Jimmy D recently claimed that he asked Mantik about that 1995 call and Mantik reportedly denied that it happened or he said he can’t remember, or – whatever. Either way, I could give two shits what the good doctor has to say at this late date. Or, for that matter, what Jimmy D has to say about what the good doctor has to say.

 

I remember exactly where I was when I made that call. It was one of my earliest awakenings to the truth about some of the people involved in “researching” this case and consequently it made quite an impression on me. So, yes, it did happen exactly as I just described.

 

Enough is enough

 

This is where you probably cry “Uncle!” But for a lout and load mouth like Jimmy D it’s never enough.

 

What is Jimmy is so sore about? Is it the fact that he is often irrelevant to the discussion at hand? Does he really know as much as he professes? Or is he afraid everyone will find out how little he does know?

 

So much of what he writes amounts to little more than citations from other writers. More than once, I’ve been shocked at how little he knows about the minute-to-minute mechanics of November 1963. And he’s not the only one.

 

No, Jimmy D will never stop trying to pull people down in order to get to the top of the pile. In the end, it’s hard to get mad at someone you just feel sorry for.

 

It’s been almost twenty-years since I made that remark about the single-bullet fact. As far as I’m concerned, my own work convinced me of the validity of that single shot. In fact, in my opinion, it’s the only viable solution given everything I know about the wounds, the trajectories and the physical evidence. Period.

 

That’s an impossible pill for Jimmy D and his pals to swallow given that they’ve spent a lifetime promoting the opposite viewpoint. Too bad.

 

You can’t embrace the truth if you don’t know it. [END]