From Myers' book 'With Malice'
FBI agent Robert M. Barrett observed Dallas police handling a wallet at the Tippit murder scene shortly before Oswald's arrest at the Texas Theater six blocks away. Television news footage shot at the scene supports this basic fact.
Fifteen years later, while having dinner with fellow agent James Hosty, Barrett recalled that Dallas police Captain W.R. Westbrook asked him at the Tippit scene whether he knew a “Lee Harvey Oswald” or an “Alek Hidell?” While Barrett assumed the names were taken from identification in the wallet, he never saw the identification or handled the wallet. the only thing connecting Oswald to the wallet filmed at the Tippit shooting scene is Barrett's recollection that Captain Westbrook asked him about the names “Oswald” and “Hidell” while Barrett was at the scene.
I concluded in With Malice that it is more likely that Barrett was asked the questions about the names Oswald and Hidell back at City Hall after Oswald's arrest, not at the scene of Tippit’s murder. The only charitable explanation is that Barrett misremembered where he was when Westbrook asked him about the names Oswald and Hidell
Of course. Agent Barrett was in need of rest and that wallet event at the Tippit scene just never happened like he thought. We have the clairvoyant Dale Myers to thank for his postulation.
Why Tippit stopped Oswald---
No one can be one hundred percent certain of the exact reason Tippit stopped Oswald on Tenth Street. The Warren Commission speculated that the description of the suspect wanted in connection with Kennedy's murder, which was put out over the police radio, led to Tippit stopping Oswald. Conspiracy theorists questioned whether such a meager description ("white male, approximately 30, slender build, height five feet, ten inches, weight 165 pounds") would have led Tippit to focus on Oswald as opposed to any one of hundreds of other white males who fit that description.
In With Malice, I suggested the possibility that Oswald had been walking west on Tenth Street and upon seeing Tippit's approaching police car spun around and began walking east. Such an overtly suspicious action might have caused Tippit to stop Oswald and investigate.
My thesis was the result of a close examination of the detailed accounts of eyewitnesses Jimmy Burt, William A. Smith, Jack R. Tatum, Helen Markham, and William Scoggins. A sixth witness to Oswald's direction of travel was discovered among FBI files after publication of my book.
This sixth witness was William Lawrence Smith, a brick mason and foreman working at an apartment complex one block east of the Tippit shooting scene. Smith told the FBI that while walking to a café on Marsalis for lunch he passed a man he believed was Oswald heading west on Tenth.
Jimmy Burt and friend William A. “Bill” Smith (no relation to the brick mason) were standing across the street from the apartment complex at about the same time. Burt later said that he too saw Oswald walking west on Tenth.
About one minute later, Jack R. Tatum was driving along Tenth Street when he saw Officer Tippit stopping Oswald as he walked east along the sidewalk. Helen Markham also said that Tippit stopped Oswald as he was walking east.
So here were two groups of eyewitnesses claiming that Oswald was walking in two different directions prior to the shooting – the first group said he was walking west; the second group said he was walking east.
The testimony of William Scoggins, a cabdriver parked and eating lunch at the corner of Tenth and Patton, turned out to be the key to resolving the conflict.
According to Scoggins, Tippit drove across in front of his cab as he headed eastbound on Tenth Street. Scoggins watched as Tippit pulled to the curb 50 yards further down the street. It was then that Scoggins noticed Oswald standing on the sidewalk nearby, facing west.
Scoggins told the Warren Commission that he couldn't be certain of Oswald's direction of travel before Tippit stopped him because when he first saw him he was standing still on the sidewalk, facing west. This raises an interesting and very important question. If Oswald was walking east prior to the shooting, as the Warren Commission later claimed, why didn't Scoggins see him pass in front of his cab, just as he had seen Tippit do?
Scoggins' cab was parked at the corner of Tenth and Patton – 150 feet west of the shooting scene. The front bumper of the cab was nearly blocking the crosswalk along the path that Oswald would have taken had he been walking east. That means that Oswald's pant leg would have nearly brushed up against the front bumper of Scoggins’ cab as he passed in front of him.
How could Scoggins have missed such an event? By Scoggins own account, he was sitting in his cab eating lunch while observing the area. It seemed incredible that Scoggins could have missed seeing Oswald pass right in front of him if he were indeed walking east as early investigators believed.It becomes abundantly clear why Scoggins didn’t see Oswald cross in front of his cab when you realize that the two witnesses who observed Oswald walking eastbound – Markham and Tatum – only did so after noticing Tippit's squad car pulling to the curb some 150 feet east of where Scoggins’ cab was parked.
Given Scoggins’ testimony, there seems to be only one explanation as to what happened on Tenth Street – Oswald was walking west just as brick mason William Lawrence Smith and eyewitness Jimmy Burt observed, but changed direction and began walking east before he reached Scoggins' cab.
So according to Myers...Oswald was walking around in circles. Going west on 10th took him going back toward Beckley where he supposedly started! So where would he have been coming from? Where was he going? And then there is that walking all over the neighborhood problematic time element.
The cool calm and collected Oswald that Marion Baker confronted in the lunchroom became a shirking paranoid for no real reason. The claim that Oswald was suspected and then challenged by Tippit because he matched the description placed on the police radio was definitely a stretch.
About the time factor...cab driver Scoggins placed the time of the shots at after 1:25 PM. The ambulance was on the way before the policeman ever got shot? Why do you have to be a
conspiracy theorist to question something? Is a defense attorney automatically a CT?
A statement to the FBI----
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10406#relPageId=77From Scoggin's testimony before the Commission
https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/scoggins.htmMr. BELIN. Now, let me ask you this question. First of all, do you remember, or can you describe the man you saw on November 22 with the gun?
Mr. SCOGGINS. He was a medium-height fellow with, kind of a slender look, and approximately, I said 25, 26 years old, somewhere along there.
Mr. BELIN. Do you remember the color of his hair?
Mr. SCOGGINS. Yes. It was light; let's see, was it light or not-medium brown, I would say.
Mr. BELIN. Pardon?
Mr. SCOGGINS. Medium brown, I would say--now, wait a minute. Now, medium brown or dark.
Mr. BELIN. Medium brown or dark hair?
Mr. BELIN. Had you seen any pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald in the newspapers prior to the time you went to the police station lineup?
Mr. SCOGGINS. I think I saw one in the morning paper.
Someone he supposedly identified over four months earlier and Scoggins couldn't remember whether his hair was light or dark. But never mind that...the cops and the news folks had already identified Oswald for him.
Dale Myers supplies witnesses all over 10th St that noticed the suspect walking about before the shooting but not a single one observed a supposed traveler that started from 1026 Beckley until the sighting on 10th.
Scoggins stated that he saw Tippit "every day". David Belin didn't seem to care about that. Neither did Dale Myers apparently.
A Harold Weisberg article---
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/S%20Disk/Scoggins%20William/Item%2001.pdf
