My new book, "Into the Nightmare"

[Charles Drago]

was a crack shot with a gun also raises some very interesting possibilities.

"Crack shot" my derriere!

Apply the analytical skills of deep politics:

For me and others, all that this raises is a not the possibility, but rather the likelihood that Mr. McBride is a deep politics naif.

On at least four occasions I presented the following argument to him:

First, I acknowledged the following:

On page 277 of ITN, McBride writes:

"One of the most important pieces of information I gleaned from my interview with Edgar Lee Tippit had to do with J.D.'s shooting prowess. A story his father told me indicated that J.D. possessed, from an early age, an uncanny skill with firearms ... 'He loved to hunt,' recalled [J.D.'s] neighbor and future brother-in-law Jack Christopher. Tippit's father said of J.D., 'He was a good shot,' and that once when J.D. was young, they saw 'a hawk way off sitting on a treetop. J. D. told me, "Get your gun, and I'll kill the hawk." I said, "You can't." He did do it. He killed the hawk with the first shot, at least a hundred yards [away].'"

On page 568 of ITN, McBride writes:

"The shot from behind the retaining wall in relatively close proximity to President Kennedy may not have been a particularly difficult one, but hitting its target was crucial to the success of the plot. The accuracy of that shot that most likely was the one that blew out the back of Kennedy's head attests to the lethal expertise of the gunman who fired it. J. D. Tippit's unusual skill with firearms, from boyhood, was attested to by his father, and it was furthered in his U. S. Army service during World War II and his years with the Dallas Police Department. That expertise could help account for why he may have been chosen for the job of Badge Man [.]"

Then I noted:

Here is a splendid case-in-point in which the application of a refined and encompassing conspiracy model informed by not just the facts of the assassination as we know them, but also by a broad and deep understanding of deep political systems and methodologies, can lead us to valuable insight.

Has your research uncovered evidence of Tippit possessing world-class marksmanship skills of the sort associated with snipers firing at moving targets while operating as part of a military style, two- or three-person team?

Do you equate the skills required to hit a stationary target under optimum, non-threatening conditions with the skills required to kill a president in a public arena?

Do you, Mr. McBride?

Here's why I ask: I'm not alone in having concluded that the conspirators (at the Sponsor and Facilitator levels, at least) understood that, once initiated, the attack on JFK had to succeed if their own security and that of the institutions they represented were to be preserved.

Accordingly, only the most accomplished snipers in the world would have been entrusted with the assignment of fatally wounding the president.

If it can be documented that Tippit possessed such rare skills, then you are on to something.

If not, then Tippit-as-Badge-Man either was shooting blanks (perhaps as a diversionary tactic) or was servicing an as yet poorly understood aspect of the ambush.

To put it another way: Absent proof of Tippit's sniping prowess under the most adverse conditions imaginable, identifying him as one of the JFK shooters is as foolhardy as naming the likes of Johnny Roselli, Charles Nicoletti, James Files, and Lee Harvey Oswald.


Mr. McBride to date has refused to respond in anything approaching a substantive manner.

Accordingly, I am left with no choice but to dismiss Mr. McBride's work in terms that, as a film historian, he would understand:

Into the Nightmare is perfectly suited for CinemaScope, where a story's width is far more important than its depth.


Which is to say: In my informed opinion, Into the Nightmare is a cowardly and shameful book. A charade. A sham.

Draw your own conclusions.