Josiah "Tink" Thompson | |
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Born | |
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Philosophy professor, private investigator |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Yale University |
Josiah "Tink" Thompson (b. 17 January 1935) is an American writer, retired professional private investigator, and former philosophy professor. In 1967, he published both The Lonely Labyrinth, a study of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous works, and Six Seconds in Dallas: A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assassination. The culmination of his half-century-long Kennedy assassination project, updating his own and others’ investigative work, correcting certain errors, and reconciling the whole body of valid forensic and eyewitness evidence, was published in early 2021 as Last Second in Dallas.
Thompson was born and raised in East Liverpool, Ohio. [1] He graduated from Yale University in 1957 and immediately entered the Navy, serving in Underwater Demolition Team 21. Returning to Yale, Thompson earned his Ph.D. in 1964. [2] He joined the Yale faculty as Instructor in Philosophy and then moved on to teach at Haverford College. He remained at Haverford, including a period living and researching in Denmark, until 1976. He wrote or edited several works about Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.
In 1976 Thompson left Haverford and moved to San Francisco, to begin a new career as a private investigator, first working for Hal Lipset [3] and then David Fechheimer. [4] [5] Thompson worked as a PI for thirty-five years, retiring in 2011. He worked mostly in criminal cases, including the investigation of dozens of murders. [6] Among his better-known cases were participation in the defense of Bill and Emily Harris in the Patty Hearst kidnapping, and of Chol Soo Lee on murder charges. He was appointed by the federal court as investigator on the defense team for Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing trial, and investigated the bombing attack on environmental activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. [7]
In 1988, he published Gumshoe: Reflections in a Private Eye, a well-received memoir discussing his post-academic life as a private detective.
Since 1976, Thompson has lived with his wife, Nancy, in Bolinas, California, a seaside village just north of San Francisco. He serves as registered agent for the Bolinas Cemetery Corporation, defending the 150-year-old graveyard from vandals, litterbugs and developers. [8] [9] Their daughter, Lis, died of breast cancer in 2015. [10] Their son, Everson, practices as a criminal defense private investigator in San Rafael, California. [11]
In Six Seconds in Dallas, Thompson argued that the physical evidence available as of 1967, corroborating eye-witness accounts, showed that multiple shooters fired within the same few seconds at President Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. [12] Fred Winship of the AP wrote that "some of Thompson's conclusions are based on original research in the National Archives, documents and photos not seen by the Warren Commission and interviews with eyewitnesses." [13]
The book was condensed in the Saturday Evening Post issue for December 2, 1967, generating news stories in both the New York Times and Newsweek . John Updike wrote a “Talk of the Town” piece for The New Yorker about “the Umbrella Man” (12/9/67) and described Six Seconds as “absolutely fascinating. It convinced me who’s never been a conspiracy man at all that the whole thing must be rethought.” [14] Max Lerner devoted his syndicated New York Post column on November 27, 1967 to describing the book as “more careful and more powerful than the Warren Report. It was not until this book that I became clear in my mind about some kind of collaborative shooting.”
Time, Inc. sued Thompson and his publisher for infringement of copyright because of Zapruder frames sketched in the book. A federal court gave summary judgment to Thompson and his publisher ten months later in a landmark decision stressing fair use rights. [15] [16]
After many years of additional research and investigation of all available evidence, bringing to bear the latest developments in forensic science in such areas as acoustics, ballistics, crime scene reconstruction, and examination of cameras and photographs, Thompson completely revised his seminal work and to some extent its conclusions. Combined with personal memoirs and accounts of twists and turns in his investigation of the case, the 475-page, profusely illustrated result (361 pages of text, plus appendix, extensive notes and index), Last Second in Dallas ( ISBN 978-0-7006-3008-0), was published by the University Press of Kansas in February 2021. [17]
In 1979, twelve years after publication of Six Seconds in Dallas, Thompson was hired to write part of a new book on the then-just-released House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) Report. His assignment was to evaluate the part of the House Report dealing with the physical facts of what happened in Dealey Plaza. He gave up that project in frustration, the new book explains, when it became clear that the core evidence in the case, as then understood, was internally contradictory. Confronting an apparent impasse, he turned away from the case and did not return to it until 2011.
During the intervening 32 years, Thompson recounts in Last Second, the corpus of reliable evidence in the case changed. With respect to the forensic evidence in particular, advances in scientific research with regard to both acoustics and ballistics removed what had been thought to be major facts from the table of genuine evidence, by showing them to be mistaken. Last Second in Dallas weaves together the remaining, scientifically verifiable facts into a picture of singular simplicity. [18]
Thompson relies not only on the Zapruder film and the police radio dictabelt recording of the shooting (which he shows to be valid), but also begins the book by quoting the reports of numerous witnesses he interviewed for LIFE magazine in 1966 and 1967. At the end it becomes apparent that the cleansed forensic arguments confirm what numerous eye-witnesses reported just after the shooting in November 1963.
Throughout the book, Thompson emphasizes and scrutinizes the raw facts of the case. In the last second of the shooting, the presidential limousine is at its closest approach to Zapruder’s camera, allowing a precise and detailed examination of the images. The last two shots can unmistakenly be seen hitting their target, and these impacts match exactly the timing of the shots heard on the sound recording. [19] When first struck in the head at Zapruder frame 313, almost five seconds after the initial burst of gunfire which had already wounded Kennedy and Texas Governor Connally, the President is thrown backwards and to the left. Riding to the limousine's left rear are two Dallas Police motorcycle outriders who experience brain and blood debris blown over them at high velocity. The new book subjects this next-to-last (and fatal) shot to a particularly exacting acoustic examination. Less than a second later at frame 328, when Kennedy is hit in the head a second time, from the rear, his body and head are catapulted directly forward, with blood and brain blasted as far forward as the car’s hood ornament.
In Last Second, as in Six Seconds some 54 years earlier, Thompson eschews all speculation as to who the conspirators may have been as well as their motives. Focusing on the final second, he explains how it can be known with great certainty that Kennedy was hit twice in the head, just 0.71 seconds apart, by bullets fired from diametrically opposed directions. The first of these final and equally non-survivable shots came from behind a stockade fence atop the grassy knoll and not from the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald was located.
In 2011, The New York Times posted a short documentary film by Errol Morris featuring Thompson's commentary about the "Umbrella Man", a man holding a black umbrella during the assassination of Kennedy. [20] [21] In this interview, Thompson deploys both his philosophical and his criminal investigative skills to elucidate the difference between logical inferences premised on facts and speculative conspiratorial theorizing. [22]
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson through Executive Order 11130 on November 29, 1963, to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy that had taken place on November 22, 1963.
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife, Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife, Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US Marine. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting; Connally was also wounded in the attack but recovered. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency upon Kennedy's death.
Norma Jean Lollis Hill was an eyewitness to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Hill was known as the "Lady in Red" because of the long red raincoat she wore that day, as seen in Abraham Zapruder's film of the assassination. A teacher by profession, she was a consultant for Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK and co-wrote JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness with Bill Sloan.
The "umbrella man", identified by the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 as Louie Steven Witt, is a name given to a figure who appears in the Zapruder film, and several other films and photographs, near the Stemmons Freeway sign within Dealey Plaza during the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy.
The single-bullet theory, often derided by referring to it as the magic-bullet theory, was introduced by the Warren Commission in its investigation of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy to explain what happened to the bullet that struck Kennedy in the back and exited through his throat. Given the lack of damage to the presidential limousine consistent with it having been struck by a high-velocity bullet, and the fact that Texas Governor John Connally was wounded and was seated on a jumper seat 1+1⁄2 feet in front of and slightly to the left of the president, the Commission concluded they were likely struck by the same bullet.
Abraham Zapruder was a Ukrainian-born American clothing manufacturer who witnessed the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. He unexpectedly captured the shooting in a home movie while filming the presidential limousine and motorcade as it traveled through Dealey Plaza. The Zapruder film is regarded as the most complete footage of the assassination.
The Babushka Lady is an unidentified woman present during the 1963 assassination of US President John F. Kennedy who might have photographed or filmed the events that occurred in Dallas's Dealey Plaza at the time President John F. Kennedy was shot. Her nickname arose from the headscarf she wore, which was similar to scarves worn by elderly Russian women.
The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963 and 1968, respectively. The HSCA completed its investigation in 1978 and issued its final report the following year, which concluded that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. In addition to now-discredited acoustic analysis of a police channel dictabelt recording, the HSCA also commissioned numerous other scientific studies of assassination-related evidence that corroborate the Warren Commission's findings.
Rosemary Willis was a close witness during the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy.
The Dal-Tex Building is a seven-story office building located at 501 Elm Street in the West End Historic District of downtown Dallas, Texas, United States. The building is located on the northeast corner of Elm and North Houston Streets, across the street from the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, the scene of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The Dal-Tex Building, sometimes called the Dallas-Textiles Building, the Dal-Tex Market Building, or the Dal-Tex Mart Building, was a center of the textile business in Dallas.
Robert J. Groden is an American author who has written extensively about conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. His books include The Killing of a President: The Complete Photographic Record of the JFK Assassination, the Conspiracy, and the Cover-up; The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald: A Comprehensive Photographic Record; and JFK: The Case for Conspiracy. Groden is a photo-optics technician who served as a photographic consultant for the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
David Samuel Lifton was an American author who wrote the 1981 bestseller Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, a work that puts forth evidence that there was a conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy.
Orville Orhel Nix was a witness to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. His filming of the shooting, which only captured the last few seconds of it, is considered to be nearly as important as the film by Abraham Zapruder.
Marie M. Muchmore was one of the witnesses to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. A color 8 mm film that Muchmore made is one of the primary documents of the assassination. The Muchmore film, with other 8 mm films taken by Abraham Zapruder and Orville Nix, was used by the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination and to position the presidential limousine in a forensic recreation of the event in May 1964.
Marilyn Sitzman was an American receptionist and a witness to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. She was with her boss, Abraham Zapruder, as he made the Zapruder film, the most studied record of the assassination.
The John F. Kennedy assassination and the subsequent conspiracy theories surrounding it have been discussed, referenced, or recreated in popular culture numerous times.
The Zapruder film is a silent 8mm color motion picture sequence shot by Abraham Zapruder with a Bell & Howell home-movie camera, as United States President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. It captured the assassination of the President.
Richard E. Sprague was an American computer technician, researcher and author. According to American journalist Richard Russell, who dedicated seventeen years to the investigation of John Kennedy assassination, Sprague was "the leading gatherer of photographic evidence about the Kennedy assassination". Sprague published his investigation in 1976-1985 as three editions of The Taking of America, 1-2-3.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 spawned numerous conspiracy theories. These theories allege the involvement of the CIA, the Mafia, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, the KGB, or some combination of these individuals and entities. The original FBI investigation and Warren Commission report, as well as an alleged "benign CIA cover-up", have led to the claim that the federal government deliberately covered up crucial information in the aftermath of the assassination. Former Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi estimated that a total of 42 groups, 82 assassins, and 214 people had been accused at one time or another in various conspiracy scenarios.
The three tramps are three men photographed by several Dallas-area newspapers under police escort near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Since the mid-1960s, various allegations have been made about the identities of the men and their involvement in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.