Reply #62: Oswald [View All]

[frogmarch]

killed JFK and acted alone. That's my opinion. Why is it so hard for many to believe that Oswald did it? The man was a loose cannon, with assassination on the brain.

Excerpt from Wikipedia article on Oswald:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald

General Edwin Walker was an outspoken anti-communist, segregationist and member of the John Birch Society who had been commanding officer of the Army's 24th Infantry Division based in West Germany under NATO supreme command until he was relieved of his command in 1961 by JFK for distributing right-wing literature to his troops. Walker resigned from the service and returned to his native Texas. He ran in the six-person Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1962 but lost to John Connally, who went on to win the race. When Walker came to Oswald's attention in February 1963 the general was making front page news with an evangelist partner in an anti-Communist tour called Operation Midnight Ride.

Oswald put Walker under surveillance, taking pictures of the general's home and nearby railroad tracks (with the same camera Marina later used to take the famous backyard poses). Oswald mail-ordered a rifle (see below) using his alias Alex Hidell, having already mail-ordered a revolver in January. He planned the assassination for April 10, ten days after he was fired from Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. He chose a Wednesday evening since the neighborhood would be relatively crowded because of services in a church adjacent to Walker's home: He would not stand out and could mingle with the crowds if necessary to make his escape. He left a note in Russian for Marina with instructions for her to follow should he be caught. Walker was sitting at a desk in his dining room when Oswald fired at him from less than a hundred feet (33 m) away. Walker survived only because the bullet struck the wooden frame of the window which deflected its path, but was injured in the forearm by bullet fragments.

The Dallas police had no idea who attempted to kill Walker. Marina saw Oswald burn most of his written assassination plans in the bathtub, although she hid the note he left her in a thick Russian book of household advice, intending to bring it to the police should Oswald again try to kill Walker or anyone else. Oswald's involvement was unknown until the note and some of the photos were found by authorities following the assassination of JFK. The bullet was too badly damaged to run conclusive ballistics studies, though neutron activation tests later proved the bullet was from the same cartridge manufacturer as the two which later struck Kennedy.