Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  15. Additionally, if some group was behind Oswald’s killing of Kennedy, it obviously wouldn’t have had him use any rifle that was so easily traceable to him, as the Mannlicher-Carcano was, since he would be a link to the group.

  16. If, indeed, groups like the CIA, mob, military-industrial complex, or whatever, were behind the assassination, not only would they have made sure their hit man had the best firearm available, but since they wouldn’t want him to be apprehended and questioned, they almost assuredly would have equipped the firearm with a sound suppressor, most commonly known as a silencer. Silencers go all the way back to the turn of the twentieth century, and a firearms expert for the Los Angeles Police Department told me that as of 1963 they were already sophisticated enough to “substantially diminish the report” of the weapon and to “alter or disguise the sound,” such as to make it sound like “the hitting of a pile of wood with a hammer” or “the operation of machinery.” He said silencers are effective, and shots at Kennedy from a weapon with the best silencer then available “probably wouldn’t have even been heard above the background noise of the motorcade and crowd” in Dealey Plaza.54

  17. A related reality presents itself, which will take a bit more time to explain. The mere fact that Oswald’s rifle was a military rifle (the Carcano was the rifle of the Italian military, the Second World War equivalent of our M-1 rifle) also speaks against a conspiracy for the simple reason that only 6.5-millimeter, full metal-jacketed (FMJ), military-type bullets were ever made for that rifle, not soft-point bullets, the most destructive and deadly bullets by far. Soft-point bullets, a term used by firearms people to refer to partially metal-jacketed bullets with an exposed (unjacketed) lead nose, expand or mushroom upon contact with a human body, thereby causing greater destruction to the victim’s internal organs. (The FMJ-type bullets that Oswald fired have a “closed” nose of metal.) Having unexposed soft lead, they also are much more likely than FMJ bullets to break up into many fragments when they hit bone inside the body, additionally increasing their killing power. With the objectives of making war as civilized and humane as possible, and wounding and immobilizing the adversary rather than killing him,* the July 29, 1899, Hague Convention’s “Declaration Concerning Expanding Bullets” (still adhered to by all armies of the world) specifically prohibited the use in international armed conflict “of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body,” since they cause much more pain, suffering, and internal hemorrhaging. (And Article 23 [e] of the “Annex to Hague Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land” of October 18, 1907, prohibits the employment of “arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause superfluous injury.”) Only FMJ military bullets are permitted. These bullets (the type Oswald fired) can obviously also kill, but if they encounter only soft tissue, they can be expected, unlike soft-point bullets, to travel right through the body (as the bullet that struck the president in the upper-right back did) and frequently are not fatal.† Indeed, Dr. Malcolm Perry, one of the two principal doctors who attempted to resuscitate the president at Parkland Hospital, thought the president could have survived this wound,55 but the head wound was fatal.

  What all of this means is that if a group of conspirators, like the CIA, mob, or KGB, sophisticated in the killing of humans, was behind the assassination—as conspiracy theorists postulate as a certitude—they had their triggerman use the least deadly type of bullet, one that was specifically designed to injure, not kill. How nonsensical is that?

  It should be noted that, like Oswald, James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, didn’t have two nickels to rub together. Yet, unlike the very cheap, old, mail-order rifle Oswald used, the large-bore deer rifle Ray used to kill King, a brand new .30-06 caliber Remington, cost over seven hundred dollars,56 the equivalent of about a two-thousand-dollar rifle today, and the bullet that killed King was a soft-point bullet.57 It may be interesting to the reader to know that the “frontline” people from the HSCA (firearms, photographic, medical, etc., experts who analyzed the evidence, as opposed to the U.S. congressmen on the House Select Committee) whom I worked very closely with on the London trial were not at all confident there was no conspiracy in the assassination of Martin Luther King, whose murder, along with JFK’s, the HSCA also reinvestigated. (The HSCA concluded, “There is a likelihood that James Earl Ray assassinated Doctor Martin Luther King as a result of a conspiracy.”)58 All of them, however, felt there was no conspiracy in the assassination of JFK, that the allegations were all foundationless.

  18. Another point is that Oswald, though a good shot, qualified as a sharpshooter and a marksman in the Marines, but never as an expert. He certainly was not the professional shooter with sniper-like accuracy any group of conspirators would have automatically employed to kill the president of the United States. The CIA or mob or military-industrial complex would have chosen someone not only from the expert category, but from among the very best within that special category.

  19. If, for instance, organized crime (or the CIA, military-industrial complex, etc.) decided to commit the biggest murder in American history, which would result in a retaliation against them of unprecedented proportions if they were discovered to be behind it, they would select a hit man who not only was exceptionally professional and tight-lipped but also had a very successful track record with them. Oswald had no track record with them. Yet they’re going to use and rely on someone like him to kill the president of the United States? Really?

  20. Without exception, all the pro-conspiracy books arguing that Oswald was a hit man for some powerful group (as we know, most contend he wasn’t involved in the assassination at all but was framed) promote the notion that Oswald’s relationship with the group went back some time, and for groups like U.S. intelligence and the KGB, at least four to five years. Further, they claim he was being groomed by them as a presidential assassin or for some other very serious mission. But how likely is it that with the biggest murder ever coming up on his plate, Oswald (on his own or with the group’s knowledge and consent) would try to murder some other public figure first? (As we know, Oswald attempted to murder Major General Edwin Walker just months earlier, on April 10, 1963.) Would the rationale be that he needed live target practice for the main event? As the expression goes, please.

  One footnote to this: Whatever group was allegedly behind Oswald, Walker, a virulent right winger who was one of the leaders of the John Birch Society in Dallas, would represent to their interests the exact opposite of what the moderately liberal JFK would. So there wouldn’t have been any commonality between the intended victims.

  21. In a similar vein, if Oswald, as part of a conspiracy, was scheduled to murder the president of the United States, how likely is it that his physical, mental, and emotional immersion in, and preparation for, such an extremely important and dangerous mission was so minimal, and his concern about it so little, that just two or so weeks before the scheduled murder, the main thing on his mind was to go into the local office of the FBI in Dallas and threaten to blow up the building if one of the agents didn’t stop bothering his wife?

  22. Moreover, if Oswald were about to murder the president in two or so weeks, would he do anything at all that had the potential of drawing anyone’s attention to him, particularly the attention of the FBI?

  23. On October 4, 1963, Oswald applied for a job as a “typesetter trainee” at the Padgett Printing Company in Dallas and was turned down because (the bottom of the application reads) “Bob Stovall [the president of Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall, where Oswald previously worked] does not recommend this man. He was released [there] because of his record as a troublemaker.” Stovall also informed Padgett that Oswald had “communistic tendencies.”59

  If Oswald was the scheduled hit man in a conspiracy to murder Kennedy, why would those behind him (CIA, mob, FBI, etc.) have him apply for a job just seven weeks before the assassination that wasn’t on the presidential motorcade route and would never be?
Padgett Printing is located today where it was back in 1963, at 1313 North Industrial Boulevard in Dallas, a boulevard of light industry and no tall office buildings, where large crowds of people would be nonexistent. After the presidential limousine was scheduled to get off Elm Street onto the Stemmons Freeway en route to the Trade Mart, North Industrial Boulevard, to the west of the freeway, would be running roughly parallel to it, including the location at 1313 North Industrial Boulevard. However, per Dave Torok, president of Padgett Printing, the company’s building has always been only one story, and the Stemmons Freeway, he said, “is a good half mile away, and you can’t see it from our building, even from the roof.”60

  The point, of course, is that if Padgett Printing Company had hired Oswald on October 4, Kennedy would not have been a target for Oswald to shoot and kill on November 22. And if Oswald were scheduled to be the hit man for the conspiracy to murder Kennedy, why would his employers (CIA, mob, etc.) have him apply for a job that, if he were hired, would eliminate him as their chosen assassin?

  But there’s more bad news for the poor, hapless conspiracy theorists, who would gladly settle for anything real, no matter how small, to keep their hopes alive, instead of getting hit with one haymaker after another to their dreams. On October 8, the Texas Employment Commission (TEC) sent Oswald out for a job interview at the Solid State Electronics Company of Texas. He didn’t get the job because the company was looking for a sales clerk, and he had no experience that qualified him for that position. “I sure would like to have the job,” he told James Hunter of Solid State, who interviewed him. “Every place I go they want experience.”61 And again, the problem for the theorists is that Solid State was located at 2647 Myrtle Springs in Dallas, out beyond Parkland Hospital and nowhere near the motorcade route.

  The next day, October 9, the TEC sent Oswald to the Burton-Dixie Corporation for a job as a clerk trainee. Emmett Hobson at Burton-Dixie knows that the company didn’t hire Oswald, but told the FBI he didn’t recall why, and could not recall the background information Oswald had given him. Burton-Dixie was located at 817 Corinth in Dallas, an industrial area near Oak Cliff, which again, unfortunately for the buffs, was nowhere near the motorcade route.62

  On October 14, Oswald applied for a job at the Wiener Lumber Company in Dallas. The proprietor, Sam Wiener, was impressed with Oswald as a prospective employee until Oswald was asked to show his Honorable Discharge Card, which Oswald, of course, was unable to do. In the “Remarks” section of Oswald’s application, Wiener typed, “Although this man makes an excellent appearance and seems quite intelligent he seemed unable to understand when I continually and clearly asked him for his honorable discharge card or papers for the latest (just ended) hitch. I believe he does not have [it] and will not get such a card or paper. Do not consider for this reason only.”

  The lumber company was at the corner of Inwood Road and Maple Avenue, near Love Field, so was close to the motorcade route, but again, not on it. The closest that the president’s motorcade came to this location was at the intersection of Lemmon Avenue and Inwood Road, a little more than three-quarters of a mile from Wiener Lumber.63

  Again, the fact, alone, that Oswald was applying for jobs up through October 14 at locations not on the motorcade route virtually precludes the notion of conspiracy among rational people.

  24. In the same vein, although Oswald applied for his job at the Book Depository Building with Roy Truly on October 15, the Depository had two buildings, the one at Houston and Elm that everyone knows about, and another building called the “Warehouse,” located at 1917 Houston, a building that was larger than the one at Houston and Elm but with two fewer stories.* The Warehouse was not on the parade route, being about four blocks north of the Book Depository Building. (Indeed, at that time in 1963, Houston Street became unpaved one block north of Elm.) Truly just as well could have assigned Oswald to work in the building at 1917 Houston as at the building at Houston and Elm. “I might have sent Oswald to work in a warehouse two blocks away,” Truly said. “Oswald and another fellow reported for work on the same day [October 15] and I needed one of them for the depository building. I picked Oswald.” Truly said he “hired” the other “boy” for the Warehouse.64 Neither Oswald nor the supposed conspirators behind him could have possibly known or foreseen which building Truly would have assigned Oswald to. And if Truly had sent Oswald to 1917 Houston, Kennedy would not have passed under Oswald’s window and there wouldn’t have been an assassination. What type of massive conspiracy by the CIA, mob, et cetera, to murder Kennedy would be completely dependent on what building Truly assigned the assassin to? I mean, would any group of conspirators choose a location for killing Kennedy that depended on an arbitrary decision such as this one that was wholly beyond its control? Of course, we could make Roy Truly part of the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, something that would be perfectly all right with the conspiracy theorists.

  It should be noted further that, as we saw in this book, there is absolutely no evidence that any group such as the CIA or mob had anything to do with Oswald getting a job at the Book Depository Building, the building that literally enabled Oswald to successfully kill Kennedy.

  25. Oswald told Marina he didn’t care for his job at the Book Depository Building, and as late as November 9 (Ruth Paine thinks it may have been November 2),65 just thirteen days before the assassination, he applied for a job, per Marina, at “some photographic” company but did not get it.66 So up to thirteen days before the assassination, or twenty at the most, Oswald sought a job that would have taken him away from his sniper’s nest right above the president’s limousine. Some conspiracy.

  26. We know why Oswald shot Kennedy from the Book Depository Building. He worked there. Besides, no better opportunity to kill Kennedy would probably ever come to him. But if a powerful organization like the CIA, KGB, or organized crime, with vast resources at its disposal, decided to kill the president of the United States, obviously it would reconnoiter assassination sites around the country where the president was scheduled to be, searching for the very best one it could find. With this in mind, why in the world would any of these groups have chosen a location for their hit man that had a giant and heavily foliaged oak tree obstructing his view of the president during several of the critical seconds in which he would want to be tracking and shooting the president? And why would they choose to shoot the president at a time when at least 80 percent of his body was concealed and protected by the body of his limousine?

  27. If a group like the mob or the CIA was behind Oswald’s assassination of Kennedy, in the period of time leading up to the assassination they (his “handlers,” per conspiracy lore) would obviously have to be in touch with him. But in a telephone conversation, Mrs. Puckett told me that none of the seventeen tenants of the rooming house in 1963 had their own phone. She said they all shared “one communal pay phone on the wall in the hall back near the kitchen, and with all of them having only this one phone, it was in use a lot.”67

  Also, Oswald spent every weekend, except one, with his wife and children at the Paine residence in Irving, and missed no days of work at the Book Depository Building. In the evenings we know he went to the nearby washateria on occasion, and went out on the evenings of October 23, a Wednesday, when he attended a speech by General Walker, and October 25, a Friday night when he was in Irving and attended a meeting of the American Civil Liberties Union. But other than this, according to Mrs. Puckett’s mother (Mrs. Johnson) and the housekeeper, Earlene Roberts, in the five weeks prior to the assassination Oswald simply never went out. Mrs. Johnson said that except for watching TV with the other renters sometimes (during which, she said, if they talked to him, he wouldn’t answer), “I just really never did see that man leave [his] room…95 percent of the time he would sit in his room.”68 Earlene Roberts said, “He was always home at night—he never went out.”69 And Ruth Paine testified at the trial in London that Oswald was a loner who never had a relationship with anyone other than Marina, and never rece
ived or made any calls at her house phone while he was in her home. When I asked her, “So you’re not aware of any contacts he had with anyone?” she answered, “No.”70

  So it would seem that the biggest murder plot in American history, with the inevitable follow-up conversations, could only have taken place under the following circumstances: Oswald called his mob or CIA contacts from his job at the Book Depository Building, or they called and asked for him. But Roy Truly, the superintendent at the Book Depository, testified before the Warren Commission that there was only one phone (on the first floor) for the employees to use during their lunch hour “for a minute” and they were “supposed to ask permission to use the phone.” And Truly said, “I never remember ever seeing him [Oswald] on the telephone” during work hours.71 Or on the way home from work Oswald got off the bus to call his co-conspirators from a pay phone. Or they called him at the rooming house (Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper, said that Oswald never received any telephone calls),72 or he called them with a bunch of change from the busy communal pay phone on the wall in the hall back near the kitchen of the rooming house.73 Just how likely is any of this?

  Moreover, Arthur Johnson, the landlord at Oswald’s rooming house, told Dallas Morning News reporter Hugh Aynesworth on the afternoon of the assassination that Oswald “always talked in that foreign language when he talked on the phone.” Whom was he talking to? Roberts, the housekeeper, told Aynesworth that Oswald “dialed that BL number [Irving, Texas, where Marina was living] a lot.”74 As far as receiving phone calls, the landlady, Mrs. Johnson, like Earlene Roberts, said she didn’t recall Oswald ever receiving a call at the rooming house.75