"And he said 'I shot Walker'"

[John Mytton]

The following extract is from the WCR and details how the WC came to their conclusion in the Walker attempted assassination.

PRIOR ATTEMPT TO KILL

The Attempt on the Life of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker

At approximately 9 p.m., on April 10, 1963, in Dallas, Tex., Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, an active and controversial figure on the American political scene since his resignation from the U.S. Army in 1961, narrowly escaped death when a rifle bullet fired from outside his home passed near his head as he was seated at his desk.700 There were no eyewitnesses, although a 14-year-old boy in a neighboring house claimed that immediately after the shooting he saw two men, in separate cars, drive out of a church parking lot adjacent to Walker's home.701 A friend of Walker's testified that two nights before the shooting he saw "two men around the house peeking in windows." 702 General Walker gave this information to the police before the shooting, but it did not help solve the crime. Although the bullet was recovered from Walker's house (see app. X, p. 562), in the absence of a weapon it was of little investigatory value. General Walker hired two investigators to determine whether a former employee might have been involved in the shooting.708 Their results were negative. Until December 3, 1963, the Walker shooting remained unsolved.

The Commission evaluated the following evidence in considering whether Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot which almost killed General Walker: (1) A note which Oswald left for his wife on the evening of the shooting, (2) photographs found among Oswald's possessions after the assassination of President Kennedy, (3) firearm identification of the bullet found in Walker's home, and (4) admissions and other statements made to Marina Oswald by Oswald concerning the shooting.

Note left by Oswald.--On December 2, 1963, Mrs. Ruth Paine turned over to the police some of the Oswalds' belongings, including a Russian volume entitled "Book of Useful Advice." 704, In this book was an undated note written in Russian. In translation, the note read as follows:
This is the key to the mailbox which is located in the main post office in the city on Ervay Street. This is the same street where the drugstore, in which you always waited is located. You will find the mailbox in the post office which is located 4 blocks from the drugstore on that street. I paid for the box last month so don't worry about it.


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Send the information as to what has happened to me to the Embassy and include newspaper clippings (should there be anything about me in the newspapers). I believe that the Embassy will come quickly to your assistance on learning everything.
I paid the house rent on the 2d so don't worry about it.
Recently I also paid for water and gas.
The money from work will possibly be coming. The money will be sent to our post office box. Go to the bank and cash the check.
You can either throw out or give my clothing, etc. away. Do not keep these. However, I prefer that you hold on to my personal papers (military, civil, etc.).
Certain of my documents are in the small blue valise.
The address book can be found on my table in the study should need same.
We have friends here. The Red Cross also will help you. (Red Cross in English). [sic]
I left you as much money as I could, $60 on the second of the month. You and the baby [apparently] can live for another 2 months using $10 per week.
If I am alive and taken prisoner, the city jail is located at the end of the bridge through which we always passed on going to the city (right in the beginning of the city after crossing the bridge).705


James C. Cadigan, FBI handwriting expert, testified that this note was written by Lee Harvey Oswald.706

Prior to the Walker shooting on April 10, Oswald had been attending typing classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings. He had quit these classes at least a week before the shooting, which occurred on a Wednesday night.707 According to Marina Oswald's testimony, on the night of the Walker shooting, her husband left their apartment on Neely Street shortly after dinner. She thought he was attending a class or was on his own business." 708 When he failed to return by 10 or 10:30 p.m., Marina Oswald went to his room and discovered the note. She testified: "When he came back I asked him what had happened. He was very pale. I don't remember the exact time, but it was very late. And he told me not to ask him any questions. He only told me he had shot at General Walker." 709 Oswald told his wife that he did not know whether he had hit Walker; according to Marina Oswald when he learned on the radio and in the newspapers the next. day that he had missed, he said that he "was very sorry that he had not hit him." 710 Marina Oswald's testimony was fully supported by the note itself which appeared to be the work of a man expecting to be killed, or imprisoned, or to disappear. The last paragraph directed her to the jail and the other paragraphs instructed her on the disposal of Oswald's personal effects and the management of her affairs if he should not return.

It is clear that the note was written while the Oswalds were living in Dallas before they moved to New Orleans in the spring of 1963.

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The references to house rent and payments for water and gas indicated that the note was written when they were living in a rented apartment; therefore it could not have been written while Marina Oswald was living with the Paines. Moreover, the reference in paragraph 3 to paying "the house rent on the 2d" would be consistent with the period when the Oswalds were living on Neely Street since the apartment was rented on March 3, 1963. Oswald had paid the first month's rent in advance on March 2, 1963, and the second month's rent was paid on either April 2 or April 3.711 The main post office "on Ervay Street" refers to the post office where Oswald rented box 2915 from October 9, 1962, to May 14, 1963.712 Another statement which limits the time when it could have been written is the reference "you and the baby," which would indicate that it was probably written before the birth of Oswald's second child on October 20, 1963.

Oswald had apparently mistaken the county jail for the city jail. From Neely Street the Oswalds would have traveled downtown on the Beckley bus, across the Commerce Street viaduct and into downtown Dallas through the Triple Underpass.713 Either the viaduct or the underpass might have been the "bridge" mentioned in the last paragraph of the note. The county jail is at the corner of Houston and Main Streets "right in the beginning of the city" after one travels through the underpass.

Photographs.--In her testimony before the Commission in February 1964, Marina Oswald stated that when Oswald returned home on the night of the Walker shooting, he told her that he had been planning the attempt for 2 months. He showed her a notebook 3 days later containing photographs of General Walker's home and a map of the area where the house was located.714 Although Oswald destroyed the notebook,715 three photographs found among Oswald's possessions after the assassination were identified by Marina Oswald as photographs of General Walker's house.716 Two of these photographs were taken from the rear of Walker's house.717 The Commission confirmed, by comparison with other photographs, that these were, indeed, photographs of the rear of Walker's house.718 An examination of the window at the rear of the house, the wall through which the bullet passed, and the fence behind the house indicated that the bullet was fired from a position near the point where one of the photographs was taken.719

The third photograph identified by Marina Oswald depicts the entrance to General Walker's driveway from a back alley.720 Also seen in the picture is the fence on which Walker's assailant apparently rested the rifle.721 An examination of certain construction work appearing in the background of this photograph revealed that the picture was taken between March 8 and 12, 1963, and most probably on either March 9 or March 10.722 Oswald purchased the money order for the rifle on March 12, the rifle was shipped on March 20,728 and the shooting occurred on April 10. A photography expert with the FBI was able to determine that, this picture was taken with the Imperial Reflex camera owned by Lee Harvey Oswald.724 (See app. X, p. 596.)

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A fourth photograph, showing a stretch of railroad tracks, was also identified by Marina Oswald as having been taken by her husband, presumably in connection with the Walker shooting.725 Investigation determined that this photograph was taken approximately seven-tenths of a mile from Walker's house.726 Another photograph of railroad tracks found among Oswald's possessions was not identified by his wife, but investigation revealed that it was taken from a point slightly less than half a mile from General Walker's house.727 Marina Oswald stated that- when she asked her husband what be had done with the rifle, he replied that he had buried it in the ground or hidden it in some bushes and that he also mentioned a railroad track in this connection. She testified that several days later Oswald recovered his rifle and brought it back to their apartment.728

Firearms identification.--In the room beyond the one in which General Walker was sitting on the night of the shooting the Dallas police recovered a badly mutilated bullet which had come to rest on a stack of paper.729 The Dallas City-County Investigation Laboratory tried to determine the type of weapon which fired the bullet. The oral report was negative because of the battered condition of the bullet.730 On November 30, 1963, the FBI requested the bullet for ballistics examination; the Dallas Police Department forwarded it on December 2, 1963.731

Robert A. Frazier, an FBI ballistics identification expert, testified that he was "unable to reach a conclusion" as to whether or not the bullet recovered from Walker's house had been fired from the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building. He concluded that "the general rifling characteristics of the rifle ... are of the same type as those found on the bullet ... and, further, on this basis ... the bullet could have been fired from the rifle on the basis of its land and groove impressions." 732 Frazier testified further that the FBI avoids the category of "probable" identification. Unless the missile or cartridge case can be identified as coming from a particular weapon to the exclusion of all others, the FBI refuses to draw any conclusion as to probability.733 Frazier testified, however, that he found no microscopic characteristics or other evidence which would indicate that the bullet was not fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle owned by Lee Harvey Oswald. It was a 6.5-millimeter bullet and, according to Frazier, "relatively few" types of rifles could produce the characteristics found on the bullet.734

Joseph D. Nicol, superintendent of the Illinois Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, conducted an independent examination of this bullet and concluded "that there is a fair probability" that the bullet was fired from the rifle used in the assassination of President Kennedy.735 In explaining the difference between his policy and that of the FBI on the matter of probable identification, Nicol said:
I am aware of their position. This is not, I am sure, arrived at without careful consideration. However, to say that because one does not find sufficient marks for identification that it is a negative,
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I think is going overboard in the other direction. And for purposes of probative value, for whatever it might be worth, in the absence of very definite negative evidence, I think it is permissible to say that in an exhibit such as 573 there is enough on it to say that it could have come, and even perhaps a little stronger, to say that it probably came from this, without going so far as to say to the exclusion of all other guns. This I could not do. 736
Although the Commission recognizes that neither expert was able to state that the bullet which missed General Walker was fired from Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of all others, this testimony was considered probative when combined with the other testimony linking Oswald to the shooting.

Additional corroborative evidence.--The admissions made to Marina Oswald by her husband are an important element in the evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot at General Walker. As shown above, the note and the photographs of Walker's house and of the nearby railroad tracks provide important corroboration for her account of the incident. Other details described by Marina Oswald coincide with facts developed independently of her statements. She testified that her husband had postponed his attempt to kill Walker until that Wednesday because he had heard that there was to be a gathering at the church next door to Walker's house on that evening. He indicated that he wanted more people in the vicinity at the time of the attempt so that his arrival and departure would not attract great attention.737 An official of this church told FBI agents that services are held every Wednesday at the church except during the month of August.738 Marina Oswald also testified that her husband had used a bus to return home.739 A study of the bus routes indicates that Oswald could have taken any one of several different buses to Walker's house or to a point near the railroad tracks where he may have concealed the rifle.740 It would have been possible for him to take different routes in approaching and leaving the scene of the shooting.

Conclusion.--Based on (1) the contents of the note which Oswald left for his wife on April 10, 1963, (2) the photographs found among Oswald's possessions, (3) the testimony of firearms identification experts, and (4) the testimony of Marina Oswald, the Commission has concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to take the life of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Resigned, U.S. Army) on April 10, 1963. The finding that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to murder a public figure in April 1963 was considered of probative value in this investigation, although the Commission's conclusion concerning the identity of the assassin was based on evidence independent of the finding that Oswald attempted to kill General Walker.
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-4.html#walker

JohnM

[John Mytton]

And why in the world would someone who tried to kill the fanatically right-wing General Walker turn around and shoot JFK? That makes no sense whatsoever.

You're applying the wrong political criteria, we know that in the Dallas Times Herald just days before the assassination that Kennedy wanted to oust Fidell and we also know that it's most likely that Oswald's alias Hidell" was based on "Fidel"

I think that Oswald's(Hidell) main motivation was his wanting to be accepted as a Marxist and any political leader that spoke ill of Fidel Castro was put on Oswald's hit list, CT's claim that the left Kennedy and the extreme right Walker had no connection but I believe that in Oswald's eyes, what connected Kennedy and Walker was their dislike of the Cuban regime.

Fritz was the one of the last people to spend considerable time with Oswald.

Mr. DULLES. Have you any views of your own as to motive from your talks with him? Did you get any clues as to possible motive in assassinating the President?
Mr. FRITZ. I can only tell you what little I know now. I am sure that we have people in Washington here that can tell far more than I can.
Mr. DULLES. Well, you saw the man and the others didn't see the man.
Mr. FRITZ. I got the impression, I got the impression that he was doing it because of his feeling about the Castro revolution, and I think that he felt, he had a lot of feeling about that revolution.
(At this point the Chief Justice entered the hearing room.)

Mr. FRITZ. I think that was the reason. I noticed another thing. I noticed a little before when Walker was shot, he had come out with some statements about Castro and about Cuba and a lot of things and if you will remember the President had some stories a few weeks before his death about Cuba and about Castro and some things, and I wondered if that didn't have some bearing. I have no way of knowing that other than just watching him and talking to him. I think it was his feeling about his belief in being a Marxist, I think he had--he told me he had debated in New Orleans, and that he tried to get converts to this Fair Play for Cuba organization, so I think that was his motive. I think he was doing it because of that.

Oswald in New Orleans handing out "Hands off Cuba" leaflets





Oswald's "Fair play for Cuba" membership card where he was also the Chapter President.



Three days before Oswald killed Kennedy, there was this newspaper article in the Dallas Times Herald of Kennedy saying that it would be a happy day if the Castro government was ousted.



Oswald's personal possessions had a number of positive pieces of Castro literature.



A week after the Dallas Herald Times reported that Walker wanted to  "liquidate the [communist] scourge that has descended upon the island of Cuba" Oswald ordered his rifle and not long after Oswald took surveillance photos of General Walkers house and a little later Oswald tried to kill General Walker.

In February 1963, Walker joined Billy Hargis on an anti-communist tour named "Operation Midnight Ride".[24] In a speech Walker made on March 5, reported in the Dallas Times Herald, he called on the United States military to "liquidate the [communist] scourge that has descended upon the island of Cuba."[25] Seven days later, Lee Harvey Oswald ordered a Carcano rifle by mail, using the alias "A. Hidell".[26]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Walker



JohnM

[Bill Brown]

Damn.  Michael Griffith is taking a serious beating from Lance Payette and John Mytton.  I almost feel sorry for him.

[Charles Collins]

This is dubious hearsay given by Marina when she was being held in a hotel room and threatened by the Secret Service and the FBI and was scared to death of being deported. Marina also said she saw Oswald cleaning the Carcano rifle early in January 1963, but the rifle was not sent to the "Hidell" post office box until the end of March.

There are numerous problems with the case against Oswald in the Walker shooting, starting with the fact that Walker himself said the bullet looked nothing like an WCC FMJ bullet and that not one of the fingerprints on Oswald's alleged goodbye note to Marina matched his or Marina's fingerprints. Two of the three HSCA handwriting experts said the note was not written in Oswald's handwriting. I should add that the note did not surface until two months after the assassination and came from--guess who?--Ruth Paine.

And why in the world would someone who tried to kill the fanatically right-wing General Walker turn around and shoot JFK? That makes no sense whatsoever.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/oswald-and-the-shot-at-walker-redressing-the-balance

http://22november1963.org.uk/did-lee-oswald-shoot-general-edwin-walker

This is dubious hearsay given by Marina when she was being held in a hotel room and threatened by the Secret Service and the FBI and was scared to death of being deported.

According to James Hosty in his book “Assignment Oswald” an Immigration and Naturalization Service attorney told Marina Oswald, just before his first post assassination interview with Marina on Wednesday 11/27/63, that she definitely was not going to be deported. Here is a snippet from Hosty’s book page 120:

After just a few minutes the INS attorney and Gopadze came out of the room. The INS attorney, acting jittery and nervous, headed straight for the door and quickly left. Brown and I huddled with Gopadze and asked him what that was all about. Shaking his head in disgust, Gopadze told us that the INS man had just informed Marina that the INS was most definitely not going to deport her, but that they still wanted her to cooperate with the FBI.

And if one reads further on about Hosty’s interview, it turns out that Robert Oswald was present and was trying to be sure Marina was treated properly.

[Charles Collins]

Damn.  Michael Griffith is taking a serious beating from Lance Payette and John Mytton.  I almost feel sorry for him.

This is typically when they simply disappear for a while without a response. Then after a long pause they show back up and continue with the same old arguments as if no one had even tried to counter them.

[Michael T. Griffith]

To put this as charitably and statesmanlike as possible, you are a BS  artist of the first magnitude. I don't know why anyone would trust ANYTHING you say. Worse yet, the above factoid - which is pure  - is repeated throughout the conspiracy literature.

This is not a difficult research project, folks. The report of the HSCA handwriting panel is here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=961#relPageId=227.

Three documents were related because they were mostly or entirely in Russian. The panel designated them Items 23, 56 and 57, to wit:

Item 23: Russian script on lined paper from Alek to Marina and June dated 2-20-1962.
Item 56: Undated ten-line note in Russian signed Alek.
Item 57: The Walker note.

Here is what the three examiners actually said:

Joseph P. McNally
The Russian language on items 23, 56 and 57 is by the same person.
The portions in Latin conform to all the other Oswald-signed documents.

David J. Purtell
With regard to the Russian portions of items 23, 56 and 57, “this examiner is not familiar with this language and the characteristics of the various writing systems used.”
He thus was unable to render a definite opinion but noted there were similarities between the writing in items 23, 56 and 57 and the other (Oswald-signed) items.

Charles C. Scott
Did not examine items 23, 56 and 57 at all.

"Two of the three HSCA handwriting experts said the note was not written in Oswald's handwriting."
Really?
Only in Factoid City.
Only in Conspiracy World.
Only in Michael's BS  posts.

First off, yes, I stand corrected about the conclusions of the HSCA handwriting experts on the note's handwriting. I got that claim from the usually reliable 22november1963.org.uk website. I should have gone back and double-checked the handwriting experts' report, which the 22november1963 folks actually cite with a link. Clearly, they either misread the report or chose to misrepresent it.

And, oh yes, I see, not surprisingly, that a bunch of WC apologists are hooting and posturing over my mistake, labeling it as proof of my many supposed "lies," etc., etc. Unlike you folks, when I make a mistake, I admit it. You guys have made many egregious errors that I have documented for you, but you have never once acknowledged any of them.

Two, I note that you once again failed to address the fact (1) that the one eyewitness saw two men hurriedly leave and said neither man resembled Oswald, and (2) that none of the several fingerprints on the note were Oswald's or Marina's prints. In all your excitement over being able to pounce on one of my rare errors, perhaps you just forgot about these two key facts. So let me discuss them again:

The one eyewitness, Walter Coleman, said he saw two men hurriedly leave the church parking lot next to Walker's house and that neither man looked like Oswald. Coleman said he had seen numerous pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald, and he was shown a photograph of Oswald among several other photographs. He said that neither of the men he saw resembled Oswald, and that he had never seen anyone in or around the Walker residence before or after the night of the shooting who resembled Oswald.

I should add that Robert Surrey reported that days before the Walker shooting he saw two men sitting in a car near Walker's house and that the men later seemed to be inspecting the windows and area surrounding the Walker home. Surrey said that neither of these men resembled Oswald (https://www.tpaak.com/walker-allegations).

And, not one of the several fingerprints on the goodbye note belonged to Oswald or Marina. Seven fingerprints were found on the note, but none of them belonged to Oswald or his wife. How do you write a note and not leave a single fingerprint on it? How did Marina read the note without leaving a single print on it?

Three, yes, Walker said the bullet was mangled, but he also made it clear that the bullet was not a WCC Carcano FMJ bullet. He was adamant on this point:

During the HSCA investigation in the 1970’s, General Walker himself said that
the bullet in evidence was not the same bullet that was found in his house on 10th
April 1963. He wrote to the Attorney General in February 1979 and said that it was
“a ridiculous substitute.” He went on to state that “I saw the hunk of lead, picked up
by a policeman in my house, and I took it from him and I inspected it carefully.
There is no mistake. There has been a substitution for the bullet fired by Oswald and
taken out of my house.”
(https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/oswald-and-the-shot-at-walker-redressing-the-balance)

Also, the first police description of the bullet said it "was a steel jacket bullet," and the supposed Walker bullet in evidence, CE 573, does not contain Lt. Day's chain-of-evidence mark. Cole and Gram discuss some of the evidence that CE 573 is not the Walker bullet:

The original and official DPD reports described a relatively rare “steel jacketed”
slug found in the Walker home, on April 10, 1963, the night of the shooting.
The bullet was handled and initialed through inscribing by four DPD officers.
But CE 573—the WC’s purported Walker Bullet—is obviously copper-jacketed.

The extremely thin Warren Commission questioning of FBI agent Frazier, as to
how and why the Walker Bullet could ever be described as “steel jacketed” by
DPD detectives. Frazier answered that “some individuals refer to all rifle bullets
as steel jacketed,” a novel and unique observation. There is nothing in police or
FBI literature to suggest police detectives or FBI special agents anywhere ever
described “all rifle bullets” as steel jacketed—especially when copper-jacketed
rifle bullets were and are the norm.

Lt. Day of the Dallas Police Department, stating unequivocally to the FBI and
then to the WC that he had carved the true Walker slug with his name “DAY” and a
cross. No such markings can be seen on CE 573, even under a microscope.

The lack of same-day April 10, 1963, or indeed any Dallas Police Department
photographs of the true Walker Bullet. The true Walker Bullet was never
photographed or, if it was, the photographs have disappeared. Moreover, there
are no surviving written DPD lab reports on the Walker Bullet that describe the
slug as steel- or copper-jacketed.

The weak chain of evidence confirmation by the FBI-WC on the provenance
of CE 573. The FBI in 1964 showed a slug purported to be the Walker Bullet
only to Norvell, the DPD patrolman, who at best handled the slug briefly 14
months earlier. The FBI did not show the purported Walker Bullet to detectives
McElroy or Van Cleave.
(https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/1408)

Four, I see that Mytton is once again trotting out the backyard rifle photos as supposed proof of Oswald's guilt in both the Walker shooting and the JFK shooting. Those photos are as phony as a three-dollar bill. See

The HSCA and Fraud in the Backyard Rifle Photos
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JiOqKWO-XJSO-z_lk6bSgUBXq_vD1yZs/view

Are you guys ever, ever, ever going to deal with the parallax measurements showing the impossibly microscopic differences in distances between objects in the backgrounds of the photos? There is no way on this planet that photos taken with a cheap handheld camera that was supposedly handed back and forth to advance the film would have such impossibly tiny differences in the distances between the objects in the backgrounds in the photos. This is not to mention that the variant shadows in the photos have never been duplicated, among other problems with the photos.

Five, apparently it has not occurred to any of you to wonder how your supposed skilled "sharpshooter" assassin managed to miss Walker from less than 120 feet away while having all the time in the world to aim and fire. Yet, you claim this is the same guy who performed a shooting feat against JFK that the three Master-rated riflemen in the WC's shooting simulation, using the alleged murder weapon, did not even come close to duplicating, even though they fired from only 30 feet up, fired at a stationary target boards, and took as much time as they wanted for their first shot.

Six, the attempts to explain why Oswald would try to shoot the rabid right-winger Walker and then turn around and shoot the man whom Walker had publicly condemned, i.e., JFK, border on incoherent.

Seven, the NAA testing that supposedly linked the Walker bullet to Oswald's rifle was discredited nearly 20 years ago.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18709539
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/900118

[Tom Graves]

[...]

Griffith,

Are you a Russian troll?

You sound like a Russian troll.

Everything you incessantly carp about has been proved true, but with you it's "in one ear and out the other," as though you've either been thoroughly zombified by sixty-two years of KGB JFKA disinfo or you're actually a KGB agent.

Why can't you accept the possibility that Oswald didn't see the wooden cross-piece in the window frame due to a bright light inside Walker's room?

Do you really think only 20-30 bad guys were needed to pull off and cover up the JFKA the way you envision it?