"Oswald shot at Walker." .. ?

[John Dolva]

"Oswald shot at Walker." .. ?

I've seen this written so many times.

I've never seen explained how this sharpshooter who got off a couple of kill shots at JFK under difficult circumstances could miss Walker who was stationary, framed by a window in a lit room, at night, shooting from a stable position with more time to draw a bead.

It leaves open the suggestion that Oswald, or X, did not shoot at Walker.

Oswald, or X, shot at the window frame. No repeat shots. (Otherwise Oswald, or X, did not shoot at Walker and JFK. A poor shot shot at Walker and it was or was not connected to the assassination of JFK.)

The only reason I can come up with is to mark Walker as a target, not to kill him.


Why?

Naturally the effect is that Walker reacts. What is that reaction? What acts does that reaction lead to and what is the result of those acts? et.c..

[Gene Kelly]

John:

The entire Walker thing comes across as phony. A stage act, designed to divert attention towards Oswald. It also put the radical right factions on their heels a bit, drawing them into the milieu of suspects. Not sure what it was all really about, but it doesn't add up. Anything that relies upon Ms. Paine and Mr. De Mohrenschildt for exculpatory evidence is highly suspect. There was some talk about Oswald saying that he would also shoot Nixon too. That strongly has parallels to the George Wallace/Arthur Bremer episode, surely the imprimatur and propaganda of E.H.Hunt and friends.

Those who hold to this anecdote (i.e. fable) are also suspicious imho. The Walker 'assassination' attempt makes no logical sense, and appears highly theatrical.

Gene

[John Dolva]

Gene,

Yes very much how it looks to me. It's odd.

It seems staged to me too. I have my own ideas about the purpose of it. I wonder if that can be deduced from the immediate aftermath.

An immediate one is Walker calling the cops (and confederates I presume)(the newspaper?). I wonder how they saw it. As a murder attempt and pursued it as such. A shooting among others.

[Michael Walton]

You might find this quote interesting from a recent document posted by another commenter:

"The reification process is consistent with the individualistic/great man theory of history. Former CIA Director Allen Dulles may have had this in mind when he suggested that past cases of political murder in America by individuals acting alone might hold the key to the solution of Kennedy's fate:

Dulles: It's a fascinating book, but you'll find a pattern running through here that I think you'll find in the present case. The last one is the attack on Truman. There you have a plot, but these other cases are all

habitual going back to the attack on Jackson in 1835.

Russell: The Lincoln Assassination was a plot.

Dulles: Yes, but one man was so dominant that it almost wasn't a plot.

(Warren Commission Executive Session Transcript, December 16, 1963:52)."

This quote dovetails nicely with the Walker shooting. Once Oswald was safely in his grave, the government could then continue to paint Oswald in any way they wish (like the "great man" method listed above). They could say he shot at Walker and even, to boot, he was a wife beater.

NOTE - the document link above loads very slowly and I suspect the server they're using is wonky so it may take a minute to load the PDF.

[Gene Kelly]

Walker strikes me as a pathetic figure, and certainly not a plotter; but rather a marker that leads to the plot.

What is principally interesting is the connectivity of Ruth and Michael Paine to Walker. The so called "Walker note" (found by Ruth a week after the assassination in a book), the surveillance photo of Walker's house, and the first person to name Oswald as taking part in the Walker shooting (Michael), all derive from Ruth and Michael Paine. As one researcher wrote: "the entire put upon Quaker charity, Good Samaritan act wears thin in the face of such coincidences".

More coincidence: Volkmar Schmidt (who was linked to the Walker shooting by Dick Turner) shared his living space with three other men: Everett Glover, the owner of the house and a research chemist at Magnolia Research Laboratories, Geologist Richard Pierce, also at Magnolia and Michael Paine, who was separated from his wife. According to Schmidt (via one of Oswald's suspect biographers, Edward Epstein), Oswald violently attacked President Kennedy's foreign policy and was “completely alienated, self-destructive, and suicidal." This description dovetails what the Warren Commission would do with Oswald several months later: pin the shooting of Walker and murder of Kennedy on him, and paint him as a sociopath.

According to John Armstrong, Epstein (an Angleton associate) "propagates and embellishes the legend of the Walker shooting" and the celebrated backyard photograph of Oswald ... the one with a date and handwriting (in Cyrillic) on the back. Following George's 'suicide', Epstein conveniently employed a handwriting expert who “immediately identified both the dating and the inscription as Oswald's writing concluded the Russian printing on reverse side was consistent with Marina's handwriting”.

According to Jeff Carter, whoever was responsible for the backyard photos was "known to Oswald, was known to Ruth Paine, had something to do with the Walker 'assassination attempt', and had a hand in setting up Oswald as the patsy". In Jeff's keen analysis, all items within the photos were deliberately chosen by the forgers, including the odd inclusion on the Oswald figure of a pistol (invoking the Tippit slaying). Carter speculates that perhaps a shootout with the pistol-carrying assassin was the anticipated (planned) event.

Then there's George and Jeanne ... on April 13, 1963, three days after Oswald's alleged attempt on the life of Walker (for which the police had no suspects), the de Mohrenschildt’s visited the Oswalds' apartment. Jeanne de Mohrenschildt allegedly saw a rifle which was to be later linked with another inscribed "hunter of fascists" photo. After the contrived Walker incident, de Mohrenschildt moved to Haiti where he remained in a lower profile for four years.

Marina’s testimony has always been suspect. The HSCA refused to believe her recounting of the Walker shooting. Fourteen years after the assassination the HSCA interviewed Marina. Before she agreed to the interview Marina insisted on a grant of immunity. Committee members soon realized that Marina's testimony was full of lies and contradictory statements. The HSCA conducted a detailed study of Marina's testimony regarding the Walker shooting and wrote:

"When combined with the other testimony linking Oswald to the shooting (whose testimony has all the weight of a handful of chicken feathers), we regretfully refuse to accept the judgment of the Commission in regard to the Walker shooting, hoping that its prides and preju­dices were a result of error and not expedience."

Oswald’s 7-week residency at Neely St. became the "crucial phase in the history of his alleged penchant for political assassination". This is the time when, purportedly, he acquired a rifle and a pistol, posed with the weapons for the infamous backyard photos, attempted to kill homegrown fascist Walker, and thought of making an attempt on the life of Richard Nixon ... and then hastily moved to New Orleans to allegedly (according to Ruth Paine) avoid prosecution. Priscilla Macmillan - another of Oswald's 'biographers' wrote that "Lee had rented the Neely Street apartment for a purpose, and he did not think that he would be there long".

Using the words of the late Vincent Salandria (when he described the Paines) Edwin Walker is a "clear beacon" to those responsible for JFK's murder.

[Jim Root]

The Sixth Floor Museum has some great news footage from the morning following the assassination attempt on Walker.

The layout of the room where Walker was sitting is much different from what I supposed it to be when I first read about the shooting. From the reading it seems that all an assassin had to do was support their rifle on a wood fence and fire at a sitting target directly in front of them. NOT the case. if you picture a room with a rectangular shape Walker was sitting against the far left wall. The window was somewhat centrally located on the exterior wall so the shooter had to position them self at distance to the far right of the room to be able to target Walker. The footage shows the broken wooden frame surrounding the window pane that the shot was fired through. Walker declares that the shot went through his hair (who knows) but if Walker was sitting at his desk (as he said he was) the bullet hole in the wall shows a very close call for the General.

The broken wood frame may well have deflected the shot just enough to miss.

Most researchers take a position on Oswald's proficiency as a shooter. If as the Warren Commission suggests Oswald did fire a single shot at Walker and three shots at Kennedy.....Oswald only hit on 50% of his shots......not very proficient.

Jim Root

Edited April 20, 2016 by Jim Root

[David Andrews]

Gerry Hemming claimed to have visited Walker after the shooting and to have been freaked out by Walker leaving his windows unshaded while making Hemming and another sit with their backs to the sniper's alley. He told Noel Twyman (see Bloody Treason) that he suspected Walker's unconcern meant that he had had the shooting staged - but Walker's behavior might just have been a crazy martyr's hubris.

Edited April 21, 2016 by David Andrews

[Steve Thomas]

I've been wondering;

if the Walker shooting in April, 1963 was "staged", as many have suggested, was there something going on in Walker's life at that time that would have required or benefited from a staged attempt on his life?

Right now, I'm not even convinced that Walker was even in the room at the time.

Steve Thomas

[David Andrews]

Who was it that wrote that Walker became inconsequential the moment he survived an assassination attempt - meaning that his not surviving would have been a boost to his allies in the segregationist and anti communist causes. There's a bit of truth in that.

[Jim Hargrove]

The steel-jacketed bullet embedded in Walker’s house and taken into evidence by Dallas police clearly does not match the copper-jacketed bullet presented to the Warren Commission (CE 573) and now in the National Archives.

Warren Commission attorneys were clearly aware of this problem, but were afraid to ask the cops who placed it in evidence about it. Instead, they asked FBI utility man Robert Frazier, who was nowhere near Walker’s home when the bullet was taken into custody. Frazier lamely mumbled that sometimes people refer to copper-jacketed bullets as steel jacketed bullets.

The whole Walker affair, like the Kennedy assassination, stinks of a cover-up AND a frame-up.

[Jim Root]

David

GPH related that same story to me. What is most interesting is that Hemming knew both Oswald and Walker and that, it seems, Hemming met with Oswald just prior to Oswald's journey to the Soviet Union perhaps suggesting a connection of some sort between Walker and Oswald. I have written a great deal about the possibility of Walker and Oswald being on a flight out of London as Oswald was working his way toward Helsinki. If true it would be a wonderful reason why the Warren Commission failed to review and present the passenger lists (which were available) for the flights that Oswald used to get to Helsinki. Oswald is reported to have "stalked" Walker and to suggest that Walker was the leader of and organization that did not want to see piece between the Soviet Union and the United States. Strange that Oswald did not seem to look at Walker as the staunch "Right Wing" segregationist persona that Walker was portrayed as during that time in the press.

Strange bedfellows.

[Gene Kelly]

Steve Thomas:

I'm thinking that - at this stage in his life - Walker was making a bid to run for president, right? He had obvious (and very public) differences with the Kennedy's. Perhaps drawing attention to his cause? Per William Turner, the individuals allegedly behind this faux shooting (the Schmidt's) also had a hand in the "Wanted for Treason" posters that became prominent in Dallas later that Fall. Another head fake (overt) , designed to focus attention on radical militant groups, and away from the true sponsors. The Walker shooting therefore smacks of misdirection, orchestrated by people associated with Michael Paine and George de Mohrenschildt.

Gene

[Jim Root]

Gene

In 1962 Edwin Walker ran for Governor of Texas in the Democratic Primary. Walker, I believe came in last place. Any thought of a political career had been embarrassingly erased by April 1963 when the failed assassination attempt occurred.

Jim Root

Edited April 26, 2016 by Jim Root

[Gene Kelly]

Jim:

Thank you for clarification. I'm interested in what you think of Steve Thomas' question. Was there something going on around April of 1963 in Walker's life ... something that may have been supported or enhanced by someone taking a potshot at him?

This led me to look at the etymology of the word "potshot" (origin in 1836): "shot taken at animal simply to 'get it in the pot,' not for sport or marksmanship". The implication is one of the shot being very easy, with the game being near at hand or in an advantageous position for the hunter, so that the animal has no chance of escape or self-defense. On June 19, 1964, Time Magazine published an article entitled "Investigations: The Man Who Wanted to Kill Nixon". It led with the following:

When the full report of the Warren Commission is published, perhaps by month's end, it may well reflect the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald had an obsessive yen to kill—not just John F. Kennedy, but any notable person. According to that theory, Kennedy was no more than a famous target to Oswald. The theory helps explain why Oswald apparently took a potshot at General Edwin Walker in Dallas in April 1963. Walker, a right-winger, espoused views that were frequently diametrically opposed to Kennedy's. So why, if political causation was the answer, should Oswald want to kill him?

The Nixon threat story began when Robert Oswald, heard from James Martin that Lee had planned to shoot Nixon, and that to prevent the attack, Lee’s wife, Marina, “had locked Lee in the bathroom for the entire day”. At her first appearance before the Warren Commission, Marina Oswald had neglected to mention Lee’s threat to Nixon... she was more forthcoming on her second appearance. Nixon left Dallas early on the morning of November 22^nd, and was in town on business, according to the Dallas Times Herald. Maurice Carlson’s FBI statement indicates that Nixon “arrived by private plane with the President of the Pepsi Cola Company”. Nixon was presumably performing legal work in conjunction with Pepsi’s forthcoming commercial links with the Great Southwest Corporation.

James Martin - the earliest source for the story that Oswald had planned to shoot Richard Nixon - was the manager of the Inn of the Six Flags, which was owned by the Great Southwest Corporation. Shortly after Marina Oswald began her detention at the Inn of the Six Flags –in the weeks following the assassination - James Martin became her manager. At around the time Marina made her incriminating statements to the FBI, she also appointed William McKenzie to take charge of her legal affairs. McKenzie was a member of the law firm Wynne, Jaffe and Tinsley ... Bedford Wynne, a senior partner in that firm, was one of the owners of the Great Southwest Corporation. Morris Jaffe of the same law firm was the attorney for George de Mohrenschildt.

Lots of coincidences here.

Gene

Edited May 1, 2016 by Gene Kelly

[Jim Root]

Gene

I think you ask a great question, "Was there something going on around April of 1963 in Walker's life ... something that may have been supported or enhanced by someone taking a potshot at him? " But I would change the Question to "Was there something going on around April of 1963 in Oswald's life ... something that may have been supported or enhanced by someone taking a potshot at him (Walker)?

You bring up the potential of three Oswald targets that seem unconnected, but are they?

According to Oswald, Walker was the leader of a bad organization that did not want to see peace between the Soviet Union and the United States. Where does Oswald come up with that in the then current political atmosphere that Walker was living within? Richard Nixon was a former Vice President and the man who lost to Kennedy in the 1960 election. And Kennedy was the current President of the United States. What connects them?

Shortly after the April 10th attempt on Walker's life, (involved or not) Oswald left Dallas and went to New Orleans. While there he delivered a speech at spring hill college. From a series of posts I did in 2005:

Summary of a Speech by Lee Harvey Oswald

Jesuit House of Studies, Spring Hill College
Mobile, Alabama-July 27, 1963
Source: CE 2649 WC Volume XXV

Robert J. Fitzpatrick who spoke to several students who attended the speech prepared the following summary. The summary was prepared after Fitzpatrick learned of Oswald's arrest in connection with the assassination of JFK.

On Saturday, July 27, 1963, a relative of Lee Oswald, a member of the community at the Jesuit House of Studies, asked Mr. Oswald if he would address the scholastics on his experiences in Russia. The request was not unusual, for the scholastics try from time to time to have either prominent persons or others who have something interesting to relate speak to the scholastics on their experiences. Because Mr. Oswald was an American who had gone to live in Russia and who had returned, obviously for a reason, it was thought that he might be able to communicate the nature of the Russian people themselves better than any official reports might. Those who went to listen to him expected to hear a man who had been disillusioned with Soviet communism and had chosen America to it. What they heard was only partially this.

The major points of Mr. Oswald's address and details from it are given below, probably never in verbatim form, but always true to his intent, at least as he was heard by a number of people.

He worked in a factory in Minsk. When he applied for permission to live in the Soviet Union, the Russian authorities had assigned him to a fairly well advanced area, the Minsk area. He said that this was a common practice: showing foreigners those places of which Russians can be proudest.

The factory life impressed him with the care it provided for the workers. Dances, social gatherings, sports were all benefits for the factory workers. Mr. Oswald belonged to a factory-sponsored hunting club. He and a group of workers would go into the farm regions around Minsk for hunting trips. They would spend the night in the outlying villages, and thus came to know Russian peasant life too. In general, the peasants were very poor, often close to starvation. When the hunting party was returning to Minsk, it would often leave what it had shot with the village people because of their lack of food. He spoke of having even left the food he had brought with him from town. In connection with the hunting party, he mentioned that they had only shotguns, for pistols and rifles are prohibited by Russian law.

Some details of village life: In each hut there was a radio speaker, even in huts where there was no running water or electricity. The speaker was attached to a cord that ran back to a common receiver. Thus the inhabitants of the hut could never change stations or turn off the radio. They had to listen to everything that came through it, day or night. In connection with radios, he said that there was a very large radio-jamming tower that was larger than anything else in Minsk.

More about factories: factory meetings were held which all had to attend. Everyone attended willingly and in a good frame of mind. Things came up for discussion and voting, but no one ever voted no. The meetings were, in a sense, formalities. If anyone did not attend, he would lose his job.

Mr. Oswald said that he had met his wife at a factory social.

The workers, he said, were not against him because he was an American. When the U-2 incident was announced over the factory radio system, the workers were very angry with the United States, but not with him, even though he was an American.

He made the point that he disliked capitalism because it's foundation was the exploitation of the poor. He implied, but did not state directly, that he was disappointed in Russia because the full principals of Marxism were not lived up to and the gap between Marxist theory and the Russian practice disillusioned him with Russian communism. He said, "Capitalism doesn't work, communism doesn't work. In the middle is socialism and that doesn't work either".

After his talk, a question and answer period followed. Some questions and his answers:

Q: How did you come to be interested in Marxism? To go to Russia?

A: He had studied Marxism, became convinced of it and wanted to see if it had worked for the Russian people.

Q: What does atheism do to morality? How can have morality without God?

A: No matter whether people believe in God or not, they will do what they want to. The Russian people don't need God for morality; they are naturally very moral, honest, faithful in marriage.

Q: What is the sexual morality in comparison with the United States?

A: It is better in Russia than in the United States. Its foundation there is the good of the state.

Q: What impressed you most about Russia? What did you like most?

A: The care that the state provides for everyone. If a man gets sick, no matter what his status is, how poor he is, the state will take care of him.

Q: What impresses you most about the United States?

A: The material prosperity. In Russia it is very hard to buy even a suit or a pair of shoes, and even when you can get them, they are very expensive.

Q: What do the Russia people think of Khrushchev? Do they like him better than Stalin?

A: They like Khrushchev much better. He is a working man, a peasant. An exampleOf the kind of things he does: Once at a party broadcast over the radio, he had a Little too much to drink and he began to swear over the radio. That's the kind of thing he does.

Q: What about religion among the young people in Russia?

A: Religion is dead among the youth of Russia.

Q: Why did you return to the United States? (The question was not asked in exactly this way, but this is its content).

A: When he saw that Russia was lacking, he wanted to come back to the United States, which is so much better off materially. (He still held the ideals of the Soviets, was still a Marxist, but did not like the widespread lack of material goods that the Russians had to endure).

More points that were contained in the main part of his talk:

He lived in Russia from 1959 to 1962. He only implied that the practice in Russia differed from the theory, he never stated it directly. The policy of Russia was important:

After death of Stalin, a peace reaction.
Then an anti-Stalin reaction.
A peace movement leading up to the Paris conference.
The U-2 incident and its aftermath.

At the factory he had trouble at first meeting the men. They did not accept him at first. He joined a hunting club. He belonged to two or three discussion groups. He praised the Soviets for rebuilding so much and for concentrating on heavy industry. He said at one point that if the Negroes in the United States knew that it was so good in Russia, they'd want to go there.

Another question:

Q: Why don't the Russians see that they are being indoctrinated and that they are being denied the truth by these jamming stations?

A: They are convinced that such contact would harm them and would be dangerous. They are convinced that the state is doing them a favor by denying them access to Western radio broadcasts.

I think it is interesting to note that the U-2 incident and the Paris Peace Summit "were contained in the main part of his talk". Were they important to him for a reason?

I still believe that the U-2 Incident and the failure of the Paris Peace Summit and the part that Oswald may have played in it did play heavily on Oswald's mind.

From my post in 2005:

Appendix 15: Transactions Between Lee Harvey Oswald and Marina Oswald, and the U.S. Department of State and the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Department of Justice

"...on October 31, 1959, a Saturday, Oswald presented himself at the American Embassy in Moscow....Oswald stated to Snyder that he had voluntarily told Soviet officials that he would make known to them all information concerning the Marine Corps and his specialty therein, radar operation, as he possessed."

"... the Embassy received an undated letter from Oswald postmarked Minsk, February 5. The letter stated:
Since I have not received a reply to my letter of December 1960, I am writing again asking that you consider my request for the return of my American passport.

I desire to return to the United States, that is if we could come to some agreement concerning the dropping of any legal proceedings against me. If so, than I would be free to ask the Russian authorities to allow me to leave. If I could show them my American passport, I am of the opinion they would give me an exit "


"On May 26, 1961, the Embassy sent a despatch to the Department 94 advising that on May 25, 1961, it had received a letter from Oswald

Page 754

postmarked Moscow, May 16, 1961.95 In his latest letter Oswald said he wanted "to make it clear"" that he was asking for full guarantees that he would not be prosecuted "under any circumstances" should he return to the United States. Oswald went on to say that if the Embassy could not give him these assurances, he would "endeavor to use my relatives in the United States, to see about getting something done in Washington"

However, on Saturday, July 8, 1961, before the Embassy had received the response from Washington, Oswald appeared without warning at the Embassy in Moscow.

"...He denied that he had made any derogatory statements concerning the United States to radio, press, or TV in the Soviet Union, and he denied that he had turned over any information to the Russians as he had threatened to do in the 1959 interview with Snyder."

He, Oswald seemed worried that the US Govt. might have reason to prosecute him for??????

Oswald while in custody after the assassination of JFK said "The reason I am being arrested is because I went to the Soviet Union, I'm a patsy."

Trying to tie so many loose ends together is difficult but let me try:

Nixon was Vice President when the U-2 was shot down and the Paris Summit failed (I suggest that if the Paris Summit happens Nixon wins the Presidency but John J. McCloy did not want that summit to happen). I have shown that it is possible for Walker to have been on a plane with Oswald as he left London and journeyed to Helsinki (why passenger lists were never presented as evidence in the Warren Commission Report) which connects Walker to the group that did not want the Paris Summit to happen. And Kennedy? As President of the United States an assassins trial would be the biggest news ever and Oswald could show (with his Left leaning attorney Jonathan Abt) the subterfuge that he (Oswald) had gotten caught up in.....the PATSY.

Jim Root

Edited May 2, 2016 by Jim Root