Oswald with an M-16?

[Pat Speer]

Something tells me this is old territory, but I noticed the other day on Weberman's site that he claims to have received a picture of Oswald with an M-16 in a pack of Minox photos. Does anyone have a link to these photos? If not, has anyone looked into this? The M-16 was not available when Oswald was in the Marines, and was only available on a limited basis in 63. A photo of him with an M-16 would suggest an intelligence background beyond what has been previously acknowledged by officialdom.

[David G. Healy]

Something tells me this is old territory, but I noticed the other day on Weberman's site that he claims to have received a picture of Oswald with an M-16 in a pack of Minox photos. Does anyone have a link to these photos? If not, has anyone looked into this? The M-16 was not available when Oswald was in the Marines, and was only available on a limited basis in 63. A photo of him with an M-16 would suggest an intelligence background beyond what has been previously acknowledged by officialdom.

part of the time-line....

[...]

# 1958. Armalite delivers first new rifles, called the AR-15, to the Army for testing. Initial tests display some reliability and accuracy problems with the rifle.

# 1959. Late that year Fairchild Co, being disappointed with the development of the AR-15, sold all rights for this design to the Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company.

# 1960. Eugene Stoner leaves the Armalite and joins the Colt. The same year Colt demonstrated the AR-15 to the US Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, Gen. LeMay. Gen. LeMay wanted to procure some 8 000 AR-15 rifles for US AF Strategic Air Command security forces to replace ageing M1 and M2 carbines.

# 1962. US DoD Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) purchases 1000 AR-15 rifles from Colt and sends those rifles to the South Vietnam, for field trials. Same year brings glowing reports about the effectiveness of the new "black rifle", used by South Vietnamese forces.

# 1963. Colt receives contracts for 85 000 rifles for US Army (designated as XM16E1) and for further 19 000 rifles for US Air Forces (M16). The US AF M16 was no more than an AR-15 rifle with appropriate markings. The XM16E1 differed from AR-15/M16 by having an additional device, the so called "forward assist", which was used to manually push the bolt group in place in the case of jams.

# 1964. US Air Forces officially adopted new rifle as M16. Same year US Army adopted the XM16E1 as a limited standard rifle, to fill the niche between discontinued 7.62mm

[...]

or go here... http://world.guns.ru/assault/as18-e.htm