What really mattered in the Laura Kittrell story and was covered up: evidence that Oswald was a poor shot

[Greg Doudna]

It has been questioned whether Oswald had the skill to have accurately fired the shots which killed Kennedy from the 6^thfloor window. There is no evidence Oswald was a good shot with a rifle and significant evidence he was not. 

In addition to known and familiar accounts long discussed regarding Oswald’s poor marksmanship scores and reputation for being a poor shot among his fellow Marines, there is another item which has received little notice.

Laura Kittrell, a long-time counselor with the Texas Employment Commission of Dallas, tried to tell that, in the course of her job duties when Oswald was referred to her office as part of his seeking assistance in finding employment, she had administered a General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) to Oswald in October 1963.

Kittrell reported that whereas Oswald had scored well in the parts of the test battery dealing with intelligence, Oswald had received a poor, below-average score in the physical-motor coordination part of the test.

In the course of discussing that test result with Oswald, Oswald had told Kittrell directly that he was a poor shot with a rifle and knew it, which Kittrell believed based on her experience with previous male clients had a physiological cause related to his poor test score in physical motor coordination.

On Dec 26, 1963 Kittrell sent a letter with that information to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. The Attorney General’s office forwarded the letter to the FBI. A few days later Kittrell received an acknowledgement in the mail from the FBI in the name of the Director confirming the FBI had her information. Then, she heard nothing further. Kittrell believed that because of her information and personal dealings with Oswald she would be contacted by the Warren Commission but no one contacted her.

In April 1964, learning the Warren Commission was in Dallas interviewing witnesses, Kittrell visited U.S. Attorney Barefoot Sanders in his office in Dallas. Kittrell asked Sanders if he would convey her information to the Warren Commission staff then in Dallas, with whom Sanders was in contact, before the Commission staff left to return to Washington, D.C. Sanders agreed to do so. Sanders had the Secret Service stop by Kittrell’s office to obtain Kittrell’s document and bring it to him.

But the Warren Commission staff left Dallas and returned to D.C. and still Kittrell was not contacted and heard nothing. When Kittrell later inquired, Sanders told her he had mailed her document to the Warren Commission. When the Warren Commission’s Final Report was published in Sept 1963, Kittrell was dismayed to see no hint of her information, causing her to believe the Warren Commission either had never received or had ignored her information.

On June 4, 1965, Kittrell sent another letter with her information, and detailing her earlier unsuccessful attempts to bring it to the attention of the proper authorities, to now-U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy in New York (pp. 10-11 of https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/sightings-of-lho-oct.-1963-laurel-kittral/687524?item=687539, and pp. 44-49 of https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/sightings-of-lho-oct.-1963-laurel-kittral/687524?item=687630).

The office of Senator Kennedy forwarded Kittrell’s letter to the FBI, this time asking the FBI to investigate and report back to the Senator’s office what the FBI found.

Internal FBI documents show FBI headquarters in D.C. suggesting to the Dallas FBI office that Kittrell was emotionally disturbed and suggesting a letterhead answer be prepared for Senator Kennedy’s office around those lines, which was done.

In FBI’s response to Senator Kennedy’s office, the FBI did not dispute the truth of what Kittrell reported of Oswald’s aptitude test, but informed Senator Kennedy it was not “information of value” meriting followup or investigation.

The FBI obtained and cited a derogatory comment concerning Kittrell’s emotional behavior from a male supervisor, who called the unmarried Kittrell a “frustrated old maid” who overdramatized, despite the supervisor acknowledging that long-time counselor Kittrell was “a good worker in many respects”, with the effect of discrediting Kittrell on a personal level.

Kittrell’s story was complicated in that Kittrell had confused two distinct persons in her memory and account as if they were one, the one being her own client, Oswald, the other being another Texas Employment Commission client served in her same office by a different, named, counselor whom Kittrell had also assisted, a client named Curtis Craford, no impersonation involved but a confusion in the two men’s identities on Kittrell’s part (https://jacks.forumotion.com/t10p25-the-wild-one [JFK: The Wild One at 1/12/24 5:05 am]). 

Kittrell had suspected two persons were involved in her Oswald memories, which turned out to be correct with one mistaken and not Oswald. When the Warren Commission’s 26 volumes of documents and exhibits were published in Nov 1964, Kittrell saw for the first time and positively identified color photos of Carousel Club handyman Curtis Craford as the second man she had also dealt with, the other counselor’s client, whom she had mistakenly believed and mixed in her earlier accounts as if he had been Oswald, in addition to her client Oswald.

The FBI deflected attention from, did not investigate, and, in the way it responded, buried the significant fact in Kittrell’s information of a below-average Texas Employment Commission Oct 1963 test result of Oswald in physical motor coordination and its possible bearing on Oswald’s accuracy in shooting ability, a test result never discovered, disclosed, or investigated by any official body (FBI, 8/17/65, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60400#relPageId=194]).

 

[Denise Hazelwood]

There is one researcher who believes that JFK was never Oswald’s intended target, but that Connally (who, as then Secretary of the Navy, had denied Oswald’s petition to change his dishonorable discharge back to the original discharge) was the only intended target. Interesting theory.

[Charles Blackmon]

14 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

 

 

Internal FBI documents show FBI headquarters in D.C. suggesting to the Dallas FBI office that Kittrell was emotionally disturbed and suggesting a letterhead answer be prepared for Senator Kennedy’s office around those lines, which was done.

 

 

 

Shades of Ralph Leon Yates the witness to an Oswald impersonator a few days before the JFKA. Except that the FBI succeeded in destroying Yates' life thanks to his 'inconvenient' story.

[George Govus]

10 hours ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

Interesting theory.

I'm interested, Denise, who is the researcher of which you speak. Are you familiar with the book by the late James Reston, Jr., The Accidental Victim: JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Real Target in Dallas (2013) ISBN 978-1624908705? He develops the notion Oswald was shooting at Connally.

I haven't read it. I don't think Oswald was so daft, nor so twisted, as to murder a man and gain nothing from it but revenge. I am pretty sure Oswald didn't fire a rifle that day.

[Denise Hazelwood]

2 hours ago, George Govus said:

I'm interested, Denise, who is the researcher of which you speak. Are you familiar with the book by the late James Reston, Jr., The Accidental Victim: JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Real Target in Dallas (2013) 

Yes, Reston is the one I was thinking of.

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

Yes, Reston is the one I was thinking of.

Hi Denise, I read Restons book a while ago. The Connally as target case seems to go to a claim by Secret Service agent Mike Howard that he saw a hit list of four names slated for death in Oswald’s address book one of which was Connally. Nobody has verified that, nobody else ever said they saw it except Howard, the pages don’t exist today (Howard says they were ripped out and LBJ had them destroyed), and Howard himself never first mentioned the claim until I think not before the 1990s. (The other three names Howard claims he saw on LHO’s kill list were Walker, Hosty, and LBJ. Kennedy was not on the alleged list!) 

I don’t believe it and it’s hard to chalk this up to a mistake. But I cannot figure why he would be lying, which is the only conclusion I can come to on it. 

Apart from that I don’t see much substantial to make Connally the target. The bullet either was aimed at JFK and JFK moved and it went into Connally behind him, or the bullet went through JFK into Connally behind him, either was accidental and either way proves that shot came from the rear. 

There’s another Connally target argument book I can’t recall the authors name, I have the book somewhere, a man from Alaska, only a few hundred copies in existence. He did the most research of any on the Connally target theory but his main source is Howard whom he visited and interviewed who added a few outrageous whoppers to that book that not even Howard says in his public newspaper interviews. For example Howard told that author that Marina told him (he did security for Marina) that the night before the assassination, Marina saw Oswald in the middle of the night aiming the rifle in the kitchen! Yet Howard tells no one that (and Marina told no one else that) all these decades until telling this author that! Why would a professional non-delusional Secret Service retired agent just make up stuff like that? For the fun of it?

So that’s my take on that! Only mystery to me is why Howard was doing stuff like that. I believe he’s maybe 93 and still alive and in sound mind today. 

[Vince Palamara]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

Hi Denise, I read Restons book a while ago. The Connally as target case seems to go to a claim by Secret Service agent Mike Howard that he saw a hit list of four names slated for death in Oswald’s address book one of which was Connally. Nobody has verified that, nobody else ever said they saw it except Howard, the pages don’t exist today (Howard says they were ripped out and LBJ had them destroyed), and Howard himself never first mentioned the claim until I think not before the 1990s. (The other three names Howard claims he saw on LHO’s kill list were Walker, Hosty, and LBJ. Kennedy was not on the alleged list!) 

I don’t believe it and it’s hard to chalk this up to a mistake. But I cannot figure why he would be lying, which is the only conclusion I can come to on it. 

Apart from that I don’t see much substantial to make Connally the target. The bullet either was aimed at JFK and JFK moved and it went into Connally behind him, or the bullet went through JFK into Connally behind him, either was accidental and either way proves that shot came from the rear. 

There’s another Connally target argument book I can’t recall the authors name, I have the book somewhere, a man from Alaska, only a few hundred copies in existence. He did the most research of any on the Connally target theory but his main source is Howard whom he visited and interviewed who added a few outrageous whoppers to that book that not even Howard says in his public newspaper interviews. For example Howard told that author that Marina told him (he did security for Marina) that the night before the assassination, Marina saw Oswald in the middle of the night aiming the rifle in the kitchen! Yet Howard tells no one that (and Marina told no one else that) all these decades until telling this author that! Why would a professional non-delusional Secret Service retired agent just make up stuff like that? For the fun of it?

So that’s my take on that! Only mystery to me is why Howard was doing stuff like that. I believe he’s maybe 93 and still alive and in sound mind today. 

Mike Howard joins the list of other former agents who told tall tales and/or revised earlier statements (Clint Hill, Gerald Blaine, Paul Landis, etc.):

Secret Service agent Mike Howard and brother Pat deliberately planted story that a janitor saw LHO pull trigger
25 H 721-722, 725, 844-850:re: Secret Service agent Mike Howard and brother Pat and the allegation that they deliberately planted story that a janitor saw LHO pull trigger 

[Greg Doudna]

Vince --

On how Mike Howard came up with the story of seeing the four names kill list in Oswald's address book: there are phone numbers for all four of them in the Oswald address book, they just aren't a kill list and are not on a single page, but they are in the notebook. Second, Howard kept describing what he called a dagger and blood next to Connally's name and something about "kill" which is baloney; the page which actually does have Connally's name and address in Austin has nothing unusual like that. But I did notice an ink blotch, on a different page, not associated with Connally or any of the names, but maybe someone could think that was what Mike Howard claimed was Oswald drawing a dagger and drops of blood? It was actually an ink blotch. And third, from the whereabouts and custody of that Oswald address book I don't see how Mike Howard would have had opportunity for physical access to that notebook from any known information.

(The story he did claim as how and where he saw it, on the front lawn of the Irving Police Chief handed from the Chief to Howard on Sun AM when Marina was being handed some of her belongings, does not sound right--the address book was in Fritz's office, Hosty saw and copied it longhand there, how would it get to the Irving Police Chief...? Howard seems to think it had been kept by Marina at Ruth Paine's house all along, rather than found at Oswald's Beckley St. rooming house and taken to Fritz's office at the police station.)

But here's a theory: Howard was reflecting something he'd been told about names in that notebook, and who knows, maybe someone told him that page with the inkblot looked like a dagger and drops of blood... and Howard decades later changes that hearsay into the claim that he saw it himself, when really he was repeating some hearsay speculation from long ago from someone who maybe had seen or been told something about the notebook. This would fall into what may be a pattern in which Howard improves stories. Howard has claimed many times that LBJ personally called him to ask him to do security for the Oswald women, whereas other accounts say although LBJ did give the orders for that those orders were communicated through channels to Howard, not a phone call from LBJ direct to Howard, though I don't know for certain on that.

Then there's The Cellar. Howard was one of the ones there, was there until 4 am, has told of it (denies he drank anything alcoholic or that any of the agents did). Howard was also involved with JFK's Fort Worth breakfast that morning. It sounds like he did not get any sleep at all the previous night. Then JFK and entourage go on to Dallas, and Howard after they leave is next in one of the hotel rooms in Fort Worth. In all his interviews he claims he and another agent were circling rooms looking for stuff in case anyone had left something behind, as why they were in the hotel room. Here is a story on Mike Howard that gives this reason for being in the Fort Worth hotel room: https://northtexan.unt.edu/issues/2013-fall/living-history 

"After the Kennedys visited Fort Worth, they flew to Dallas. Howard and two other agents remained to check their hotel room for national security risks. But they rushed to Dallas when they saw TV reports that shots were fired." 

Maybe so, but what do you want to bet he was (also) sleeping? 

Here's another story on Mike Howard. http://www.ntxe-news.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=34&num=56336# . (Among other things Howard claims in this one that Oswald's "undesirable" discharge from the military meant Oswald was a mental case!! I never heard that as the meaning of Oswald's "undesirable" discharge. I always thought he had an honorable discharge originally but it was changed to "undesireable discharge" as punishment for the defection, or something, nothing to do with a mental issue.)

In that link Howard attributes to the Secret Service the alleged page of Oswald's threats to four people all on the same page, not directly himself. Maybe he never did see it personally despite claims, and it never was more than something he thought he'd once been told?

"Mike Howard says the Secret Service examined Oswald's journal and in it Oswald threatened to kill four people: John Connally, an unspecified Vice President, an FBI agent whom Oswald felt was harassing Marina and retired General Edwin Walker." 

 

Edited May 7 by Greg Doudna

[Denise Hazelwood]

7 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Apart from that I don’t see much substantial to make Connally the target. The bullet either was aimed at JFK and JFK moved and it went into Connally behind him, or the bullet went through JFK into Connally behind him, either was accidental and either way proves that shot came from the rear.

I didn’t actually read the book myself but I read the premise. Given the defective scope and Oswald’s reported poor aim—at least upon occasion (remember the “Maggie’s drawers” marksmanship test and the fact that Oswald “barely qualified” for the standard “marksmanship” rating that most marines held—plus the fact that there was a reason for Oswald to hold a grudge against Connally, I think it’s a possibility that Connally was the actual intended target. I also think that we’ll never know for sure. I can’t speak to whether or not Oswald had a “kill” list. 

 

5 hours ago, Vince Palamara said:

Secret Service agent Mike Howard and brother Pat deliberately planted story that a janitor saw LHO pull trigger

I have an extensive article on my website about the “negro janitor”—Eddie Piper. See https://www.a-benign-conspiracy.com/an-eyewitness-inside-the-6th-floor-of-the-tsbd.html

It’s not a certainty that Piper saw Oswald shoot, but I keep coming back to the fact that his picture was taken and shown to Arnold Rowland. I think that Piper might have become an uncooperative witness after getting arrested by the DPD and was possibly afraid for other reasons (Black people were automatically suspected due to racism, especially in Texas) and he may have insisted that he saw nothing because he didn’t want to be accepted of being in “cahoots” with Oswald—especially after Oswald was killed by Ruby.

But that’s speculation rather than certainty.

[Richard Bertolino]

On 5/6/2024 at 7:06 PM, Vince Palamara said:

Mike Howard joins the list of other former agents who told tall tales and/or revised earlier statements (Clint Hill, Gerald Blaine, Paul Landis, etc.):

Secret Service agent Mike Howard and brother Pat deliberately planted story that a janitor saw LHO pull trigger
25 H 721-722, 725, 844-850:re: Secret Service agent Mike Howard and brother Pat and the allegation that they deliberately planted story that a janitor saw LHO pull trigger 

Y

Edited May 16 by Richard Bertolino

[Richard Bertolino]

There are other indications that Oswald was incapable of the feat his admirers attribute to him. Of course we have Nelson DelGado and Maggie's Drawers. And also William Gaudet's observations of Oswald's nervousness. I think there are more. I'm not sure the murderers would think this additional Kittrell information would be worth covering up since there's more direct information already out there. To judge by the documents, the authorities were initially concerned with Kittrell's interview with George McMurray, someone who was barely ever mentioned again.

[Richard Bertolino]

On 5/7/2024 at 4:07 AM, Richard Bertolino said:

There are other indications that Oswald was incapable of the feat his admirers attribute to him. Of course we have Nelson DelGado and Maggie's Drawers. And also William Gaudet's observations of Oswald's nervousness. I think there are more. I'm not sure the murderers would think this additional Kittrell information would be worth covering up since there's more direct information already out there. To judge by the documents, the authorities were initially concerned with Kittrell's interview with George McMurray, someone who was barely ever mentioned again.

 

And

 

 

 

Edited May 16 by Richard Bertolino
image file reduced

[Denny Zartman]

On 5/6/2024 at 11:59 AM, George Govus said:

He develops the notion Oswald was shooting at Connally.

I haven't read it. I don't think Oswald was so daft, nor so twisted, as to murder a man and gain nothing from it but revenge.

It also begs the question: why didn't he fill Connally's face full of lead as the limo was going north on Houston?