Before JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald Tried to Kill an Army
Major General
Seven months before he shot President Kennedy, Lee
Harvey Oswald tried to kill Major General Edwin Walker
SMITHSONIAN.COM
OCTOBER 4, 2013
Seven months before Lee Harvey Oswald shot President
John F. Kennedy, he took his Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to Major
General Edwin Walker‘s house, stood by the fence, aimed
towards the window, and shot at him. Walker was a stark anti-communist voice
and an increasingly strident critic of the Kennedy’s, whose strong political stances had him pushed out of
the army in 1961. In an excerpt, published at the Daily Beast, from
a new book, Dallas 1963, Bill
Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis tell
the story of how Walker found himself in the sights of Lee Harvey Oswald.
On April 10, 1963, Oswald left his wife a note and
made for Walker’s house. He took aim, ready to carry out his thoroughly
researched plan.
Oswald lifts his rifle and stares into the window.
Surrounding Walker are folders, books, and stacks of packages wrapped in brown
shipping paper. The walls are decorated with panels of foil wallpaper embossed
with an Asian-style flower motif. Walker’s head is in profile. He has a pencil
in hand, and he is perfectly still, focused on something at his desk. From
outside looking in, it must look a bit like a painting—as if Walker is caught
in thought with the right side of his face clearly visible.
Oswald squints into his telescopic sight, and
Walker’s head fills the view. He looks so close now, and he’s sitting so still,
that there’s no possible way to miss. Drawing a tight bead on Walker’s head, he
pulls the trigger. An explosion hurtles through the night, a thunder that
echoes to the alley, to the creek, to the church and the surrounding houses.
Walker flinches instinctively at the loud blast and
the sound of a wicked crack over his scalp—right inside his hair. For a second,
he is frozen. His right arm is still resting on the desk alongside his 1962
income tax forms. He doesn’t know it, but blood is beginning to appear.
Oswald missed his shot and escaped into the night.
“The Warren Commission, relying on testimony from Oswald’s widow, Marina, said
Oswald tried to kill the general because he was “an extremist,” says the New York Times. The
next day, Walker was interviewed about the attempted assassination:
About Colin Schultz
Colin Schultz is a freelance science writer and
editor based in Toronto, Canada. He blogs for Smart News and contributes to the
American Geophysical Union. He has a B.Sc. in physical science and philosophy,
and a M.A. in journalism.
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