Was President John F. Kennedy killed by accident 53 years ago? Did the sniper miss?
Is a missing page from a little green book the big clue to the killer’s intention on that grim day in Dallas, Texas – Nov. 22, 1963?
I was 15 when JFK was killed, having skipped school that overcast, chilly day. I was home with my feet propped up on the kerosene stove in the living room, reading Thornton Wilder’s great play, Our Town, when I heard the news on the radio. My family had no TV at that time; it was in for repair. That afternoon is as vivid to me as yesterday – or today. The news was so shocking it was like being hit in the gut by a sledgehammer, knocking the wind out of me.
I’ve “relived” that day hundreds of times via documentaries, magazine articles, books, newspapers and even during a visit to Dealey Plaza where Kennedy was struck down on that dark day – a day that was ironically sun-drenched with crowds cheering Kennedy as he glided along smiling, waving in the limousine with the open top.
As soon as the shots were fired, theories abounded. As intriguing as all the sinister theories were, I have always believed Lee Harvey Oswald almost certainly acted alone, just as the official investigation concluded.
The conspiracy concoctions were tangled webs of bizarre connect-the-dot speculations – everything from a cabal of scheming Cuban exiles to a “hit” ordered by the Mafia. Some of the theories hold some traces being believable in a weird way. That is because there were so many strange coincidences surrounding the assassination, before and after. As someone wisely said, the bigger the death, the bigger the conspiracies (recall Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe).
I’d never heard of the “little green book” theory until just yesterday, Nov. 23, when a friend emailed me a column written by James Reston Jr., published in the Los Angeles Times last week.
The following is a summary of that column:
After Oswald was nabbed by police, a Secret Service agent, Mike Howard, was dispatched to Oswald’s apartment. There, he found a little green address book. On page 17, under a heading “I WILL KILL,” there were four names:
- James Hosty, an FBI agent, who had apparently given Oswald’s wife a tough interrogation after their return from the Soviet Union.
- Richard M. Nixon, vice president under President Dwight Eisenhower before Kennedy was elected.
- Edwin Walker, a right-wing general. Oswald is suspected of trying to kill Walker by shooting a bullet into his Dallas home seven months before Kennedy’s killing.
- John Connally, soon to become Texas governor, whose name was at the top of the “kill” list. Through Connally’s name, Oswald had drawn a dagger covered with dripping blood.
Connally and his wife, Nelly, were in the limousine on that fateful day with the president and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Connally was wounded but survived.
Back to the little green book: Agent Howard turned it over to the FBI. It eventually came to the attention of the Warren Commission, which studied the assassination. Later, Howard learned the death-threat page had been torn from the little book.
Flashback to 1959: Oswald had been discharged honorably from the U.S. Marines. Apparently radicalized toward a Soviet persuasion, he moved to the Soviet Union where he intended to defect. He met a Russian woman, Marina, whom he married. They soon had a child. Disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union, Oswald and family returned to the United States. Meantime, the Marines learned about his intention to defect and downgraded his honorable discharge to “undesirable” discharge.
Because of the stigma and his ninth-grade education, Oswald had a difficult time finding a job. He wrote a plea to Connally, head of the U.S. Navy Department, begging him to help reinstate his honorable-discharge status.
Oswald received back a “brushoff” letter, with Connally’s smiling face on the front of it, a campaign-mail pitch touting his candidacy for Texas governor.
Oswald – ever the disaffected loner – began to seethe with hatred toward Connally, blaming him for his bitter disappointments and personal miseries. Many acquaintances at that time, even Oswald’s wife, said his rage was aimed at Connally, not JFK, whom Oswald had once praised for his efforts for détente with the Soviets.
Why the missing page?
Reston Jr. offers two possible explanations:
One: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover squelched the information because it may have implicated the FBI as a cause of Oswald’s rage (the Hosty connection).
Two: President LBJ may be a reason for the missing page because he did not want his best friend, Connally, to be embarrassed and guilt-ridden as the unwitting catalyst for the crime.
Did Oswald miss? We will never know. Just one more theory to ponder about that awful day that haunts us all.
