[Ben Holmes]

In a recent book, it was asserted that Lee Harvey Oswald was a 'crack' shot... but was he?

Lee Harvey Oswald was a poor shot. Scoring a 191 in his last rifle range qualification (May 1959 - over 4 years earlier), only one point above the absolute minimum required of a Marine. Anyone who has served in the Marine Corps is quite familiar with the ability that a 191 score illustrates, and it's simply not good enough.

(For those of you who are Marines, I might note that I quite often matched or beat a 191 score leaving the 300 yard line, with the 500 still to go. So I do have the experience to judge what LHO's scores mean.)

Another fact rarely mentioned is that his USMC experience was with the M-14, which is NOT a bolt-action rifle. To put it another way - LHO had virtually NO known experience with firing bolt-action rifles. (His sole experience appears to be two hunting occasions with a borrowed .22 bolt-action rifle - with his brother). Considering that the evidence shows that the Mannlicher-Carcano that was allegedly used had a difficult to operate bolt (3H 447, 449), eccentric trigger pull (3H 447), maladjusted scope (3h 405), disintegrating firing pin (3H 447, CE2974), and a homemade rifle sling that wasn't very usable (3H 397), the problems that the WCR faced was in convincing anyone that LHO had the experience or practice to overcome these difficulties.

Since he didn't have the experience, could he perhaps have taken the time to practice? In her earliest statements, from Dec 4th-16th, Marina invariably stated that she had no knowledge of LHO practicing with the MC. (CE 1785; CE 1401 pg 286; CE 1790; CE 1403 pg 735). It wasn't until two months later, during her testimony for the WC, that she for the first time asserted that LHO had practiced with the rifle - interestingly, one of her statements (Feb 17th, CE 2694 pg 5) was about rifle cleaning/practice in January - although the rifle wasn't mailed by Klein's for another 2 months... Amusingly, the following day, she retracted her story about the January cleaning/practice, realizing, or perhaps more probable, being reminded; that the rifle hadn't even been mailed for 2 more months...

So, how did the WCR characterize this contradictory evidence from Marina on any rifle practice by LHO? By ignoring all statements that they didn't want to hear. The casual reader of the WCR will be completely ignorant of Marina's two months of consistent statements of ignorance on the topic of any rifle practice by LHO.

Another eyewitness to a lack of rifle practice was Mrs. Paine:

Quote:Mr. JENNER. Did you know, are you familiar with the report that appeared in the Fort Worth Press on January 15, 1964, reporting that you had told Marvin Lane that Lee could not have taken the rifle from your garage and gone to practice without your knowledge? Do you recall that?
Mrs. PAINE. I do.
Mr. JENNER. Mark Lane.
Mrs. PAINE. It is Mark but that perhaps was in the Fort Worth Press. I recall that.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever make that statement to a reporter for the Fort Worth Press?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes, I did; with slight variation. It always came out a more definite statement in the press than I meant to make it.
Mr. JENNER. What did you say to the reporter then?
Mrs. PAINE. I said I did not see how he could have taken the gun from the garage without my knowing it. There were two weekends particularly in question which had been reported in the Press that someone had seen him at a firing range, one being the weekend of the 9th and 10th, and I was home virtually all of that weekend except Monday the 11th as I have already described. The other being the following weekend, and I didn't see how he could have the weekend he was not out at my house, I didn't see how he could have come out, taken the gun, gone away without my knowledge, and if the gun had not been in that garage that weekend, I didn't see what the purpose of his coming out the 21st of November was in the situation. And this is what I told Mr. Tackett of the Fort Worth Press.
Mr. JENNER. Did you also tell Mr. Tackett in addition to, that his reasons for his not engaging in rifle practice that weekend or any other weekend was that he couldn't drive an automobile?
Mrs. PAINE. Very probably.
Mr. JENNER. And also that he couldn't have walked that far for rifle practice?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes. By that far I mean there is no place you can walk to from my house, not only not to the firing range, but to an open enough place where you could fire. It would be difficult to walk that far.
Mr. JENNER. Where was the firing-range at which it was suggested he practiced? Mrs. PAINE. I don't know exactly. It was in the Grand Prairie area, just south of where we are located. But it would be a 15-minute car drive I would expect. (3H 125)

The WCR attempted to prove in another way that LHO had been practicing, stating on page 192-193 that:

Quote:Examination of the cartridge cases found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building established that they had been previously loaded and ejected from the assassination rifle, which would indicate that Oswald practiced operating the bolt.

But as with many other misrepresentations that the WCR was guilty of, this too was a lie. Here is the underlying "evidence" from the FBI that the WCR used:

Quote:... the extractor and ejector marks on C6 as well as on C7, C8, and C38 did not possess sufficient characteristics for identifying the weapon which produced them." (CE 2968)

I've many times asked the question - why does the truth need lies to support it, and no believer has been able to provide any answer at all...

The FBI tried desperately to find any proof of LHO practicing with the MC - even collecting rifle shells from various locations in Dallas and Irving where Oswald might have practiced... this included 23 POUNDS of rifle shells from the Sports Drome Rifle Range, at which eyewitnesses claim to have seen Oswald on several occasions. Laboratory examination failed to turn up a single shell coming from the MC. (CE 3049) Considering that they collected 1,336 cartridges, and 80 of them were 6.5mm MC shells, it's interesting that the FBI was unable to demonstrate that LHO did any rifle practice... for they were certainly trying to!

So one of the only two eyewitnesses to claim that LHO ever did any rifle practice contradicted her own statements, and had originally claimed otherwise; and no proof has ever been uncovered showing that LHO, a rather poor shot; had ever practiced with a rifle he was never trained to shoot. (I've left out the problems with De Mohrenschildt's statements, that will take a post as long as this one...)

Tis interesting that the WCR felt it necessary to lie on these points...