Read Online Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation by Bill O’Reilly - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bill O’Reilly
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Vietnam,” he will tell Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Charles Bartlett off the record. “Those people hate us. They are going to throw [us] out of there at almost any point. But I can’t give up a piece of territory like that to the Communists and then get the American people to reelect me.”
Soon after taking office, Kennedy gave the press an update on Communist-held areas in Southeast Asia. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
To safeguard his chances for staying in office, the president cannot, and will not, pull U.S. troops out of Vietnam until after the 1964 election. The war is still popular with voters.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
APRIL 10, 1963
Dallas, Texas
O N A HOT A PRIL NIGHT, Lee Harvey Oswald hides in the shadows of a Dallas alleyway. His new rifle is pointed at Major General Ted Walker. The 53-year-old West Point graduate is a famous opponent of communism. One of the communist newspapers Oswald subscribes to has targeted the general as dangerous to its beliefs because he publicly warns Americans about the threat of communism.
Lee Harvey Oswald finds strength in the ideals of communism. He believes that the profit from everybody’s work should be shared equally by all. He thinks if the country were organized that way, then there would be no poor people and everyone would be equal. Perhaps he has forgotten his experiences in the factory in Russia where he was so unhappy.
After almost a year back home in America, he has become enraged by what he perceives as the injustices he sees around him. He is angry enough to kill any man who speaks out against communism.
This is why he is aiming his brand-new rifle with murderous intent at Ted Walker’s head.
Former Major General Edwin A. “Ted” Walker speaks with reporters the morning after a bullet narrowly missed him. [© Bettmann/Corbis]
Walker sits in the study of his Dallas home looking at his 1962 tax returns. The desk lamp is the room’s only light. A small window looks out into the darkness.
Lee Harvey Oswald’s hiding spot in the alley is just 40 yards away. He watches Walker’s every move through the telescopic sight of his rifle. The sight is so strong that Oswald can see every strand of hair on Walker’s head. He takes aim. He has never shot a man before, or even fired a gun in anger. But he spent hours on the firing range back in his Marine Corps days, and these last few weeks he has been diligently working on his accuracy down in the dry bed of the Trinity River.
Oswald squeezes the trigger. He fires just one shot. Then he turns and runs as fast and as far as he can.
* * *
“I shot Walker,” Oswald breathlessly tells Marina. It’s 11:30 at night. She has been worried sick about his absence.
A photo of General Walker’s house that was in Lee Harvey Oswald’s wallet when he was arrested. [© Corbis]
“Did you kill him?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he replies in Russian.
“What did you do with the rifle?”
“Buried it.”
Oswald turns on the radio to see if he’s made the news yet.
The Walker assassination attempt is in the newspapers and on the radio the next morning. Oswald hangs on every word, though he is appalled to learn that he missed his target completely. Eyewitnesses claim they saw two men fleeing the scene in a car, and Dallas police are looking for a gun that takes a completely different sort of ammunition from the kind Oswald fired. Oswald is crestfallen. He shot at Walker because he wanted to be a hero in the eyes of the Communist Party; he wanted to be special. Now not only has he botched the shot, but he is worse than a failure—he is anonymous.
On April 21, Marina sees Oswald getting ready to leave the house with a pistol tucked in his waistband. It’s a Sunday. He’s wearing a suit. Marina furiously demands to know where he’s going. “Nixon is coming,” Oswald tells her. “I’m going to go check it out.”
The former vice president has just made headlines in the morning
Soon after taking office, Kennedy gave the press an update on Communist-held areas in Southeast Asia. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]
To safeguard his chances for staying in office, the president cannot, and will not, pull U.S. troops out of Vietnam until after the 1964 election. The war is still popular with voters.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
APRIL 10, 1963
Dallas, Texas
O N A HOT A PRIL NIGHT, Lee Harvey Oswald hides in the shadows of a Dallas alleyway. His new rifle is pointed at Major General Ted Walker. The 53-year-old West Point graduate is a famous opponent of communism. One of the communist newspapers Oswald subscribes to has targeted the general as dangerous to its beliefs because he publicly warns Americans about the threat of communism.
Lee Harvey Oswald finds strength in the ideals of communism. He believes that the profit from everybody’s work should be shared equally by all. He thinks if the country were organized that way, then there would be no poor people and everyone would be equal. Perhaps he has forgotten his experiences in the factory in Russia where he was so unhappy.
After almost a year back home in America, he has become enraged by what he perceives as the injustices he sees around him. He is angry enough to kill any man who speaks out against communism.
This is why he is aiming his brand-new rifle with murderous intent at Ted Walker’s head.
Former Major General Edwin A. “Ted” Walker speaks with reporters the morning after a bullet narrowly missed him. [© Bettmann/Corbis]
Walker sits in the study of his Dallas home looking at his 1962 tax returns. The desk lamp is the room’s only light. A small window looks out into the darkness.
Lee Harvey Oswald’s hiding spot in the alley is just 40 yards away. He watches Walker’s every move through the telescopic sight of his rifle. The sight is so strong that Oswald can see every strand of hair on Walker’s head. He takes aim. He has never shot a man before, or even fired a gun in anger. But he spent hours on the firing range back in his Marine Corps days, and these last few weeks he has been diligently working on his accuracy down in the dry bed of the Trinity River.
Oswald squeezes the trigger. He fires just one shot. Then he turns and runs as fast and as far as he can.
* * *
“I shot Walker,” Oswald breathlessly tells Marina. It’s 11:30 at night. She has been worried sick about his absence.
A photo of General Walker’s house that was in Lee Harvey Oswald’s wallet when he was arrested. [© Corbis]
“Did you kill him?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he replies in Russian.
“What did you do with the rifle?”
“Buried it.”
Oswald turns on the radio to see if he’s made the news yet.
The Walker assassination attempt is in the newspapers and on the radio the next morning. Oswald hangs on every word, though he is appalled to learn that he missed his target completely. Eyewitnesses claim they saw two men fleeing the scene in a car, and Dallas police are looking for a gun that takes a completely different sort of ammunition from the kind Oswald fired. Oswald is crestfallen. He shot at Walker because he wanted to be a hero in the eyes of the Communist Party; he wanted to be special. Now not only has he botched the shot, but he is worse than a failure—he is anonymous.
On April 21, Marina sees Oswald getting ready to leave the house with a pistol tucked in his waistband. It’s a Sunday. He’s wearing a suit. Marina furiously demands to know where he’s going. “Nixon is coming,” Oswald tells her. “I’m going to go check it out.”
The former vice president has just made headlines in the morning
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