Assassination!: The Brick Chronicle of Attempts on the Lives of Twelve US Presidents (23 page)

From a distance of about 100 feet, Oswald found a clear shot through a window at General Walker, who was seated at his desk, doing his taxes. Suddenly, the window glass shattered, and a bullet whizzed past Walker’s head, missing by inches.

Oswald quickly reburied the rifle, not knowing whether he’d hit or missed Walker. Lacking a driver’s license or car, Oswald had timed the shooting to coincide with the end of a Mormon church service nearby. Making his way to the local bus stop, he was unnoticed amid the parishioners and made his escape.

Though he laughed at the Dallas police’s inability to solve the Walker shooting, at Marina’s insistence, he left town, traveling to New Orleans where he lived mostly on unemployment checks and began handing out pro-Castro leaflets downtown, urging the US government to stay out of Cuba’s affairs.

After twice being arrested for public scuffles with anti-Castro Cuban political exiles, in August Oswald was invited to appear on two radio programs where, in a sophisticated manner, he discussed and debated his objections to President Kennedy’s Cuban policy.

Now determined to defect to Cuba, in late September Oswald gathered evidence of his pro-Castro activities in New Orleans and brought them to the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City, expecting to be welcomed as a fellow revolutionary Marxist.

Wary of him, the consulate was unwilling to issue him a visa. Outraged, Oswald angrily demanded better treatment for all he had done for the Cuban cause. Consul Eusebio Azcue became offended and told Oswald that the revolution did not need friends like him, telling him to leave or be thrown out.

Dejected, Oswald returned to Texas and reunited with his nine-month pregnant wife and baby daughter. Needing funds to support them, Oswald took another menial job offered through a friend, this time working at the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas.

The FBI, which had periodically checked up on Oswald since his return from the USSR, wanted to speak to Oswald again after learning of his trip to the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City. In early November, agent James Hosty spoke briefly to Marina while Oswald was at work.

Believing that the FBI’s intrusions into his life had already cost him previous jobs, Oswald wrote a threatening letter to the FBI. On a lunch break from his job at the book depository, Oswald walked to the nearby Dallas FBI headquarters, left the note with Hosty’s secretary, and stormed out.

By mid-November, Dallas newspapers were abuzz with reports about President Kennedy’s upcoming visit, and on the 19th, the specific route of the motorcade was given, passing directly in front of the book depository.

The morning of Kennedy’s arrival, Oswald kissed his newborn daughter Audrey and twenty-month-old June goodbye. He left all the money he had, $170, on a dresser, telling Marina to buy whatever she and the children needed. He also secretly left his wedding ring in a teacup.