Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

This is from OIC senior member Dr. Thomas Halle:

Yo, Ralph. Thought this material might  be of interest...I'm supplying in response to some online baloney about LHO being a good shot.

 

 

A poster insisted that Oswald had been an excellent shot...and cited the following:

 

Neal Scroggs 2 hours ago

To further demonstrate the absurdity of these "LHO was a bad shot" claims here the money quote from the WC testimony of the Marine officer in charge of rifle training: Mr. SPECTER - Based on what you see of Mr. Oswald's marksmanship capabilities from the Marine Corps records which you have before you, Major Anderson, how would you characterize him as a marksman?  Major ANDERSON - I would say that as compared to other Marines receiving the same type of training, that Oswald was a good shot, somewhat better than or equal to--better than the average let us say. As compared to a civilian who had not received this intensive training, he would be considered as a good to excellent shot.

 

CLEARLY, this is BALONEY!!!

 

This is what I posted...in response!!

 

LANE. Do you have personal knowledge of Oswald's ability with a rifle?

 

DELGADO. At the range he couldn't prove by me that he was a good shot.

 

As any person who has ever served in the armed forces could tell you, there's a part in the qualification that calls for rapid firing. This is done with ten shots, eight in the clip and two that you load by hand. They give you forty-five seconds to fire these ten rounds. Well, when you fire these, then you stand you stand away from your firing position, till everyone has finished firing. Then the targets are brought down and scored. The targets are run back up, and there are disks for the number that you have hit--fives, fours, threes, or misses. Well, in Oswald's particular case, it was quite funny to look at, because he would get a couple of disks.

Maybe out of a possible ten he'll get two or three Maggie's drawers. Now, these [the Maggie's drawers] are a red flag that's on a long pole, and this is running from left to right on the target itself. And, you don't see this on a firing line too often--not a Marine firing line. You can't help but noticing when you're seeing disks, round cylinder things, coming up and down, and farther on down the line you see a flag waving [i.e., a Maggie's drawer]. Well, that was gonna catch your eye anyway. And we thought it was funny that Oswald was getting these Maggie's drawers so rapidly, one after the other. And this is why I can't think that he could be a good shot, because a good shot doesn't pull this. He'll pull a three, but he won't pull a Maggie's drawer-- that's a complete miss.

 

LANE. How did the FBI react to your statement that Oswald was a poor shot?

DELGADO. They tried to disprove it. They did not like the idea when I came up with the statement that Oswald, as far as I knew, was a very poor shot.

LANE. Do you feel that the agents of the FBI actually tried to get you to change your statement that Oswald was a poor shot.

DELGADO. Yes, sir, I definitely do.

(From the 1966 documentary RUSH TO JUDGMENT, produced by Mark Lane and Emile de Antonio)