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

I'm still riveted by Malcolm Kilduff's 1991 claim that Oswald's target, all along, was not Kennedy, but Connally. Today, that is VERY politically incorrect. You won't hear John McAdams or Vincent Bugliosi saying that. And, I have to think that even in 1991 it was politically incorrect. Really, it was a gaffe.  So, why did Kilduff say it?

I think it's because he realized that Oswald had NO MOTIVE to kill Kennedy. So, if he could think of a motive for Oswald to kill Connally, at least it was something. Some motive is better than no motive. Right?  

But, it's ridiculous. He was going to kill Connally all because of his dishonorable discharge? But, at the time, he was heading to the Soviet Union and renouncing his US citizenship. So, what did he care? And if that was all a ruse, as many think it was, where he was really a false defector, then the dishonorable discharge was part of it. So, what did he care? 

But, more important is the fact that Oswald returned from Russia in June 1962, and this was a year and a half later. And things hadn't gone too well for him. Financially, he was struggling. He had a hard time holding a job. His marriage was in trouble. He and Marina were separated, although they weren't completely separated. When he visited her and and his kids on the weekends, he stayed with her, in her room; they slept together. So, they weren't really separated in the full sense of the word. And, the very night before the assassination, he implored Marina to end the separation, to give him permission to start looking for a place in Dallas for them all to live as a family. 

However, admittedly, there were problems, serious problems, in his marriage, in his work, in his ability to support his family, and in his life in general. But, not one iota of those problems had anything whatsoever to do with his Marine discharge. Whether it was honorable or dishonorable, his life was what it was. And for him to be concerned and resentful about his Marine discharge at that late date would have been insane.  

Furthermore, he would have been more insane to place any blame on the Secretary of the Navy. How could he think that he mattered enough that the handling of his Marine discharge involved the Secretary of the Navy? That would be like wanting to kill the President because you lost your job at the post office, as though he got you fired. 

But, you want to know what makes it even more insane from Kilduff's perspective???????

It is the fact that John Connally didn't become Secretary of the Navy until 1961, and Oswald was discharged from the Marines in 1959. It means that Malcolm Kilduff was completely and utterly misinformed; either that, or he was totally deranged. Connally could not have had anything whatsoever to do with Oswald's discharge. 

So, the whole idea of Oswald wanting Connally dead is wacky, and the only thing that is significant about it is the recognition, subsumed in the wacky idea, that Oswald had no motive to kill Kennedy. So really, it is a desperate cry for help. "Help! Help! Please! Oswald has no motive! Our ship is sinking!"

Their ship has already sunk. Oswald had no motive to kill anybody, not Connally and not Kennedy. On the contrary, he liked Kennedy. He defended Kennedy. He read Kennedy's book, and he read books that Kennedy read. But, in addition, he had no opportunity to kill Kennedy. There is no evidence that he had any knowledge of the motorcade route. The map with the correct motorcade route did not appear in any newspaper until Friday morning.  And, there is no solid evidence of him even handling a newspaper which had information about it. And if even he had, there's no basis to assume that he would have seen it and registered on it just because it was there. People skim newspapers; they don't read them word for word.  

You can't just assume things; it is fanciful to the extreme. 

Oswald asked James Jarman why people were gathering on the sidewalk. And, he wasn't putting on an act. He really didn't know. Just think: he and Frazier rode from Dallas to Irving on the Thursday, and then from Irving to Dallas on the Friday. Don't you think one or both would have said something about the Presidential motorcade passing their building if they knew? Before or after, "How about them Cowboys?" Neither one of them knew. 

Oswald did know that JFK would be in Dallas because he and Marina discussed it that Thursday night, but he did not know that the motorcade would be passing his building. And Marina told Lee how much she admired Kennedy and wished that she could see him. If he knew that Kennedy would be passing his building, don't you think he would have mentioned it to his wife? 

Of course, the bloodied will say that he didn't mention it precisely because he planned to kill Kennedy. But, that's circular reasoning. That he killed Kennedy is the very thing that we are disputing. And if he didn't kill Kennedy, he didn't plan to kill Kennedy.

The idea that Oswald meant to kill Connally not Kennedy- I'll tell you what it is. It is blind alley that was tried, field-tested, and then abandoned for having failed. It failed to support the official story and only made its credibility worse. You won't be hearing any more Presidential Press Secretaries, retired or otherwise, saying it again. Malcolm Kilduff was a fossil.