and he is no longer anonymous... he left a paper trail. One would think that anonymity would be critical if you were an Assassin.
No, you're seriously misinformed. You're thinking like a CT, looking for any reason to discard the argument advanced.
He didn't buy the weapon to shoot JFK. He bought it to shoot General Walker.
He had seriously scoped out Walker's home and the environs (photographs were discovered of Walker's home, taken in March of 1963, among Oswald's possessions after the assassination).
And his plan wasn't to abandon the weapon at the scene of the crime after shooting Walker, his plan was to flee with the weapon. All the police had after the Walker shooting was one mangled bullet that missed Walker's head by inches. Oswald took his weapon with him in the dark of night when he fled the scene. The police had no rifle to try to link the bullet to, nor any rifle to trace back to the owner. Oswald wasn't a suspect in the Walker shooting until after the assassination.
And he had no plans to shoot JFK when he took the job at the Depository. Ruth Paine, Marina Oswald, Linnie Mae Randle, and at least one other woman were sitting around talking and Marina was asked if Lee found a job yet (Marina was like 8 months pregnant at the time). Linnie Mae Randle mentioned her younger brother, Wes Frazier, had recently gotten a job at the depository, and maybe Lee could try there.
Ruth Paine took it a step further, "let's call and see if they're still hiring". She spoke to Roy Truly, and described the circumstances, young man with a wife and child, another on the way, and an ex-Marine.
Roy Truly, a WW-II veteran, said send him down and I'll see what I can do. Oswald of course didn't mention his defection to Russia or his pro-communist leanings, said he was just out of the Marines, and got the job.
But it was only happenstance many times over that Lee got the opportunity to shoot the President from his place of work.
The first was the coffee-klatch of the women meeting and the subject of Lee's looking for a job coming up. If Linnie Mae Randle isn't there, or if her brother didn't get a job there, or Marina isn't there, Oswald could be working elsewhere during the President's visit to Dallas.
The second happenstance was Roy Truly hiring two men in early October, and assigning Oswald to the warehouse on Elm Street, and assigning the other man to the other warehouse many blocks from Elm. If Truly assigned Oswald to the other warehouse, he's again working elsewhere during the President's visit to Dallas.
The third happenstance thing was separate from the other two, and revolved around the Secret Service decision to have the Presidential luncheon at the Trade Mart, along with the political decision to have a motorcade through Dallas. When those decisions was made, it pretty much determined the motorcade would go right past Oswald's place of work at the Depository on Elm. But if the Secret Service determines another site is more suited to the Presidential luncheon, then the motorcade has a different route, and Oswald, although working at the Depository on Elm, is again working elsewhere during the President's visit to Dallas.
It's all happenstance that Oswald was even in a position to contemplate shooting the President.
Now, Oswald learns about that motorcade sometime between Sunday, 11/17/63 and Thursday, 11/21/63. He's got some thinking to do. Does he want to attempt this? Fate has delivered JFK onto him.
Ultimately, he decides to try to get back together with his wife and try to make a go of it that way. He goes to the Paine home where Marina had been living separated from him on a surprise visit on Thursday night and says he's a changed man. He wants to be a better husband and promises things will be different this time if Marina comes back to him. He even promises to buy her a washing machine so Marina doesn't have to wash their infant's diapers by hand.
Happenstance. Marina of course said yes, and Oswald abandoned his plans to shoot the President. JFK served out his second term and died quietly at home surrounded by his loved ones in May of 1994, just short of his 76th birthday. Oswald turned his life around, learned to drive, got a better job and eventually opened his own photography studio taking portrait and wedding photography as a career. He retired in 2004 and passed away in 2017, just another common man.
No, we both know that's not the way it went.
Marina wanted to say yes, but wanted to keep her husband dangling a bit, so she said to the offer of the washing machine, "No thanks, buy something nice for yourself."
That was pretty much the end of the conversation.
The next morning Oswald took his weapon to the Depository and shot and killed the President of the United States from his place of work.
Now, he knew when he brought the rifle to the Depository that Friday morning he wouldn't be able to flee with it, so he knew he would have to leave it behind and have it be traced to him.
If you confuse yourself and think he bought the rifle with the plan to shoot the President from the sixth floor of a building he didn't have a job in yet, during a motorcade that wasn't planned yet, yet, after trying to patch things up with a wife he wasn't yet separated from, you might think you have an argument.
But you sure as hell don't.
Hank
