MAGGIE'S DRAWERS
                   The Marksmanship of Lee Harvey Oswald

                  [Commentary and editing by Alan Rogers]

     What follows are selections from three sources on the
shooting ability of LHO.  The criteria used for selection is
focused on those who had first hand accounts of seeing Lee Harvey
Oswald shooting a weapon, eschewing those who had much to say
about the subject but had never met Oswald.  The first comes from
LHO's brother, Robert. His book shows generally what Robert's
observations and opinions were on the subject.  
     In the 1990's, Robert has appeared on a few documentaries in
where the clips have him saying that he believes his brother
could have accomplished the shooting.  Since this was certainly
not what he said in his book, it seems that he has succumbed to
the same process that influenced many witnesses to the event. 
That process bombards the witness with so much opinion and
conjecture, year after year, that their memory is forever tainted
and now cannot be unentangled from what they have considered in
the intervening years.  Using Posner's principle of taking the
earlier utterances of the witness as more firmly grounded,
Robert's book predates these on camera interviews by two plus
decades.  
     In his book, Robert talks about LHO's quick reflexes and
hidden strength, but as seen in the selection, he still cannot
escape admitting that LHO was awkward in shooting at moving
targets when they went field hunting as children.  It should also
be noted that Robert was not surprised in the least that LHO shot
so poorly in his Marine career and doesn't shirk from describing
him as a mediocre shooter.  Because someone has a history of
hunting from an early age, it is not automatically mandated that
he was a proficient shooter.
     The second selection is from LHO's Marine buddies who saw
him shoot during his tenure in the service.  It should be noted
that they observed LHO when he was back in the States, long after
Japan and basic training.  These experiences were related to the
second time LHO was officially tested, not the first time when
LHO had shown some small passable ability in firing a rifle after
being trained to the teeth in basic training.  Delgado's
testimony is the most damaging, for he actually alleges
falsification of LHO's scores.  It should be noted that this is
sworn testimony, Delgado's Marine buddies back up his general
contention and one is hard pressed to find a reason for Delgado
to lie about what he observed.  Indeed, one can rely upon former
Marines to uphold the honor of their training.  It is singularly
peculiar that so many of them were in agreement with Delgado.  To
discount their stories of LHO's poor abilities with a rifle, one
would have to allege some kind of conspiracy among them.  An
amusing situation.  
     After 1964, Delgado came under such pressure from his
superiors that he felt he had to leave the country.  He moved to
England where he consistently retold the same story through three
decades to local newspapers there.  All actions which engender
honesty.  Would you throw away your career and citizenship to
foist a fib for 30 years?
     It should be noted that after the shock of Delgado's
testimony, only a few Marines who had served with LHO were called
before the Commission and they were pointedly not asked about
LHO's shooting ability.  It can be assumed that the
Commissioner's were loath to put more of such testimony in the
record.  
     Lattimer's book, "Lincoln and Kennedy," proudly displays and
uses as weighty evidence one page from LHO's Marine rifle range
score book to allege that LHO was the shooting prodigy of this
century.  What is missing from this account is that this page was
by far the best score out of many pages from that book.  The
entire score book can be found in CE239 of the 26 volumes of WC
hearings.
     The third selection is from NightLine's special segment on
the Oswald/KGB files.  It shows the official and unofficial
Russian observations of LHO's rifle ability.  Forrest Sawyer not
only saw the KGB files but interviewed friends LHO made while in
the USSR.  As a singularity, these findings could be called into
question as merely Russian propaganda but when matched with all
the other selections, display a smooth conformity with these
selections; a conformity that belies any quibbling over evidence
given by the Russians.  In additional confirmation of what Sawyer
saw in those files, the Russian defector, Nosenko, who saw the
same files in 1963, has told newspaper reporters, both lately and
when he first surfaced in the 70's after his defection, that LHO
was a very poor shot.  He based his statements on what he saw in
the KGB files, confirming what Sawyer reported in 1991.
     What is consistent through all three selections is the
observation by all parties that LHO exhibited a distinct
awkwardness, a deficiency in coordination that not only prevented
him from being any good with a rifle but also held him back from
such things as learning to drive a car.
     Even if LHO was a poor marksman, this does not prove that he
didn't kill JFK from the 6th floor of the TSBD.  Luck plays an
important role, even among the best of shooters.  One does have
to face the fact that any one person can be put into the same
situation and regardless of their ability with a rifle, close
their eyes and fire away leaving pure luck to let the bullets
find their intended mark.  That there is the slim possibility
that this could end in successful hits cannot be totally ignored. 
Stranger things have happened, but in reality, we cannot escape
considering just how improbable that situation would be.
     These selections, raising the issue of poor marksmanship,
are really almost all there is to be found on the subject.  What
is absent from the evidence is anyone who saw LHO shoot firsthand
who said he was any good.  The WC brought in LHO's NCO and he
gave testimony that did not reach a conclusion either way.  It
appears that this subject was of some concern to the WC because
near the end of their hearings, they brought in some Marine
sharpshooters who had never observed LHO firing a weapon and were
asked tightly controlled, some would say distorted, questions to
obtain a more palatable answer.  
     To further add to the confusion, it has been observed more
than once that considering the distance from the 6th floor window
to the limo, the shot cannot be depicted as difficult,
contradicting many allegations to the opposite view, mostly but
not solely from conspiracy authors.  What has not been asked of
both sides is the question of how hard or easy for whom?  A
question pointing back into the subject of this paper.
     Nevertheless, there is really no evidence which discounts
the possibility of LHO practicing later in New Orleans or Dallas
and bettering his performance.  There is only tangential evidence
found in the failure of the FBI investigation to locate either a
source for the acquisition of bullets for these hypothetical
practice sessions or a satisfactory place where LHO could have
used his gun without anyone noticing him.  A certain river bank
as a shooting site was looked into but the FBI could find no one
who heard the firing of guns in this vicinity.  Since LHO did not
drive a car, bus routes were plotted, leaving us with a depiction
of LHO hiding his rifle under his poncho and slipping onto
multiple bus transfers.  While this scenario begs credibility, it
is further undermined by the fact that not one person ever came
forward to say that he or she saw Oswald on any of those bus
rides, a fact starkly in contrast to the many spurious sightings
that were reported.  The people who were interviewed were those
that made their business or lived close by that river bank and
certainly should have heard shots if shots were fired.  The only
possibility left was that LHO used the sight after dark and even
the FBI was not up to contending that someone actually improved
their ability by practicing in the dark of night.
     Of course, the possibility that someone had drove LHO to
places where he could improve his ability was not even vaguely
considered.
     Ignoring gross distortions of the evidence in Posner's Case
Closed, it would be hard to come to any other conclusion than
that the evidence points to LHO being a lousy shot.  Reaching
other conclusions can only be done by blatantly ignoring the
evidence and testimony or perhaps referring to some other Oswald
in some other dimension of the time/space continuum.  This is the
very definition of bias.  If a final judgement of Oswald's guilt
rested only on the conclusion that LHO was a lousy shot, the case
for innocence would be favored.  It does not just rest on this
aspect of marksmanship and therefore no final, overall conclusion
can be reached.
     Even if LHO was a lousy shot, his guilt in the killing
cannot be ruled out by this fact, but by reading the following
selections, the reader is forearmed against those who would
attempt to depict Lee Harvey Oswald as a male Annie Oakley.

Alan Rogers, May 1994
CIS 73040,2063
Internet U54778@uicvm.uic.edu

               ***************     
               *Selection One* 
               ***************
This selection is taken from the book "LEE a portrait of Lee
Harvey Oswald by his brother, Robert L. Oswald"

From page 37
"A few years later he(Lee) learned to hunt and shoot when he
followed John and me into the woods."

From page 38
"Lee looked up to both of us and used to tag along after us
everywhere we went, when we'd let him.  Later, when we learned to
shoot, we passed along our knowledge to Lee.  John could always
outshoot me on targets, but I liked to get out in the fields and
hunt.  I could keep up with John in the field, and even do a
little better.  Lee learned from both of us.  He did pretty well
on targets --- just a notch or two below me --- but in the fields
was awkward."

From page 81
"In December(1956), about five weeks after he went into the
Marine Corp. Lee scored 212 on his test, two points about the
minimum requirement for a "sharpshooter" rating (he didn't do as
well two and a half years later, when his score of 191 on another
range just barely qualified him for a "marksman" rating.)"

From page 208:
"If Lee did not spend a considerable amount of time practicing
with that rifle in the weeks and months before the assassination,
then I would say the Lee did not fire the shots that killed the
President and wounded the Governor."
(the above is in response to the WC findings that there was no
credible evidence that LHO practiced anywhere with the MC.  In
fact, the WC gave ample evidence to prove that the MC laid unused
rolled up in that blanket in the Paine's garage.)
          
From page 209:
     "It would have taken hours of practice for Lee to become
acquainted with the characteristics of the rifle, its recoil, and
especially the use of the scope.  He had to know, for example,
whether the scope was zeroed in for one hundred yards or one
hundred and fifty yards or two hundred yards.  Unless he knew
that, he could have overshot any target.
     I have always felt that the rifle tests made by the Warren
Commission staff were meaningless.  The Commission did not try to
find three or four men whose Marine Corps records indicated about
Lee's level of skill.  Lee's scores in the Marine Corps prove
beyond a doubt that he was never an expert rifleman.  Instead,
the Commission selected three or four of the best riflemen in the
United States, set up conditions that did not duplicate those of
November 22, and then ignored any of the test results that cast
doubt upon Lee's ability to fire the rifle accurately within the
known time limits.
     For the tests to have any validity, obviously the Commission
should have begun by choosing three or four riflemen of average-
--or even below average---skill.  The men who were chosen should
not have had any longtime familiarity with telescopic sights,
since never before April, 1963, to my knowledge had Lee used a
telescopic sight.  They should have spent no more time in
practicing with the weapon than the Commission contends Lee
spent.  And, of course, the basic conditions should have been
duplicated exactly.  The shots should have been fired from the
same height, at a target moving at the same speed, under similar
light conditions, and in exactly the same period of time.  I
understand that the Commission's test failed to meet five of
these six rather obvious requirements."


               ***************
               *Selection Two*
               ***************

     From WCH book 8, starting on page 233, the testimony of
Nelson Delgado who was stationed in same unit as LHO while in
California after LHO came back from Japan:

Delgado:  As I said to the men that interviewed me
          before, we went to the range at one time, and
          he didn't show no particular aspects of being
          a sharpshooter at all. 
Leibeler: He didn't seem to be particularly proficient
          with the rifle; is that correct?
Delgado:  That's right.
     [deletions]
Leibeler: Did you have to use the rifles to stand inspection?
Delgado:  That's right.
Leibeler: Do you remember whether or not Oswald kept
          his rifle in good shape, clean?
Delgado:  He kept it mediocre.  He always got gigged
          for his rifle.
Leibeler: He did?
Delgado:  Yes; very seldom did he pass an inspection
          without getting gigged for one thing or
          another.
Leibeler: With respect to his rifle?
Delgado:  With respect to his rifle.  He didn't spend
          as much time as the rest of us did in the
          armory cleaning it up.  He would, when he was
          told to.  Otherwise, he wouldn't come out by
          himself to clean it.  He was basically a man
          that complained quite frequently.     
          [deletions]
Leibeler: You were about to tell us,...... about the
          rifle practice that you engaged in.  Would
          you tell us about that in as much detail as
          you can remember?
Delgado:  We went out to the field, to the rifle range,
          and before we set out we had set up a pot. 
          High score would get this money; second
          highest, and so forth down to about the fifth
          man that was high.
Leibeler: How many men were there?
Delgado:  Oh, in our company there was about roughly 80
          men, 80 to 100 men, and I would say about 40
          of us were in the pot.  All low ranking EM's
          though.  By that I mean corporal or below. 
          None of the sergeants were asked to join. 
          Nine times out of  ten they weren't firing,
          just watching you.  They mostly watched to
          see who was the best firer on the line.
Leibeler: You say there were about 40 men involved in this pot?
Delgado:  Yes.
Leibeler: And you say that Oswald finished fifth from
          the highest?
Delgado:  No; he didn't even place there.  He didn't
          get no money at all.  He barely got his
          score, which I think was about 170, I think
          it was, just barely sharpshooter. 
Leibeler: Sharpshooter is the minimum......
Delgado:  Minimum.
Leibeler: Rank?
Delgado:  It's broken down into three categories:       
          sharpshooters....no; pardon me, I take that
          back; it's marksman is the lowest,
          sharpshooters, and experts.  And then Oswald
          had a marksman's badge, which was just a
          plain, little thing here which stated
          "Marksman" on it.
Leibeler: And that was the lowest one?
Delgado:  That was the lowest.  Well, that was
          qualifying; then there was nothing, which
          meant you didn't qualify. Leibeler: Did you
          fire with Oswald?
Delgado:  Right; I was in the same line.  By that I
          mean we were on line together, the same time,
          but not firing at the same position, but at
          the same time, and I remember seeing his.  It
          was a pretty big joke, because he got a lot
          of "Maggie's drawers," you know, a lot of
          misses, but he didn't give a darn.
Leibeler: Missed the target completely?
Delgado:  He just qualified, that's it.  He wasn't as   
          enthusiastic as the rest of us.  We all loved
          ---- liked, you know, going to the range.
Leibeler: My recollection of how the rifle ranges
          worked is that the troops divided up into two
          different groups, one of which operates the
          targets.
Delgado:  Right.
Leibeler: And the other one fires?
Delgado:  Right.
Leibeler: When you said before that you were in the
          same line as Oswald, you meant that you fired
          at the same time that he did?
Delgado:  Right.  And then all of us went to the pits,
          our particular lines: then we went to the
          pits, you know. 
Leibeler: Oswald worked the pits with you, the same time you did?
Delgado:  Right.  And he was a couple of targets down. 
          It was very comical to see, because he had
          the other guy pulling the target down, you
          know.  and he will take and maybe gum it once
          in a while or run the disk up; but he had the
          other guy pulling it up and bringing it down,
          you know.  He wasn't hardly going to exert    
          himself.
Leibeler: Do you remember approximately how far away
          Oswald was in the line from you when he
          fired?
Delgado:  Yes, he was just one over from me.
     [deletions]
Leibeler: My recollection of the rifle range from the
          time I was in the Army is that sometimes the
          scores that were reported------
Delgado:  Were erroneous.
Leibeler: Were erroneous.  Has that been your experience also?
Delgado:  Oh, yes; if there is not close supervision.
     [deletions]
Leibeler: You told the FBI that in your opinion Oswald
          was not a good rifle shot; is that correct?
Delgado:  Yes.
Leibeler: And that he did not show any unusual interest
          in his rifle, and in fact appeared less
          interested in weapons than the average
          marine?
Delgado:  Yes.
     [deletions]
Leibeler: You did not tell the FBI that in your opinion
          Oswald had penciled in his qualifying score,
          did you? Or did you tell them that?
Delgado:  He may have done, you know; but if you got
          away with it you were more than lucky.
Leibeler: Did you talk to the FBI about that possibility?
Delgado:  Yes, I told him he may have, to qualify,
          because there was a lot of "Maggie's drawers"
          on his side.  Now, he may have had some way
          of knowing who was pulling, that is another
          thing.  You don't know who is out there in    
          the pits, pulling it, see; and it could be a
          buddy of yours or somebody you know, and they
          will help you out, you know, get together,
          like before we all go and separate, you know,
          and I will say to my buddy.  "Well, look, I
          want to try and get on line 22, you get on    
          target 22, and I will try to the first one on
          line"; so help each other like that.  And
          when they go to the pits, they have their
          choice of getting on the lines, you know, as
          I will try to work it out with the fellow out
          there.  But sometimes it doesn't work out     
          that way.  You just have to take your
          chances.
Leibeler: You told us that in this particular rifle
          practice, or firing, that the scores were
          kept by NCOs.
Delgado:  Yes.
Leibeler: Was it a common practice for the privates to
          make deals like this with the noncommissioned
          officers in connection with a thing like
          this?
Delgado:  They are making a deal with the other guys
          pulling the targets.  See, the guy back there
          is also keeping a score.  Now, your NCO,
          particularly your NCO, may want to push you
          or make you qualify, because he doesn't       
          want another day out there on the rifle
          range, see;  so it's not all that strict. 
          Like if I was line NCO and I had five men in
          my section, and four of them qualified,       
          that means that some other day, maybe on my
          day off, I will have to come in with this
          other fellow, so I will help him along and
          push each other along.  You don't try to mess
          nobody up, but you can't take a man that is
          shooting poorly and give him a 190 score,     
          see; you could just give him the bare
          minimum, 170 or 171, to make it look good.
Leibeler: Just to qualify him?
Delgado:  Just to qualify him.
Leibeler: So it is a possibility that that might have
          happened even in connection with this?
Delgado:  Right.


From Henry Hurt's book "Reasonable Doubt", page 99:

     "In fact, judging from Oswald's movements and from the
evidence available, he did not use the Mannlicher-Carcano for a
period of nearly two months prior to the assassination.
The Warren Commission heard testimony from one former Marine,
Nelson Delgado, who stated that Oswald's marksmanship was "a
joke," that he could hardly qualify on the range.  This was not
included in the Warren Report, but Delgado's comments about
Oswald's shooting ability may explain why so few Marines were
interviewed.
     In 1977 the author located and interviewed more than fifty
of Oswald's Marine Corps colleagues, who had never been
questioned by officials or journalists. (This was done in
connection with research for Legend by Edward J. Epstein.) On the
subject of Oswald's shooting ability, there was virtually no
exception to Delgado's opinion that it was laughable.
     Sherman Cooley, an expert hunter who grew up in rural
Louisiana, knew Oswald well during their Marine Corps service. 
Cooley's comment capsulize what several dozen Marines had to say
about Oswald's ability as a marksman: "If I had to pick one man
in the whole United States to shoot me, I'd pick Oswald.  I saw
that man shoot, and there's no way he could have ever learned to
shoot well enough to do what they accused him of.  Take me, I'm
one of the best shots around, and I couldn't have done it."     
Many of the Marines mentioned that Oswald had a certain lack of
coordination that, they felt, was responsible for the fact that
he had difficulty learning to shoot.  They believed it was the
same deficiency in coordination responsible for his reported
inability to drive a car."


               *****************
               *Selection Three*
               *****************

Lets put aside Delgado's allegations of falsification on the
rifle range.  We still have all the other Marine buddies telling
us the same thing about LHO, he was a poor shot.  It has been
conjectured that LHO did poorly on that range because he was
leaving the service and didn't care.  This may be so, but if he
was such a good shot, why not just shoot your best and qualify? 
It seems to me that if we can project a sloppy attitude to
explain why he didn't do well, we can also project that he would
be motivated to do his best in the face of so much taunting by
his fellow Marines.  Both speculations lead nowhere.  What is
needed is some form of observation of LHO's shooting after he
left the Marines and it is in the KGB files that we appear to
discover just what we are looking for.
 
From NightLine November 22, 1991 ---- The Oswald/KGB Files.

From on camera interview with Eduard Tishkevich, Hunting Club
President and LHO co-worker in Minsk:

     "He didn't practice.  Only once he took part in the
     competition of the work shop team.  He shot very badly. 
     He wasn't on target but around it."

From testimony from Forrest Sawyer, who had direct access to the
KGB files, in response to questions from Ted Koppel:

Koppel:   Before we go on lets go back a little bit,
          Forrest, and talk to me about the gun for a
          moment.  I am intrigued that on the one hand
          that one of his fellow factory workers said
          he was a lousy shot but he also said he came
          out only once.  Can we really conclude
          anything from one such isolated example?

Sawyers:  If it were isolated, we would have some
          trouble making that conclusion but Mr.
          Tishkevich's comments are not alone.  There
          are other people there who remember him      
          as a bad shot and there is the file. 
          Informants writing that he was a bad shot
          when he went out with the factory hunting
          club and there is a notation that when he did
          try to shoot that it simply didn't work at    
          all.  He finally sold that rifle for about
          $20.

Koppel:   You also told me about the story about LHO
          going hunting with a bunch of russian
          friends.

Sawyers:  It is a story that goes around that they went
          out looking for rabbits and everybody had to
          bring back a rabbit before they could go
          home.  Somebody came up behind him and took
          the rabbit out because Oswald couldn't hit
          it.  

Koppel:   So there's no evidence then within the
          context of the shooting in the Soviet Union
          that he was a spectacular shot or even an
          adequate shot for that matter.   

Sawyers:  Exactly the contrary and also evidence that
          he had little or no interest in shooting.