On Tuesday, 19 November 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald learned from the Dallas newspapers that he had an opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy the following Friday. To actually do so, Oswald needed to plan out a number of things.
Oswald had to determine the location in the Texas School Book Depository that offered the most solitary and best location for his sniper’s nest. He had to plan his hoped-for escape from the scene. Most difficult, he had to smuggle his sniper rifle from where it was stored in Ruth Paine’s garage into the Depository without anyone noticing.
The sniper’s nest location was easy; the southeast corner window of the sixth floor storage area. It offered the best view of the motorcade route. There were plenty of book boxes which could be stacked up to shield Oswald from view. And, it would likely be deserted when the motorcade passed at lunchtime when the other workers would either be eating lunch downstairs or out in front of the building watching the President go by.
Although he must have known that his chances were slim, Oswald planned his escape carefully. To delay pursuit, he would move quickly and hide his rifle behind some boxes in the opposite corner of the sixth floor. He would go down the back stairs and mingle briefly in the second floor breakroom. Then he would return to his boarding house, where he would grab his pistol and alter his appearance by changing clothes. He would then flee, most probably towards Mexico.
To move the sniper rifle, Oswald made up a cover story to use with the work colleague who regularly gave him a ride out and back to Ruth’s on the weekends. Oswald told the colleague that he needed to go out to Ruth’s that week on Thursday evening and come back Friday morning because he had to pick up some “curtain rods for his apartment.” He constructed a package of heavy brown wrapping paper used at the Depository. But the supposed curtain rods would actually be Oswald’s sniper rifle.
On the Thursday evening, 21 November - 60 years ago today - the colleague dropped Oswald off at Ruth Paine’s home unannounced. His wife, Marina, who was still angry with him, asked him why he had come. “Because I got lonesome for my girls” he said to her.
While Marina was in the back yard gathering some laundry, Oswald went to the garage, put the sniper rifle in the wrapping paper package, and placed the package where it would not attract attention.
Ruth arrived home from the grocery store to find Oswald there. She was irritated that he had come out without asking her permission. She also noticed that the light had been left on in the garage and assumed that Oswald had been in there in search of something amongst his belongings. Irritated again, she turned the light off.
Around 9 PM, Oswald told Marina he was going to bed early. He also said, “I won’t be out here this weekend. It’s too often. I was here today.”
If Oswald did all this stealth planning and actually succeeded in killing the President without motive or meaning and got away, why is he not the greatest lone wolf assassin but instead a low life wife beater who couldn't hold a job?