Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

The Attempt on the Life of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker

On the evening of April 10, 1963, Major General Edwin A. Walker, a controversial figure since his 1961 resignation from the U.S. Army, narrowly escaped death in Dallas when a rifle bullet fired from outside his home passed near his head while he sat at his desk. There were no eyewitnesses, though a 14-year-old neighbor claimed to have seen two men in separate cars drive from a church parking lot adjacent to Walker’s home immediately after the shooting. A friend testified that two nights before, he had seen two men peering in Walker’s windows, and Walker had given this information to police before the shooting. The bullet was recovered from Walker’s house, but without a weapon, it was of little investigatory value. Walker hired two investigators, but the case remained unsolved until December 3, 1963. The Commission evaluated four categories of evidence to determine whether Oswald fired the shot: (1) a note Oswald left for his wife, (2) photographs found among his possessions, (3) firearms identification of the bullet, and (4) admissions and other statements Oswald made to Marina.

Note Left by Oswald

On December 2, 1963, Mrs. Ruth Paine turned over to police a Russian volume entitled “Book of Useful Advice” belonging to the Oswalds. Inside was an undated note in Russian, translated as an eleven-point set of instructions concerning a mailbox key, contacting the Soviet Embassy, paying rent and utilities, managing money, disposing of clothing, locating documents, and instructions in case Oswald was taken prisoner. The note’s appearance suggested it was the work of a man expecting to be killed, imprisoned, or to disappear. FBI handwriting expert James C. Cadigan testified that the note was written by Lee Harvey Oswald. Marina testified that on the night of the Walker shooting, her husband left their Neely Street apartment shortly after dinner, and when he returned very late he was very pale and told her he had shot at General Walker and to ask no questions. He later expressed regret that he had missed Walker. Internal evidence—including references to house rent, water and gas payments, the post office on Ervay Street, and the phrase “you and the baby”—established that the note was written while the Oswalds lived on Neely Street in Dallas before moving to New Orleans, most likely on April 2 or 3, 1963, shortly before the shooting. Oswald had apparently mistaken the county jail for the city jail, as the Beckley bus route from Neely Street passed through the Commerce Street viaduct and Triple Underpass into downtown Dallas.