William Marvel: The Skeptic

Five years after the assassination of President Jack Kennedy, while on my way to Fort Polk, I used a long layover in Dallas to visit Dealey Plaza. Standing before the book depository where Lee Oswald had lurked, I remembered the Zapruder film and pictured the limousine moving toward the depository, then making that sharp left turn toward the underpass. Meanwhile, I considered the difficulty of reloading a bolt-action rifle and finding the target again through a scope.

Shooting was my favorite outdoor activity as a teenager, mostly with bolt-action rifles, and often with scopes. It was the only thing I could do very well. A couple of months after stopping at Dealey Plaza, I took the top score in my 230-man basic training company at the rifle range, qualifying as an “expert.” Oswald’s “sharpshooter” qualification in the Marines ranked a step below that. Doubting I could have made three well-aimed shots at a moving target in six seconds, I didn’t think Oswald could have done it, either. I departed Dallas convinced of a fundamental flaw in the single-shooter theory — a narrative later propped up with an undamaged “magic bullet” that supposedly caused several wounds in Kennedy and Gov. John Connally.