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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 22, 1993)
CHINA UCHT RESTAURANT \\JA Special Thanksgiving Buffet All you can eat $6.95 per person TURKEY • HAM • ROAST BEEF and all the trimmings y plus Chinese Dishes Open 11:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. Thursday, November 25, 1993 Orders to go available 1673 Briarcrest Dr., Ste. 108, Bryan • 776-8584 aTIHUli iiimm yinii iiaiM Study Abroad in Germany and the Netherlands next summer and earn up to 7 hours of TAMU credit! 1st annual Bonfire Parking Lot Party Wed Nov. 24th 12 Noon - 10 PM Live Music, Beetles BBQ, Beer and More Hurricane Harry's Parking Lot Proceeds go to Brazos Food Bank Page 8 The Battalion Monday, November 22,1993 Remembering John F. Kennedy Agents voice concern about pages missing from Oswald's blue book The Associated Press course, we were. FORT WORTH - The in structions from Lyndon Johnson to Secret Service Agent Mike Howard and his partner were clear and concise. "Don't let anything happen to these people. Protect them as you would the president of the United States." That is why it was not sur prising that television accounts of President John F. Kennedy's funeral were interrupted at a se cluded suburban motel that evening by the agents' cries of "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" After all, they had to catch but not harm their quarry, a middle-aged woman dressed in white who abruptly flung her self through the door. She was attempting to race through a gantlet of armed guards hidden in the shadows. The other agent, Charles Kunkel, tackled the woman and the two tumbled to the base of a tree. From the darkness, a third man appeared, holding a sub machine gun. "Don't shoot!" Kunkel hollered again. The gunman, a police detective named Bob, re turned to his guardpost. As Howard and Kunkel marched Marguerite Oswald back to her room, she cursed the agents and demanded to know why her son was not buried in Arlington National Cemetery with Kennedy. Her son was an ex-Marine, she said. Her son also was ac cused of killing the president. His president dead and Os wald under arrest, Mike Howard and his partner's as signment was to locate Os wald's family. They had been holed up with a journalist named Thomas Thompson, who would later write best-selling books such as "Blood and Mon ey" and "Celebrity." After daylight on Sunday, the two agents descended on a mo tel near the airport. They walked in, picked up the Os walds, loaded them into their car and took off for the house where the family lived. While Oswald's Russian wife Marina gathered clothes and di apers for her daughters, Howard retrieved a "little blue memo book" that he and Kunkel, and later the Warren Commission, found most inter esting. But the actions of a Dallas nightclub operator named Jack Ruby precluded a quick assess ment of the book's contents. The Associated Press President John F. Kennedy is slumped down in the backseat of this car after being shot on Nov. 22, 1963. Jacqueline Kennedy leans over the president as an unidentified Secret Service agen the rear of the car. 'B 5 The Oswald family was in Howard's car when the two- way radio crackled with news of Oswald being shot at Dallas po lice headquarters. "Is that my son they're talking about?" asked an alarmed Marguerite Oswald. Mike Howard's Texas assign ment began predictably enough. Two weeks before President Kennedy's fence-mending trip to the state, Howard arrived in Fort Worth to arrange back ground checks for Kennedy's stop there. He stayed until Kennedy de parted for Dallas on the morn ing of November 22. What had unwound as a flawless political performance at Fort Worth's Texas Hotel would be shattered by gunfire 30 miles away. Now retired and living on a ranch north of Dallas, Howard remains frustrated that the pres ident was persuaded not to fol low the Secret Service's advice to use a bubble-top limousine in the parade through downtown Dallas. And, as an observer of Lee Harvey Oswald in custody and an interrogator of Oswald's family, Howard is convinced Oswald acted alone. "The whole Secret Service woul^J have felt better if the KGB and Cuban underground and all those people from Mexi co and Russia and the U.S., the CIA and the FBI and the Boy Scouts, if all those people got to gether and conspired the kill the president," he said in a recent interview. Oswald's act "made us look like fools," he says. "And, of As Howard and Kunkel marched Mar guerite Oswald back to her room, she cursed the agents and demanded to know why her son was not buried in Arlington National Cemetery with Kennedy. Her son was an ex- Marine, she said. Her son also was accused of killing the presi dent. emerged without a tear in her eye. The group would settle at the Inn of the Six Flags, a motel halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth near an amusement park by the same name. They had a vow of secrecy from the motel's operator. And there, with the addition of Oswald's brother, the agents would begin what would be five days of questions and at least one frightful incident when Marguerite attempted an es cape. Kunkel and Howard were amazed at how Marina, through a translator, fully answered all questions — how she met Os wald, how they became roman tically involved and how they decided to marry. And, later, what she had to tell them about the little blue memo book. Oswald's blue memo book, but not before he and Kunkel secret ly read every page into a tape recorder. "Yes, ma'am," Kunkel replied, as she began to wail. At Parkland Hospital, Howard found the emergency room where a doctor was work ing feverishly on Oswald. "I had saved the son of a bitch, saved him, but he died of shock," the doctor shouted an- grily. Entering the room, Marina quietly studied her husband's corpse, then noticed the bruise over his eye. She ran her hand over it and asked what hap pened. "That's where the policeman hit him when he was arrested," Howard said. That seemed fo satisfy her and, despite her mother-in-law's screams, she As Howard would recall years later, the book contained notations by Oswald that he in tended to kill right-wing activist Gen. Edwin Walker, Gov. John Connally and Vice President Johnson. Oswald had drawn a dagger with blood dripping from it un der the reference to Connally, who would be wounded when Kennedy was killed. And, Mari na confirmed that Oswald had tried to kill Walker in a failed sniper attack. Oswald's blue book also con tained the name of an FBI agent and a printed notation: "I will kill this S.O.B." Marina said the agent was as signed to conduct a routine in vestigation of Oswald, presum ably because of his defection to the Soviet Union and later his "Fair Play For Cuba" connec tion in New Orleans. She would also disclose Os wald thought the agent made sexual advances toward her. As the weekend approached, the agents were told the FBI would assume the investigation, and a displeased Howard dis mantled the Six Flags command post. He reluctantly surrendered After Dallas, Howard was as signed to President Johnson and his family, even accompanying him to the LBJ Ranch after he left office. One day as he sat with John son at the ranch swimming pool, Howard told him about Oswald's little blue memo book and the vow to kill the FBI agent who investigated him. "That wasn't in there," he re calls LBJ replying. "It was when we saw it," I loward said. "It's on the tape." And, LBJ noted, the page about Oswald's scheme to kill Connally was missing when the book got to the Warren Com mission. The pair speculated that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover could have had those pages removed. Or that they might have disap peared somehow between the FBI and the commission. "I just don't know," Howard said. Neither did the ex-president. JFK Continued from Page 1 Mladenka skipped classes when he was a sophomore in college to attend the funeral of Kennedy and has since become cynical of him because of revela tions of the former president's private life. "Time has done a lot to pol ish his reputation," he said. Although it is very unlikely that we will ever know the whole truth about what hap pened, Mladenkasaid, it is pos sible that some startling new ev idence may come forward, and until that time, people will con tinue to write books and make movies about it for years to come. After all, people are still fas cinated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he said. PAID ADVERTISEMENT "Community bicycle support overwhelming," says Hard Aggies, TBC and Freebirds help bike plan pass unanimous vote By Kevin Cochran With over 3000 Aggie signatures and support from the Texas Bicycle Coalition, Freebirds World Burrito, the Mayor of College Station, and city planners, the Bikeway Master Plan passed the City Council vote 7-0 on October 28. Ed Hard, the foremost bikeway planner for the City of College Station, said the "com munity bicycle support at the hearing was overwhelming." The standing room only City Council session was the most attended in recent memory. Texas Bicycle Coalition spokes person Danise Hauser and Freebirds spokesperson Mike Moses made statements and presented the book of signatures at City Hall Council Chambers. The City Council then pledged its support for cleaner air and safer roadways by approving the Bikeway Master Plan. The first step has been taken. On November 6, the City of College Station formally applied for $1.2 million in federal funding for bikeways. This transaction should occur over the next six to twelve months. However, funding is not guaranteed due to the compet itiveness of the application process. In response to the chance of non-funding. Hard said, "continued bicycle support is therefore important for bikeway enhancements according to the Bikeway Master Plan." The Texas Bicycle Coabtion and Freebirds World Burrito will keep you informed on the status of the federal funding process and on other bikeway developments. If future petitions are necessary to insure action on bicycle issues, the Aggie grass roots movement will be used again to rally support. FREEBIRDS raiBmiBUSlRITO 319 UNIVERSITY DRIVE, NORTHGATE PAID ADVERTISEMENT The Battalion The following Spring 1994 Editorial Board Positions are open: Managing Editor News Editor (2) City Editor Sports Editor Lifestyles Editor Opinion Editor Photo Editor Application forms available at the front desk in room 013 Reed McDonald Building. All majors encouraged to apply. Deadline: 5 p.m. Monday, November 29. Applicants must be Texas A&M students in good standing at the time of employment and remain in good standing while employed. For more information, telephone 845-3313. Vol. 93 N Ac Ag ev •wi •Sit Kyle F Class t meet £ site w junior ers v\ the cl yell ; The ju where Bleed / •Sti elephe startii Those t/niv Main sectk Street •U Traffi encoi curbs 50 an on Rc •A shutt East ' will c camp Bonfi •\ 25; ' at 5:: perfc • c gam V. The 'dent c iirtpres: dents , Univer aethat "It's strong Proud said D cellor lessor a t the naat V Bry 'vith c dents