The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, November 22, 1993, Image 8

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Wed Nov. 24th
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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
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