In 1990, I visited the Sixth Floor museum in Dallas (soon after it opened) and stood at the window next to the sniper’s next (which was glassed off). The first thought that came to mind is what an easy shot it would have been. You are right on top of the street, with the street curving away from the building and going downhill slightly. And Oswald had a four-power scope as well.
next = nest
Shows what one motivated Marine and his rifle can do.
The only prints found near the 6th Floor sniper’s nest were those of Malcomb Wallace, LBJ’s personal hit-man. Oswald was on the 1st floor at the time of the shooting.
Co-conspirators include LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, Clint Murchison, at least two of the soon-to-be White House Plumbers, George H. W. Bush, Allen Dulles, and James Angleton. There were at least four assassins, none of whom was Lee Harvey Oswald.
For an superb, riveting account of LBJ’s lead role, I recommend LBJ: Mastermind of the Kennedy Assassination.
If you were going to shoot three rounds in the time attributed to Oswald, at that distance, the very last thing you’d want is a scope.
I stood at the window, too, and it was at that moment I knew Oswald did NOT have a good shot. He’d have had to climb out onto the ledge to get a shot off. It would have been much easier to aim straight up Houston.
Wrong!
..my experience as well in 1992. Had an interesting conversation with the guide who said basically what you did...
The official account has Oswald bringing the rifle in disassembled, then putting it back together on the sixth floor. This would have put the scope out of alignment. Oswald could have used the iron sights instead, but with a reduction in accuracy compared to a properly aligned scope. The official version assumes Oswald was so familiar with the rifle that he would have used the scope. Craig Roberts, a Marine sniper in Vietnam, thought the official version and the claimed shots were impossible. Absurdly, all the reenactments that I have seen use skilled shooters, sighted in rifles, and clean lines of sight without the tree limbs that obscured Oswald’s view.