A Chilling Look At The Sniper's Perch

DALLAS - The corner of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle was discovered has been made to look exactly as it did on the day of the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963.

Reproduced cardboard book cartons, bearing the name Scott Foresman and Co. of Chicago, are stacked atop each other on the original timbered floor as they were in 1963.

The crevice between the boxes where the murder weapon was discovered is there to be seen, as is the large black and white "Stairs" sign a few feet away which Oswald apparently followed to the lunchroom four floors below.

Also in its original condition is the corner surrounding the window where Oswald is believed to have fired.

You cannot actually stand in the so-called "sniper's perch" - the area is enclosed by Plexiglas to protect against souvenir-hungry vandals - but you can study it from close quarters.

At first glance, the perch seems little more than a jumble of book cartons stacked on the bare floor by a sash window.

Upon closer inspection, however, you notice that about four feet in front of the window is a loose wall of stacked cartons - a shield to protect the sniper's back, perhaps?

Other cartons positioned closer to the wall form what some have construed to be a shooting platform, upon which Oswald may have leaned while firing at the presidential motorcade.

At this spot, you can almost hear the pop of gunfire, smell the sulfurous gunsmoke and envision Oswald then running for the stairs.

Curiously though, when I visited the Sixth Floor, few other tourists seemed inclined to linger beside the sniper's perch. Many barely gave it a glance as they moved from display to display.

But one woman realized its significance. She paused for a few seconds, and shuddered. "So painful," she murmured.