Q&A With Stephen Hunter

Can you say a little about the eureka moment when you realized Swagger and the Kennedy assassination were a great match?

I was sitting exactly where I'm sitting now, but I was drinking something far more powerful than the tepid coffee I presently have before me. I was riffing with my pal Gary Goldberg and performing some solos bits that I had developed over the years concerning the JFK assassination. I think Gary was the only friend whom I hadn't driven away with such antics. Out of nowhere my subconscious demanded that I say "Wouldn't it be neat to have Bob Lee Swagger solve the Kennedy assassination," and in the next second I realized that my subconscious wasn't joking. Anyway, I got so revved up off that moment I didn't stop working for 19 months. I would pass my wife Jean Marbella (of The Sun) on the stairs and think, "Wow, what a beautiful woman. Wish I knew her!
 
Had you looked into the assassination prior to researching this book?

I had been a charter member of every High Church of Assassination Theology as they came along. I believed them all, from Warren, to Lane, to Donohue, to Posner to Bugliosi. I am gullible that way. But, as I say, I had developed some ideas over the years that seemed to be my own--nothing radical, just comments on bullet origin and design, angles, the art and science of scope mounting--but had never found a venue to use them. The book suddenly became that venue.
 
You did some traveling... What did you learn in Dallas? Moscow? [Gun manufacturer] LWRC in Cambridge?

In Dallas, I sat at the corner of Elm and Huston, just under the 6th floor window, and wondered why on earth Oswald didn't shoot then, when Kennedy was not only within spitting distance but virtually standing still as the limo negotiated the corner. In Moscow, I learned how scary the Lubyanka was. At LWRC I learned how brilliantly organized a state-of-the-art gun manufacturer can be. Plus I got a cool baseball hat.
 
What surprised you while researching/writing the book?

The shoddiness of the FBI work on LHO's rifle. The men who examined it were unfamiliar with the dynamic between scope and rifle as bonded via the scope mount, and missed the significance of that delicate relationship. Many of their comments seem naive and uninformed today. They were more concerned with linkages--the bullet to the rifle, the rifle to Oswald--than performance capabilities. We need to know a lot more about that rifle and it should be examined by veteran snipers and big game hunters, not lab techies. You don't have to allege a conspiracy by the Klan, Big Oil, Sears (but not Roebuck)  and the Maxwell Brothers to point out the debilitating shoddiness of the federal work.
 
Any concerns you'll be dogged by conspiracy theorists?

I trust my fellow Americans for decorum and refined behavior and I'm sure they won't disappoint me.
 
What's next for Swagger? He seems to be doing his best work as he gets older.

I've contrived a way to get him involved in investigating a mystery from WWII, which enables me to recreate certain lost actions and forgotten heroes of that war. It's so much fun. It's sort of "The Wizard of Oz" with sniper rifles.
 
The opening chapter made me chuckle. Did you sport a wicked grin while writing it?

I did indeed. And every time I walk down the Churchill Street alley behind my home, especially when I've had an extra gallon or so of potato-based refreshment, I think: I remember the night I died here!