Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald
File:CE2892.jpg Lee Harvey Oswald during his time living in Minsk
Born	(1939-10-18)October 18, 1939 Template:City-state
Died	November 24, 1963(1963-11-24) (aged 24) Template:City-state
Cause of death	Murdered by firearm
Nationality	American
Other names	Alek J. Hidell used for ordering his Carcano rifle O. H. Lee used for his place of residence
Spouse	Marina Prusakova (1961-1963)
Signature

Template:JFK Garrison Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was, according to three government investigations, the assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who was fatally shot in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

A United States Marine who had briefly defected to the Soviet Union, Oswald was initially arrested on suspicion of killing Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit, who had been shot on a Dallas street less than one hour after Kennedy was shot. Soon suspected in the death of Kennedy as well, Oswald denied involvement in either killing. Two days later, on November 24, as Oswald was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail, he was shot and mortally wounded by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in full view of television cameras broadcasting live.

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, a conclusion also reached by prior investigations carried out by the FBI and Dallas Police.

Biography

Childhood

Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans and was of English, German, French, Dutch, and Irish ancestry. His father, Robert Edward Lee Oswald, Sr. (New Orleans, March 4, 1896 – New Orleans, August 19, 1939), who had previously been married before marrying Oswald's mother on July 20, 1933, died two months before Lee was born. Mostly on her own, his mother, Marguerite Frances Claverie (New Orleans, July 19, 1907 – Fort Worth, Texas, January 17, 1981), daughter of streetcar conductor John Claverie raised Lee and his two older siblings, brother Robert, Jr. and half-brother (from Marguerite's previous marriage) John Pic (b. 1932). From 1945 to 1948 Oswald had a stepfather, Edwin Adolph Ekdahl (1888–1965).

By age 18, Lee had lived in 22 different homes and attended 12 different schools, mostly around New Orleans, Covington, Louisiana and Dallas, but New York City as well. His mother placed him in a foster home for 13 months in 1942–1943, when she was too poor to support all her children. As a child, Oswald was withdrawn and temperamental. While living with Pic, at the time a U.S. Coast Guardsman stationed in New York City, Lee and Marguerite were asked to leave after Lee allegedly threatened Pic's wife with a knife and struck Marguerite. Following charges of truancy, he was sent for three weeks of court-ordered psychiatric assessment at a juvenile reformatory, called Youth House, where Dr. Renatus Hartogs described Oswald as having a "vivid fantasy life, turning around the topics of omnipotence and power, through which he tries to compensate for his present shortcomings and frustrations". Hartogs diagnosed the 14-year-old Oswald as having a "personality pattern disturbance with schizoid features and passive-aggressive tendencies" and recommended continued psychiatric intervention.

Oswald's behavior at school appeared to improve during his last months in New York. In January 1954, his mother Marguerite decided to return to New Orleans with Lee, which prevented him from receiving the care the psychiatrist had recommended. There was still an open question pending before a New York judge whether or not he should be taken from the care of his mother to finish his schooling.

In New Orleans, Oswald left the 10th grade after one month. After the family returned to Fort Worth he enrolled in Arlington Heights High School, again in the 10th grade, but quit after 23 days to join the Marines (see below). He never received a high school diploma. Dyslexic, he had trouble spelling and writing coherently. Nonetheless he read voraciously, and by age 15 claimed to be a Marxist from his reading on the topic, writing in his diary, "I was looking for a key to my environment, and then I discovered socialist literature. I had to dig for my books in the back dusty shelves of libraries." At 16 Oswald wrote to the Socialist Party of America stating that he had been studying socialist principles for "well over fifteen months", and asking for information about their Young People's Socialist League.

However, Edward Voebel, "whom the Warren Commission had established was Oswald's closest friend during his teenage years in New Orleans ... said that reports that Oswald was already 'studying Communism' were a 'lot of baloney.'" Voebel said that "Oswald commonly read 'paperback trash.'"

David Ferrie (second from left) with Lee Harvey Oswald (far right) in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol in 1955.

Military service

Oswald enlisted in the US Marine Corps on October 24, 1956, one week after his seventeenth birthday. He idolized his older brother Robert, and wore Robert's Marines ring. The Marines may also have been an escape from Oswald's overbearing mother.

While in the Marines, Oswald was trained in the use of the M1 Garand rifle. He was tested in December 1956 and obtained a score of 212 (two points above the minimum for qualification as a sharpshooter) but in May 1959, on another range, he scored only 191 (barely qualifying for the lower designation of marksman).

Oswald's primary training was as a radar operator, a position requiring a security clearance. A May 1957 document states that he was "granted final clearance to handle classified matter up to and including CONFIDENTIAL after careful check of local records had disclosed no derogatory data." In the Aircraft Control and Warning Operator Course he finished seventh in a class of thirty. The course "...included instruction in aircraft surveillance and the use of radar." He was assigned first to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in July 1957, then to Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Japan in September 1957 as part of Marine Air Control Squadron 1. Atsugi was a base for CIA U-2 spy planes flying over the Soviet Union. (Oswald may have subsequently passed information on this program to the Soviets.)

Oswald was court-martialed after accidentally shooting himself in the elbow with an unauthorized handgun, then court-martialed again for starting a fight with a sergeant he thought responsible for his punishment in the shooting matter. He was demoted from private first class to private and briefly imprisoned. He was later punished for a third incident: while on nighttime sentry duty in the Philippines, he inexplicably fired his rifle into the jungle.

Slightly-built relative to some other Marines, Oswald was nicknamed Ozzie Rabbit after the cartoon character, as well as Oswaldskovich because of his pro-Soviet sentiments. In December 1958 he transferred back to the El Toro, where the function of his unit "...was to serveil [sic] for aircraft, but basically to train both enlisted men and officers for later assignment overseas." An officer there termed Oswald a "very competent" crew chief.

Oswald subscribed to the Communist newspaper,The Worker, and claimed to have taught himself rudimentary Russian, but in February 1959, he rated "poor" on a Marine proficiency exam in written and spoken Russian.

Defection to the Soviet Union

File:Oswald-1959.jpg

Photo of Oswald taken in October 1959 shortly after his arrival in the Soviet Union.

In October 1959, just days before turning 20, Oswald traveled to the Soviet Union. The trip was planned well in advance. Along with having taught himself rudimentary Russian, he had saved $1,500 of his Marine Corps salary, got a hardship discharge (claiming he needed to care for his injured mother) obtained a passport, and submitted several fictional applications to foreign universities in order to obtain a student visa.

Oswald spent two days with his mother in Fort Worth, then embarked by ship from New Orleans on September 20 to Le Havre, France, then immediately proceeded to England. Arriving in Southampton on October 9, he told officials he had $700 and planned to remain in the United Kingdom for one week before proceeding to a school in Switzerland. But on the same day, he took a Finnair flight to Helsinki, Finland, where he was issued a Soviet visa on October 14. Oswald left Helsinki by train on the following day, crossed the Soviet border at Vainikkala, and arrived in Moscow on October 16.

Almost immediately, Oswald told his Intourist guide of his desire to become a Soviet citizen, but was told on October 21 that his application had been refused. Oswald then inflicted a minor but bloody wound to his left wrist in his hotel room bathtub, after which the Soviets put him under psychiatric observation at a hospital.

Next Oswald appeared unexpectedly at the United States embassy in Moscow on October 31, declaring a desire to renounce his U.S. citizenship. John McVickar, an official at the Moscow embassy, felt that Oswald, "...was following a pattern of behavior in which he had been tutored by [a] person or persons unknown ... seemed to be using words which he had learned but did not fully understand ... in short, it seemed to me that there was a possibility that he had been in contact with others before or during his Marine Corps tour who had guided him and encouraged him in his actions."

He told Soviet officials "...that he had been a radar operator in the Marine Corps and that he ... would make known to them such information concerning the Marine Corps and his speciality as he possessed. He intimated that he might know something of special interest." When the Navy Department learned of this, it changed Oswald's Marine Corps discharge from "hardship/honorable" to "undesirable".

File:CE2595.jpg

Marina Prusakova, Minsk 1959

Although Oswald had wanted to attend Moscow University, he was sent to Minsk, where he was given a job as a lathe operator at the Gorizont (Horizon) Electronics Factory, a huge facility producing radios, televisions,and military and space electronics. He was given a subsidized, fully furnished studio apartment in a prestigious building and, in addition to his factory pay, received subsidies from the Russian Red Cross Society—an idyllic existence by Soviet working-class standards, though, he was under constant surveillance.

But Oswald grew bored in Minsk. He wrote in his diary in January 1961: "I am starting to reconsider my desire about staying. The work is drab, the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No nightclubs or bowling alleys, no places of recreation except the trade union dances. I have had enough." Shortly afterwards, Oswald (who had never formally renounced his U.S. citizenship) wrote to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow requesting return of his American passport, and proposing his return to the U.S. if any charges against him would be dropped. (In 1964, Oswald's mother, Marguerite, recorded and released an audio album, The Oswald Case: Mrs. Marguerite Oswald Reads Lee Harvey Oswald's Letters from Russia, on which she reads from and comments on his letters from his time in Soviet Union.)

At a dance in March 1961, Oswald met Marina Prusakova, a 19-year-old pharmacology student. They married on April 30, 1961, less than six weeks after they met. On July 11 Oswald and Marina applied in person at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for documents enabling her to immigrate to the U.S. Their first child, June, was born on February 15, 1962. On June 1, 1962, the family left for the United States, where they received a measure of attention in the press.

Dallas

The Oswalds now settled in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where his mother and brother lived, and Lee attempted to write The Collective, a memoir and commentary on Soviet life. Though he eventually gave up this project his search for literary feedback put him in touch with anti-Communist Russian émigrés in the area. While merely tolerating the belligerent and arrogant Lee, they sympathized with Marina, partly because she spoke no English—Oswald refused to teach her, saying he didn't want to forget Russian—and because Oswald had begun to beat her.

Although the Russian émigrés eventually abandoned Marina when she made no sign of leaving Oswald, Oswald found an unlikely friend in George de Mohrenschildt, a well-educated petroleum geologist. (A native Russian-speaker himself, de Mohrenschildt wrote that Oswald spoke Russian "very well, with only a little accent.") Marina meanwhile befriended Ruth Paine, who was trying to learn Russian, and her husband Michael.

In July 1962, Oswald was hired by Dallas' Leslie Welding Company; he disliked the work and quit after three months. In October he was hired by the graphic-arts firm of Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall as a photoprint trainee, but his inefficiency and rudeness were such that fights threatened to break out, and he was seen reading a Russian publication, Krokodil. He was fired during the first week of April 1963. (He may have used equipment at the firm to forge identification documents, including some in the name of an alias, Alek James Hidell.)

Attempted killing of General Walker

The Warren Commission concluded that on April 10, 1963, Oswald attempted to kill retired U.S. General Major General Edwin Walker. Walker was an outspoken anti-communist, segregationist, and member of the John Birch Society who had been relieved of his command in 1962 for distributing right-wing literature to his subordinates. He was subsequently involved in resistance to the racial integration of the University of Mississippi and consequently arrested for insurrection, seditious conspiracy, and other charges, but a grand jury refused to indict him. Oswald considered Walker the leader of a "fascist organization."

In March 1963, Oswald purchased a 6.5 mm caliber Carcano rifle (commonly but improperly called Mannlicher-Carcano) by mail, using the alias A. Hidell. He also purchased a revolver by the same method.

The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald fired at Walker through a window, from less than 100 feet (30 m) away, as Walker was sat at a desk in his dining room; the bullet struck the windowframe and Walker's injury was struck only by bullet fragments in the forearm. Oswald returned home and told Marina what he had just done. (The United States House Select Committee on Assassinations stated that the "evidence strongly suggested" that Oswald did the shooting.)

At the time, Dallas police had no suspects in the shooting, but Oswald's involvement was suspected within hours of his arrest following the Kennedy assassination. (A note Oswald left for Marina on the night of the attempt, telling her what to do if he did not return, was not found until early December 1963.) The Walker bullet was too damaged to run conclusive ballistics studies on it, but neutron activation tests later showed that it was "extremely likely" that that it was made by the same manufacturer and for the same rifle make as the two bullets which later struck Kennedy.

New Orleans

Oswald rented an apartment in this building in Uptown New Orleans c. May-September 1963

Oswald and two people he had hired for the day pass out "Fair Play for Cuba" leaflets in New Orleans, August, 1963. Two months later Oswald would travel to Mexico City with the purpose of obtaining a visa to travel to Cuba

Oswald's mugshot following his arrest in New Orleans

Oswald returned to New Orleans on April 25, 1963 and got a job as a machinery greaser with the Reily Coffee Company in May. Oswald's wife, Marina, joined him in New Orleans, after being driven there by family friend Ruth Paine. In July, Oswald was fired from Reily for malingering.

On May 26, 1963, Oswald, without any previous contact with the FPCC, and with no membership in the Communist Party USA, wrote a letter to the New York City headquarters of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro organization, and proposed "...renting a small office at my own expense for the purpose of forming a FPCC branch here in New Orleans." The FPCC Chairman replied, rejecting Oswald's proposal and later commented on its suspicious nature. In that letter, Oswald also claimed to have had a public brawl with a Cuban refugee, although that fight would not occur for two weeks.

On August 5 and 6, according to Carlos Bringuier, Oswald visited him at a store he owned in New Orleans. Bringuier was the New Orleans delegate for the anti-Castro Cuban Student Directorate. Bringuier told the Warren Commission that he believed Oswald's visits were an attempt by Oswald to infiltrate his anti-Castro group. Three days later, on August 9, Oswald turned up in downtown New Orleans handing out pro-Castro fliers. Bringuier confronted Oswald, claiming he was tipped off about Oswald's leafleting by a friend. During an ensuing scuffle, Oswald, along with Bringuier and two of his friends, was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace.

The arrest got news media attention and Oswald was interviewed afterwards. He was also filmed passing out fliers in front of the International Trade Mart with two 'volunteers' he had hired (hired, because Oswald was not a member of the Communist Party USA so he had no regular volunteers). Oswald's political work in New Orleans came to an end after a WDSU radio debate between Bringuier and Oswald arranged by journalist Bill Stuckey. During the course of the debate, Oswald was confronted with accusations about his past in the Soviet Union and his activities in New Orleans.

Oswald's activities in New Orleans in mid-1963 were investigated by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison during his prosecution of Clay Shaw in 1969. Garrison was particularly interested in investigating David Ferrie's connections to Oswald, which Ferrie himself denied. Ferrie died before he could be brought to trial. In 1993, the PBS television program Frontline obtained a group photograph, taken eight years before the assassination, that showed Oswald and Ferrie at a cookout with other Civil Air Patrol cadets.

Ron Lewis claimed that he briefly met David Ferrie and Guy Banister, and Lewis could have substantiated many claims proposed by Jim Garrison, but Lewis decided not to risk personal danger by coming forward with his testimony during the trial of Clay Shaw.

Further information: David Ferrie

Further information: Trial of Clay Shaw

Mexico

While Ruth Paine drove Marina back to Dallas in late September 1963, Oswald lingered in New Orleans for two more days waiting to collect a $33 unemployment check. It has never been conclusively established precisely when Oswald left New Orleans, or what mode of transportation he took. He is next known to have boarded a bus in Houston, but instead of heading north to Dallas, he took a bus southwest towards Laredo and the U.S.-Mexico border. Once in Mexico he hoped to continue to Cuba, a plan he openly shared with other passengers on the bus. Arriving in Mexico City, he completed a transit visa application at the Cuban Embassy, claiming he wanted to visit the country on his way back to the Soviet Union. The Cubans insisted the Soviet Union would have to approve his journey to the USSR before he could get a Cuban visa, but he was unable to get speedy co-operation from the Soviet embassy.

After shuttling back and forth between consulates for five days, getting into a heated argument with the Cuban consul, making impassioned pleas to KGB agents, and coming under at least some CIA interest, Oswald was told by the Cuban consul that "as far as [he] was concerned [he] would not give him a visa" and that "a person like him [Oswald] in place of aiding the Cuban Revolution, was doing it harm." However, less than three weeks later, on October 18 the Cuban embassy in Mexico City finally approved the visa, and 11 days before the assassination Oswald wrote a letter to the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., which said, "Had I been able to reach the Soviet Embassy in Havana as planned, the embassy there would have had time to complete our business."

Return to Dallas

Oswald left Mexico City on October 3, and returned by bus to Dallas, where he looked for employment. Through Ruth Paine he found a job filling book orders at the Texas School Book Depository, where he started work on October 16. During the week, he lived in a rooming house on Beckley Street in Dallas (under the pseudonym O.H. Lee), and spent the weekends with his wife at the Paine home in Irving, Texas, about 15 miles (24 km) from central Dallas. On October 20, the Oswalds' second daughter was born. During this period, the FBI was aware of Oswald's whereabouts in Texas, and agents from the Dallas office twice visited the Paine home in early November when Oswald was not present, hoping to get more information about Marina Oswald, whom the FBI suspected of being a Soviet agent. In return, Oswald visited the FBI field office in Dallas approximately 10 days to a week before the assassination, in an attempt to speak to Special Agent James Hosty. When informed that Hosty was not available, Oswald left a note, which according to the receptionist at the field office read:

Let this be a warning. I will blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don’t stop bothering my wife. Signed - Lee Harvey Oswald.

After the assassination, FBI Special Agent-in-Charge for Dallas J. Gordon Shanklin ordered Hosty to destroy the note.

On November 16, a local newspaper reported that President Kennedy's motorcade would be going through central Dallas on November 22, "probably on Main Street" one block from the Texas School Book Depository, which it would have to pass to get onto the freeway to the President's luncheon site. This was confirmed by exact descriptions of the motorcade route published on November 19. On Thursday, November 21, Oswald asked Buell Wesley Frazier, a co-worker, for a ride to Irving, saying he had to pick up some curtain rods. The next morning, after leaving $170 and his wedding ring, he returned to Dallas with Frazier, carrying a long paper bag with him.

Oswald was last seen by a co-worker alone on the sixth floor of the depository about 30 minutes before the assassination.

Assassination of JFK

Main article: John F. Kennedy assassination

According to Government investigations, Oswald shot John F. Kennedy and two other people at 12:30 pm on November 22, 1963, resulting in the death of Kennedy. The 1964 Warren Commission report on the John F. Kennedy assassination concluded that those bullets came from a 6.5 millimeter Italian carbine with a four-power scope that Oswald fired from a window on the sixth floor of the book depository warehouse, where he was an employee, as the President's motorcade passed through Dallas's Dealey Plaza.

Further information: Lone gunman theory

Texas Governor John Connally was also seriously wounded along with assassination witness James Tague who received a minor facial injury.

Oswald's flight and the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit

File:LHO14.jpg

Dallas PD color mugshot November 23, 1963

According to the Warren Commission report, immediately after he shot President Kennedy, Oswald hid the rifle behind some boxes and descended four flights of stairs via the depository's rear stairwell. On the second floor he encountered Dallas police officer Marion Baker and Roy Truly, Oswald's supervisor, who identified Oswald as an employee, and Baker let Oswald pass. This encounter occurred in the second floor lunch room approximately 90 seconds after the shooting. According to Baker, Oswald was drinking a soda and did not appear to be out of breath or nervous. Subsequently, Oswald crossed the floor to the front staircase, descended and left the building through the front entrance on Elm Street, just before the police sealed off the building. Oswald was the only employee of the Depository who permanently left the building after the assassination; his supervisor later noticed Oswald missing and reported his name and address to the Dallas police in the building.

At about 12:40 p.m. (CST), Oswald boarded a city bus, but due to heavy traffic, he requested a bus transfer from the driver and exited the bus two blocks later. He took a taxicab to his rooming house, which he entered about 1:00 p.m. His housekeeper, Earlene Roberts, testified that as he entered "he was walking pretty fast"." He went into his room briefly, put on a jacket, and left. Oswald was last seen by Roberts waiting by a bus stop on a route that headed back to downtown Dallas.

About four-fifths of a mile (about 1.3 km) away, Patrolman J. D. Tippit encountered Oswald on a residential street in the neighborhood of Oak Cliff. He pulled up next to Oswald and spoke to him through a passenger side window. When Tippit exited his squad car, he was shot four times with a .38 caliber revolver, killing him in view of three eyewitnesses. Seven other witnesses heard the shots and saw the gunman flee the scene with the revolver in his hand. Four cartridge cases were found at the scene by eyewitnesses. It was the unanimous testimony of expert witnesses before the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations that these used cartridge cases were fired from the revolver in Oswald's possession to the exclusion of all other weapons.

Oswald's seat in the Texas Theater

File:GeraldHill-B.jpg

Oswald being brought out of the Texas Theater immediately after his arrest there

A few minutes later, Oswald ducked into the entrance alcove of a shoe store and appeared to be avoiding passing police cars. Johnny Brewer, the shoe store's manager, had been listening to the day's events on the radio, and felt that Oswald was acting suspiciously. After Oswald walked away, Brewer went outside his shop and saw Oswald slip into the nearby Texas Theater without paying. Brewer alerted ticket clerk Julia Postal, who had also been listening to radio coverage of the assassination, and she phoned the police.

The police quickly arrived en masse and entered the theater as the lights were turned on. Brewer identified Oswald sitting near the rear, and Officer Maurice N. McDonald approached him and ordered him to stand up. Oswald said, "Well, it is all over now" and appeared to raise his hands in surrender, when he then struck the officer. A scuffle ensued where McDonald removed the gun from Oswald's possession. Oswald was eventually subdued. As he was led past an angry crowd of people who had gathered outside the theater, Oswald shouted that he was a victim of police brutality.

At about 2 p.m., Oswald arrived at the Dallas Police Department building, where he was held on suspicion of the shooting of Officer Tippit and was questioned by Detective Jim Leavelle. Captain J. W. Fritz was told that the name of the suspect in the Tippit shooting was Lee Harvey Oswald, the same name that Fritz had received at the Texas School Book Depository as a missing employee who had last been seen in the building shortly after the assassination. "That is the suspect we are looking for in the President's killing," Fritz said. Oswald was then booked on suspicion of murdering both President Kennedy and Officer Tippit. By the end of the night he had been arraigned before Justice of the Peace David L. Johnston for both murders.

In the hallway of the police station, early in his custody, Oswald had an impromptu, face-to-face brush with reporters and photographers, in which he declared "I didn't shoot anyone" and "They're taking me in because of the fact I lived in the Soviet Union. I'm just a patsy!" Later, just after midnight, at a brief arranged appearance before the press, a reporter asked him "Did you kill the President?" and Oswald, who had been advised at 7:10 p.m. of the charge of murdering Tippit, but was not arraigned for Kennedy's murder until 1:30 a.m., answered "No, I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question." Before any more questions were asked and answered, police officers began leading Oswald out of the room, during which two more questions came: "What did you do in Russia?" and "How did you hurt your eye?" Oswald answered the latter, stating "A policeman hit me."

Police interrogation

Fake selective service (draft) card in the name of Alek James Hidell, found on Oswald when arrested on the day of the JFK/Tippit murders. "A.Hidell" was the name used on both envelope and order slip to buy the murder weapon (see CE 773) , and "A. J. Hidell" was the alternate name on the post office box rented by Oswald, to which the weapon was sent

Oswald was interrogated several times during his two days of detention at Dallas Police Headquarters. He denied killing President Kennedy and Officer Tippit, denied owning a rifle, said two photographs of him holding a rifle and a pistol were fakes, and denied telling his co-worker he wanted a ride to Irving to get curtain rods for his apartment, and denied he had been seen carrying a long heavy package to work the morning of the assassination. The Warren Commission also noted that Oswald denied that he knew "A. J. Hidell," and when shown a forged Selective Service card in his possession at the time of his arrest in that name, refused to tell the interrogator why this card was in his possession, or to answer any questions concerning the card, saying "..you have the card yourself and you know as much about it as I do." The Warren Commission noted that this "spurious" card bore the name of "Alek James Hidell."

During his first interrogation on Friday, November 22, Oswald was asked to account for himself at the time the President was shot. Oswald said that he ate lunch in the first-floor lunchroom of the Texas School Book Depository and then went up to the second floor for a Coke, during which he encountered the police officer. During his last interrogation on Sunday, November 24, Oswald was asked again where he was at the time of the shooting. Oswald said he was working on one of the upper floors of the Depository when it occurred, and that he then went downstairs, where he encountered the police officer.

Oswald asked for legal representation several times during his interrogations and when passing by reporters. But when representatives of the Dallas Bar Association met with Oswald in his cell on Saturday afternoon, he declined their services and said he wanted to be represented by John Abt, who was chief counsel to the Communist Party USA, or by lawyers who were members of the American Civil Liberties Union. Oswald and Ruth Paine tried to reach Abt by telephone several times on Saturday and Sunday, but Abt had gone away for the weekend and did not return the calls. Oswald also declined his brother Robert's offer on Saturday afternoon to get him a local attorney.

Oswald's death

File:Ruby-shooting-oswald2.png

Oswald is shot by Jack Ruby.

At 11:21 am Sunday, November 24, 1963, while he was handcuffed to Detective Leavelle and as he was about to be taken to the Dallas County Jail, Oswald was shot and fatally wounded before live television cameras in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub operator who said that he had been distraught over the Kennedy assassination.

Unconscious, Oswald was put into an ambulance and rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where President Kennedy had died two days earlier. Doctors operated on Oswald, but Ruby's single bullet had severed major abdominal blood vessels, and the doctors were unable to repair the massive trauma. Oswald was pronounced dead at 1:07 pm. After a full autopsy, Oswald's body was returned to his family. Oswald's grave is in Rose Hill Memorial Burial Park in Fort Worth. The original tombstone, which included Oswald's full name and dates of birth and death, was stolen; today, the grave is marked by a stone which reads simply, Oswald.

His wife Marina was sequestered by federal agents the day after the assassination and later released. However, she had Secret Service protection until she concluded her testimony before the Warren Commission.

Investigations

The Warren Commission created by President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29, 1963, to investigate the assassination concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy and that he acted alone (also known as the lone gunman theory). The proceedings of the commission were closed, but not secret, and about 3% of its files have yet to be released to the public, which has continued to provoke speculation among researchers.

In 1968, the Ramsey Clark Panel met in Washington, D.C., to examine various photographs, X-ray films, documents, and other evidence pertaining to the death of President Kennedy. It concluded that President Kennedy was struck by two bullets fired from above and behind him, one of which traversed the base of the neck on the right side without striking bone and the other of which entered the skull from behind and destroyed its right side.

In 1979, an investigation by the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Oswald assassinated President Kennedy "probably [...] as the result of a conspiracy." The HSCA prepared an initial report concluding that Oswald acted alone, until a Dictabelt recording purportedly of the assassination surfaced and the Committee revised its conclusion. The new conclusion was that Oswald had fired three shots, of which the last two struck the president and were the only shots to have done so. However, on the basis of the new acoustic evidence, the committee believed that a second gunman had fired a fourth shot, which missed the president. The inferred existence of second gunman automatically made the assassination a conspiracy.

The acoustic evidence which the HCSA used for its conclusion has since been called into question, and some believe it is not a recording of the assassination at all. The staff director and chief counsel for the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations, G. Robert Blakey, told ABC News that at least 20 persons heard a shot from the grassy knoll, and that the conclusion that a conspiracy existed in the assassination was established by both the witness testimony and acoustic evidence. In 2004, he expressed less confidence in the acoustic evidence. Officer H.B. McLain, from whose motorcycle radio the HSCA acoustic experts said the Dictabelt evidence came, has repeatedly stated that he was not yet in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. McLain asked the Committee, "‘If it was my radio on my motorcycle, why did it not record the revving up at high speed plus my siren when we immediately took off for Parkland Hospital?’” The HSCA was unable to identify any other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy. It also had insufficient evidence to identify any group responsible.

In 1982, a group of twelve scientists appointed by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), led by Professor Norman Ramsey of Harvard University, concluded that the acoustic evidence and the team behind its submission to the HSCA was "seriously flawed." While the NAS said that the HSCA acoustical evidence was flawed, a 2001 peer-reviewed article in Science and Justice, the journal of Britain's Forensic Science Society, said that the NAS investigation was itself flawed. The article's author, Dr. Donald B. Thomas, a government scientist and JFK assassination researcher, concluded, with a 96.3 percent certainty, that there were at least two gunmen firing at President Kennedy and that one of the shots came from the grassy knoll in front of Kennedy. Commenting on the British study, United States House Select Committee on Assassinations staff director and chief counsel G. Robert Blakey said: "This is an honest, careful scientific examination of everything we did, with all the appropriate statistical checks."

Possible motives

The Warren Commission could not ascribe any one motive or group of motives to Oswald's actions:

It is apparent, however, that Oswald was moved by an overriding hostility to his environment. He does not appear to have been able to establish meaningful relationships with other people. He was perpetually discontented with the world around him. Long before the assassination he expressed his hatred for American society and acted in protest against it. Oswald's search for what he conceived to be the perfect society was doomed from the start. He sought for himself a place in history — a role as the "great man" who would be recognized as having been in advance of his times. His commitment to Marxism and communism appears to have been another important factor in his motivation. He also had demonstrated a capacity to act decisively and without regard to the consequences when such action would further his aims of the moment. Out of these and the many other factors which may have molded the character of Lee Harvey Oswald there emerged a man capable of assassinating President Kennedy.

1981 exhumation

File:IMG 5271.JPG

The grave of Lee Harvey Oswald

In October 1981 Oswald's body was exhumed at the behest of British writer Michael Eddowes, with Marina Oswald Porter's support. He sought to prove a thesis developed in a 1975 book, Khrushchev Killed Kennedy (re-published in 1976, in Britain as November 22: How They Killed Kennedy and in America a year later as The Oswald File). Eddowes' theory was that during Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union he was replaced with a Soviet double named Alek, who was a member of a KGB assassination squad. Eddowes' claim is that it was this look-alike who killed Kennedy, and not Oswald. Eddowes's support for his thesis was a claim that the corpse buried in 1963 in the Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Park cemetery in Fort Worth, Texas did not have a scar that resulted from surgery conducted on Oswald years before. When Oswald's body was exhumed it was found that the plain, mole skin-covered pine coffin had ruptured and was filled with water, leaving the body in an advanced state of decomposition with partial skeletonization. The examination positively identified Oswald's corpse through dental records, and also detected a mastoid scar from a childhood operation. Contrary to reports, the skull of Oswald had been autopsied and this was confirmed at the exhumation.

Kennedy assassination theories

Main article: Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

Critics have not accepted the conclusions of the Warren Commission and have proposed a number of other theories, which assert that Oswald conspired with others or was not involved at all and was framed. One government investigation, the HSCA, ruled out many of these theories but concluded that, while Oswald was the assassin, Kennedy was "probably" killed as the result of a conspiracy. However, the HSCA report did not identify any probable co-conspirators and its conclusion has been criticized for its reliance upon acoustic evidence that has been called into question.

Fictional trials

Several films have fictionalized a trial of Oswald, including The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1964, another movie of the same name in 1977, and On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald in 1986. In 1986, London Weekend Television hosted a 21 hour television special in which an unscripted trial was held with an actual judge and lawyers. U.S. prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi described the event in his book Reclaiming History. Real eyewitnesses from the assassination testified as to what they saw and the mock jury returned a verdict of guilty. Author Gerald Posner (whose book Case Closed surmises that the Warren Commission reached the correct conclusions) also participated in a shorter (5 hour) televised mock trial of Oswald which made use of actors rather than witnesses.

Carcano rifle

Main article: John F. Kennedy assassination rifle

Lee Harvey Oswald's Carcano rifle, in the US National Archives

Backyard photos

Image CE-133A, one of three known "backyard photos." This is the same image sent by Oswald (as a first generation copy) to his friend George de Mohrenschildt in April, 1963, dated and signed by Oswald on the back of the photo. In the image, Oswald holds a Carcano rifle, with markings which have been match to the Carcano rifle that was found in the book depository and used in the assassination.

The "backyard photos", which were taken by Marina Oswald, probably around Sunday, March 31, 1963, show Oswald dressed all in black and holding two Marxist newspapers—The Militant and The Worker—in one hand, a rifle in the other, and carrying a pistol in its holster. The backyard photos were shot using a camera belonging to Oswald, an Imperial Reflex Duo-Lens 620. When shown the pictures at Dallas Police headquarters after his arrest, Oswald insisted they were fakes. However, Marina Oswald testified in 1964, 1969, 1977, and 1978, and reaffirmed in 2000 that she took the photographs at Oswald's request. These photos were labelled CE 133-A and CE 133-B. CE 133-A shows the rifle in Oswald's left hand and newsletters in front of his chest in the other, while the rifle is held with the right hand in CE 133-B. Oswald's mother testified that on the day after the assassination she and Marina destroyed another photograph with Oswald holding the rifle with both hands over his head, with "To my daughter June" written on it.

The HSCA obtained another first generation print (from CE 133-A) on April 1, 1977 from the widow of George de Mohrenschildt. The words "Hunter of fascists — ha ha ha!" written in block Russian were on the back. Also in English were added in script: "To my friend George, Lee Oswald, 5/IV/63 [April 5, 1963]" Handwriting experts consulted by the HSCA concluded the English inscription and signature were written by Lee Oswald. After two original photos, one negative and one first-generation copy had been found, the Senate Intelligence Committee located (in 1976) a third photograph of Oswald with a backyard pose that was different (CE 133-C), with newspapers held in his right hand away from his body). A test photo by the Dallas Police in the identical pose was released with the Warren Commission evidence in 1964, but it is not known why the photo itself was not publicly acknowledged until a print was found in 1975 amongst the belongings of deceased Dallas police officer Roscoe White.

These photos, widely recognized as some of the most significant evidence against Oswald, have been subjected to rigorous analysis. A panel of twenty-two photographic experts consulted by the HSCA examined the photographs and answered twenty-one points of contention raised by critics. The panel concluded the photographs were genuine. Marina Oswald has always maintained she took the photos herself, and the 1963 de Mohrenschildt print with Oswald's own signature clearly indicate they existed before the assassination. Despite such evidence, however some critics continue to contest the authenticity of the photographs. After digitally analyzing the photograph of Oswald holding the rifle and paper, Dartmouth College computer scientist Hany Farid published his findings concluding that "the photo almost certainly was not altered."

Further reading

• Bugliosi, Vincent. Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Norton, 2007, 1632 p. ISBN 0393045250.
• Eddowes, Michael. Khrushchev Killed Kennedy, self-published, (1975), paperback (republished as November 22, How They Killed Kennedy, Neville Spearman (1976), hardback, ISBN 0-85978-019-8 and as The Oswald File, Potter (1977), hardcover, ISBN 0-517-53055-4)
• Groden, Robert J.. The Search of Lee Harvey Oswald: A Comprehensive Photographic Record, New York: Penguin Studio Books, 1995. ISBN 0-670-85867-6
• La Fontaine, Ray and Mary, "Oswald Talked: The New Evidence in the JFK Assassination", Gretna: Pelican Publishing Co., 1996. ISBN 1-56554-029-8
• Lambert, Patricia. False Witness: The Real Story of Jim Garrison's Investigation and Oliver Stone's Film JFK, New York: M. Evans & Company, 1998, ISBN 0-87131-920-9
• Lifton, David S., Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the. Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Carroll & Graf Publishers, NYC, 1988, softcover, ISBN 0-88184-438-1
• Mailer, Norman. Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery, New York: Ballantine Books, (1995) ISBN 0-345-40437-8
• Marrs, Jim. Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1990, ISBN 0-88184-648-1
• McMillan, Priscilla Johnson. Marina and Lee, New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
• Melanson, Philip H. Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald And U. S. Intelligence, Praeger Publishing, 1990, ISBN 0-275-93571-X
• Newman, John. Oswald and the CIA, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1995, ISBN 0-7867-0131-5
• Nechiporenko, Oleg M. Passport to Assassination: The Never-Before Told Story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the KGB Colonel Who Knew Him, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1993, ISBN 1-559-72210-X
• Posner, Gerald. Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, Random House, 1993, hardcover, ISBN 0-679-41825-3
• Smith, Matthew. JFK: Say Goodbye to America, Mainstream Publishing, 2004.
• Smith, Matthew, JFK: The Second Plot. Mainstream Publishing.Edinburgh and London. 2000. ISBN 1-84018-501-5
• Summers, Anthony. Conspiracy, London: Fontana Books, 1980.
• Summers, Anthony. Not in Your Lifetime, New York: Marlowe & Company, 1998, ISBN 1-56924-739-0
• Douglass, James W. (2008). JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. pp. 544. ISBN 9781570757556. http://www.maryknollmall.org/description.cfm?ISBN=978-1-57075-755-6.
• Wilkes, Jr., Donald E. "Lee Harvey Oswald at Age 62." Flagpole Magazine, p. 6 (November 21, 2001).
• Wilkes, Jr., Donald E. "The Rosetta Stone of the JFK Assassination?" Flagpole Magazine, p. 8 (November 20, 2002).

External links

• Frontline: Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?
• American Experience: Oswald's Ghost
• Lee Harvey Oswald's journey from Minsk to the US, travelling through Holland by Perry Vermeulen
• JFK 101 An excerpt from Harvey & Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald by John Armstrong
• Kennedy Assassination Home Page by John McAdams
• Lasting Questions about the Murder of President Kennedy by Rex Bradford
• Lee Harvey Oswald: Lone Assassin or Patsy
• Lee Harvey Oswald Chronology
• Crime Library: Lee Harvey Oswald
• Lee Harvey Oswald In Russia
• Various photos of Oswald taken post mortem
• CTKA: Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination
• Hasty Judgment: A Reply to Gerald Posner--Why the JFK Case Is Not Closed by Michael T. Griffith
• Lee Harvey Oswald at Find a Grave Retrieved on 2009-02-13

Template:Persondata