Lee Harvey Oswald - Early life and Marine Corps service, Life in the Soviet Union, Dallas

Alleged killer of President John F Kennedy, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. A Marxist and former US marine, he lived for a while in the USSR (195962). He was arrested some hours after Kennedy's assassination (22 November 1963) on a charge of murdering a police officer in another incident. The following day he was also charged with the murder of President Kennedy. Before he could come to trial, he was shot at close range by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The Warren Commission (1964) held him to be responsible for the assassination, although the belief that he was part of a conspiracy still persists.

Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald, Dallas PD color mugshot November 23, 1963
Born	October 18, 1939 Slidell, Louisiana
Died	November 24, 1963 Dallas, Texas

Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was, according to four United States government investigations, responsible for the assassination of US President John F. On November 22, 1963, Oswald was arrested on suspicion of killing President Kennedy and Dallas policeman J. Oswald denied the charges, claiming he was a "patsy". Two days later, Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby on live television while in police custody. Public opinion is still divided regarding the official version of Oswald's culpability in the assassination, with virtually everyone in the nation believing Oswald couldn't have acted alone.

Early life and Marine Corps service

Lee Harvey Oswald was born in Slidell, Louisiana. His father, Robert Edward Lee Oswald SR, died before he was born. before the age of 18 Oswald had lived in 22 different residences.

As a child Oswald was withdrawn and temperamental. After they moved in with John Pic (who had joined the US Coast Guard and was stationed in New York City), they were asked to leave due to an incident where Oswald purportedly attacked Pic's mother. Dr. Renatus Hartogs diagnosed the fourteen-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 in his last months in New York. In New Orleans, Oswald even attended some extracurricular clubs such as the school's marching band;

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Lee Harvey Oswald diary

Oswald never received a high school diploma before he enlisted in the US Marines.

Even as a Marxist, Oswald wished to join the US Marines. This relationship seems to have transcended any ideological conflict for Oswald, and enlisting in the Marines may have also been a way to escape from his overbearing mother.

Oswald was trained as a radar operator and assigned first to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Irvine, California, then to Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Japan. Though Atsugi was a base for the U-2 spy planes that flew over the former USSR, there is no evidence Oswald was involved in that operation. Oswald's experience after joining with the Marine Corps was by all accounts unpleasant. Oswald was tried at a court-martial twice: initially because of accidentally shooting himself in the elbow with an unauthorized handgun and again later for starting a fight with a sergeant he thought responsible for his punishment received from his first court-martial. By the end of his Marine career Oswald was doing menial labor.

Life in the Soviet Union

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Lee Harvey Oswald diary

In October 1959 Oswald went to the Soviet Union.

After spending one day with his mother in New Orleans he departed by ship for the Soviet Union, first arriving in France, then England and eventually Finland as part of a package tour. When the Navy Department learned of this it changed Oswald's Marine Corps discharge from "hardship/honorable" to "undesirable."

Oswald's wish to remain in the Soviet Union was initially applauded by the Soviets and described by at least one western journalist as a "defection," but although he had some technical knowledge acquired in the Marines they soon discovered he had little of real value to offer the Soviet Union and his application for Soviet residency was rejected. In response, Oswald made a bloody but minor cut to his left wrist in his hotel room bathtub.

Against the advice of the KGB, a high-level Presidium decision allowed Oswald to remain in the Soviet Union. Oswald was under constant surveillance by the KGB during his thirty-month stay in Minsk. Oswald gradually grew bored with the limited recreation available in Minsk.

At a dance in early 1961 Oswald met Marina Prusakova, a troubled 19-year-old pharmacology student from a broken family in Leningrad now living with her aunt and uncle in Minsk. Oswald and Marina married less than a month and a half after they met.

After nearly a year of paperwork and waiting, on June 1, 1962 the young family left the Soviet Union for the United States.

Dallas

Back in the United States, the Oswalds settled in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and Lee attempted to write his memoir and commentary on Soviet life, a small manuscript called The Collective. While merely tolerating the belligerent and arrogant Lee Oswald, they sympathized with Marina, partly because she was in a foreign country with no knowledge of English (which her husband refused to teach her, saying he didn't want to forget Russian) and because Oswald had begun to beat her. Although they eventually abandoned Marina when she made no sign of leaving him, Oswald had found an unlikely friend in the well-educated and worldly petroleum geologist George de Mohrenschildt, who liked playing the provocateur and enjoyed putting people off with his disagreeable and sullen Marxist friend. A native Russian-speaker himself, de Mohrenschildt in his memoir wrote that Oswald spoke Russian "very well, with only a little accent."

In Dallas, Oswald got a job with the Leslie Welding Company but disliked the work and quit after three months. The company has been cited as doing classified work for the US government but this was limited to typesetting for maps and produced in a section which Oswald had no access. by this time Oswald had long become dissatisfied with the U.S.S.R., as noted]. On Monday, April 1, after six months of work, Oswald's supervisor terminated Oswald's employment at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall.

Attempted assassination of General Walker

Ten days after being fired, Oswald attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker with the rifle shown in his backyard pose photos of March 31.

General Edwin Walker was an outspoken anti-communist, segregationist and member of the John Birch Society who had been commanding officer of the Army's 24th Infantry Division based in West Germany under NATO supreme command until he was relieved of his command in 1961 by JFK for distributing right-wing literature to his troops.

Oswald surveilled Walker for some unknown time, probably including early April, taking pictures of the General's home and nearby railroad tracks which were later found in his residence when it was searched after the Kennedy assassination (these photos were later matched to the same camera Marina used to take the backyard poses).

In March, Oswald ordered the rifle by mail (see below) using his alias A. Though he did not leave specifics of his plans in writing, Oswald did leave a note in Russian for Marina with instructions for her to follow - should he be jailed in Dallas, or otherwise disappear.

Walker was sitting at a desk in his dining room (working on his federal income tax returns) when Oswald fired at him from less than one hundred feet (30 m) away.

The Dallas police had no suspects in the Walker shooting. Oswald's involvement was not suspected until a note and some of the photos of Walker's house were found following the assassination of JFK, after which Marina Oswald told authorities about Oswald's attempt on Walker's life, which she said Oswald had told her about after the fact.

New Orleans

By late April, he returned to the city of his birth, New Orleans, arriving on the morning of April 25 looking for work. Marina was driven there by family friend Ruth Paine after Oswald got a job with the Reilly Coffee Company in May. Oswald was fired for dereliction of duty in July.

Oswald had Marina write to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. The Fair Play for Cuba Committee was a national organization and Oswald set out on his own initiative as a one-member New Orleans chapter, spending $22.73 on 1000 flyers, 500 membership applications and 300 membership cards.

Most of Oswald's activities consisted of passing out flyers to passers-by on the street. Several days later Bringuier and two friends confronted a man passing out pro-Castro handbills and realized that it was Oswald. During an ensuing scuffle all of them were arrested and Oswald spent the night in jail.

The trial got news media attention and Oswald was interviewed afterwards. 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. Instead of discussing Cuba as he had successfully done during a previous radio program, Oswald was publicly confronted with the lies and omissions he had made concerning his life and background and became audibly upset.

Oswald's four months in New Orleans were carefully scrutinized after the JFK assassination, most notably by New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison in his unsuccessful attempt to link Oswald to wealthy local businessman Clay Shaw, a former president of the International Trade Mart.

Although Ferrie and Oswald had been simultaneously members of the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans during the 1950s and both appear in a C.A.P. group photo, there is no credible evidence they had any significant contact when Oswald was a teenager.

Mexico

While Ruth Paine drove Marina back to Dallas, Oswald lingered in New Orleans for two more days waiting to collect a $33 unemployment check.

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. 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 DC, 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."

Assassination of JFK

The 1964 Warren Commission report on the John F. Kennedy assassination concluded that at 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963, Oswald shot Kennedy from a window on the sixth floor of the book depository warehouse as the President's motorcade passed through Dallas' Dealey Plaza (see lone gunman theory). On the evening of November 22, in an impromptu news conference, Oswald denied shooting president Kennedy or officer J. The Warren Commission could not ascribe any one motive or group of motives to Oswald's actions.

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

According to the Warren Commission report, immediately after he shot President Kennedy, Oswald hid the rifle behind some boxes and descended via the Depository's rear stairwell. With him was Oswald's supervisor Roy Truly, who identified Oswald as an employee, which caused Baker, who had his pistol in hand, to let Oswald pass. Oswald bought a Coke from a vending machine in the second floor lunchroom, crossed the floor to the front staircase, descended and left the building through the front entrance on Elm Street, just before the police sealed the building off. a roll call later found only Oswald missing, and this resulted in a suspect-wanted order issued specifically for Oswald.

At about 12:40 p.m. (CST), Oswald boarded a city bus by pounding on the door in the middle of a block - when heavy traffic had slowed the bus to a halt - and requested a bus transfer from the driver.

Minutes later, Oswald left the house and lingered briefly at a bus stop across the street from his rooming house (also witnessed by Roberts). Tippit, who had heard the general description of the alleged shooter (based on the statement of witness Howard Brennan who had seen Oswald in the window of the Depository from across the street) encountered Oswald - near the corner of Patton Avenue and 10th Street - and pulled up to talk to him through his patrol car window. Tippit then got out of his car and Oswald fired at the police officer with his .38 caliber revolver. At least a dozen people either witnessed the shooting or identified Oswald as fleeing the scene.

A few minutes later, Oswald ducked into the entrance alcove of a shoe store on Jefferson Street to avoid passing police cars, then slipped into the nearby Texas Theater without paying. The shoe store's manager saw all of this, followed Oswald and alerted the theater's ticket clerk, who phoned the police. McDonald approached Oswald sitting near the rear and ordered him to stand up. Oswald said, "This is it", or "Well, it's all over now." A scuffle ensued where Officer McDonald reported that Oswald pulled the trigger on his revolver, but the hammer came down on the web of skin between the thumb and forefinger of the officer's hand, which prevented the revolver from firing. Oswald was eventually subdued. As he was led past an angry group of people who had gathered outside the theater, Oswald shouted that he was a victim of police brutality.

Oswald was booked on suspicion first as a suspect in the shooting of Officer Tippit and shortly afterwards on suspicion of murdering President Kennedy.

While in custody, Oswald had an impromptu, face-to-face brush with reporters and photographers in the hallway of the police station. and Oswald answered, "I have not been accused of that." Later Oswald said to reporters, "I didn't shoot anyone," and "They're taking me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union.

Oswald's murder

At 11:21 am CST Sunday, November 24, Oswald was shot and fatally wounded before live TV cameras in the basement of Dallas police headquarters by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner with many friends and acquaintances in the Dallas Police and the underworld. Millions watched the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, the first time a homicide was captured and shown publicly on live television.

Upon receiving word of the shooting, CBS-TV immediately cuts from Roger Mudd's report at the U.S. Capitol back to the CBS newsroom and Harry Reasoner, who reports a scuffle at the Dallas City Jail.

Unconscious, Oswald was put into an ambulance and rushed to the same hospital where JFK had died. Doctors did their best to save Oswald, but Ruby's single bullet had severed major abdominal blood vessels, and the doctors were unable to repair the massive trauma. At 48 hours and 7 minutes after the President's death, Oswald was pronounced dead. 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 November 25th burial and funeral were paid for by Oswald's brother Robert. When his mother died in 1981 she was buried next to Oswald with no headstone. 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). In 1979, an investigation by the 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 their conclusion.

1981 exhumation

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 coffin had ruptured and was filled with water; 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.

Assassination theories

Critics have not accepted the official government conclusions and have proposed a number of alternative theories which assert that Oswald conspired with others or Oswald 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, that Kennedy was "probably" killed as the result of a conspiracy.

Mannlicher-Caracno Rifle

In March 1963, Oswald used his alias "A. FBI and Treasury Department experts later matched the handwriting on the coupon and the envelope, to Oswald. Hidell" but sent to a Dallas post office box rented by Oswald under his own name.

Backyard Photos

The "backyard photos," which were probably taken around Sunday, March 31, by Marina Oswald,show Oswald dressed all in black and holding two Marxist newsletters - 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. CE 133-A shows the rifle in Oswald's left hand and newletters in front of his chest in the other, while rifle is held with the right hand in CE 133-B. Also in English were added in script: "To my friend George, Lee Oswald, 5/IV/63 [April 5, 63]" 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).