Oswald LH
ACHIEVEMENTS: Alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: October 18, 1939, New Orleans, LA
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: November 24, 1963, Dallas, TX. Aged 24
DISCIPLINE: Served briefly as a U.S. Marine, mostly in intelligence
FIELD: None
LANGUAGE: English
PARENTS: Robert E. Lee Oswald; Marguerite Claverie
SIBLINGS: Robert
SPOUSE: Marina Prusakova
CHILDREN: Two
EDUCATION: Various schools in Texas, New York City, and New Orleans
MAJOR WORK: None
LIFE AND TIMES:
Born after his father died, Oswald, along with his brother, spent his early years mainly in orphanages. When he was six, his mother (who worked as a telephone operator and sales clerk) remarried, and moved to Fort Worth, TX, with her husband, taking her boys with her.
After the marriage failed, she and the boys moved from town to town, arriving in New York City, when Oswald was 13. Shortly after they arrived, Oswald was sent to a New York youth house for six months for repeated truancy. When he was 15, his mother moved the family back to New Orleans.
Oswald became interested in the writings of Karl Marx* in high school. He was also active in the local squadron of the Civil Air Patrol.
When he was 17, his mother moved the family back to Fort Worth, where Oswald joined the marines. He was considered moody and nervous, but did well in intelligence tests and was sent to join a marine air radar unit in Japan. The unit was housed in an area where the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was working on material brought in by the U-2 spy plane.
Oswald learned Russian and sometimes disappeared from the unit, leading to speculation he was working for the CIA.
In 1959, at 20, Oswald got a discharge from the marines, pleading he had to look after his sick mother. He spent one day with her, then left for Europe. A month later, he turned up in Moscow and two weeks later told the American embassy he was giving up his U.S. citizenship and was going to live in the Soviet Union.
In March, 1961, he married Marina Prusakova, the niece of a colonel in the KGB, the Russian secret police. It is known he lived in Minsk and worked at an electronics plant, but there is no other record of his time in Russia. His "Historic Diary" is believed to be a fake because it is full of spelling and grammatical mistakes that were not typical of Oswald.
Oswald left Russia in June, 1962, flying to Fort Worth with his wife and child. He worked for a time at a photographic company. He and his wife became friendly with George and Jeanne De Morenschildt, a couple with strong connections to U.S. intelligence services.
In March, 1963, Oswald bought a rifle by mail. In April, he moved to New Orleans and took a job with a coffee company. Outwardly, he gave the impression of being a Marxist who supported Castro* in Cuba, but all his known contacts were with hard line anti-Communists. In September, he went to Mexico City, where he visited both the Soviet and Cuban embassies. A week later, he turned up in Dallas. He rented a room and got a job as an order-filler at the Texas School Book Depository. He continued to visit his wife and children at their home in Irving, TX.
On November 21, 1963, Oswald again visited his family, saying he had come to get curtain rods for his new room in Dallas. On November 22, he was seen by a fellow worker at the depository carrying a package wrapped in brown paper.
He was also seen on the first floor of the depository about 10 minutes before President Kennedy* was shot as he drove in an open car at 12.30 pm. One witness saw shots coming from the sixth floor, and later identified Oswald as the gunman.
Oswald's rifle, together with cartridge cases, was found on the sixth floor of the depository. However, two witnesses saw Oswald on the second-floor fewer than two minutes after the assassination. A few minutes later, he was seen taking a bus, then a taxi, and at 1.00 pm was seen entering and then leaving his boarding house. At 1.15 pm, witnesses saw him running from the scene of the murder of Dallas policeman, J.D. Tippit. At 1.45 pm he was then seen entering a movie theatre, where he was arrested.
At Dallas police headquarters, Oswald denied any part in the assassination of Kennedy or the murder of Tippit.
Two days later, as he was being transferred to the Dallas county jail, he was shot in the stomach by Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner, who had been in the crowd. Oswald was taken to hospital where he died in the operating room.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the assassination. President Lyndon B. Johnson* appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren* to lead an inquiry into the assassination and the killing of Oswald.
In September, 1964, the Warren commission concluded that Oswald was solely responsible for the assassination, the wounding of Texas governor, John B. Connally, who had been in the car with Kennedy, and the murder of Tippit.
ASSESSMENT: With so little known about Oswald, conspiracy theories soon sprang up and continue to this day, despite the findings of the Warren commission. The Warren report argued that: 1) Oswald was seen on the sixth floor of the depository; 2) his rifle and cartridges were found on the sixth floor; and 3) medical evidence showed all shots were fired from behind the car. But many commentators think Oswald was involved in a conspiracy.
They point out that: 1) Oswald was seen on the second floor of the depository 90 seconds after Kennedy was shot; 2) a bullet from Oswald's rifle, apparently found at the hospital on Connally's stretcher, was so unmarked it could not have hit both men; 3) footage of the shooting showed that Kennedy and Connally could not have been hit by two separate shots from Oswald's bolt-action rifle; and 4) the footage showed the president's head jerking backward, suggesting that the shot was fired from the front of the car.
In addition, the autopsy on Kennedy has been criticized as incompetent; the Defense Department's files on Oswald's service in Japan were destroyed; and the CIA and FBI have withheld millions of pages of documentary evidence. Some has since been released.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
ONELINER: Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of President Kennedy
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
American Dictionary of Biography