Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 - November 24, 1963) was the man arrested for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, and the murder of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit. Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas Police headquarters on November 24, 1963, before any trial. The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy; the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979 that while Oswald fired the shots, a probable conspiracy existed.¹

Background and Soviet Defection

Oswald was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised in Texas and New York. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1956 and was assigned to the Marine Air Control Squadron at Atsugi Air Base in Japan - a facility used by the CIA's U-2 reconnaissance program. He received a hardship discharge in September 1959, citing the need to care for his mother.

Within two weeks of his discharge, Oswald traveled to the Soviet Union and, in October 1959, walked into the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to renounce his American citizenship. Soviet authorities initially denied him permanent residency but eventually allowed him to remain, settling him in Minsk, Russia, where he worked in a factory and was under KGB surveillance. He married Marina Prusakova, a Soviet citizen, in April 1961.

Oswald subsequently sought to return to the United States. In 1962, the State Department issued him a passport and provided a repatriation loan; he, Marina, and their infant daughter returned to the U.S. in June 1962. The relative ease of his repatriation after a Soviet defection during the Cold War was noted by subsequent investigators as anomalous.¹

Pro-Castro Activities and Mexico City

In New Orleans in the summer of 1963, Oswald distributed Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets and gave a radio interview defending Castro's Cuba. The Fair Play for Cuba Committee was a pro-Castro organization; Oswald may have been its only New Orleans member. His activities were monitored by the FBI.

In September-October 1963, Oswald traveled to Mexico City, where he visited both the Cuban consulate and the Soviet Embassy. He sought a visa to travel to Cuba and then to the USSR. CIA surveillance of the Cuban and Soviet Embassies - routine in Mexico City - produced photographs and recordings, though the CIA's handling of this evidence became a subject of controversy after the assassination. Oswald was denied a Cuban visa and returned to Dallas.¹

The Assassination

On October 14, 1963, Oswald was hired at the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) in Dallas. President Kennedy's motorcade route was announced in Dallas newspapers on November 19, passing directly in front of the TSBD.

On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was shot while riding in his motorcade through Dealey Plaza. The Warren Commission concluded that three shots were fired from the sixth floor of the TSBD, where Oswald's presence was established, and that all three shots were fired by Oswald using a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle traced to him.

Oswald was arrested that afternoon in the Texas Theatre after the killing of Officer Tippit, with whom he had an altercation on a Dallas street. He denied killing Kennedy and denied owning the rifle. He was charged with both the Kennedy assassination and the Tippit murder.¹

Jack Ruby and Death

On November 24, 1963, at approximately 11:21 AM, as Oswald was being transferred from Dallas Police headquarters to the county jail in front of television cameras and dozens of law enforcement personnel, Jack Ruby stepped from the crowd and shot Oswald in the abdomen. Oswald died at Parkland Memorial Hospital approximately ninety minutes later. Ruby's ability to enter the police building with a concealed weapon and access Oswald during a heavily covered public transfer has never been satisfactorily explained.

Oswald's death meant there was never a trial, never a formal presentation of evidence under adversarial conditions, and never an opportunity to question him under oath about his activities, associates, or motivations.¹

Intelligence Connections and Unresolved Questions

Oswald's intelligence connections were extensively examined but never resolved. His defection occurred during a period when the CIA's counterintelligence division was attempting to "dangle" defectors to the Soviet Union as double agents, and some researchers have argued that Oswald's defection was managed by U.S. intelligence. His work at Atsugi, where U-2 overflights of the USSR were coordinated, gave him access to classified information.

The HSCA found that the CIA had not been fully cooperative in disclosing Oswald's file and that some CIA handling of the Mexico City surveillance evidence was unexplained. The committee concluded that neither the CIA nor any other U.S. government agency had conspired with Oswald to kill Kennedy, but acknowledged that significant gaps in the record remained.²