Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?

Choices:  Lone nut  Just plain nut, involved in conspiracy, used in conspiracy and/or set up as patsy  Just plain patsy

Famous Backyard Photos: Real or Fake? The first person to say they were fake? Lee Harvey Oswald, himself. However, his wife testified to taking them.

Questions to Ponder  Did Oswald shoot Kennedy?  If he shot Kennedy, did he do it alone or as a part of a conspiracy?  If there was a conspiracy:  What kind of conspiracy was it?  If he didn’t, who did?

Did Oswald shoot Kennedy? 1.He didn’t do it. 1.Opportunity: Yes Is it possible no shots came from the book depository?Is it possible no shots came from the book depository? Was someone else was at the book depository shooting his rifle?Was someone else was at the book depository shooting his rifle? 2.Motive: Questionable Did he blame Kennedy for his personal troubles?Did he blame Kennedy for his personal troubles? Did he do it to impress Castro/the Soviets?Did he do it to impress Castro/the Soviets?

If he did it, did he do it alone? 1.Evidence pointing to conspiracy  Location and timing of event  Magic Bullet  Autopsy  Possible Ruby-Oswald connection  Leads not followed by Warren Commission 2.Evidence pointing to Lone Nut  Assassin profile Assassin profile Assassin profile  Previous erratic and violent behavior  Left wing beliefs

If he did it, did he do it alone?  Option 1: Yes.  His desire was to return to Russia or live in Cuba.  He was either a fantastic shot, a lucky shot, or it wasn’t such a difficult shot as it was made out to be.

If a conspiracy, a conspiracy of whom? 1.Left Wing: Communists  Consistent with Oswald’s beliefs  New Orleans press had recently run story on Castro’s reaction to alleged plot of Kennedy administration to assassinate the Cuban leader  Trip to Mexico City

2.Right Wing: Anti-Castro Cubans/CIA  Motives: Many  Bay of Pigs Invasion  Kennedy administration’s relaxation of its fight against Communism in Cuba and Viet Nam  Oswald link to CIA: De Mohrenshildt  To Cubans: Camp Street Address  David Ferrie: the link to everybody

David Ferrie:  Pilot for Carlos Marcello, New Orleans mob boss  Rabid anti-Communist  CIA contractor who flew missions into Cuba  Associate of ex-FBI agent Guy Bannister, whose detective agency was in the building Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba Committee listed as its address  Trainer and equipper for anti-Castro underground run from Bannister’s agency

Official story: “They never met.” Oswald and Ferrie at a Civil Air Patrol campground, when Oswald was a youth in New Orleans

3.Mob  Motive: Lots  The delivery of Chicago vote to help Kennedy’s election (Sam Giancana's Chicago family)  Kennedy Administration’s all out war on the Mafia (Marcello, New Orleans boss, snatched from the streets and exiled to Colombia, without even a toothbrush)  The mob’s desire to return to Cuba (Santos Trafficante)  Ruby’s mafia connections  Ferrie’s mafia connections  Oswald’s mafia connections

 Link between Mob and Intelligence Community Link between Mob and Intelligence Community Link between Mob and Intelligence Community 1.Began during WWII when Lucky Luciano was released from prison to enlist the Marseilles mob in securing the port for the Allied Invasion 2.Trafficante was involved in Bay of Pigs operation 3.Giancana was involved in plot to kill Castro

“Think of two parallel lines,” he said. “One is the life of Lee H. Oswald. One is the conspiracy to kill the President. What bridges the space between them? What makes a connection inevitable? There is a third line. It comes out of dreams, visions, intuitions, prayers, out of the deepest levels of self. It’s not generated by cause and effect like the other two lines. It’s a line that cuts across causality, cuts across time. It has no history that we can recognize or understand. But it forces a connection. It puts a man on the path of his destiny. David Ferrie to LHO, in the novel Libra, by Don DeLillo(1988)

Did Oswald know Ruby? –Beverly Oliver, a stripper who worked for Ruby, states that he introduced her to Oswald one night not too long before Kennedy arrived in town. –In LaFontaines’ (2002) book, an inmate of the Dallas jail with Oswald, heard him refer to a gun runner who was arrested while they were there as someone “he’d met at Ruby’s.” –Both accounts have been refuted—but not by Ruby, since he’s dead. –But look at this sequence of events…

Oswald spots Ruby off to the side of the police garage

 I was watching this event as it unfolded in  I said to myself, “He sees someone he knows.”  And then…

Ruby pushes to the front and shoots Oswald at point blank range.

 That doesn’t mean it’s true.

You be the judge. Photos: G. R. (1995). The search for Lee Harvey Oswald. New York: Penguin.