Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?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

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?• Was someone else was at the book depository

shooting his rifle?2. Motive: Questionable• Did he blame Kennedy for his personal

troubles?• 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

• Previous erratic and violent behavior

• Left wing beliefs

If he did it, did he do it alone?

• Yes.

• His desire was to return to Russia or live in Cuba.

• He was either a fantastic, 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 Castro

• 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

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)

• The mob’s desire to return to Cuba (Santos Trafficante)

• Ruby’s mafia connections• Oswald’s mafia connections

“Think of two parallel lines,” he said. “One is the life of Lee H. Oswald. One is the conspiracy to keill 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 Libra, by Don DeLillo