I didn't shoot anybody, no sir . . . I'm just a patsy.


Lee Oswald didn't have the easiest childhood. His father died when he was just two months old and being a single mother with three young sons, Marguerite Oswald had a difficult time making ends meet... much less giving Lee the attention he needed. When he was five they moved from New Orleans to Fort Worth. He bounced around various schools since they had difficulty maintaining a permanent residence.

When he was twelve they moved to New York City. Here he developed a fascination with the television show, I Led Three Lives, which was about a government agent named Herb Philbrick during the early days of the cold war. He found the idea of being a secret agent exciting.

While he had average intelligence, his dyslexia made some school work a chore. He would often ditch the classes and find his way to the zoo where he spent hours watching the animals. Eventually his truancy caught up with him and he was evaluated by Dr Renotus Hartogs and various social workers who found him pleasant but emotionally starved. It was recommended that Lee be removed from his mother to continue his education. However before the courts could enforce this recommendation, he and his mother moved back to New Orleans in 1953.

In 1955 Lee joined the Civil Air Patrol where he met and learned from David Ferrie. He also began reading the works of Karl Marx. He found the idea of socialism interesting and claimed to be a socialist to his friends.

He later quit school and joined the Marines. He was stationed at Atsugi Air Base in Japan where he was a radar operator for the U2 spy plane flights. James Wilcott was the CIA paymaster on the base and has testified that Oswald was on the regular payroll. This would explain how Lee was able to frequent some high end bars and night clubs – presumably to keep in contact with local communist and anti-American locals. His medical records list a sexually transmitted disease from that time period with the notation that it from the line of duty.

While there, he was in contact with Richard Case Nagell whose assignment was to find disaffected young men for some covert operations. After Japan he served in Taiwan and the Philippines, returning to California for the military foreign language school where he gained proficiency in Russian in six months.

He then received an emergency discharge from the Marines because of the deteriorating health of his mother. However, just a few days later he was off to Finland and from there to the Soviet Union. Somehow he was able to pay for the trip, when coming out of the Marines did not leave him financially stable. Once there, he said he wanted to defect and become a Soviet citizen... letting them know he was well versed in the U2 spying effort and knew other classified information.

The Soviets did not jump at his offer but assigned him to an assembly line job in Minsk. As it was in Japan, he was able to live at a much higher level than the regular workers salary would normally permit. It was here that he met Marina Prusakova, a 19 year old pharmacy worker who recently was sent to Minsk to live with her uncle because of scandal with a foreigner. At the time, the Soviets were using attractive young women to connect with foreign military and business men to gain information not available anywhere else.

In 1960 the couple married and two years later Lee found living under communist rule was not a great as he thought it would be. He was given permission to leave the Soviet Union along with his wife and daughter. They moved to Fort Worth with travel paid for with a $4000 loan from the State Department. Eventually they landed in New Orleans and lived with his uncle Charles Murrett. Murrett's occupation was listed as a longshoreman, however the reality was that he was an illegal bookmaker in the Marcello organization.

Paymaster Wilcott, who was apparently still handling Lee's account reports that Lee was not happy about his treatment after returning to the US. He believes his vocal complaints began to make him appear to be expendable.

It was while he was in New Orleans that he met Judyth Baker. She was similar height to Marina and wore her hair in the same style and the two of them hit it off well. This was to the point, according to her, that the two unhappily married government types were planning to divorce their spouses and run off to Mexico.

Judyth tells the story of how she and Lee Oswald were driven to a psychiatric hospital by Clay Shaw. She was the biochemist and Oswald had developed the ability to safely handle this material that, when injected, would bring about death by cancer in less than a month. She says that after an hour some of the patients would already be displaying symptoms.

In February of 1963 Lee and Marina attended a party where they met Ruth Paine and George de Mohrenschildt. Both would have a major impact on the young couple's life. de Mohrenschildt is believed to be Lee's handler. Ruth eventually provided a home in the Dallas suburbs for Marina while Lee found a room to rent nearer the Texas School Book Depository. It was Ruth Paine who suggested that Lee apply for a job at the facility.

George de Mohrenschildt's relationship with Lee was unusual in that de Mohrenschildt was a cultured Russian aristocrat while Lee was young uneducated former Marine. Lee needed the guidance from the older, more experienced friend. Some think of de Mohrenschildt as Oswald's handler. On October 9, 1963 Lee Oswald was removed from the FBI Flashlist... which means they had been watching him more closely up to that point.

There are stories circulated about his legendary trip to Mexico, but the CIA's own photos of the man they claim was Lee show that it clearly was not.

There were reports of Oswald sightings in the weeks leading up to the assassination – including a run-in at a shooting range where he shot at someone else's target and raised a fuss. Someone using his name took a test drive at a Mercury dealership and talked about coming in to a good amount of money very soon. The problem is he never learned to drive.

Speculation is all we have as to why Lee did what he did upon leaving his job after lunch. He said he didn't think much work would get done so he left. He may have just decided to go to a movie. Going back to his rooming house to change clothes and pick up is gun is nothing unusual as this is Texas and many people carry them.

The reported encounter with JD Tippit resulted in several witness accounts. The most interesting on is from Acquilla Clemons who saw two men do the deed – and she was advise that for her safety she should not say anything. Eventually she had to tell her story.

Witnesses aside, the physical evidence at the scene tells a story different from the official narrative. Evidence found at the scene and recorded by a local television new crew included a wallet with Oswald's identification inside and four shell casings from an semi-automatic pistol. The problem with this is the when Lee Oswald was arrested at the Texas Theater, he had his wallet with him and the weapon he had with him was a revolver with a bent firing pin. Being a revolver, it does not eject shell casing when fired. This particular weapon could not be fired when tested by the FBI because of the bent firing pin

Being wise to the workings of the intelligence community it is not surprising that being surrounded by uniformed police be began to shout so everyone could hear that he was not resisting arrest. This saved him for the moment, but ultimately Jack Ruby prevented an embarrassing trial.

His demeanor during interrogation amazed Dallas Chief of Police Jesse Curry. He stayed calm and in control during the whole process. Curry said it seemed like he had been trained how to handle hostile interrogation. There was more evidence on Saturday evening when he requested a call be made for him to a North Carolina number. Two unidentified officers were observing everything that was done.

This police told him there was no answer even though no call was made. However the number was to his cutout. The cut-out is someone unrelated to what is is doing, but who will contact his handler to get in touch with him. This let them know he was not accepting his role as patsy, and would be trouble should he live to go to trial.

“He was manipulated and got caught. He tried to play with the big boys.” Marina Oswald

Thanks to a much later release of documents we found that as of 11/21/63, the CIA had a 181 page dossier on Lee Oswald that showed they were watching him but did not consider him to be a dangerous threat.

The part of Lee Harvey Oswald was played by Gary Oldman in the JFK film.

Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK
by John Newman

From the acclaimed author of JFK and Vietnam comes a book that uncovers the government's role in the Kennedy assassination more clearly than any previous inquiry. What was the extent of the CIA's involvement with Lee Harvey Oswald? Why was Oswald's file tampered with before the assassination of John F. Kennedy? And why did significant documents from that file mysteriously disappear? Oswald and the CIA answers these questions, not with theories, but with information from the primary sources themselves—ex-agents, officials, and secret records. To look at the Oswald file is to look at the most sensitive CIA operation of the Cold War. The story is as alarming as it is tragic; the lies and manipulations it reveals led directly to Kennedy's murder. Oswald and the CIA is a gripping journey to the darkest corners of the CIA.

More by John Newman can be found here.

LEGEND: THE SECRET WORLD OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD
by Edward Jay Epstein

A biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. This book succeeds in finally breaking the legend created for Oswald. It begins by revealing an incredible series of contacts between rival intelligence officers concerning the JFK assassination and culminates in a series of events that turn the CIA inside out. Investigative author Edward Jay Epstein managed to obtain Oswald's address book and interview more than 150 people who knew him. PRAISE FOR LEGEND "A fascinating, alarming, and enormously significant book on the mystery of Lee Harvery Oswald-- The New York Times Book Review "One of the year's most important books."-- The Wall Street Journal