Lee Harvey Oswald Biography Quotes 7 Report mistakes

Early Life
Lee Harvey Oswald was born on October 18, 1939, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, Robert E. Lee Oswald, died before Lee was born, and his mother, Marguerite Oswald, moved her children frequently, shaping a childhood marked by instability. He had two older brothers, Robert Oswald and John Pic, the latter a half-brother. Oswald spent time in New Orleans and New York City, and as an adolescent he became interested in political ideas, including Marxism, reading extensively and developing views that set him apart from peers and teachers. He left school early, briefly entered a youth facility after truancy issues, and later returned to finish additional coursework before choosing a military path.

Marine Corps and Radicalization
In 1956, Oswald enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He trained as a radar operator and served at bases including Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Japan. Fellow Marines recalled that he studied the Russian language and occasionally voiced leftist opinions. His service record included both competent technical performance and disciplinary problems, including court-martials. By 1959, after an early discharge, he began planning to leave the United States for the Soviet Union, a striking step in the polarized atmosphere of the Cold War.

Defection to the Soviet Union
In late 1959, Oswald traveled through Europe and arrived in Moscow, where he sought Soviet citizenship. After initial refusal, a dramatic suicide attempt brought renewed attention from Soviet authorities. He was permitted to remain as a resident and was assigned to Minsk, where he worked at a radio and electronics factory. The Soviet government provided housing and a stipend. Although he enjoyed certain privileges compared to local workers, Oswald expressed alternating satisfaction and disillusionment with life under Soviet rule, recording observations in journals and letters.

Marriage and Family
While in Minsk, Oswald met Marina Prusakova, a young pharmacist. They married in 1961 and soon welcomed their first daughter, June. Through Marina, Oswald gained a more intimate view of Soviet society and family life. By 1962, he had become frustrated with career prospects and bureaucracy in the USSR. With assistance from American consular officials, he obtained permission for his family to resettle in the United States. They arrived that year and initially lived in the Fort Worth and Dallas area, where they received intermittent help from his mother, Marguerite, and, later, from acquaintances.

Return to the United States
Back in Texas, Oswald struggled to find steady, satisfying work. He clashed with Marina and others over finances and politics. Through social contacts, including George de Mohrenschildt and, later, Ruth Paine, the couple found housing and occasional support. Oswald ordered firearms by mail, including a revolver and an Italian-made Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, using the alias A. Hidell and a post office box. Photographs later recovered depicted him holding the rifle and political newspapers. Investigators would cite these purchases and images heavily in subsequent inquiries.

New Orleans, Activism, and the Walker Shooting
In 1963, Oswald moved briefly to New Orleans, where he promoted the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He handed out leaflets on Canal Street and became involved in public debates, including a radio appearance after a street altercation with anti-Castro activist Carlos Bringuier led to his arrest on a minor charge. While in Texas earlier that spring, someone had fired a rifle shot into the Dallas home of retired Major General Edwin Walker. No arrest was made at the time, but later ballistic analysis conducted after November 1963 connected the bullet to the same type of rifle that Oswald had ordered.

Mexico City Trip and Return to Dallas
In late September 1963, Oswald traveled to Mexico City in an effort to obtain travel documents to Cuba and reenter the Soviet Union. He visited the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic missions but left without the visas he sought. Upon returning to the Dallas area, he reconnected with Ruth Paine, who helped Marina and the children settle in Irving, while Oswald took a job at the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas. His co-workers included Buell Wesley Frazier, who occasionally gave him rides from Irving to work.

Assassination of President Kennedy and Arrest
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy visited Dallas with Texas Governor John Connally and their wives. As the presidential motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, shots struck Kennedy and Connally. Kennedy was mortally wounded. Investigators swiftly focused on the building. Oswald left the Depository shortly after the shooting. Within about an hour, Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit was shot and killed in Oak Cliff. Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theatre and charged that night with the murders of President Kennedy and Officer Tippit. During interrogations by Dallas police and the FBI, including Agent James Hosty, he denied any role, saying, "I am just a patsy".

Death
Two days after the assassination, as Oswald was being transferred from the city jail, he was shot by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, in the basement of police headquarters. The attack was broadcast live on television. Oswald died shortly afterward at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where President Kennedy had been pronounced dead.

Investigations and Legacy
The Warren Commission, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, concluded in 1964 that Oswald fired three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and acted alone. The commission tied the rifle found in the building to the mail-order weapon purchased under the A. Hidell alias. Later inquiries, including the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979, agreed that Oswald fired at the president while also suggesting the possibility of a broader conspiracy. Marina Oswald, who became Marina Oswald Porter after remarrying, cooperated with investigators; her recollections, along with testimony from figures such as Ruth Paine, Robert Oswald, and co-workers, became central to the historical record.

Oswald's brief life, his family relationships, his political enthusiasms, and the violent events of November 1963 have been scrutinized for decades. He left no definitive public explanation for his actions. The killings of John F. Kennedy and J. D. Tippit, his arrest, his televised murder by Jack Ruby, and the extensive official investigations have made Lee Harvey Oswald one of the most studied and controversial figures in 20th-century American history.

Our collection contains 7 quotes who is written by Lee, under the main topics: Truth - Justice - Freedom - Mortality - Human Rights.

Other people realated to Lee: Norman Mailer (Novelist), Bob Schieffer (Journalist), Kerry Thornley (Philosopher), Henry Wade (Lawyer)