"Very curious, at the age of about 13 years, Oswald began to study Marxism and he kept on in his writing, affirming that he was a Marxist. Probably he did want to show himself as a great, supreme Marxist"
About this Quote
A politician’s most reliable weapon isn’t always evidence; it’s insinuation with a velvet glove. John Sherman Cooper’s line about a 13-year-old Oswald “beginning to study Marxism” plays like a calm recital of facts, but it’s built to do something harsher: shrink a complex figure into a tidy ideological caricature that can be filed, feared, and dismissed.
The phrasing is doing heavy lifting. “Very curious” signals suspicion while pretending to be mild surprise. It plants the idea that a teenager’s political curiosity is not merely precocious but abnormal, a diagnostic symptom. Then comes the subtle pivot from description to motive: “Probably he did want to show himself…” That “probably” is Cooper’s escape hatch, letting him speculate without owning the claim. What follows - “a great, supreme Marxist” - is almost a sneer, implying performative extremism rather than considered belief. The subtext is adolescent posturing: not an ideologue, just a boy playing dress-up with a dangerous creed.
Context matters: postwar American politics treated Marxism less as a set of arguments than as an infection. Casting Oswald’s identity as early, self-conscious, and theatrical supports a broader Cold War narrative in which radical politics is a psychological tell, not a response to social conditions or personal alienation. Cooper is also quietly protecting institutions: if the villain is a showoff Marxist from age 13, then the story requires less scrutiny of state failures, social currents, or inconvenient ambiguities.
It works because it sounds reasonable while steering the audience toward a verdict: not “why,” just “of course.”
The phrasing is doing heavy lifting. “Very curious” signals suspicion while pretending to be mild surprise. It plants the idea that a teenager’s political curiosity is not merely precocious but abnormal, a diagnostic symptom. Then comes the subtle pivot from description to motive: “Probably he did want to show himself…” That “probably” is Cooper’s escape hatch, letting him speculate without owning the claim. What follows - “a great, supreme Marxist” - is almost a sneer, implying performative extremism rather than considered belief. The subtext is adolescent posturing: not an ideologue, just a boy playing dress-up with a dangerous creed.
Context matters: postwar American politics treated Marxism less as a set of arguments than as an infection. Casting Oswald’s identity as early, self-conscious, and theatrical supports a broader Cold War narrative in which radical politics is a psychological tell, not a response to social conditions or personal alienation. Cooper is also quietly protecting institutions: if the villain is a showoff Marxist from age 13, then the story requires less scrutiny of state failures, social currents, or inconvenient ambiguities.
It works because it sounds reasonable while steering the audience toward a verdict: not “why,” just “of course.”
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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