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Revision as of 09:37, 21 March 2003 by 68.10.250.181 (talk) (formatting cn's)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 - November 24, 1963), a somewhat enigmatic figure, was the alleged assassin of U. S. President John F. Kennedy. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Oswald was a former United States Marine who had served as a air flight controller, and who lived in the USSR for a time, after his military career. He married a Soviet national, Marina (née Nichilayeva) Oswald (after Oswald's death, Marina remarried and changed her name to Marina Oswald Porter), and eventually made his permanent home in the US.
Oswald was apprehended shortly after the November 22 shooting of Kennedy. He denied the shooting while in custody, saying "I didn't shoot anyone" and "I'm just a patsy" to reporters. During his military career Oswald failed to attain his marksmanship badge which has raised further suspicion as to his guilt, as the rate of fire and accuracy he is purported to have attained has never been matched in latter day testing by known marksmen.
Oswald was shot and killed by Texas nightclub owner Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas while being transferred to county jail, two days after the president's assassination, and before being brought to trial. Many alternative theories of the assassination contend that he acted on behalf of others, or even that Oswald was not the actual assassin.
The Warren Commission was created by President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29, 1963 to investigate the assassination, and it reported its conclusion that Oswald did assassinate Kennedy and, further, that he acted alone. The proceedings of the commission were secret, and its files have yet to be released to the public, further fuelling speculation about the assassination. A later investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, during the late 1970s, established that President Kennedy had been assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. In October 1981, Oswald was subject to an exhumation undertaken by United Kingdom writer Michael Eddowes (with Marina Oswald Porter's suport). They sought to prove or disprove a thesis developed in a 1975 book, Khrushchev Killed Kennedy (The book was republished in 1976 in Britain as November 22: How They Killed Kennedy and in America a year later as The Oswald File.) The thesis of of the trio of books was that when Oswald went to the Soviet Union, he was swapped with a Soviet clone. Eddowes' proof for his thesis that the corpse buried in 1963 did not have a scar that resulted from surgery conducted on Oswald years before. The final results of the exhumation found that the corpse they studied was Oswald's. The finding was based on dental records. This has not stopped people from questioning their findings.