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(October 18, 1939 - November 24, 1963), a somewhat enigmatic figure, was the alleged assassin of [[President of the United States|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. After his military career, he lived in the USSR 1959 - 1962, where he married a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] national, Marina (née Nichilayeva) Oswald. (After Oswald's death, Marina remarried and changed her name to Marina Oswald Porter.) He at one time tried to renounce his USA citizenship, but later changed his mind and returned to the USA, bringing Marina and their infant daughter.

In March 1963, Oswald (using a false name--Alek J. Hidell) purchased a rifle and handgun that was later linked to the events of November 22, 1963.

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 scored as a "sharpshooter" in December of 1956, but failed to attain his marksmanship badge. There is debate as to the likelyhood of Oswald being able to fire shots so accurately and rapidly with the weapon and from the position he was said to use to kill Kennedy.

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 British writer Michael Eddowes (with Marina Oswald Porter's suport). They sought to prove or disprove a thesis developed in a 1975 book, <i>Khrushchev Killed Kennedy</i> (The book was republished in 1976 in Britain as <i>November 22: How They Killed Kennedy</i> and in America a year later as <i>The Oswald File</i>.) The thesis 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.

• Lee Harvey Oswald Research Page
  

This photo, which shows Oswald with a rifle, handgun, and leftist newspapers was taken on March 31, 1963 by his wife, Marina. The Warren Commission tagged the photo as exhibit 133-A. Since Oswald's death, there has been questions on the photo's authenticity. The House Select Committee on Assassinations settled the issue in the 1970's by concluding that the photo was real.