Oswald left school after the ninth grade and never received a high school diploma. Throughout his life, he had trouble with spelling and writing coherently.[12] His letters, diary and other writings have led some to suggest he was dyslexic. Nonetheless, he read voraciously and, as a result, occasionally asserted that he was better educated than those around him. Around the age of fifteen, he became an ardent Marxist solely from his private reading on the topic. He wrote in his diary, "I was looking for a key to my environment, and then I discovered socialist literature. I had to dig for my books in the back dusty shelves of libraries."[13] At 16 he wrote to the Socialist Party of America, stating that he was a Marxist who had been studying socialist principles for "well over fifteen months," and asked for information about their youth league.[14]
Despite his Marxist sympathies, Oswald wished to join the US Marine Corps. He idolized his older brother, Robert and wore Robert's US Marines ring. This relationship seems to have transcended any ideological conflict for Oswald, and enlisting in the Marines may have also been a way to escape from his overbearing mother.[15] He enlisted in the US Marine Corps in October 1956, a week after his 17th birthday.[16]
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Oswald's experience after joining the Marine Corps was by all accounts unpleasant. Small and frail compared to the other Marines, he was nicknamed Ozzie Rabbit after the cartoon character. His shyness and Soviet sympathies alienated him from his fellow Marines. Ostracism only seemed to provoke him into being a stauncher, more outspoken communist. For his steadfast beliefs, his nickname ultimately became Oswaldskovich. In December 1958, Oswald transferred back to the Marine Corp Air Station El Toro.[20] Oswald had subscribed to The Worker and taught himself rudimentary Russian. At the El Toro base, in February 1959, Oswald took the Marine proficiency exam in written and spoken Russian and his test results were rated "poor."[21] Oswald was court-martialled twice: initially because of accidentally shooting himself in the elbow with an unauthorized handgun, and then later for starting a fight with a sergeant he thought responsible for the punishment he received from his first court-martial. He was demoted from private first class to private, and briefly served time in the brig. Later he was punished for yet another incident; while on sentry duty one night in the Philippines, he inexplicably fired his rifle into the jungle. By the end of his Marine career, Oswald was doing menial labor.
Life in the Soviet Union
In October 1959, Oswald immigrated to the Soviet Union. He was nineteen, and the trip was planned well in advance. Along with having taught himself rudimentary Russian, he had saved $1,500 of his Marine Corps salary,[22] got an early "hardship" discharge by (falsely) claiming he needed to care for his injured mother,[23] got a passport, and submitted several fictional applications to foreign universities in order to obtain a student visa (and possibly help avoid Marine Corps reserve duty).
After spending only three days with his mother in Fort Worth, he departed by ship from New Orleans on September 20, 1959, for the Soviet Union, first arriving in Le Havre in France, then to London, and eventually to a Finnair flight to Helsinki, Finland as part of a package tour. Oswald applied for a visa at the embassy on October 12. Oswald's visa, issued on October 14, was valid until October 20 and permitted him to take one trip of not more than six days to the Soviet Union. He left on October 15 to Moscow, arriving on October 16. [24] When he arrived in the Soviet Union and showed up unexpectedly at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, he said he wanted to renounce his U.S. citizenship.[25][26] When the Navy Department learned of this, it changed Oswald's Marine Corps discharge from "hardship/honorable" to "undesirable."[27]
Oswald told a reporter in Moscow, "For two years I've had it in my mind, don't form any attachments, because I knew I was going away. I was planning to divest myself of everything to do with the United States."[28] To another reporter he said, "I would not consider returning to the United States," and referred to the Soviet government as "my government."[29] His wish to remain in the Soviet Union was initially applauded by the Soviets, but although he had some technical knowledge acquired in the Marines they soon discovered he had little of real value to offer the Soviet Union and his application for Soviet residency was rejected.[30] In response, Oswald made a bloody but minor cut to his left wrist in his hotel room bathtub. After bandaging his superficial injury, the cautious Soviets kept him under psychiatric observation at the Botkin Hospital.[31][32] Although this attempt may have been no more than an attention-getting ruse, the Soviet government feared an international incident if he were to attempt something similar again.
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Attempted assassination of General Walker
Ten days after being fired Oswald attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker with the rifle shown in his backyard pose photos of March 31.[48] (The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald attempted to shoot General Walker, while the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations stated that there was "substantial evidence that Oswald did the shooting.") General Edwin Walker was an outspoken anti-communist, segregationist and member of the John Birch Society who had been commanding officer of the Army's 24th Infantry Division based in West Germany under NATO supreme command until he was relieved of his command in 1961 by JFK for distributing right-wing literature to his troops. Walker resigned from the service and returned to his native Texas.
Walker ran in the six-person Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1962 but lost to John Connally, who went on to win the race. Walker became involved in the movement to resist the use of federal troops for securing racial integration at the University of Mississippi, resistance that led to a riot on October 1, 1962 in which two people were killed. He was arrested for insurrection, seditious conspiracy, and other charges. But a federal grand jury declined to indict Walker, and the charges were dropped on January 21, 1963.
Oswald considered Walker a "fascist" and the leader of a "fascist organization."[49] Five days after the front page news that Walker's charges had been dropped,[50] Oswald ordered a revolver by mail, using the alias "Alek James Hidell,"[51] and began talking about sending Marina and their daughter back to Russia.
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New Orleans
Oswald returned to New Orleans, arriving on the morning of April 25, 1963 looking for work. After Oswald got a job as a machinery greaser with the Reily Coffee Company in May, Marina was driven there by family friend Ruth Paine. Oswald was fired for inefficiency and dereliction of duty on July 19.
During this period, Oswald began to consider returning to the Soviet Union or going to Cuba.[60] He had Marina write to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. about the possibility of their returning to the Soviet Union.[61] His Marxist ideals became focused on Fidel Castro and Cuba and he soon became a vocal pro-Castro advocate. The Fair Play for Cuba Committee was a national organization and Oswald set out on his own initiative as a one-member New Orleans chapter, spending $22.73 on 1,000 flyers, 500 membership applications and 300 membership cards. He told Marina to sign the name "A.J. Hidell" as chapter president on one card.[62]
Most of Oswald's activities consisted of passing out flyers to passers-by on the street. He made a clumsy attempt to infiltrate anti-Castro exile groups and briefly met with a skeptical Carlos Bringuier, New Orleans delegate for the anti-Castro Cuban Student Directorate.[63] Several days later, on August 9, Bringuier and two friends confronted a man passing out pro-Castro handbills and realized that it was Oswald. During an ensuing scuffle all of them were arrested and Oswald spent the night in jail.
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Mexico
While Ruth Paine drove Marina back to Dallas in late September 1963, Oswald lingered in New Orleans for two more days waiting to collect a $33 unemployment check. He boarded a bus for Houston but instead of heading north to Dallas he took a bus southwest towards Laredo and the U.S.-Mexico border. Once in Mexico he hoped to continue on to Cuba, a plan he openly shared with other passengers on the bus.[69] Arriving in Mexico City, he completed a transit visa application at the Cuban Embassy,[70] claiming he wanted to visit the country on his way back to the Soviet Union. The Cubans insisted the Soviet Union would have to approve his journey to the USSR before he could get a Cuban visa, but he was unable to get speedy co-operation from the Soviet embassy.
After shuttling back and forth between consulates for five days, getting into a heated argument with the Cuban consul, making impassioned pleas to KGB agents, and coming under at least some CIA interest,[71] the Cuban consul told Oswald that "as far as [he] was concerned [he] would not give him a visa" and that "a person like him [Oswald] in place of aiding the Cuban Revolution, was doing it harm."[72] However, less than three weeks later, on October 18 the Cuban embassy in Mexico City finally approved the visa, and 11 days before the assassination Oswald wrote a letter to the Soviet embassy in Washington DC, which said, "Had I been able to reach the Soviet Embassy in Havana as planned, the embassy there would have had time to complete our business."[73][74]
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Possible motives
The Warren Commission could not ascribe any one motive or group of motives to Oswald's actions:
It is apparent, however, that Oswald was moved by an overriding hostility to his environment. He does not appear to have been able to establish meaningful relationships with other people. He was perpetually discontented with the world around him. Long before the assassination he expressed his hatred for American society and acted in protest against it. Oswald's search for what he conceived to be the perfect society was doomed from the start. He sought for himself a place in history — a role as the "great man" who would be recognized as having been in advance of his times. His commitment to Marxism and communism appears to have been another important factor in his motivation. He also had demonstrated a capacity to act decisively and without regard to the consequences when such action would further his aims of the moment. Out of these and the many other factors which may have molded the character of Lee Harvey Oswald there emerged a man capable of assassinating President Kennedy.[105]
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