november 22nd 1963 president john
fitzgerald kennedy's open-top lincoln
continental limousine drives through the
streets of dallas texas
crowds are ecstatic cheering holding
flags aloft and taking photos
nelly connolly the first lady of texas
who's also in the car
turns around to the president and says
mr president you can't say dallas
doesn't love you
filled with joyousness the president
replies no you certainly can't
moments later as the car passes the
texas school book depository
shots ring out the president's hands
move toward his neck as he leans forward
and a little to the left his wife jackie
grabs hold of him another shot hits him
in the head
jackie utterly distraught cries they've
killed my husband i have this brains in
my hand
this was one of the most shocking events
in us history and
not without controversy for many years
after right up until today in fact
various theories have been put forward
as to how it actually happened and who
exactly did it
however one man and one man only was
ever charged with the crime and that was
lee harvey oswald you've all heard the
name you've likely heard some of the
countless conspiracy theories about the
assassination but we guess
not so many of you know much about the
man who is said to have pulled the
trigger
today you're going to meet him and
you're also going to ask yourself what
would drive a person to do such a thing
that's something you can tell us at the
end of the video
lee harvey oswald is born on october
18th 1939
he doesn't have the best start in life
since his father dies of a heart attack
just two months into his life the family
now the mother named marguerite
young lee and his two half-brothers john
and robert are thrust into poverty
those kids move around in the city of
new orleans from orphanages to
children's homes to boarding schools
not having a father figure around young
oswald's development is what you might
call strangled as his older brothers
once said very early on he learned that
he wasn't wanted we weren't wanted
mother was always alienating herself
from us when he's 12 marguerite takes
him to new york city where they live in
a rundown area in the bronx he's pretty
much asked to take care of himself as
his mother
goes out to work he hardly goes to
school at all instead he hangs around
the zoo and rides the subway system it's
at the zoo where one day a truant
officer sees him oswald is not
happy about being found out calling the
officer a damned yankee
he ends up in a detention center called
the youth house and while there he has a
psychiatric evaluation he's said to live
a vivid fantasy life and possibly has
some kind of personality disorder one
thing's for sure the kid desperately
needs some love and attention
his social worker confirms this saying
he is emotionally frozen having never
really developed a relationship with
anyone you get the feeling of a kid
nobody gave a darn about says the social
worker in his early teens he has an
awakening he's walking down the street
when an old woman hands him a pamphlet
it's socialist and ethos and has in it
two folks named julius and ethel
rosenberg
those two are sentenced to death in the
u.s for spying for russia
some time later oswald writes 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 he writes this to the
socialist party of america i am 16 years
of age and i would like more information
about your youth league i would like to
know if there's a branch in my area how
to join etc
i'm marxist and have been studying
socialist principles for well over 15
months
later after running from the clutches of
truant officers oswald and his mother
returned to new orleans they live in an
area beset with poverty and vice
something that affects young oswald
deeply drug addicts prostitutes violent
crime pervasive racism dilapidated
housing
oppressive cops no help for the poor and
no opportunities for those not born with
silver spoons
he's taking it all in guided by his
socialist sympathies
at age 16 he becomes a cadet with the
civil air patrol he also tries to join
the army but is turned down for being
too
young this doesn't stop him from
memorizing from back to front the marine
manual
the obvious question is why does this
budding communist want to join the us
military during a very cold war with the
commies
this is a kid who tells a friend he
wants to kill the president eisenhower
for exploiting the working class this is
a boy who regularly showers preys on the
russian leader nikita khrushchev
one day a friend's father kicks him out
of his house because he's expounding the
communist doctrine
and saying communism was the only way of
life for a worker it seems his reason is
he just
needs to get away from his mother that
or it's the fact his father had been a
marine and his brother has joined up the
warren commission later wrote his study
of communist literature which might
appear to be inconsistent with his
desire to join the marines could have
been another manifestation of oswald's
rejection of his environment you should
also remember he's a boy who just wants
to be accepted so at age 17 he becomes a
marine
nothing much changes though he makes a
few friends and not so many people like
him he hasn't really seen this mentally
unstable but he just doesn't fit in
nor does he ever rise above the rank of
private first class still he knows
something about foreign affairs because
he reads voraciously
at times he picks fights with officers
according to one soldier so he could
come out top dog
this kid still hates authority with a
vengeance but he's also smart and can be
likable to certain people
one day he shocked some folks listening
to his rants by saying all the marine
corps did was to teach you to kill and
after you got out of the marines you
might be good gangsters during this
stint in the marines he has two court
martials one for having an unauthorized
pistol he accidentally shoots himself
with his other court martial is for
calling an officer out to fight him he
still holds sympathies towards the
soviet union and he even teaches himself
some russian albeit he's not very good
he gets taken off active duty to look
after a sick mother but then he decides
he's going to go to russia for that
decision he's undesirably discharged so
there he is
in russia telling people how much he
loves the soviet union in his
rudimentary russian he tries to apply
for citizenship and is turned down
this is what he writes in a letter to
his brother i've been a communist for
years and yet i have never met a
communist instead i kept silent and
observed and what i observed plus my
marxist learning brought me here to the
soviet union i've always considered this
country to be my own he also writes this
in the event of war i would kill any
american who put a uniform on in defense
of the american government
any american just before his visa runs
out and he's about to leave the country
he cuts himself on purpose
after which he's taken to a psychiatric
facility he actually can't believe that
the country he's given his heart to has
snubbed him in his diary he writes
i am shocked he says his dream has been
shattered because one solitary official
has taken it upon himself to turn his
visa down
he finishes an injury in his diary with
these words i decide to end it
soak fist in cold water to numb pain
then slash my left wrist
then plug wrist in a bathtub of hot
water somewhere a violin plays as i
watch my life whirl away
i think to myself how easy to die and a
sweet death when he gets out of the
hospital he goes straight to the
american embassy he has a signed note
with him which he hands over to an
official on it are the words i lee
harvey oswald do hereby request that my
present citizenship in the united states
of america be revoked he says he wants
this for political reasons he's a
marxist now and damn american poverty
and the life he lived as a kid he says
the only real reason he joined the
marines was that he wanted to have a
chance to observe american imperialism
he writes in his diary i'm sure
russians will accept me after this sign
of my faith in them he's right he's
allowed to stay
but does he then become a tool of the
soviet government is he hired as a spy
is he trained as an assassin perhaps not
and later investigations will say that
not only that that the russians are
obviously a bit suspicious of him so the
kgb follow him around a lot and plant
bugs in his house oswald is actually
working for neither side he's sent to
work as a lathe operator and an
electronics firm in minsk over there
he's given quite a good wage packet and
lives in an apartment that's better than
most people's places
still his distrust of authority doesn't
change he talks about the oppressive
soviets communist party officials he
writes are given benefits that he
believes they shouldn't receive his
conclusion is that they are fat
stinking politicians over there just
like we have over here in january of
1961 he writes in his diary i'm starting
to reconsider my desire about staying
the work is drab
the money i get has nowhere to be spent
no nightclubs or bowling alleys no
places of recreation except the trade
union dances i've had enough
he subsequently gets in touch with the
us embassy and says he wants to come
home prior to that happening he has a
whirlwind romance with a 19 year old
pharmacology student named marina
prusakova
after six weeks they marry and around a
year later they have their first child
not long after the three of them land on
american soil ready to live out the
american dream but
something happens on oswald's return he
suddenly becomes not himself not the man
krusekova knows he's become easily
enraged irritable she later told the
court after coming to the united states
lee changed i did not know him as such a
man in russia what has happened to him
well that's the million dollar question
maybe his demons have caught up with
them this is a young man who's had
psychological problems as a child he's
trained in the marines and that hasn't
helped he's tried moving to the soviet
union and that hasn't helped either
here's a man that now
tests both communism and capitalism this
is evident in this writing of which one
diary goes like this
no man having known having lived under
the russian communist and american
capitalist system could possibly make a
choice between them there is no choice
one offers oppression the other poverty
he believes there can be another system
one which doesn't have the short falls
of capitalism and one which isn't a
corrupt and twisted form of marxism
he writes that he hates the mass
exterminations of stalin and how
communism oppresses people he equally
detests what he considers a corrupt form
of capitalism in the u.s
he gets a job as a sheet metal worker
but he soon leaves that he then starts
working as a photo print trainee but is
fired after wrangling one too many
people when waxing about his beliefs he
isn't very good at the job either but
what really peeves his fellow employees
is the fact that one day he brings to
work a russian language newspaper his
employer said the newspaper incident
wasn't the only reason he was let go but
it didn't do him any good
oswald is rejected once again is he now
ready to put his hand on the trigger
in march 1963 he pays 29.95
for a secondhand six and a half
millimeter carcano rifle he buys himself
a revolver too
the next month retired us major general
edwin walker is sitting at his desk in
his home in dallas when suddenly there's
a loud crash
he's injured after bullet fragments
connect with his arm to investigators it
looks like an assassination attempt
and it is one it will turn out that was
undertaken by lee harvey oswald
this isn't discovered until later though
why has he done it
oswald despises walker for his far
right-wing sentiments his anti-communist
stance and his racist attitude according
to his wife he believes that if someone
had killed hitler in time it would have
saved many lives he thought he was doing
the right thing
the family moves to new orleans where
oswald becomes more infatuated with the
fair play for cuba committee there he
distributes leaflets supporting cuba and
even though he gets on the radio twice
he doesn't really garner that much
attention for the movement not only
that the cuban exiles can't stand it it
seems oswald is as much concerned about
getting attention for himself as he is
for the plight of cuba his wife later
said in court he wanted to be arrested
i think he wanted to get into the
newspapers so that he would be well
known he then tries to get to cuba via
mexico in mexico he pleads to the
officials at the cuban embassy saying he
supports the cause and kenny have a visa
he says he's also intending to return to
the former soviet union
after speaking with officials and even
the kgb he's turned down the cubans say
he'll do more harm than good for the
cause
so now it's just days before jfk is
gunned down in the street
his heavily pregnant wife is happy when
he returns from mexico seeing as he is
in a pleasant mood and treats her well
he seems like his own self again she
said later in court he helped me more
although he always did help
adding that he was delighted about the
prospect of having a second child with
her
strange because he's about to give it
all up it's this kind of fact that will
later give birth to a thousand
conspiracies
around this time oswald's told about a
job that's going at the texas school
book depository and after an interview
on october 16th he's hired there for a
dollar 25 an hour it's now just
over a month before the fateful day he's
apparently pretty good as his job things
are looking up and then his second child
is born life couldn't be any better
on paper anyway he still argues with his
wife at times
because of his radical left activities
he's now on the radar of the fbi
agents visit his house but he isn't
there they go again and he isn't home
with feathers ruffled oswald goes to the
fbi office in dallas and asked to speak
with the man on his case
james p hosti hosti isn't available so
oswald leaves a note that note people
later say included a threat that said
stop bothering me or i'll blow up the
fbi in the dallas police department
hostie later said there was
no such threat and the note actually
read if you have anything you would like
to learn about me come talk to me
directly if you don't cease bothering my
wife i will take the appropriate action
and report this to the proper
authorities does that sound like the
words of a soon-to-be killer the night
before the assassination oswald goes to
bed before his wife when she later
retires he says nothing to her even
though she's pretty sure he's awake when
she wakes
in the morning he's gone his wedding
ring is sitting inside a cup on the
dresser 170 dollars is in a wallet in a
drawer he's only taken 13.87
cents with him hardly enough to flee the
country the next day after jfk is
fatally injured oswald is seen in the
second floor lunch room by a cop who has
a gun drawn on him oswald's supervisor
is also there so was once allowed to
walk on
he appears calm not long after oswald is
apprehended after a short altercation in
a movie theater
during questioning he's forthcoming and
seems composed he denies all wrongdoing
he says he's a patsy meaning he thinks
he's being framed the evidence against
him is overwhelming he's seen by
multiple witnesses shooting and killing
a policeman when walking down a street
when he's arrested in the movie theater
he says the words well it's all over now
but this isn't another jfk assassination
story it's a who was lee harvey oswald
story so then why did he pull that
trigger it's not easy to ascertain the
answer
far from it he was shot and killed two
days later by a nightclub owner jack
ruby
while being escorted through dallas
police headquarters ruby himself was
later treated by the cia's brainwashing
specialist louis
joylin west and diagnosed with psychosis
that's a story to get conspiracy
theorists excited
while behind bars ruby got in touch with
the warren commission and said i want to
tell the truth and i can't tell it here
nothing came of it and ruby died not too
long after losing his mind was anyone
else involved in the assassination from
abroad or at home
we just don't know theories range from
the spectacular to the heavily rejected
oswald
often insecure having argued with his
wife and just gone off the deep end
maybe he just wanted to become the
center of the world
maybe he really thought he could help
society or perhaps as many theories go
the mafia was involved the kgb was
involved the soviets were involved or
the cubans were involved if you like
rabbit holes this is a deep one polls
show that way more americans believe he
was part of some kind of conspiracy
rather than acting alone was he an
insecure guy that managed to shock the
world without any help or was he a pawn
in a much bigger game
now you need to watch the jfk
assassination what really happened or
have a look at did oj commit those
murders