Vanessa Richardson (11:56)
Foreign Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans in 1939. But it wasn't under happy circumstances. His father had died of a heart attack just two months earlier. After that, his mother, Marguerite, had struggled to get by. She already had two sons, adding A third only made things more difficult. Eventually she became so desperate that she brought them over all to an orphanage. But in January 1944, when Lee was four years old, she felt stable enough to take them home. For the next few years, they moved back and forth between Louisiana and Texas to live with relatives. Despite all the instability, Lee did okay in school and stayed out of Trouble. But in 1952, when Lee was 12 years old, a switch flipped. The Marguerite had moved the family to New York City where her adult son lived. There, Lee struggled to make friends and began skipping school. His self isolation soon escalated to violence. Once he threatened his aunt with a knife. Other times he would hit his mom. Eventually, Marguerite sought professional help. In 1953, she sent the 13 year old to a home for boys in the Bronx where he could undergo psychiatric treatment. But it wasn't enough to save him. He continued to be antisocial and expressed violent fantasies, including killing people. Marguerite wasn't sure what to do. All she knew was his problems had started when they'd moved to New York. So she decided to bring Lee back to his roots. In 1954, she took him out of the home for boys and the family went back to New Orleans. Once there, 15 year old Lee showed slight improvement. He started going to school again and even joined the Civil Air Patrol, an Air Force program that taught aerospace and emergency response skills to young people. It was too little, too late though. The truth was, Lee was putting on a show. He was willing to pretend that he'd changed, but in reality, he didn't think he was the problem. Lee society was. The last few years, Lee had been reflecting on his childhood. He thought about all the hardships he and his family had endured. To him, it seemed like no matter where they lived or what his mother did for work, she couldn't make enough money to make ends meet. Eventually, he decided the issue was capitalism. This line of thinking led him to embrace communism. In his mind, people in countries like the Soviet Union were taken care of by their governments. His family family didn't agree with him though. Like most Americans at the time, they thought communism was evil. And the more he talked about it, the more they shunned him. Lee felt like no one understood him. So when he was 17 years old, he decided to take control of his own fate. In 1956, he dropped out of high school and joined the Marine Corps. Not because he was a patriot, but because he thought the military would provide him with more, more opportunities than traditional school. While in the Marines, Lee finally found something he was good at. Firing a gun. He earned the title of sharpshooter. But his skills weren't enough to make him friends. Even then, he was constantly preaching about Communism to his fellow soldiers, praising the Soviet Union and the communist Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly a popular opinion. But Lee didn't care. He wasn't planning to be in the military longer than he had to. In 1959, the 19 year old was discharged and embarked on his next chapter. He said his goodbyes not just to the Marines but to the United States. In October of that year, he obtained a six day travel visa to the Soviet Union. The Cold War was already in full swing, so this was a feat on its own. And the two terms of his travel were heavily restricted. That didn't matter to Lee though. He wasn't there to sightsee. As soon as he arrived in Moscow, he immediately applied for Soviet citizenship. He thought that living in the USSR was the fresh start he needed. If he became a citizen, the government would give him a job and a place to live. His application was denied. However, the Soviet government did eventually agree to grant him a work visa. That way he could stay on a year to year basis. They knew that the more Americans who defected to the Soviet Union, the better. And so Lee was sent to the city of Minsk where he was given a factory job and his own apartment. At first, Lee was ecstatic. This was exactly what he'd wanted. But over time he started to realize that the Soviet Union wasn't the utopia he thought it would be. He worked long hours and made a lot less than managers and certain government workers. This wasn't the equality he'd been promised. Not only that, his life was strictly controlled. Soviet citizens and people on work visas had to attend regular academic lectures, gymnastics practices and even pick potatoes every Sunday. After two years, Lee was completely disillusioned. In 1961, the 22 year old decided that the US was the lesser of two evils and returned home. Lee moved in with his brother in Fort Worth, Texas while he tried to get back on his feet. Pretty soon he ended up in the same situation as before. Not only was he working long hours at a sheet metal factory, but the U. S. Government was breathing down his neck. Shortly after he arrived in Fort Worth, Lee was approached by the FBI. They wanted to know if he was working undercover for the Soviet Union. Lee said he he wasn't. He was furious. They'd even ask. After some back and forth, the agents decided he was telling the truth and left him alone. That May have been a mistake. Despite Lee's anger at the Soviet government, he still believed in communism itself. He was desperate to be part of a community that understood him. Soon he found what he was looking for in nearby Dallas, Texas. A large group of Russian speaking people was living there. Lee became friends with them and moved to the city in October of 1962. But that didn't exactly mean Dallas was a communist haven. At the time, a former army general named Edwin A. Walker was running for governor of Texas. Walker was very outspoken against communism and seemed to be gaining a lot of steam. Lee felt like he couldn't just sit by and watch. In early 1963, Lee purchased a revolver and a rifle with a telescope. The 23 year old spent the next few months learning everything he could about Edwin A. Walker. By the time spring rolled around, he was ready to strike. On April 10, 1963, Lee tucked his rifle into his jacket and made his way to Walker's Dallas neighborhood. He found a spot outside Walker's home where he could see through the window but stay concealed. At some point, Walker sat down at his desk near the window and Lee pulled the trigger. The glass shattered, but the bullet missed its target. Lee ran home, terrified that someone had seen him. When he calmed down, he decided to get out of town for a while. He went to stay with relatives in New Orleans, Texas. Authorities didn't connect Lee to the attack, which left Lee free to continue his communist crusade. While in New Orleans, he tried to form a branch of a pro Castro organization called the Fair Play to Cuba Committee. Eventually he attempted to move to Cuba, but just like the Soviet Union, they denied him. At that point, Lee decided that if he couldn't get out of the US he'd tear it down from the inside. With nowhere else to go, he returned to Dallas and moved his few belongings into a room at a boarding house. All he had were some clothes, his rifle and a pistol. He began searching for a job and on October 14, 1963, he got an offer from the Texas School Book Depository. He started working there two days later. About a month after that, on November 19, local papers announced that President Kennedy was coming to town. They provided the exact route that the motorcade would take. Lee took note. On November 22, he showed up for work at the Depository. He was carrying a long, bulky package. He told co workers there were curtain rods inside. Then he headed up to the sixth floor. A few hours later, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed as his motorcade drove past the building. As soon as Kennedy was down, Lee Started running, first to the boarding house to get his pistol, then along the streets. It's not clear where he was trying to go, but at some point, a police officer named J.D. tippett saw him and thought he looked suspicious. Tippet had heard about the shooting and knew the suspect was on the loose. He attempted to stop Lee, but it was too late. Lee pulled out his gun and shot Tippet dead. After that, Lee kept running until he came across a movie theater. He tried to hide inside, but employees called the police. When an officer arrived, Lee fired at him. Fortunately, he missed and the officer was able to apprehend him. By 2:30pm or Lee was in an interrogation room where he remained for almost two full days. During that time, multiple detectives and FBI agents tried to get him to confess to murdering President Kennedy as well as Officer Tippett. He never did. But the authorities were convinced he was responsible. And when it came to the assassination, they didn't think he acted alone. On November 24, investigators wrapped up their interrogation. The Dallas PD filed a complaint against Lee Harvey Oswald for, quote, furtherance of an international communist conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. They'd learned about Lee's communist leanings and they believed he was part of a much larger plot to kill the President of the United States. Prosecutors didn't release this information to the public, though, probably because Lyndon B. Johnson, who was now president, didn't want them to. That's because the Kennedy administration had just restored a sense of safety in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. If the public thought Lee was a communist plant, it might unleash yet another wave of chaos. Johnson wanted to avoid that at any cost. And so the police complaint was kept under wraps. But Lee had other plans. Before the interrogation was even finished, Lee was charged with the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. tippett. Once it was finished on the morning of the 24th, he was escorted to the county jail to await trial. When they led him out of police headquarters, a crowd of reporters was waiting outside. One journalist called out and asked Lee if he shot the police president. Lee said, quote, I'm just a patsy. In other words, Lee claimed he was a fall guy. He may have fired the bullet, but someone else put him up to it. His claim shocked the reporters and the public. It begged the question, if he was telling the truth, then who was really behind the assassination? The world would never know. Moments later, a man stepped out of the crowd and shot. Shot him in cold blood. Lee was fatally wounded and declared dead at the hospital. The shooter was identified as 52 year old Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. He was immediately taken into custody. Ruby claimed that he killed Lee in retaliation for the assassination. But the public wasn't convinced. It seemed like Ruby knew more than he was letting on. They wondered if he'd killed Lee to keep him quiet. But their questions would have to wait. John F. Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on November 25, 1963. Four days later, President Johnson established the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. This became known as the Warren Commission after Earl Warren, the Chief justice at the time. Under Justice Warren, A group of four senators, a former CIA director and a former diplomat compiled over 500 pieces of witness testimony and over 3,000 reports from the FBI and Secret Service. Their goal was to piece together what really happened that day. In Dallas, investigators spoke to everyone who'd known Lee Harvey Oswald, including his family, friends and former military supervisors. They even got their hands on Lee's journals and letters he'd sent over the years. On September 24, 1964, almost a year after Kennedy was killed, the team handed their findings over to President Johnson. The final report was almost 900 pages long. It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald did in fact shoot President Kennedy and Governor Connolly. And it said he'd acted alone. According to them, he was not part of a larger conspiracy. The report outlined Lee's long standing support for communism. It detailed his attempts to defect to the Soviet Union and Cuba. And it revealed his attempt to assassinate General Walker just months before killing the President. That same year, Jack Ruby was found guilty of Lee's murder and sentenced to death. Death. His lawyers appealed. Then, in 1967, while awaiting retrial, Ruby died of cancer. For many people, this felt like the end of a long nightmare. The country could finally heal and move on. They were wrong because the US Government's version of events wasn't the only side to the story. And soon someone would drop a major, major bombshell.