Lee Harvey Oswald: A Biography

Lee Harvey Oswald was an American former Marine and Marxist who assassinated United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. According to four federal government investigations and one municipal investigation, Oswald shot and killed Kennedy from a sniper's nest as the President traveled by motorcade through Dealey Plaza in the city of Dallas, Texas. Oswald was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps and defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959. He lived in the Belarusian city of Minsk until June 1962, at which time he returned to the United States with his Russian wife Marina and eventually settled in Dallas. About 45 minutes after Oswald fatally shot Kennedy, he shot and killed Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit on a local street. Oswald then slipped into a movie theatre, where he was arrested for Tippit's murder. Oswald was later charged with the murder of Kennedy. He denied shooting anybody, saying that he was a "patsy". Two days later, Oswald was in the process of being transferred from the city jail to the county jail when he was fatally shot by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby in full view of television cameras broadcasting live. In September 1964, the Warren Commission released its findings and concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy by firing three shots from the Texas School Book Depository. This conclusion was supported by previous investigations carried out by the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Dallas Police Department. Despite forensic, ballistic, and eyewitness evidence supporting the lone gunman theory, public opinion polls taken over the years have shown that most Americans believe that Oswald did not act alone, but conspired with others to kill the president. The assassination has spawned numerous conspiracy theories.