Lee Harvey Oswald
From The Kennedy Assassination Resource
1939 - 1963
Lee Harvey Oswald was the man accused of assassinating Kennedy. He had a very interesting, and often quite remarkable, life.
[edit] As a Child
Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans on October 18th 1939 at the Old French Hospital in New Orleans. His mother was Marguerite Claverie Oswald, his father had died two months before he was born. He had two older siblings, brother Robert and half-brother John Pic.
The family moved several times including spells in Texas and New York before returning to New Orleans.
His mother's friends included Clem Sehrt and Raoul Sere, attorneys with links to Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss. She was also friendly with Sam Termine, who had worked for Marcello and was a close friend of Oswald's uncle Charles "Dutz" Murret. Murret was married to Marguerite's sister Lillian and had a great deal of contact with Oswald. Murret was also connected to Marcello.
[edit] As a Teenager
At about sixteen, Oswald joined the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol, where David Ferrie was a leader. He tried unsuccessfully to enlist in the US Marines before his seventeenth birthday using a fake birth certificate, aided by Sehrt. He subsequently succeeded a few days after his seventeenth birthday.
He worked as a radar technician in ultra sensitive sites including the Atsugi U-2 base in Japan, but learnt Russian, received Russian newspapers and magazines, played Russian records loudly, and openly flaunted Marxist interest while at the sites. The Marine Corps didn't seem to mind. He supposedly shot himself in the arm to avoid being transferred from Atsugi to the Philippines with his unit. However, witnesses say the shot actually went into the ceiling not his arm, and the three unit doctors stated that no one had had such a wound at that time.
His military clearance was "confidential" and was higher than his commanding officer's all the time he was in the Marine Corps, even after he had been court marshalled.
Oswald's record for marksmanship is not outstanding. The scoring system was that a score of 190 - 209 ranked as marksman, 210 - 219 as sharpshooter, and 220 - 250 as expert. Oswald scored 212 on one occasion and 191 on another, using the standard M-1 rifle.
[edit] As a Young Man
On 17th August of 1959, Oswald asked for a dependency discharge from the Marines on the grounds that his mother needed him at home in New Orleans after an accident at work. To get this discharge he needed an affidavit from a doctor. His doctor gave him one, saying that he has been treating his mother since September 5th, even though his letter is dated September 3rd. He is granted a discharge on the 11th of September. He also applied for a passport, clearly indicating an intention to travel to Cuba and Russia.
There appear to have been no problems with this and on September 11th, Oswald had left the Marines and was on his way to Texas.
In Texas, he told his brother he was on his way to New Orleans to work "for an export firm". Instead, he boarded a ship from New Orleans to Southampton in England, where he disembarked on October 9th. He left England from London Airport the following day and made his way to Finland, where he checked into the Torni Hotel, a first class hotel, in Helsinki by midnight. Within two days, the Soviet Consul in Helsinki had granted Oswald a six day tourist visa to the USSR. The normal waiting time for such a visa is normally about two weeks with a minimum of five days. On October 16th, he arrived in Moscow by train and registered at the Hotel Berlin as a student.
Before leaving America, he withdrew the $203 in his sole bank account. This apparently paid for his trip to Moscow, including all fares and hotel bills.
About two weeks later, he went to the American Embassy in Moscow, where he announced that he was renouncing his American citizenship and had "voluntarily told Soviet officials that he would make known to them all information concerning the Marine Corps and his speciality therein, radar operation, as he possessed." Also that he "might know something of special interest."
