Lee Harvey Oswald

[BeFree]

He is claimed to have shot President Kennedy.

Have I missed something all these years?
I ask because I can't remember what motivated him to do such a dastardly deed.

Anyone have the answer as to what was his motivation?

[slackmaster]

1. He was a small, insignificant man who wanted to do something big

That's always been my take on it.

[BeFree]

2. Did he work for the CIA and FBI?

[slackmaster]

4. No, I really don't believe he did, and I don't believe it was a Mafia hit or the Cubans.

I can accept him being a loner.

I have a couple of indirect connections to LHO. When I was a kid I used to ride my bike around and explore an old rifle range on what is now the UCSD campus. LHO was one of many Marines who took their Basic Rifle instruction there. I used to pick up bullets that surfaced as the old backdrop eroded away. It's possible, though unlikely, that I own one or more bullets that he send downrange.

One of my best friends once had a guard post at Atsugi, Japan that was at one time held by LHO.

[BeFree]

8. So

He just did it because he could, and wanted to be somebody?

So why didn't he fess up? Instead he claimed he didn't do it.
Just more theater? Was he smart enough to know how to play up the PR to make him even larger?

[slackmaster]

9. He was killed less than 48 hours after JFK.

There's no way to know what he would have said over the next days or weeks if he had lived.

[BeFree]

10. Right

But do you remember what he did say, in that one brief moment?

[slackmaster]

13. IIRC it was something like "I didn't shoot anybody."

But there was a rifle, later proved to be HIS rifle with HIS fingerprints found in the building where he was arrested, and ballistic evidence connected the shooting to that rifle.

I think he lied.

[bighart]

30. Actually the rifle was found in the building he worked in, not the place he was arrested.

His rifle was found in the "snipers nest" at the book depository, he was arrested some 40 minutes after the shooting at the Texas Theater.

[slackmaster]

37. Ah yes, that's right

He shot the President from a warehouse and ran to a theater, whereas John Wilkes Booth shot the Present in a theater and ran to a warehouse.

[bighart]

39. A number of odd coincidences like that in the two assassinations.

Can't remember them all now.

[Winterblues]

47. Another was Kennedy's chief aide was named Lincoln

and Lincoln's chief aide was named Kennedy.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

61. was it an X-mas "Present?"

[oldlib]

59. Oswald was in the Texas Book Depository

where he worked. He had a mattress placed at an upper window where he could lie down and he had an excellent view when JFK passed. Oswald was a marksman in the service, but it didn't take a crack shot from his vantage point. I believe that he acted alone and the trajectory of the shot supported that that was the shot that killed JFK.

[MicaelS]

20. I think he was a Marxist wingnut who wanted to shoot Fascists

He supposedly tried to shoot right wingnut General Edwin Walker according to his wife Marina. He missed Walker, and got lucky with JFK.

[BeFree]

21. You just think?

Or do you have some official statement that backs up your thinking?

[MicaelS]

26. Official? No, but he was a self-proclaimed Marxist...

He said that on multiple occasions. Then there's the infamous picture of him holding his rifle with his own inscription "Hunter of Fascists, ha-ha-ha."

So I'd say in this case 1 + 1 = 2.

http://everything2.com/title/Hunter+of+Fascists%252C+ha+ha+ha%2521

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald

[BeFree]

28. See, that's cool

I never heard about that facet of the investigation that he was motivated to shoot someone else.
Interesting. Thanks.

[RaleighNCDUer]

32. And just how does JFK fit into the 'fascist' catagory when he prevented

a US invasion of Marxist Cuba?

[MicaelS]

58. Because the Kennedy's, especially Bobby, were deep

Into trying to have Castro assassinated.

[RaleighNCDUer]

60. Which nobody knew about until 1975.

Sorry, that doesn't fly.

The only way Oswald could have possibly known about that would be if he was really, really tight with the FBI or CIA.

[roamer65]

62. Delete.

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. Actually, he said he was a patsy. He didn't claim innocence, he claimed

he was used. You can only be a patsy if others are involved, who want to put the blame on you.

Ergo, there was a conspiracy, and he knew something about it.

[slackmaster]

29. Or maybe he was trying to direct blame away from himself

That would also be consistent with his statements.

[RaleighNCDUer]

31. No, claiming to be a patsy is an admission of involvement or knowledge.

If somebody robs a bank and you are arrested for it, are you going to say "I'm innocent" or "I'm a patsy"? The patsy is the guy who loaned the bank robbers his car for a quick run to the story - he knows who did it, and they used him to take the fall while they make their getaway.

OJ tried to deflect blame from himself, but never claimed he was being used, that he was a patsy. Guilty or innocent, you claim innocence. The ONLY people who claim to be a patsy are those who have knowledge of the crime, because claiming to being a pasty is an admission of knowledge.

[slackmaster]

36. Criminal suspects and defendants say all kinds of bizarre things

I wouldn't read much into a few sentences someone uttered under the extreme duress of being arrested and frog-marched around with cameras in his face.

[H2O Man]

27. Read "Oswald

and the CIA," by John Newman (Herman Graf; 2008). The book includes documents that show that Oswald actually did work for US intelligence, including the CIA. He also was a source for the FBI.

[Gabi Hayes]

52. exactly. I spoke with two people with the Assassination Records Bureau,

which was charged with reviewing material previously classified (the intent being to release as much as could 'safely' be done), and they were very loathe to consider the possibility of any sort of conspiracy that didn't involve solely the mob.

this was on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio show, and I used a quote from the beginning of Newman's original book (from confessed perjuror Richard Helms) that pretty much reveals, at the very least, huge lies from the very highest levels of government WRT the assassination. these 'experts' were skeptical of the quote, and still weren't buying its veracity, despite my having read from the book and citing its page number

don't be fooled by the coincidence 'theorists'

there's much more than meets the eye

and that stuff about Oswald's having fired the rifle?

try this for starters:

2. On the evening of November 24, a team of FBI agents with a crime kit visited the morgue where Oswald's body was being kept. The visit was recorded by a local newspaper, and was later discussed by the funeral director, Paul Groody, who was there when the agents arrived. The agents, said Groody, took several fingerprints from Oswald's hands. Agent Drain himself later stated in a private interview that he had no idea why the FBI agents took more prints when the authorities already had plenty of Oswald's prints from when Oswald was in custody. Why did the FBI agents who visited the morgue that night take more of Oswald's prints? (Agent Drain went on to say that he did not believe Oswald's palm print was on the rifle on Friday night, but that it was placed there later by the Dallas Police Department.)

3. Why has no record surfaced of this late-night, post-mortem FBI fingerprinting of Oswald at the morgue?

There are many other questions surrounding the latent palm print. These questions have been discussed in such highly acclaimed works as Sylvia Meagher's Accessories After the Fact Vintage Books Edition, New York: Vintage Books, 1992, reprint, pp. 120-127) and Henry Hurt's Reasonable Doubt (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985, pp. 106-109). For example, newsmen with sources inside the Dallas Police Department widely reported that as of the time the rifle was handed over to the FBI on Friday night, Oswald's prints had not been found on the weapon, and that this was "a big disappointment" to the authorities. Yet, Lt. Day told the WC that on Friday night, well before he handed over the rifle, he recognized the palm print as probably belonging to Oswald, and that he told Captain Fritz and Chief Curry about this. However, when Fritz was asked the next day if Oswald's prints had been found on the rifle, he replied, "No, Sir."

The first time any Dallas law official said anything about the palm print was early Monday morning, several hours after Oswald had died and at right around the same time the FBI team was fingerprinting Oswald's body at the morgue. It bears remembering, too, that nobody outside the Dallas Police Department--and, according to the official record, nobody but Lt. Day--saw the palm print until November 29, seven days after it was supposedly lifted and four days after its alleged discovery was belatedly announced. (The odd, inexplicable delay in announcing the print's alleged discovery is all the more suspicious in light of how the Dallas police and the DA's office rushed to tell the press about any and all evidence, tentative or otherwise, that tied, or appeared to tie, Oswald to the shooting. It turned out that a number of the initial DPD statements and claims were erroneous. Given the police's rush to hurriedly release even speculative and/or unconfirmed information damaging to Oswald, it is hard to believe they would not have immediately announced the "probable" or "possible" finding of Oswald's palm print on the barrel of the alleged murder weapon if in fact they had made such a discovery.)
http://www.kenrahn.com/jfk/the_critics/griffith/Planted_palm_print.html


course, this will go on and on...people are set in their belief of their own various dogma, myself included, but, as in coincidences like Iran Contra, BCCI, the yellowcake forgeries, October Surprise, etc., one needs to axe onself, cui bono, and who's been caught lying their ASSES off for as long as there have been questions to be answered

and, of course, one can go to sites like McAdams' fine CIA-sponsored site to get the latest from the official coincidence backers. just beware of who that man is, and of his provenance

[MicaelS]

6. Mine too n/t

[BlueJac]

3. A mafia hit job

http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/index1.htm

[BeFree]

5. Don't jack my thread, man

You do that the man come and take it away.

The premise is that LHO did it, and this thread will stick to that!!
If it's ok with you?

[BlueJac]

7. It's your fantasy, live it!

[csziggy]

11. One theory is that he wanted to be famous

Sort of some other assassins of famous people (such as Mark Chapman), that he did it for fame and notoriety. If so, what a shallow reason to kill anyone, much less a significant figure in history.

[BeFree]

12. Just a theory?

That's why the OP,.... was hoping someone here could recite the official stance that detailed the motivation. All I can recall is the theories.

[BlueJac]

14. Go read some books........

you might learn something.

[CatWoman]

16. why do you have to be so rude?

I don't believe LHO was the sole shooter - I don't even believe he had anything to do with JFK's murder.

but still, there's no reason for you to be so rude to the OP.

[BlueJac]

17. He started it..........

not me. So quit being so rude.

[Hangingon]

38. ANother theory is that John Connnally

who had just resigned as Secretary of the Navy. The theory does not appear to be strong.

[edbermac]

42. Wanted to be famous? He never confessed to it.

Every account states that he denied killing JFK and a Dallas police officer.

What the hell, Chapman admitted he killed Lennon seconds after he shot him.

[Octafish]

15. Self Delete nt

[BeFree]

18. Don't jack my thread, please

I am looking for the official statement as to the motivation.

It's been 47 years, surely by now the facts backing his motivation must be established somewhere?
All I can remember is theories. And theories get jacked, know what I mean?

[RDANGELO]

19. After reading "Legacy of Secrecy" co-authored by Tom

Hartman, I am convinced that it was primarily the mob, lead by Carlos Marcello. Once they got their claws into Oswald, they could have just told him, you do what we tell you or your wife and kids are dead.

[BeFree]

22. Please, I beg you, don't get this thread jacked

There is a place for the theories and what this OP is about is the official facts.
Thanks for your understanding.

[steve2470]

23. part of the official explanation....

The Warren Commission, created by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination, concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy (this view is known as the lone gunman theory). The 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.<118>

The proceedings of the commission were closed, though not secret, and about 3% of its files have yet to be released to the public, which has continued to provoke speculation among researchers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald#Warren_Commission

[BeFree]

25. What??? 3%

That's it? 3 percent?

I wonder if he could ever be convicted on 3 percent.

If he hated America so much, why didn't he go to Russia? Oh wait, he did, didn't he?

[RaleighNCDUer]

35. If he was so devoted to Russia, why did he leave? nt

[slackmaster]

40. The weather sucks

:hi:

[RaleighNCDUer]

41. LOL

[steve2470]

48. from my original post....

about 3% of its files have yet to be released to the public, which has continued to provoke speculation among researchers.

[BeFree]

53. Yeah, I screwed that up, eh?

Anyway, is there, I wonder, enough information to convict LO in that 3%?
Or maybe enough to exonerate him?

There never was a trial, yet he has surely, in most eyes, been convicted.

[TicketyBoo]

56. Come again?

Assuming the Wikipedia article is correct (a big assumption, since anyone can edit it--even those who know nothing about it), 97% of the files from the Warren Commission have been released.

Would 97% be enough to convict? Probably; it just doesn't satisfy those who are looking for a conspiracy. Some people just can't believe that a single person could be responsible for such a dastardly deed.

[northoftheborder]

33. Read Thom Hartmann's book; it's extensively researched.

[H2O Man]

34. Read them both.

There are two now.

[Duer 157099]

43. This book might be interesting

http://meandlee.com/

Judyth Vary Baker was once a promising science student who dreamed of finding a cure for cancer, but strayed from a path of mainstream scholarship at the University of Florida to a life of espionage in New Orleans with Lee Harvey Oswald.

In her memoir, Me & Lee – How I came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald, Judyth offers extensive documentation of how she came to be involved with cancer research at such a young age, the personalities who recruited her to move to New Orleans in 1963, how she was hired there – along with Lee Oswald – by Reily Coffee Co. and fired the same afternoon Lee was arrested for disturbing the peace on Canal Street, and how she became a participant in the development of a biological weapon that Oswald was to smuggle into Cuba to eliminate Fidel Castro.

Judyth shows the evidence and relates – from her first-hand experience – all she knows about the Kennedy assassination, her love affair with Lee Oswald over the summer of '63, her conversations with him as late as Lee Harvey Oswald is shot by Jack Ruby two days before JFK's death, his role as a deep-intelligence agent who was framed for an assassination he was actually trying to prevent, and how he was silenced by his old friend Jack Ruby.

I just learned about it and have not read it, but heard an interview with the author. Sounds worth reading. Seems well documented.

[jobycom]

44. He was a loner who died and left no notes, but in general he fits the profile of a

self-absorbed loner who wanted to save the world, in his opinion, and went after it. I think many of us can understand what it's like to be frustrated with current events and to believe everything is going in the wrong direction. We all try to change the world as we can, by railing against SUV drivers and working for our causes. Oswald tried it with a gun. Two weeks earlier he shot at a retired general, Edwin Walker, but missed and chickened out.

Look at his life, and you see a pattern--he moved to Russia because he was disgusted with America, he moved back because he grew disgusted with the Soviets, he handed out fliers in New Orleans and tried to start a pro-Castro group, and then tried to infiltrate an anti-Castro group. He was an idealist socialist who wanted to be Lenin, or Castro, or a great revolutionary who began the overthrow of America.

Think of Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kazyniski, John Wilkes Booth, John Brown, Leon Czolgosz. He's not that hard to figure out. Even people who believe he was innocent have to admit he fit the profile, or there would be no possibility to frame him in the first place.

[BeFree]

45. That profile is...

...congruent with someone who might be involved with underground activities and covert ops.

Of course, you have your opinions. What we're seeking here is official info.
Interesting to find that 97% of the official info is not available.
Do you have an opinion on that fact?

[jobycom]

46. I have facts on opinions and opinions on facts, and yours is an opinion disguised as a fact.

First: What do you mean that 97% of the official info is not available? If it's not available, how do you know how much of it there is to calculate such a precise number? And what large chunks of information are you ignoring in order to claim that only 3% of the "official" information is available? I can say that 99.8% of the official information is available, and it means nothing. Enough information is available to know what happened.

Second, there are many reasons classified information becomes classified. A decade ago, for instance, the story was released about a high level informant in the Soviet Union who had been with the premier when he was told of the assassination. The premier acted in such a way that the government concluded they had no involvement, but that information was kept secret, because to reveal it they would have had to expose their informant. That's one reason info is classified even if it has nothing to do with the actual case. They would have had informants and moles in every other nation that might have been involved, too, and would have kept that info classified. Maybe Oswald was under surveillance and they didn't want to admit they had blown it. Maybe there were other informants around Oswald they had to protect. Surely the FBI had mob informants they wanted to protect. Maybe Oswald did leave a note and it revealed information the government didn't want to address. Who knows? So of course information would be classified.

And his profile is NOT congruent with covert ops. I know people who worked covert ops. They are chosen for emotional and mental stability, intelligence, and a lot of psych profiles that nobody claims Oswald fit. McVeigh, Boothe, Brown, Czolgosz... these were not covert operatives, either. They all fit the profile of a savior complex with a degree of sociopathy.

[BeFree]

51. My bad

I shouldn't have ascribed a number to the info about JFK's assassination that has been kept secret.

It could be that we have been told nothing of the facts that would cause even the worst skeptic to change his mind. There has been so much hidden that we may never know, even tho a bunch of what we don't know is, one day, going to be released. Do you know when?

Your conspiracy theories not withstanding, methinks it behooves all of us to keep pushing to be told everything, and not be kept in the dark and fed bullshit. Some may aspire to never rise above being treated like a mushroom, but that ain't me.

Anyway,you have offered nothing here but conjecture and your opinions, and no sound idea of what motivated LHO. In fact, most of the opinions on this thread are fractured and have been trounced leaving those opinions with no basis and therefore near totally negated.

Still, Lee's too and fro, and conflicting movements, do portend that he was indeed mired in, and up to his neck with, covert operatives. Definitely no leader, just a mere patsy.

[TicketyBoo]

57. Try the math again.

Assuming the Wikipedia article is correct (a big assumption, since anyone can edit it--even those who know nothing about it), 97% of the files from the Warren Commission have been released and it's 3% remain unreleased.

[mvd]

49. I don't believe he acted alone

So many assassinations in the 60s were related to the CIA, military industrial complex, and corporate rule, IMO. From that to 9/11, a lot of fishy stuff has happened.

[former9thward]

50. You have missed something.

Oswald never claimed he killed Kennedy. Just the opposite, he said he didn't. The only ones who said he did it were the Warren Commission and any serious investigator agrees that was a whitewash.

[DutchLiberal]

54. He was paid by military-industrial complex to do the job...

He was promised he would get away with it, like the other two hitmen.

[Samantha]

55. He described himself as a patsy in the Kennedy assassination

and I believed him the moment I heard him say it. I was a child, but I found his words and the delivery of those words very credible when I heard them.

[roamer65]

63. I think we'll eventually find it was an...

amalgamation of far-right wing, military-industrial complex, CIA and mob elements. They "pooled" their resources on this one. That is the only way it could be pulled off.

But a group like this had to have a leader...who was it?

[cliffordu]

64. Here ya go......

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4523432

Be sure to check the links concerning the rifle scope views....'Oswald' took the wrong shots and shot perfectly....