Who’s Lee Harvey Oswald?

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Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated the American president, John F. Kennedy, at around 12:30 on November 22, 1963, as the president was driving in an open-top vehicle through the streets of Dallas, Texas. Several investigative bodies have determined that Oswald acted alone. The circumstances surrounding President Kennedy’s death, however, and Lee Harvey Oswald’s involvement have become the subject of various conspiracy theories. Shortly after President Kennedy was assassinated, Oswald himself was assassinated by Dallas resident Jack Ruby.

Oswald was born in New Orleans in 1939 and led a somewhat troubled childhood. He enlisted in the United States Marines before earning a high school diploma, but his service record was also troubled, and he was court-martialed twice before being granted a hardship discharge on false pretenses and defecting to the Soviet Union in 1959. United with his Russian wife in 1962, moving between Texas and New Orleans, Louisiana, before finally settling in Dallas in 1963, where he eventually gained employment with the Texas Book Depository, from which he shot the president Kennedy.

Four government agencies thoroughly investigated the assassination, including the FBI, the Dallas Police Department and a special congressional committee, the Warren Commission. All of these agencies, as well as numerous academics and other experts agree that Oswald, acting alone, shot and killed President Kennedy from a sixth floor window of the Texas Book Depository. Many people still refuse to accept this conclusion, however, vindicating any number of other parties involved, from the CIA to the Mafia to the KGB. Some even claim that Oswald was replaced by an imposter while in the Soviet Union. His body was eventually exhumed and this theory proved to be false, as his body was positively identified by dental records.

However, several indisputable facts remain about the day President Kennedy was shot and the days after. Lee Harvey Oswald was seen leaving the book depository where he worked shortly after the assassination. Investigations ascertained that he got on a bus, got off shortly after and took a taxi to go home. He then left the boarding house where he lived and was spotted and confronted by a Dallas police officer, JD Tippit. Oswald shot Tippit four times with a revolver, and ballistics tests confirmed that the bullets came from a gun found in his possession when he was arrested a short time later at the nearby Texas Theater.

Following his arrest, Oswald was taken to Dallas Police Headquarters where he spent the next two days under near-constant interrogation. He denied any involvement in the shooting of Tippit or the president, but the evidence continued to mount. A forged Selective Service card with Oswald’s photo and a false name was found on his person, and the weapons used to kill Tippit and Kennedy were determined to have been purchased and shipped to an address belonging to this alias. More evidence gathered over the next two days and afterward led authorities to become certain of Oswald’s guilt.

Before he could be tried or even indicted for the murders of police officer Tippit and President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald was himself shot and killed while being transported from Dallas Police Headquarters. Jack Ruby, owner of a Dallas nightclub, was in the crowd that had gathered to watch Oswald as he was escorted from police headquarters to be transferred to the county jail. Ruha shot Oswald in the abdomen at point blank range on live national television. Oswald died a short time later at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where President Kennedy was pronounced dead.

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