Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Oswald’s Relationship With His Wife

This section examines Oswald’s relationship with his wife Marina as a possible window into his motives. The Commission describes a stormy union: a brief courtship of about six weeks, a marriage partly motivated by Oswald’s desire to hurt a girl who had rejected him, and Marina’s possible hope that marriage to an American would let her leave the Soviet Union. Although relations appeared to improve somewhat after Oswald returned from Mexico, with Marina noting he “changed for the better” and was more attentive, the underlying tensions persisted. Oswald was described as overbearing, dictating many details of their life, striking his wife on occasion, opposing her drinking, smoking, and use of cosmetics, and apparently wanting her to remain unable to speak English so she could not build an independent American life. Marina, for her part, complained about Oswald’s inability to provide more material things, ridiculed his political views and grandiose self-image, and reportedly told friends that Oswald “was not a man” and that their sexual relations were unsatisfactory. Despite this, the period from Oswald’s return from Mexico until mid-November 1963 appears to have been relatively calm, until Marina asked him not to visit the Paine home the weekend of November 16–17 because Michael Paine was present and Oswald disliked him. The chapter also recounts the November 17, 1963 incident in which Oswald was not reached by a call placed under his real name because he was registered at his roominghouse under the alias O. H. Lee. Marina was angry about the alias, and Oswald justified it by claiming he feared the FBI, whose visits he claimed had cost him jobs and which he exaggerated as evidence of his own importance. The Commission concluded that this claimed FBI warning was another of Oswald’s fabrications, noting that Agent Hosty had not spoken to him between August 10, 1963, and the assassination and that Oswald’s account of his wife’s strong protest to the Bureau was largely invented.

CAPÍTULO VII.

This chapter examines Lee Harvey Oswald’s motivations for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, covering his use of aliases and related FBI concerns, marital conflict with his wife Marina, details of his November 21, 1963 visit to her home, unanswerable questions about his mindset in the days before the assassination, his behavior and arrest following the assassination, and the Commission’s final conclusions about his motives.

Oswald’s Alias Use and FBI Concerns

Oswald’s justifications for using an alias suggest he believed he was caught in an increasingly complex conspiracy against him, fearing the FBI would expose his defection to the Soviet Union as had occurred in New Orleans. However, his expressed concerns about the FBI may have been a fabricated story to support his use of a fake name. These arguments failed to persuade Marina Oswald, who saw no issue with people knowing he had lived in Russia, and criticized his repeated “foolishness” and use of a fictitious name.

Marital Conflict with Marina Oswald

Marital conflict between Oswald and Marina centered on his use of an alias, leading to a heated phone argument on Monday, November 18, 1963, during which Marina hung up on him and refused to speak to him. After the argument, Oswald stopped his usual twice-daily calls to her, and traveled to her home in Irving on Thursday, November 21, 1963, claiming he was lonely and wanted to reconcile.

Testimony of Oswald’s November 21, 1963 Visit

Marina Oswald testified about her husband’s November 21, 1963 visit to her Irving home. She stated Oswald said he was lonely and wanted to make peace, but she remained angry and refused to speak to him. He attempted to win her over by performing chores (putting away diapers, playing with their children on the street) and repeatedly proposed renting a Dallas apartment so the family could live together again, which she declined, preferring to stay with Ruth Paine until the holidays and asking him to buy a washing machine instead. That night, Oswald went to bed before Marina retired, and the next morning he left for work before the rest of the household awoke, leaving his wedding ring in a dresser cup and $170 in a wallet, while taking $13.87 and the long brown package he later carried to the Texas School Book Depository.