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

Marine Corps Service

After dropping out of 10th grade in New Orleans in 1955 at age 16, Oswald attempted to enlist in the Marine Corps but was rejected due to his age. He worked office messenger and clerk jobs in New Orleans for 10 months, during which he began reading communist literature, praised communism to coworkers, and wrote to the Socialist Party of America professing his belief in Marxism. He and his mother moved back to Fort Worth in July 1956, and he enlisted in the Marine Corps on October 24, 1956, 6 days after his 17th birthday. He scored 212 on his initial M-1 rifle qualification, earning a sharpshooter rating, and later received training in aviation fundamentals and radar scanning. Described as a loner who resented authority, he was court-martialed twice: once for possessing an unregistered weapon and once for provocative language toward a noncommissioned officer. He served 15 months overseas, mostly in Japan, before being stationed in Santa Ana, California for his final year of service. During this time he expressed admiration for Fidel Castro and interest in joining the Cuban army, and scored 191 on a follow-up M-1 rifle qualification, earning a marksman rating. He requested early discharge from the Marine Corps on September 11, 1959, citing his mother’s ill health and financial struggles, and left for New Orleans shortly after.

Soviet Defection and Marriage

After his Marine Corps discharge, Oswald spent only 3 days with his mother in Fort Worth before traveling to New Orleans, where he booked passage on the freighter SS Marion Lykes, sailing for Le Havre, France on September 20, 1959. He had planned his trip to the Soviet Union for months, applying to a Swiss college with false credentials in March 1959, obtaining a passport listing the USSR as a destination, and saving nearly $1,500 during his Marine service. He arrived in Moscow via train from Finland on October 16, 1959, and immediately applied for Soviet citizenship. After being ordered to leave the USSR by October 21, 1959, he slashed his wrists in an apparent suicide attempt, was hospitalized, and on October 31 formally announced his intention to renounce U.S. citizenship at the American Embassy, citing his Marxist beliefs. The Soviet Union did not grant him citizenship but allowed him to remain in Minsk on a year-to-year basis starting in January 1960, where he worked as an unskilled laborer at a radio factory. His permission to stay was extended in January 1961, and that February he wrote to the U.S. Embassy expressing a desire to return to the United States. In March 1961, he met 19-year-old Russian pharmacist Marina Nikolaevna Prusakova, and the two married on April 30, 1961. Over the following year, the Oswalds corresponded with U.S. and Soviet authorities to secure permission to leave the USSR, and visited the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in July 1961, where officials confirmed he had not lost his U.S. citizenship. Marina was granted permission to depart the Soviet Union on December 25, 1961.

CAPÍTULO I.

This chapter, titled “CHAPTER I”, chronicles the full timeline of Lee Harvey Oswald’s activities from his 1962 return to the United States through the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the subsequent murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby, and the Warren Commission’s preliminary findings related to the assassination.

Oswald’s Return to the United States

Oswald’s Return to the United States In February 1962, Oswald and his Russian wife Marina welcomed a daughter. After the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service granted a waiver (at the Department of State’s request) to allow Marina to obtain a U.S. visa without first leaving the Soviet Union, the family departed Moscow on June 1, 1962, with $435.71 in travel assistance from the State Department. They arrived in Fort Worth, Texas, two weeks later.

Oswald’s Life and FBI Interviews in Fort Worth

Oswald’s Life and FBI Interviews in Fort Worth The Oswalds first stayed with Oswald’s brother Robert, then his mother, before moving into their own apartment in early August 1962. Oswald began working as a sheet metal worker on July 16. During their time in Fort Worth, he was interviewed twice by the FBI: on June 26, he was described as arrogant, denied involvement in Soviet intelligence activities, and agreed to notify the FBI of any Soviet contact; on August 16, he had a less belligerent attitude and repeated his promise to report intelligence recruitment attempts.