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

Oswald’s Alias Usage

Oswald used multiple aliases beyond the “Hidell” pseudonym he used for firearm purchases. These include “Lee” (used on his Mexico City tourist card and bus reservation, likely stemming from a clerical error where a clerk misread his printed name “Lee H. Oswald” as a last name), “O. H. Lee” (used when registering at a mid-October 1963 Irving roominghouse), “Osborne” (used to order Fair Play for Cuba Committee handbills in May 1963), “D. F. Drittal” (used as a certifying witness on his Smith & Wesson revolver mail-order coupon), and “Lt. J. Evans” (used as a reference on a New Orleans employment application). While his repeated use of false names aligns with his antisocial and criminal tendencies (including hiding his firearm ownership via the Hidell alias), the Commission found no evidence linking his alias use to a broader conspiracy with other parties.

Second Rifle Ownership

The Commission investigated a claim that Oswald had a telescopic sight mounted and boresighted on a second rifle at the Irving Sports Shop in Irving, Texas in the first two weeks of November 1963, with the only supporting evidence being an undated repair tag bearing the name “Oswald” provided by shop employee Dial D. Ryder. The claim is highly dubious: Ryder never brought the tag to his employer’s attention until after the assassination, could not confirm the transaction occurred, could not identify Oswald in a photograph as someone he had seen in person, gave inconsistent statements about when he found the tag and his interactions with reporters, and the unnamed source cited by anonymous tipsters to direct the FBI to the shop could not be verified. Neither Ryder nor his employer recalled working on Oswald’s known Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, and no other person named Oswald in the Dallas-Fort Worth area was found to have had a rifle repaired at the shop.