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

After leaving the Marine Corps in September 1959 (ostensibly to care for his mother), Oswald immediately traveled to the Soviet Union to attempt to renounce his U.S. citizenship, a striking demonstration of his commitment to his beliefs at age 19. While his defection was partly driven by his Marxist ideology, personal and psychological factors also played a role. In an August 17, 1963 radio debate, Oswald stated that while he began reading Marx and Engels at age 15, his service in Japan was the decisive factor: poor local living conditions convinced him the U.S. system was flawed and Marxism was the answer, leading him to decide to go to Russia to observe a Marxist society firsthand. At least one associate who knew Oswald after his return believed his defection had a more personal, psychological basis, a view supported by Oswald’s own writings: in a November 26, 1959 letter to his brother Robert shortly after arriving in the USSR (before Soviet authorities granted him permission to stay indefinitely), Oswald wrote he had always considered the Soviet Union his own country, traveled there to find freedom, and could never be personally happy in the U.S. He also wrote he would never return to the U.S., a country he hated. To finance his trip, Oswald saved enough money from his low salary as an enlisted Marine, though there is no proof he saved the $1,500 he claimed.

Oswald’s Defection Motivations

Oswald’s motivations for defecting are further clarified by his intense hatred of the United States, most clearly expressed in his November 26, 1959 letter to his brother Robert. In the letter, he argued the U.S. capitalist government exploited workers, and used art, culture, religion, and education to suppress dissent over its unfair economic system and plans for war. He complained about U.S. segregation, unemployment, automation, and military aggression against other populations, and stated he fought for communism, called the U.S. a dying country he did not want to be part of, and said he did not defect for personal material gain, as he did not believe the USSR would offer more material comfort than the U.S. at its stage of development. He wrote he had been a pro-communist for years without ever meeting a communist in the U.S., and that his observations and Marxist studies led him to the Soviet Union, which he always considered his own. He laid out strict terms for his relationship with his brother: he would kill any American fighting for the U.S. government in wartime, had no attachments in the U.S., intended to live a normal, happy, peaceful life in the USSR for the rest of his life, and viewed his mother and brother only as examples of U.S. workers, not objects of affection.