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

Return to the United States

Return to the United States Less than 18 months after his defection to the Soviet Union, and roughly six weeks before meeting his future wife Marina Prusakova, Oswald initiated negotiations with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to arrange his return to the United States. His repatriation marked a stark reversal of his earlier public rejection of American society and formal renunciation of his U.S. citizenship, representing what the chapter describes as the utter failure of the most significant, defining act of his life up to that point.

Oswald’s Post-Return Psychological State

Oswald’s Post-Return Psychological State Marina Oswald confirmed that Lee underwent severe psychological changes immediately upon returning to the U.S., becoming a recluse, highly irritable, and explosively temperamental from late 1962 through early 1963. A comparison of his writing from his time in the Soviet Union (the coherent, descriptive manuscript The Collective) and his disjointed, hostile writing produced after his departure illustrates the profound psychological turmoil he experienced as a result of his total disillusionment with both American and Soviet society.

Oswald’s Rejection of Capitalism and Communism

Oswald’s Rejection of Capitalism and Communism After his return from the Soviet Union, Oswald articulated a total rejection of both capitalism and communism, viewing both systems as inherently unacceptable and oppressive. He wrote that no person who had lived under both systems could choose between them, as one offered systemic oppression and the other poverty, both stained by imperialistic injustice and forms of slavery. He also expressed broader hatred for American culture, traditions, and the American people at large, rather than limiting his criticism to the U.S. government, in contrast to most other American political dissidents of the era.