PBS: Frontline- 'Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?'

Source:PBS- A PBS Frontline documentary about Lee H. Oswald. The man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy, in 1963.

Source:The New Democrat

"FRONTLINE marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination with a two-hour reprise of its investigative biography of the man at the center of the political crime of the 20th century. At the heart of the assassination lies the puzzle of Lee Harvey Oswald: Was he the emotionally disturbed lone gunman of the 1964 Warren Commission report? Was he, as the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded, probably part of a conspiracy on that day in Dallas? Or was he an unwitting fall guy, the patsy, as Oswald himself claimed when he was arrested on November 22, 1963?

Twenty years ago, in the most comprehensive attempt on American television to penetrate this enduring enigma, FRONTLINE's investigative team spent more than a year reexamining Oswald's life and sifting through the psychological, political, and forensic evidence of his role in the assassination. Traveling to Japan, Russia, Europe, Mexico, Canada, and across the United States, the team uncovered new witnesses, documents, photographs, video and audio recordings of Lee Oswald, many of which had never before been made public."

From PBS

I think Robert Blakey had the best line about Lee Harvey Oswald in this film. Where he said: “Lee Oswald was a mystery inside of a riddle, wrapped around an enigma.” I think he was exactly that, which is why you can see why someone who was pretty intelligent, born growing up in a liberal democracy that America is and yet he decides to defect to Soviet Russia. The largest and worst totalitarian country the world has ever produced. Why would a mentally healthy intelligent person do that. He obviously wasn’t all there upstairs and perhaps saw things that weren’t there.

In his entire twenty-four years on Earth, he had at best a handful of friends, including his wife who was from Russia. He moves to Russia and figures out fairly quickly like any intelligent person would that hadn’t been brainwashed, that Russia and their Soviet system, might not be the best way for him to live. That even a devout Communist or Marxist needed some personal and perhaps even economic autonomy over their own affairs. And comes back to America in the late 1950s early 1960s when Fidel Castro’s Communists had just taken over Cuba. And learns about Castro’s Cuba and decided that maybe the Castro communist system was the way to go.

And this is the time that the Dwight Eisenhower Administration was cracking down on Castro’s Cuba and imposing all sorts of economic sanctions on Cuba. Move into 1961 with Jack Kennedy becoming President of the United States and the Kennedy Administration taking a tough hard-core stance against both Russia and Cuba and now Oswald knows which side he’s on. He likes Cuba’s communist system and doesn’t like America’s liberal democratic system and gets in bed with Communist Cuba. I think it's obvious why Oswald assassinated President Kennedy. The question is, was there anyone else involved in the plot to kill Kennedy. Or was Oswald by himself.

Oswald assassinated Kennedy because of the Kennedy Administration’s crackdown on Communist Cuba. Including having the Russian missiles removed from Cuba. Jack Kennedy, Liberal Democrat. Lee Oswald and Fidel Castro Marxist Communists. According to Oswald, they couldn’t live in the same world together for communism to flourish the way he believed it could. Oswald wasn’t going to assassinate Fidel or commit suicide. Which meant that according to him Jack Kennedy had to go. Now the only question is was there anyone else behind the plot.