Ernst
Titovets
“O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! Bear with
me.”
Antony’s speech on Caesar’s
funeral,
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Warren Commission’s Bias and Lee Harvey Oswald
The assassination of President Kennedy stands out as the greatest unsolved mystery of the 20th century. Kennedy belonged to a new generation of top American leaders who had to deal with the challenges coming from the Communist World. It was at the height of the Cold War between the two world nuclear superpowers,--the United States and the Soviet Union. Their combined nuclear-weaponry capabilities, if unleashed, could turn the planet Earth into a lifeless desert. Kennedy was fully aware of the danger of a nuclear confrontation in the tense and unpredictable atmosphere of the Cold War. The recent Cuban missile crisis with its thirteen days
of high suspense, while the word was balancing on the brink of a nuclear war, was a sobering experience. Kennedy fully realized the necessity of a détente. Nuclear disarmament and
peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union should become the motto of the day. That meant a departure from the long-rooted cliches about the Communist world and looking for some common human basis on which to built new rejatonahp between the two idioogical opposits. This would be a prerequisite to meaningful talks on nuclear disarmament and for establishing peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union.
It was exactly to what the US military-industrial complex and the national security state categorically objected. In their faces, Kennedy acquired powerful and resourceful enemies who would hardly stop at anything to protect their interests.
President Kennedy was killed by sniper’s shots in Dallas
on November 22, 1963 in broad daylight before a cheering crowd of people who
came to greet him. The enormity and audacity of this crime was shocking. In the
minds of Americans, there stood a question why should somebody assassinate a
young progressive American President.
Assassination of the President and the manner in which
it was executed reflected apron reputation of the government. People wanted to
know why all those responsible for safety of the President turned out so sloppy
about carrying out their duty... America waited for an official explanation.
A first official
response came in the form of an executive order issued by the new President Lyndon B. Johnson to appoint a
special commission to conduct a thorough investigation of the assassination. Handpicked
by the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and
approved by Lindon Johnson, the members of the Commission were all distinguished
persons of high national reputation capable of exercising an independent and
objective judgment.
It would have been an exaggeration to say that every
appointee was happy with his membership in the Commission. Some of the selected
ones needed coercion to obtain their consent. Johnson had to use his impressive
experience of dealing with those around him to snub the opposition and to talk
the malcontents into submission. Thus, the chief justice of the United States
Earl Warren, the chairman of the Commission, turned out to be the one to have
received a full “Johnson’s treatment” before giving up and accepting his appointment.
Among the members of the commission was Allen W.
Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Following the
failed invasion of Cuba, the “Bay of Pigs” fiasco in April 1961, Kennedy
fired Dulles.
The Commission was to conduct a full investigation of
the assassination but along the lines suggested by Lindon Johnson: the
presidential killer was to be a Lee Harvey Oswald who acted alone. It might be due
to some omission, but Oswald did not have any legal representation at the
Commission. Incidentally, neither did he receive any legal help during his
interrogation by the police following his arrest on suspicion of the
assassination of the President.
 |
The Commission Report must be the result of a most thorough
investigation. It should reveal an identity of the killer and the circumstances
leading to the assassination. No efforts will be spared to expose evil, to
allay all fears, to restore peoples’ confidence in their government and
democracy.
The fate of Oswald had been sealed well in
advance. The Commission had only to see
to it that Oswald's role in the assassination was properly documented to prove
his guilt beyond any reasonable doubt.
The Official Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of President
John Kennedy, presented to Lindon Johnson in 1964, expressed concern
about the state of Oswald's mental health that received much suggestive
verbosity. This concern seems to have been a point of departure for the
Commission when featuring Oswald’s character meant for public consumption. But
there was the rub. The Commission must have failed
to find any negative documentation on psychiatric evaluation of Oswald’s mental
health. Otherwise, this critically important medical evidence would have
certainly figured in the Commission
presentation of Oswald’s persona and given much publicity. In short, there was no
definitive evidence to suggest that he had a diagnosed mental illness.
In its evaluation of Oswald, the Commission made an assumption that Oswald was a
sociopathic loner and malcontent disinterested in social relationships. He was moved by an overriding hostility
to his environment. He was prone to antisocial behavior; he did not appear to have been able to
establish meaningful relationships with other people. He was perpetually
discontented with the world around him. Long before the assassination, he
expressed his hatred for American society and acted in protest against it.
He displayed some schizoid personality tendencies and emotional coldness.
The
Commission opinionated that Oswald's search for a perfect society of his
imagination, was doomed from the very start. He was
preoccupied with obtaining omnipotence or power to compensate for his perceived
shortcoming
He sought for himself a place in history as the "great man" who would
be recognized as having been in advance of his times. His commitment to Marxism
and communism appears to have been another important factor in his
motivation.
The Commission
must have intended to conceal behind the smokescreen of the Oswald’s implied
mental-health problems some of its deficiencies and to preclude certain awkward
questions.
The Conclusion in the Warren Commission Reports opens
up with a curious admission:
“Many
factors were undoubtedly involved in Oswald's motivation for the assassination,
and the Commission does not believe that it can ascribe to him any one motive
or group of motives.”
Nevertheless, the Warren Commission Reports presented an
official view on the assassination of President Kennedy and the role of Lee
Harvey Oswald, the main suspected assassin. The mainstream media got the clue
and, in conformity with the Commission’s opinion, and continued with its own
defamation campaign against Oswald…
It looked like the Commission was set to select only the information, unnecessary
reliable, that would feature Oswald, burdened with his mental health problems,
as a potentially criminal character with the mind of a killer. Oswald’s whole life, full of erratic
behavior, was only a prelude to that nefarious final act of his, __ the assassination of JFK. Now, due to the Commission
efforts, he stood fully “exposed”, unfortunately too late. A minor nuisance was
that Oswald had never been apprehended red-handed and holding his smoking gun.
The Commission reported
that during the interrogation following his arrest Oswald genuinely protested
his innocence: “He consistently refused to admit involvement in the
assassination of JFK or in the killing of Patrolman Tippit”. It was an
unexpected mode of behavior on the part of a psychopath who must have craved media
attention and public recognition for his deeds. There was no logic to Oswald’s madness!
Contrary to that, there was a growing suspicion about
involvement of other forces in the assassination. Martin Schotz expressed
general belief of many by saying
that ”there is no doubt that
President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas on November 22, 1963, by the US
ruling establishment because of his growing radical opposition to Cold War
policy. The vast cover-up from the absurd Warren Report to the ongoing
blanket mass media denialism all point incontrovertibly to an orchestrated
state agency”.
In
1976, the US House Senate Commission on
Assassinations agreed, in principle, with the Warren Commission’s
conclusion about Oswald’s participation in JFK assassination having only
specified that there was "high probability that two gunmen fired" and
that Kennedy "was probably assassinated as the result of a
conspiracy".
***
The mystery surrounding this greatest crime of the 20th
century attracted much public attention. The opportunistic-minded writers and
journalists saw in it an occasion to make themselves visible. They seemed not
to care much about facts. Sensation was their motto. As a result, there
followed a deluge of conspiracy theories in the form of numerous books, TV
presentations, blogs etc., construed in conformity with the official views
suggested by the Warren Commission.
Oswald’s case has never been tried in a court of law; there is no legal
decision concerning his role in the assassination of President Kennedy. Oswald
remains, at best, a suspect to the assassination. Nevertheless, it has never seemed
to be in the way of the media and conspiracy theorists to brand Oswald a
presidential killer and treat him as a mental case
***
I could not recognize in the Commissions’ presentation
of Oswald my friend Lee whom I knew here in Minsk for quite some time. Why
would these dignitaries, the members of the Commotion, along with the
conspiracy theorists, choose to so grossly distort and misrepresent the
character of Oswald to feed it next to the American people as the final truth? A
naïve rhetorical question addressed to the void!
It looked like
in the spheres of high politics the truth was a fickle commodity dependent on a
current political situation. The members
of the Commission must have certainly been aware of the real situation with
Oswald, but they were only doing their job, regardless of their personal concerns.
In that already set scenario, Oswald was made to play the role of a dispensable
pawn to cover up the real perpetrates of the JFK assassination.
To me Lee was a friendly warm character with a good
sense of humor. He might be prankish in places. He was serious when the two of us
would launch ourselves into debating the socio-political and philosophical
issues, would star comparing the exiting practices of capitalism and socialism and
discuss their acceptable and unacceptable features… We would watch opera, go to
dancing parties, visit friends, go hiking in the country, read books, reenact
plays in front of a tape recorder, and generally have a great time. …
With all that, I observed in Lee none of those warning
signs that might be associated with some or other mental problem. With a course
of psychiatry at the Medical Institute under my belt I, certainly, would not have
failed to observe at least some of the symptoms of the mental health problems
that the Warren Commission would ascribe to Oswald. There was simply none of
those. Neither, a psychiatrist
doctor Skugarevsky, M.D., Ph.D., who also met Oswald, was able to diagnose any
problems with his mental health.
An
official psychiatric evaluation of Oswald’s mental health was carried out in
Moscow at Bodkin Clinical Hospital in 1959. On October 21, Oswald faked a suicide attempt by cutting his
wrist. That was his desperate, but coldly calculated, move to delay sending him
out of Russia. His application for citizenship had been refused and he
would be sent back home that very day.
He was rushed to the
hospital where he spent a week. The first three days he stayed in a psychiatric
ward under the observation of a psychiatrist who came to the following
conclusion:
“The character of the injury is
considered light without functional disturbances. The patient is of clear mind,
no sign of psychotic phenomena”…“During his stay in the [admission] department,
his attitude was completely normal”… “His mind is clear. Perception is correct.
No hallucinations or delirium. He answers the questions [illegible] and
logically. He has a firm desire to remain in the Soviet Union. No psychotic
symptoms were observed. The patient does not present any danger for other
people.”
It looks like the Warren Commission
failed to obtain any medical evidence proving that Oswald was a
psychopath. While in the US Marines,
Oswald must have certainly passed a psychiatric evaluation. The Commission’s no
comment attitude on the matter rather indicates that there was found no problems
with Oswald’s mental health.
A man’s real
character manifests itself in critical situations that may arise suddenly. There
was one such when Lee practically snatched me out from under the wheels of a speeding
car. While crossing the street I was distracted and did not observe its
approach. It was Lee who suddenly sprang back to evade the collision pulling me
along with him. It was Lee all over.
Another
revealing episode took place during our parting. Lee took off his finger his
signet ring and gave it to me. I was deeply touched with his move. I knew it from
Lee that the ring was with him throughout his service with the US marines, and
that it was dear to him. I could not rob him of it. Having thanked him, I found
an excuse to hand it back to him. No words were needed: we both knew how we
felt.
Hardly anybody, who knew Oswald in
Minsk, would speak of him has an inaccessible remote person. To the contrary,
the majority believed he was a kind young man with good manners; “a true
gentleman”, as local girls would put it.
One of those people who had a personal grudge against
Oswald was my former fellow student from the Medical Institute Alexander
Mastikyn, whom I knew over many years.
Mastikyn spoke of Oswald as of a remote individual who would look down
on him. I think I know how this opinion came about. I rather liked Mastikyn, a
fan of Spanish, who was a nice guy but the one who would not stand on manners.
Impulsive and impatient to have his say, he might offend, without realizing it,
the feelings of the person he met for the first time. Knowing both Oswald and Mastikyn,
I saw their problem: they simply failed to reach understanding between the two
of them, in the first place. The rest was given to Mastikyn’s imagination, as I
learned from the abusive nonsense, he carried about Oswald. It occurred to me
that those negative myths about Oswald might have come exactly from those who
did not know him well enough to see the real character of the man.
The Commission launch itself into gross misrepresentation
of Oswald’s character guided by the restrictive instruction issued from Lindon Johnson.
In conformity with the task set before it, the Commission accepted only what supported
the idea of Oswald’s guilt was while the opposite was ignored. The members of
the Commission must have fully realized that suppression of truth was not the
final solution. No matter how hard they tried to conceal it, the truth would will
emerge.
Lyndon Johnson was playing for time. His immediate
task was to do all possible to allay the fears of the American people; restore
their shattered believe in government and democracy and give people some plausible
explanation of what had happened to ponder over. The international aspect had
also to be taken into account: to prevent possible world repercussions in the
aftermath of the assassination.
***
Oswald
was ever open about his commitment to Marxism. Looking at Oswald’s life one
might find an explanation to that fact. In his Manifesto
Karl Marx predicted an appearance “of an ideal highly developed technologically and a truly affluent
society of equals. A place where a citizen would contribute an undemanding
share of work towards increasing common prosperity while, at the same time,
able to follow one’s chosen pursuit and enjoy all the best that such a society
offered in terms of material and cultural wealth–from each according to their
abilities to each according to their needs.“
Oswald, a teenager from a poor
family, read Manifesto at his tender
age of fifteen. With its happy fairytale promises, it appealed to his mind and
he liked it. Moreover, historical materialism
predicted the inevitability of demise of
capitalism and the rise of socialism to
be followed next by communism. And there was the Soviet Union, a country of
socialism, to proove thr apparent correctness of the prediction. (By the way,
Oswaled did not live long enough to see the collapse of the socialist Soviet
Unuon in 1991.)
His initial facination with Marx
theory grew ever scince. He was looking forward
towards a possibility of building on Americn soil a reformed society where the
would be no poverty, no social inequality, while people would have good jobs,
dicent living… In short, he
considered Marxism as a means to remedy all those current injustices in
American society. It became his driving idea and
remained so further into his adulhood.
John Maynard Keynes, an English economist, philosopher
and one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, would share his
thoughts by saying
“Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the
historians’ opinion—how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised
so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them,
the events of history.”
It looks like Oswald was one of many who would fall
under the spell of Marxism.
Oswald loved his motherland. With him
it was not just a cheap display of patriotism but how he really felt about
America. As a researcher in political economy and sociology Oswald looked into
the systems as exsisting in both the
Soviet Russia and in the United States. He was looking for the acceptable
practices to borrow and adopt for the American Society of his drean to make it
a better place to live in for all. On the way he would regect some practices that
went against his concept. He might
express his attitude quite it imotionnaly, irrespective wether theye belonged
to Russia or the United States. But it never meant tht he hated either country
as a whole.
Unfotunatly, the Commission would
snatch out a feature, deemed negative in the eyes of Oswald, and misinterpret it as an expression of his overall hatred for the American society with an
implication that such an attitude is the manifestation of his mental problems. That was one of the questionable tricks the Commission
would employ to missrepresent Oswald’s character and distort
his image to serve the Commission’s
ends.
In the document called The Athenian System, Oswald outlined the guiding principles of his
preferred state. Based on democratic
principles, the state of his dream would incorporate the best acceptable social
practices borrowed from either Socialism or Capitalism. In his peace-loving America,
there would be no poverty, no social inequality, no race discrimination, etc…
In his evaluation of socialism and capitalism, the two
antagonistic system, he practiced a balanced approach. Oswald loved his country
and was deeply disappointed with the Soviet type socialism. However, he realized
that emotions should not stand in the way of his research.
Thus, he observed:
“To a person knowing both systems . . . there can be no mediation . . .
He must be opposed to their basic foundations. . . And yet it is immature to
take the sort of attitude which says ‘a curse on both your houses.’ Any
practical attempt at one alternative must have as its nucleus the traditional
ideological best of both systems, and yet be utterly opposed to both . . . “How
many of you tried to find out the truth behind the cold war clichés? I have
lived under both systems. I have sought the answer and, although it would be
very easy to dupe myself into believing one system is better than the other, I
know they are not.”
Communists would view Oswald with his compromise
between socialism and capitalism, the two antagonistic systems, combined with
his criticism of Marx, by a dissident. In their eyes, Oswald was a low
revisionist who dared to challenge the only true Marxist-Leninist teaching of
historical materialism. He did not deserve to call himself ether Marxist or a
communist.
Oswald himself
did identify himself only as Marxist but never as a member of the Communist
Party. The Warren Commission used Oswald’s theoretical views to antagonize him
before the American people. At the time of the Cold war, the McCarthyism, and
the dominating propaganda cliché, Oswald’s attitude was a menace to the values
of the free world.
***
In The Athenian System Oswald raises
the issue of civil rights and stresses that “…racial segregation or
discrimination be abolished by law…”.
On June 11, 1963, Kennedy delivered a speech on civil rights
(The Report to the American People on Civil Rights) where called for Congress
to take action against segregation and submit legislation to guarantee equal
access to public facilities, end segregation in education, and protect the
right to vote. He described the civil rights crisis as a moral,
constitutional, and legal issue, and urged Americans to treat each other
fairly. Martin Luther King, Jr. would refer to the speech as "one of the
most eloquent, profound, and unequivocal pleas for Justice and Freedom of all
men ever made by any President"
Kennedy federalized National Guard troops and deployed
them to the Alabama University to force its desegregation after Governor George Wallace prevented
two African American students from registering at the University. The Civil Rights
Act, initiated by John Kennedy, was signed into law already by President Lyndon Johnson and
passed by Congress on July 2, 1964.
The Athenian System asserts that “… the dissemination of war propaganda be
forbidden as well as the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.”
President Kennedy in his Commencement Address at
American University on June 10, 1963 delivered a speech outlining American
position on world peace and disarmament:
“…the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the
pursuit of war--and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But
we have no more urgent task… Every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and
wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward--by examining his own
attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the
course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.“
“…both the United States and its allies, and the
Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and
genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the
interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours…” Kennedy stressed that the arms race comes into
massive funding that should have better been used to fight poverty and to meet other
urgent social needs.
The Limited Test
Ban Treaty, signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963 was
a landmark event. The three nuclear powers: the Soviet Union, the United
Kingdom and the United States agreed to ban all nuclear tests in the
atmosphere, outer space, and under water.
It was the first arms control agreement of the Cold War that established
an important precedent for future similar acts. It was important for keeping
world peace.
Kennedy’s attitude to the issues of war and peace, the
weapons of mass destruction and his wiliness to negotiate those problems with
the communist Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, was remarkable. His will to negotiate across the ideological divide
contrary to the opinions of his hawkish military advisers, still fresh from
serving under Eisenhower and Truman, signified a start of a new realistic
political trend in this divided world living under a constant threat of nuclear
annihilation.
Martin Schotz stressed the significance the speech: "In 1963, President
John F. Kennedy made a radical turn away from war and initiated a process of
peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union. As part of this process, he made a speech at the American University,
Washington DC, in June of 1963 which was a profound attempt to educate the
people of the United States about world peace and to outline a path out of Cold
War thinking. The concepts and principles that the president articulated are as
true and valuable today as they were in 1963. At the time that this speech was
delivered it so impressed Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that he had it
reprinted throughout the Soviet Union".
Jeffrey Sachs, economist and head of
the High-Level Advisory Panel Forum to oversee progress on the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), … praised Mr. Kennedy’s legacy, noting that “he
helped to save the world from the brink of annihilation… and he spoke words
that will live for as long as humanity survives.”
On September 20, 1963, President Kennedy addressed the 18th session of the General Assembly. He frankly acknowledged that the suspicions between the
United States and the Soviet Union were at an all-time high in the aftermath of
the Cuban missile crisis when the world was on the
brink of nuclear annihilation. The crisis was eventually diffused as a result
of the talks between the leaders of the opposing superpowers. He further
stressed the necessity of finding ways of conducting meaningful dialogues to
promote the world peace.
Kennedy suggested to concentrate less on the
differences and more on the means of resolving them peacefully. He thus said:
“We have, in recent years, agreed on a limited test ban treaty, on an emergency
communications link between our capitals, on a statement of principles for
disarmament, on an increase in cultural exchange, on cooperation in outer
space, on the peaceful exploration of the Antarctic, and on tempering last
year's crisis over Cuba…We must continue to seek agreements on safeguards
against surprise attack, including observation posts at key points. We must
continue to seek agreement on further measures to curb the nuclear arms race,
by controlling the transfer of nuclear weapons, converting fissionable
materials to peaceful purposes, and banning underground testing, with adequate
inspection and enforcement.”
Kennedy’s outlook strongly resonated
with that of Oswald’s. It is curious to observe that some issues raised in The Athenian System by a grass-roots philosopher
Oswald,-- an obscure nobody, were equally important to President Kennedy. What
might have united the young President Kennedy and Oswald, an endeavoring young
American, was that they both cared about America. They were both looking forward
towards a reformed American society and did their level best to ensure prosperity
of this country. Having watched the President’s activity Oswald might have viewed
him as his powerful ally who, not only shared his ideas, but would put them into
life. What more Oswald could have wished for!
To assassinate Kennedy,
for Oswald, apart from facing the inevitable legal consequences, would have
been tantamount to committing a political suicide. By such an act, Oswald would
have undermined his own teaching and turned himself a low hypocrite.
The Warren Commission, having closely followed its predetermined
mission of painting Oswald black and presenting
as a presidential killer, ignored the facts that did not fit into the picture. This
biased approach led the Commission to absurd conclusions and reflected on its
reputation.
As a means to overcome the problems on the way of
introducing The Athenian System to
life, Oswald suggests a solution through adoption the philosophy of stoicism
with its guiding cardinal values of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance.
Oswald advised: “ only the intellectually fearless
could even be remotely attracted to our doctrine, and yet this doctrine
requires the utmost restraint, a state of being in itself majestic in
power. This is stoicism, and yet stoicism has not been affected for
many years, and never for such a purpose.”
A
non-violent approach was a corner stone in the whole of Oswald’s political
activity. He kept to this principle at his every step. He realized that putting his ideas into life needed much of down-to-earth
organizational work, persuasion and patient dissemination of his ideas.
On July 27,
1963, Oswald, as an invited speaker, delivered a talk on Contemporary Russia and the Practice of Communism before the
students and faculty staff at the Jesuit House of Studies at Spring Hill
College. He was a success there. Even the professionals in attendance believed
that he possessed a college education.
To increase his visibility Oswald ventured out into
the streets handing out the FPCC literature to passers-by there. His activity
did not pass unnoticed. The arose a street altercation involving him and some
anti-Castro Cubans headed by anti-Castro activist Carlos Bringuier, the New
Orleans representative of the Directorio Revolucionario
Estudiantil. Both Oswald and
Bringuier were arrested for disturbing the peace. Oswald wanted his arrest to
be presented in a political light. While in police custody, he asked for an
interview with an FBI agent to whom he talked about his activity with the FPCC.
This is how Oswald gives account of his new experience:
“I am experienced in Street agitation, having done it
in New Orleans in connection with the FPCC. On Aug. 9, 1963, I was accosted by
three anti-Castro Cubans and was arrested for ‘causing a disturbance’. I was
interrogated by intelligence section of New Orleans Police Dept. and held
overnight, being bailed out the next morning by relatives. I subsequently was
fined $10. Charges against the three Cubans were dropped by the judge. On Aug
16, I organized a four man FPCC demonstration in front of the International
trade mart in New Orleans. This demonstration was filmed by WDSU TV and shown
on the 6:00 news.”
Oswald’s recognition by the local media followed. He
was invited to make radio appearances, expressing his ideas as a secretary of
the New Orleans chapter of the FPCC. His first appearance was on the program
Latin Listening Post. His second appearance was in a live radio debate against
two opponents of the FPCC and Fidel Castro. Oswald welcomed the challenge of a
public debate and looked forward to it as a means of getting publicity to his
cause. He made clear his attitude to Cuba by stating: “The principles of the
Fair Play for Cuba consist of restoration of diplomatic, trade, and tourist
relations with Cuba. That is one of our main points. We are for that.”
The above was quite a piece of oratory coming from a
former high school dropout and delivered in a sure and relaxed manner.
According to Stuckey, a participant of the debate, Oswald "appeared to be
a very logical, intelligent fellow." Oswald firmly stood his ground against
many challenges in that debate. He kept his mind open to his opponent’s
argument. Although he held opposing views, nobody saw in him a political zealot
with hypermaniac tendencies, but rather a reasonable, accessible and
open-minded man. Oswald came through with flying colors having earned himself
reputation of a capable agitator.
Oswald’s participation in the program Conversation Carte Blanche, a live radio
debate on August 31, 1963, turned out to be his last public appearance as a
political activist. On November 24, he was assassinated in Dallas while in
police custody by Jack Rubi, who was a suspicious character with mafia
connections.
McMillan gave the following about
Oswald in 1978:
“He [Oswald] had not been to college, nor had he been part of any
political or intellectual milieu in the United States. In Russia he had been
cut off completely from such currents as might be stirring young people back
home. Yet the political solution he reached, from his own experience, from
reading, from talking to his friends in Minsk, was familiar to the solution
proposed by a generation of American activists in the later 1960s:
participatory democracy at community level. Oswald was a pioneer; if you will,
or a lonely American anti-hero a few years ahead of his time.”
George de Mohrenschildt reminisced
about Lee Oswald:
“Only someone who never met Lee could have
called call him insignificant. ‘There is something outstanding about this man,’
I told myself. One can detect immediately a very sincere and forward man.
Although he was average looking, with no outstanding features and of medium
size, he showed in his conversation all the elements of concentration, thought,
and toughness. This man had the courage of his convictions and did not hesitate
to discuss them. …Lee’s English was perfect, refined, and rather literary deprived
of any Southern accent. He sounded like a very educated American of
indeterminate background. ….it amazed me that he read such difficult writers
like Gorky, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy, and Turgenev in Russian….”
George de Mohrenschildt
gave the House Select Committee on Assassinations a copy of a draft manuscript
called I Am a Patsy! I Am a Patsy! In the manuscript, he said that
his dear dead friend
Oswald was rarely ever violent and would not have been the sort of person to
have killed Kennedy.
A community of independent researchers started on
their own investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy. Their combined
result turned out devastating to the Warren Commission with its many
deficiencies and misinterpretations of facts. Contrary to the official view,
Oswald stood innocent of any crimes implied by the Commission.
***
Lee Harvey Oswald, a grassroots philosopher, driven by
his idealism, was looking towards a reformed America devoid of her inherent
social ills like poverty, social inequality, race discrimination, etc. Oswald would dedicate his life to
realization of his dream. To this end, he learned Russian language, went to the Soviet Union to get his firsthand
experience of Socialism, studied Greek philosophers, closely watched modern sociopolitical trends. He committed his
experience to paper having written: “The
Collective—Life of a Russian Worker”, “Speech
Notes on the Far Right”, “On
Communism and Capitalism”, “The
Communist Party of the United States”, “The
Historic Diary”. Oswald, as an invited speaker, delivered a talk on “Contemporary Russia and the Practice of
Communism” before the students and faculty staff at the Jesuit House of
Studies at Spring Hill College. He organized a New Orleans chapter ”FPCC (Fair
Play for Cuba Committee)”, took part in radio debates on Cuba where he defended
the rights of Cubans on independence and their own choice of social
development.
A citizen of the
democratic United State of America, Oswald believed in his constitutional right
to free speech and free expression of his ideas. He sincerely meant good for
his people. A young aspiring American, Oswald became visible and,
unfortunately, was made a dispensable pawn in a big political game played by
some unscrupulous top governmental figures, which resulted in his tragic premature
death. The Warren Commotion, acting on instructions from the top, inverted his
outlook and intentions, having featured Oswald as a psychopath, to wrongly accuse
him next of killing Kennedy.
As Martin Schotz
predicted: “The fact that an elected US President was brutally murdered in
broad daylight simply because he wanted to make peace with the Soviet Union and
banish the horror of war that shows how deep and nefarious is the Cold War
logic of the American ruling establishment. Now, as it was then…The murder of
JFK is not some distant event of wicked intrigue. It is a crime that haunts the
US and the rest of the world to this day. Until the United States deals with
that crime, it will never be at peace.”
***
References
The Official
Warren Commission Report on Assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report
Oswald: Russian Episode by Ernst Titovets (ISBN 9798783601071, ISBN
978-985-90215-3-4, ISBN 9798570499225) https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9798570499225/Oswald-Russian-Episode-Titovets-Ernst/plp
“JFK” film by Oliver Stone.1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_(film)
Schotz, E. Martin. History Will Not Absolve Us: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the
Murder of President Kennedy. Publisher: Kurtz, Ulmer & Delucia.1996. https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Will-Not-Absolve-Orwellian/dp/0965381404ersion
Why People Think The Government Killed JFK? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r5eKpptixo&ab_channel=JohnnyHarris
Oswald,L.H.(manuscripts): “The
Collective—Life of a Russian Worker” , “Speech
Notes on the Far Right” , “On
Communism and Capitalism” , “The
Communist Party of the United States”,
“The Athenian System”, “The Historic Diary”. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-7.html
The Limited
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/limited-ban
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_mg5-KCjRU&ab_channel=DavidVonPein%27sJFKChannel
President John
F. Kennedy delivered a speech at the 18th
session of the General Assembly (20 September 1963). https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/united-nations-19630920
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