4 – Oswald Was a Violent Character
There is little doubt that Oswald was capable of murder. Indeed, he proved this less than an hour after the assassination by supposedly killing a police officer. Oswald’s problems with violence probably stemmed from his difficult childhood. His father had died before Oswald was even born and financial problems meant he was placed in an orphanage along with his two siblings. His mother remarried in 1944 but was divorced in 1948. By the time Oswald was 10 years old, he had attended six schools and matters were not helped by the fact he had dyslexia. As a result, he performed poorly in school.
He ended up in the New York City Youth House for truancy in 1952, and according to initial assessments, Oswald was socially maladjusted, not properly cared for at home and withdrawn. He showed signs of aggressive behavior throughout his childhood; he was regularly involved in fights at school and once threatened his brother and sister-in-law with a knife.
Oswald joined the Military as soon as he was old enough (you had to be 17 years old; he made a failed attempt when he was 16). He did not mix well with the other Marines and was court-martialed twice. In the first case, he wounded himself in the left arm when playing with a gun. The second incident involved a drunken altercation with an off-duty technical sergeant.
Then there is the small matter of his alleged attempt to shoot General Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963. The previous month, Oswald purchased a 6.5mm caliber Carcano rifle and a .38 Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver via mail order using the name ‘A. Hidell’. According to the official story, Oswald used the rifle to shoot at Walker in the man’s home but struck the window frame instead, and the General only suffered minor injuries due to bullet fragments.
However, it is important to note that his involvement in the shooting only came to light because of witness testimony by his wife, Marina. She claimed that he traveled to Walker’s house by bus and left a note telling her what to do if he was caught. Oddly, there were no suspects until after the Kennedy assassination, and the note was not found until December 1963. Oswald shooting at a military figure (and anti-communist) helps paint him as a crazed would-be assassin.
However, there is clear evidence that Oswald beat his wife, Marina. She said that he was prone to bouts of ‘unreasonable rage’ and neighbors were shocked at how poorly he treated Marina. A number of people who knew Oswald testified as to his unusual personality. One friend said that “people were like cardboard” to him. Marina claimed that “Lee had no moral sense at all… only egotism, anger at others on accounts of his failures.”
Those who knew Oswald said he was aggressive, delusional, arrogant and paranoid. He believed he was an important man and his wife often scorned him for this totally unfounded belief. As a child, he expressed fantasies about power and omnipotence to a psychologist and clearly, his mind never moved on from these delusions. It is not hard to imagine that someone with such a mindset could commit such a dastardly and one would say grand crime.
Of course, conspiracy theorists wonder why Oswald denied the murder. If he were prone to such delusions of grandeur, surely the attention of the world would be, right up his alley? A man who fits Oswald’s profile would milk the audience and luxuriate in the spotlight, even with the specter of execution hanging over him.