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An investigative biography exploring the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and whether he was the man responsible for the Kennedy assassination.

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00:00:00Dallas Police Headquarters, November 22nd, 1963.
00:00:30Tonight on Frontline, lone gunman, conspirator, or patsy?
00:00:41Who was Lee Harvey Oswald?
00:00:44He was living a secret life.
00:00:49Oswald looked very suspicious to the KGB.
00:00:52He was in control of the FBI then.
00:00:55They didn't know for sure if he was an agent or not.
00:00:57No, sir, I am not a communist.
00:01:00He lives in this fantasy about being a great man.
00:01:03He thought capitalism was wrong and it needed to be overthrown.
00:01:07Here comes Oswald down the hall again.
00:01:08No one saw him actually pull the trigger on the president.
00:01:11I am phatically deny these charges.
00:01:13It was terribly important that he be silenced.
00:01:17Tonight, a Frontline special report on the man at the center of the crime of the century.
00:01:23The mysterious life of Lee Harvey Oswald.
00:01:27Funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
00:01:37and by annual financial support from viewers like you.
00:01:42This is Frontline.
00:01:54At the edge of downtown Dallas, the Union Pacific Railroad crosses a triple underpass
00:02:04near a place called Dealey Plaza.
00:02:07On the north side of Dealey Plaza are the Dallas County Jail, the courthouse, and the Texas School Book Depository.
00:02:29In Dealey Plaza, it is always November 22nd, 1963.
00:02:38I noticed that there are a number of hidden zippers in these jackets.
00:02:46Now, what are these for, Betsy?
00:02:47They can't be for...
00:02:48Is it for mad money?
00:02:50Well, it depends on where they're placed.
00:02:52They can be wherever you want them.
00:02:55Uh-huh.
00:02:55Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
00:02:59You'll excuse the fact that I'm out of breath, but about 10 or 15 minutes ago,
00:03:03a tragic thing, from all indications, at this point has happened in the city of Dallas.
00:03:07Let me quote to you this.
00:03:09And you'll excuse me if I am out of breath.
00:03:11A bulletin.
00:03:12This is from the United Press from Dallas.
00:03:14President Kennedy and Governor John Connolly have been cut down by assassins' bullets in downtown Dallas.
00:03:19They were riding in an open automobile when the shots were fired.
00:03:21The Texas School Book Depository headed for the triple underpass.
00:03:24There were three loud, reverberating...
00:03:26The shots were fired.
00:03:27He happened to look up at about the fifth or sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository.
00:03:31He said he saw the rifle being pulled back in.
00:03:33Governor Kennedy...
00:03:34Uh, Bert...
00:03:37Let's see.
00:03:38Let's get reorganized here.
00:03:40Grab that cable over there.
00:03:41We're on the air, Bert, and let's talk to you.
00:03:43The officials were en route as fast as they could get there to Parkland Hospital.
00:03:47This is what I've been told now, Jay.
00:03:49President was shot in the head.
00:03:50Connolly was shot in the chest.
00:03:52Both of them are still alive when I left the hospital.
00:03:54Do you have some film?
00:03:55And, uh, yeah, I have film at the hospital.
00:03:56Will you get the film and see if you can get it developed real quick?
00:03:58Yeah, I will.
00:03:59A priest has been ordered.
00:04:00Emergency supplies of blood also being rushed to the hospital.
00:04:03Just a moment.
00:04:04Just a moment.
00:04:05We have a bulletin.
00:04:06The gentleman just walked in our studio that I am meeting for the first time as well as you.
00:04:10This is WFAA TV in Dallas, Texas.
00:04:12May I have your name, please, sir?
00:04:13My name is Abraham Zapruder.
00:04:16Mr. Zapruder?
00:04:17Zapruder, yes, sir.
00:04:17Zapruder.
00:04:18And would you tell us your story, please, sir?
00:04:19I got out about a half hour earlier and get to a good spot to shoot some pictures.
00:04:29As the president was coming down from Houston Street and making his turn, it was about halfway
00:04:35down there.
00:04:36I had a shot.
00:04:38And he slumped to the side like this.
00:04:40Then I had another shot or two.
00:04:43I couldn't say it was one or two.
00:04:45And I saw his head practically open up, all blood and everything.
00:04:50And I kept on shooting.
00:04:51That's about all.
00:04:52I'm just sick again.
00:04:53I think that pretty well expresses the entire feelings of the whole world.
00:04:58Less than one hour after the president was pronounced dead, police had arrested a suspect.
00:05:03Lee Harvey Oswald was a 24-year-old former Marine who had once defected to the Soviet Union.
00:05:10Only weeks earlier, he had visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies.
00:05:14The original complaint that the police department filed on Lee Oswald around midnight on the 22nd of November
00:05:21said that Lee Oswald did in furtherance of an international communist conspiracy assassinate
00:05:27President John F. Kennedy.
00:05:29That night, as Air Force One brought John Kennedy's body home to Washington, the new president
00:05:37was afraid that Oswald's apparent communist connections could spark an international crisis.
00:05:43President Johnson ordered the district attorney to drop any reference to a communist conspiracy.
00:05:48This is a sad time for all people.
00:05:53Johnson was fearful that if this had gotten out, it would flame public opinion and could
00:05:59possibly lead to World War III.
00:06:02This is exactly how World War I began, with an assassination.
00:06:08Imagine the new president's predicament.
00:06:10This was just a year after the Cuban missile crisis when the world came to the brink of nuclear war.
00:06:15What does he do?
00:06:16He calls in Chief Justice Earl Warren, tells him that he must, as Chief Justice, chair the Commission of Investigation.
00:06:23The Commission of Investigation goes ahead and effectively puts the lid on the whole thing.
00:06:31And that meant hiding things in order to keep the peace.
00:06:36Nine months later, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had acted alone.
00:06:42But for 30 years, its findings have been under attack.
00:06:44In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassination said there was a probable conspiracy to kill the president.
00:06:53And thousands of books and films have accused the mafia, right-wing oilmen, anti-Castro Cubans, Fidel Castro, the Pentagon, the KGB, the FBI, the CIA, and even Lyndon Johnson of murdering John Kennedy.
00:07:09Increasingly, in the last 30 years, Oswald has become a footnote to the story.
00:07:15He is lost under a deluge of details about trajectory angles and ballistics and forensics and possible plotters.
00:07:22If we'd have no understanding in this sterile presentation of him, of his real character, and what motivates him.
00:07:28I'm getting a patsy.
00:07:31Lone gunman, conspirator, or patsy?
00:07:33Was Oswald controlled by private political passion, or by his apparent connections to virtually every group with a strong motive to kill President Kennedy?
00:07:44Any effort to explain what happened in Dallas must explain Lee Harvey Oswald.
00:07:50And Lee Harvey Oswald is a mystery, wrapped up in an enigma, hidden behind a riddle.
00:07:56He is not, I put it in simple words, an easy man to explain.
00:08:01Thirty years later, the many mysteries of Oswald's short life are still at the heart of the enduring question.
00:08:10Who killed John Kennedy?
00:08:12Who killed John Kennedy?
00:08:12He was born October 19th.
00:08:42October 18th, 1939, in New Orleans, the son of Marguerite and Robert Oswald.
00:08:47But his father died suddenly of a heart attack two months before Lee's birth.
00:08:55Marguerite Oswald was left alone to care for Lee and his two older brothers, his half-brother John and Robert.
00:09:01You go back to the death of the dad two months before he was born, that's a tremendous impact.
00:09:10What Lee missed from his childhood, in comparison to me, was the whole family being together all the time.
00:09:17The continuity there, the stability, the lack of stability, I think, entered into that to a large degree.
00:09:33Marguerite sent the older boys into an orphanage and later to boarding school.
00:09:38Lee stayed at home with his mother.
00:09:39I don't know at what age mother verbalized to Lee the effect that she felt he was a burden to her.
00:09:49Certainly by age three, he had the sense that, you know, we were a burden.
00:09:55When he was three years old, Lee, too, was sent to the orphanage.
00:09:58Like Lee, Marguerite herself grew up without a parent.
00:10:05It was their common bond.
00:10:07She had certain characteristics that were so much like Lee.
00:10:13The time and circumstances always seemed to be against her.
00:10:16The world over her living, she wanted to be somebody.
00:10:19I think this was passed on to Lee.
00:10:21Later, Lee summed up his own childhood.
00:10:23The son of an insurance salesman, whose early death that left a far mean streak of independence, brought on by neglect.
00:10:41At 12, Lee and his mother moved to New York.
00:10:45They lived in a small apartment in the Bronx.
00:10:48While Marguerite worked days in a dress shop, Lee spent his time alone.
00:10:53He went often to the Bronx Zoo.
00:11:01The zoo had become a haven for Lee, who seemed to prefer the company of animals to that of people.
00:11:10He was enrolled in the eighth grade, but had not set foot in school for almost two months.
00:11:19On March 11, he was noticed at the zoo by a truant officer and taken to court.
00:11:23He was sent to a youth detention center for three weeks of psychiatric evaluation.
00:11:36His social worker was Evelyn Siegel.
00:11:38I remember him vividly.
00:11:41He was a skinny, unprepossessing kid.
00:11:45He was not a mentally disturbed kid.
00:11:48As a matter of fact, his IQ was better than average.
00:11:52He was just emotionally frozen.
00:11:54He was a kid who had never developed a really trusting relationship with anybody.
00:11:59Lee thought he had better ways to spend his time than in school.
00:12:10He spent his days at the public library and museums.
00:12:14And endless hours learning the New York City subway system.
00:12:17From what I could garner, he really interacted with no one.
00:12:28He made his own meals.
00:12:29His mother left at around seven and came home at seven.
00:12:33And he shifted for himself.
00:12:35You got the feeling of a kid.
00:12:37Nobody gave a darn about him.
00:12:39He was just floating along in the world with no emotional resources at all.
00:12:46This is the story, the fantastically true story, of Herbert A. Philbrick,
00:13:01who for nine frightening years did lead three lives.
00:13:04Average citizen, high-level member of the Communist Party,
00:13:07and counter-spy for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
00:13:10What's the matter, comrade?
00:13:11Trouble?
00:13:12Got a cigarette, Herb?
00:13:13Yeah.
00:13:13His favorite TV program was a saga of political intrigue and espionage.
00:13:19I led three lives.
00:13:21He became really engrossed in that particular television show.
00:13:24I think he just liked the atmosphere that you could do anything that you wanted to do
00:13:30that you could imagine you could do.
00:13:32Herbert A. Philbrick, successful communist.
00:13:36His party's pride.
00:13:38He'll lie for the party, spy for the party,
00:13:40report his best friend of the party as a deviationist liberal.
00:13:50At the same time, very real events were making a lasting impression on Lee.
00:13:55In 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death as Russian spies.
00:14:01Journalist Edward J. Epstein traces Lee's political awakening to this moment.
00:14:05The first instance we have of Lee Harvey Oswald's politics is that he picked up a leaflet in New York City
00:14:15about the coming execution of the Rosenbergs.
00:14:19And as he reads this, it begins to show him that there's a way of finding himself by opposing the established order.
00:14:29I was looking for a key to my environment, and then I discovered socialist literature.
00:14:37I had to dig for my books in the back, dusty shelves of libraries.
00:14:48When the truant officer came after Lee again, he and his mother fled New York.
00:14:53They moved back to New Orleans, to the edge of the French Quarter.
00:15:05But their home was far from the tourists on Bourbon Street.
00:15:12That street at that time was one den of iniquity after another.
00:15:17Strip joints, gambling joints.
00:15:18It was a place where every hustler and pimp in New Orleans applied his trade.
00:15:25Oswald grew up in a community and environment of crime and corruption.
00:15:31Dear sirs, I am 16 years of age and would like more information about your youth league.
00:15:36His interest in socialism may have diverted Lee from the vices of his neighborhood.
00:15:41He tried to join the Socialist Party's youth league, but there was no chapter in New Orleans.
00:15:45I am very interested in your YPSL.
00:15:48Sincerely, Lee Oswald.
00:15:55Instead, he joined the Civil Air Patrol, a youth auxiliary of the Air Force.
00:16:00He tried to lie his way into the Marines, but he was rejected as too young.
00:16:08Just after his 17th birthday, Oswald enlisted.
00:16:12It was 1956, the height of the Cold War.
00:16:21And the young Socialist had become an instrument of U.S. foreign policy.
00:16:25To him, the Marine Corps was a vehicle for escaping from all the things that were holding him down in his life.
00:16:42Look what he got as a Marine.
00:16:44He learned to use a rifle.
00:16:46He learned to travel.
00:16:47And he got away from his family.
00:16:49Oswald received extensive training in marksmanship.
00:17:07Fellow Marines remember him as a poor shot, but the record indicates otherwise.
00:17:12He shoots on a rifle range 212, which means he qualifies for the second highest position in the Marine Corps, that of a sharpshooter.
00:17:26Near the end of his stay in the Marines in 1959, he went back to requalify himself in the range, still shot 191, and still qualified as a marksman.
00:17:35The sergeant in charge of his training called Oswald a slightly better than average shot for a Marine, excellent by civilian standards.
00:17:52Oswald requested to be a radar controller.
00:17:55He received training and then shipped out for what would be his first great foreign adventure, a posting at Atsugi, Japan.
00:18:02What he arrived at, at Atsugi Air Base in Japan, wasn't simply an Air Force defense base.
00:18:12It was a CIA base.
00:18:14And the CIA program taking place at that base involved one of America's most secret and important reconnaissance missions, the spy plane, which became famous as the U-2 plane.
00:18:32The U-2's mission was to invade Russian airspace and photograph Soviet strategic sites.
00:18:40Its flying altitude was a closely guarded secret, but one that radar operators like Oswald and his colleague Dan Powers could have learned.
00:18:48On occasion, we would get aircraft calling into the bubble at Atsugi that would ask us for the winds aloft at 70 and sometimes 100,000 feet.
00:19:00And we just didn't realize there were aircraft at that particular point in time that could fly that high.
00:19:08Oswald's posting at Atsugi and his later defection to Russia have fueled speculation that Oswald was recruited as a spy.
00:19:15One of the things that I found out from questioning Oswald's associates in the Marine Corps was that he wasn't living the life of an ordinary Marine.
00:19:31He was living what you might call a secret life.
00:19:34He was moving to the type of bars and nightclubs, which weren't for the purpose of socializing, but were for the purpose of making contacts.
00:19:43One day, a fellow Marine noticed Oswald heading off-limits with a Eurasian woman he assumed was a prostitute.
00:19:52There's a small business section across one bridge that was called Skivvy Bridge.
00:19:57We were allowed as Americans to go into that sector of the residential portion of Iwakuni.
00:20:02The other sector was considered to be communist, Japanese communists.
00:20:07And it was an off-limits area that we were not allowed to go in as Americans.
00:20:13The first time I saw Oswald with the round eye, she was a beautiful white Russian.
00:20:19He was walking with her.
00:20:20They were going across the bridge into the section that was off-limits to us.
00:20:26Lee ventured off base often and later claimed he met with radical Japanese students.
00:20:31But U.S. intelligence says he never contacted the Soviets directly.
00:20:39And there's no hard evidence he was part of an American spy mission.
00:20:43So what was Oswald up to?
00:20:46I think from the entire pattern of Oswald's life, he was trying to find people who could use the information he was acquiring in the Marines,
00:20:56which he thought was valuable, whether or not it was.
00:20:58He was trying to find another way of moving his life a step ahead.
00:21:05And he saw these Japanese contacts as he later saw contacts elsewhere as a way of getting him to the next stage of his journey.
00:21:18But Oswald's Marine career kept running into roadblocks.
00:21:24He found himself increasingly at odds with his superiors.
00:21:28Oswald enters the Marines with such high hopes, but it quickly unravels for him.
00:21:33Just a year after entering, he wounds himself with a pistol that he's not supposed to have.
00:21:38And as a result, he's court-martialed.
00:21:40And then he's put on KP duty for a very long stint.
00:21:42He's very dissatisfied with it.
00:21:44Eventually, he attacks the sergeant that he believes is responsible for his long KP service in a bar and challenges him to a fight.
00:21:52Then he's court-martialed a second time.
00:21:54This time he's put into the brig.
00:21:56And this has an effect on him.
00:21:57The brig is very hard.
00:21:58And when he comes out, he's now an embittered person.
00:22:01Oswald started learning Russian.
00:22:06And he began openly espousing the virtues of Marxism to fellow Marines.
00:22:10If he complained about, oh, we've got to go on a march this morning, or we've got to do this this morning, scrub barracks, whatever we had to do.
00:22:19If you were complaining about it, he would say that that was the capitalist form of government making us do these things.
00:22:27Karl Marx and his form of government would alleviate that.
00:22:29Questions have been raised about why Oswald was never disciplined for such un-American activity.
00:22:38This man was a man with a security clearance.
00:22:40This man was a man who had access to highly sophisticated materials.
00:22:45And he is now showing an entrance in Marxism.
00:22:50In retrospect, I think that what this indicates, and this was the judgment of the committee,
00:22:55is that our own people aren't as efficient as we might think they ought to be.
00:22:58That more often than not, it's keystone cops, and not stainless steel efficiency.
00:23:04And that we drew, ultimately, no sinister inference from our own people's failure to take action, or even to investigate Oswald in any way.
00:23:12Sir! Get out on deck!
00:23:14During the end of his duty in California, Oswald carefully prepared his next move.
00:23:25First, he applied to a college in Switzerland.
00:23:30Then he applied for an early discharge.
00:23:32The day after it was approved, he applied for a passport.
00:23:40He secretly planned to go to Russia.
00:23:42Oswald didn't defect to the Soviet Union on a sun impulse.
00:23:49We know that.
00:23:50This was well planned.
00:23:51And the question is, could Oswald have planned this alone, or did he have help?
00:24:00Oswald's route to Moscow was complicated.
00:24:02He journeyed from New Orleans to Europe, where he moved quickly from France to England, then to Finland.
00:24:13Helsinki was one of the few cities in the world where an American could get a visa to Russia on short notice.
00:24:20From there, Oswald boarded a train for Moscow.
00:24:22Where did he get the money for his extensive travels?
00:24:36He later claimed he had saved over a thousand dollars while in the Marines.
00:24:41But records show he had only two hundred dollars in his bank account.
00:24:52As a deluxe class tourist, Oswald received the personal attention of his own in-tourist guide, Rima Shirokova.
00:25:02I took him for an excursion around the city.
00:25:07We went to the most important sites of Moscow, such as Stratikov Art Gallery, the cathedrals, and the treasury of the Moscow Kremlin.
00:25:22But Oswald seemed uninterested in the sites.
00:25:32On their second day, he told Rima his real reason for coming.
00:25:36He wanted to defect.
00:25:38I was shocked.
00:25:40I asked his motives, his reasons, and he said that it was his political views.
00:25:47He said that he was a communist.
00:25:51He doesn't approve of the American way of life.
00:25:55With Rima as their go-between, the KGB considered Oswald's request.
00:26:06The former head of the KGB who handled Oswald's case is Vladimir Samichastny.
00:26:11It's only now that men like Samichastny can tell the KGB's version of events.
00:26:20When he came to us and began to ask for asylum here so insistently, the first reaction was to refuse and not to give him permission to stay in the Soviet Union, let alone to give him political asylum.
00:26:35Later, Oswald recorded his reaction in what he called his historic diary.
00:26:41I must leave country tonight at 8 p.m. as visa expires.
00:26:48I am shocked.
00:26:49My dreams.
00:26:51I retire to my room.
00:26:55That same afternoon, we were to meet downstairs as usual.
00:27:02Some time passed, but he didn't appear.
00:27:05Certainly, I was nervous and wanted to know what had happened.
00:27:12So that's why I rushed upstairs.
00:27:18I knocked at the door, but there was no answer.
00:27:22Hotel security men finally broke down the door.
00:27:25We all tumbled in the room, and behind the shoulders of the two men, I saw Lee in the bath.
00:27:40It was water there, and it was a radish, so it was blood.
00:27:46Lee cut his wrist.
00:27:48Oswald was rushed unconscious to Botkin Hospital.
00:28:00His wounds were quickly stitched up and bandaged.
00:28:03He was then transferred to the psychiatric ward.
00:28:07Dr. Lydia Michaleno was on duty when Lee arrived.
00:28:10It was my impression immediately that this was a show suicide attempt,
00:28:20since he was refused political asylum, which he had been demanding.
00:28:25And he tried to obtain permission to stay in the Soviet Union by inflicting the wounds.
00:28:34After seven days, Oswald was ready to be discharged.
00:28:40That day, Dr. Michaleno got a call from the KGB asking her to hold him until they arrived.
00:28:49Sometime later, about 40 minutes, a large black car arrived, and three young men came in.
00:28:57They confiscated his medical history, his discharge paper, and all his documents.
00:29:04And then they told me they were taking him away.
00:29:10For 30 years, the KGB maintained that it never interrogated Oswald about his military service.
00:29:21Until now.
00:29:23There were conversations, but this was such outdated information.
00:29:29The kind we say the sparrows have already chirped to the entire world.
00:29:33And now Oswald tells us about it.
00:29:37Not the kind of information that would interest such a high-level organization like ours.
00:29:45Still, Samichasny conceded the KGB considered recruiting Oswald as a spy.
00:29:51Contra-intelligence and intelligence, they both looked him over to see what he was capable of.
00:30:01But unfortunately, neither could find any ability at all.
00:30:09Oswald was moved to a hotel while the KGB considered his fate.
00:30:13After three days, he decided he'd had enough.
00:30:19It seems like three years.
00:30:21I must have some sort of a showdown.
00:30:24On October 31st, he went to the U.S. Embassy and demanded to see the consul, Richard Snyder.
00:30:34They put a piece of paper on my desk.
00:30:37It said, I've come to revoke my American citizenship.
00:30:41I have applied for Soviet citizenship.
00:30:45He also volunteered the information that he'd been, while in the Marines, he'd been a radar technician.
00:30:50And that, when he became a Soviet citizen, he intended to offer to the Soviet authorities everything that he had learned.
00:31:02Snyder reported Oswald's threat to Washington, where the Marines began proceedings for an undesirable discharge and changed their radar codes.
00:31:14The embassy also suggested to reporter Priscilla McMillan that she should try to interview Oswald.
00:31:20He spoke with a quiet manner and a little southern accent.
00:31:29He spoke so quietly that it wasn't until later, when I looked at my own notes, that I realized that the content of them was very angry.
00:31:39He said he did not want to live like a worker under capitalism, the way that his mother did, and be exploited all his life.
00:31:50And therefore, he wanted to come live in the Soviet Union.
00:31:55He seemed lonely.
00:31:57He seemed very, very young.
00:31:59He seemed lost in a situation that was beyond him.
00:32:03I was delivering milk on a milk route in Fort Worth, and a taxi cab pulled up, and a reporter gets out and asks me if I'm Robert Oswald, you know.
00:32:16And I said, yes.
00:32:17And he's showing me an AP or UPI wire that's saying that Lee Harvey Oswald was deflecting and defecting in Moscow, trying to turn it into citizenship.
00:32:28And I just couldn't believe it.
00:32:31I mean, I was floored.
00:32:32It was a complete surprise.
00:32:37Meanwhile, word of Oswald's suicide attempt had reached the top levels of the Kremlin.
00:32:42Yekaterina Fretseva, seated just behind Nikita Khrushchev, was the highest-ranking woman in the Politburo.
00:32:56Fretseva became Oswald's champion and demanded the KGB reverse its decision and allow him to stay.
00:33:02If he's begging to hell with him, let him stay here in order to avoid an international scandal, on account of such a nobody.
00:33:16We were not convinced this would be his last act of blackmail.
00:33:22We expected he would try again, which would be difficult to deal with in Moscow.
00:33:27So we decided to send him to Minsk.
00:33:32His ordeal in Moscow over, Oswald now had the chance to become what he had always wanted to be, a model young Marxist.
00:33:51Soviet authorities set him up in style.
00:33:54Despite a chronic housing shortage, he was given a choice apartment, a luxury unheard of for a young bachelor.
00:34:00He found himself, according to his own reporting of it in his diary, living a life that was much more luxurious and much more respectable than the life he had lived anywhere else in his young life.
00:34:16He had the possibility of being respected.
00:34:19He had a good job.
00:34:21He was given a very good position.
00:34:23Oswald built prototypes of new models at the Minsk radio and television factory.
00:34:31As in the Marines, he got off to a good start.
00:34:37Leonid Zagoyko worked with Oswald.
00:34:39When he started work after his training, he joined a team.
00:34:46He fit in well and worked well, too.
00:34:53Thinking that Lee sounded like a Chinese name, his co-workers dubbed him Alec.
00:34:59But he remained a mystery to them.
00:35:01May Day came as my first holiday.
00:35:12After a spectacular military parade, all workers parade past the reviewing stand, waving flags and pictures of Mr. Khrushchev, etc.
00:35:21I follow the American custom of marking a holiday by sleeping in in the morning.
00:35:32Vachislav Nikonov was an aide to the first KGB chief after communism.
00:35:37He reviewed the entire Oswald file.
00:35:40Oswald looked very suspicious to the KGB and to the factory authorities because he was not interested in Marxism.
00:35:50He didn't attend any Marxist classes.
00:35:55He didn't read any Marxist literature.
00:35:58And he didn't attend even the labor union meetings.
00:36:04So the question was, what was he doing there?
00:36:11The KGB kept Oswald under constant surveillance and co-opted most of the people he met,
00:36:18including his best friend, Pavel Golovachev.
00:36:21I was met by one of their people, and it was like this.
00:36:34He said, Eurocountry asks you, Eurocountry demands.
00:36:39There is a foreigner here.
00:36:41It's in the country's interest for security and so on.
00:36:45That was early on, but I told him about it a year later.
00:36:51I had three or four meetings with the KGB people.
00:36:56They gave me little assignments to provoke him, saying, try this out on him and see what he says.
00:37:01What is he saying?
00:37:06When Oswald asked some fellow workers if he could go hunting with them, the KGB became alarmed.
00:37:12The fear of KGB was that Oswald would take a gun, go to the forest, and approach some military installations,
00:37:22secret military installations near Minsk.
00:37:25And so this company of people, when hunting, was also joined by some KGB agents.
00:37:35Oswald's co-worker Leonid Zagoyko was also along that day.
00:37:38We set off to hunt.
00:37:46There were five of us.
00:37:48I was last.
00:37:55Suddenly, a shot rang out.
00:37:58I asked Oswald, why are you shooting?
00:38:00He said, look, look, a hare.
00:38:04The others fired too, but missed.
00:38:06And then we all stopped and discussed why he had shot too soon.
00:38:13He explained that the hare had jumped from under his feet,
00:38:16and he was startled, and so he shot.
00:38:19I said, you could have killed me.
00:38:22Your gun was pointing right at me.
00:38:24We didn't take him again, because the head of our group had been warned not to.
00:38:43Shunned by his co-workers, Oswald befriended some college students interested in learning English.
00:38:48He became fast friends with Ernst Titovitz.
00:38:53I rather gave him all the credit of him being a very highly educated and cultured man when I first met him.
00:39:03Well, he was an American, in the United States, the country of high reputation here in this country.
00:39:10Titovitz made tape recordings of Oswald to study his southern accent.
00:39:20The door of Henry's lunch counter opened, and two men came in.
00:39:24They sat down at the counter.
00:39:26What's yours, George Axum?
00:39:28I gave him rather chance pieces to read.
00:39:32And those happened to be, well, Shakespeare from Othello, Ernest Hemingway.
00:39:39The two men at the counter read the menu.
00:39:41From the other end of the counter, Nick Adams watched...
00:39:44Titovitz also interviewed Oswald in mock dialogues.
00:39:48This is the first time the tapes have been heard publicly.
00:39:52In one interview, Lee played the part of a killer.
00:39:54Will you tell us about your last killer, killing?
00:39:58Well, it was a young girl under a bridge.
00:40:01She came in carrying a loaf of bread, and I just cut her throat from ear to ear.
00:40:05What for?
00:40:06Well, I wanted the loaf of bread, of course.
00:40:08Well, okay.
00:40:09And what do you think, what do you take to be the most, your most famous killing in your life?
00:40:17Well, the time I killed eight men on the bowery sidewalk there,
00:40:21they were just standing there loafing around.
00:40:23I didn't like their faces, so I just shot them all with a machine gun.
00:40:27It was very, very famous.
00:40:29All the newspapers carried the story.
00:40:32We're just having a great time, and actually we're laughing our heads off.
00:40:39Hi, John, it's Gerald Kennedy.
00:40:41You solemnly swear.
00:40:42And you will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.
00:40:45And I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.
00:40:49The day after John Kennedy's inauguration in 1961, Lee's mother arrived at the White House to ask for help in locating her son.
00:40:58She was not the only one asking questions.
00:41:02No one had heard from Oswald for over a year.
00:41:08Recently released documents show that several government agencies began tracking Oswald in Russia.
00:41:13These files clearly show that there's hardly an intelligence agency that did not have an interest in Lee Harvey Oswald.
00:41:18Navy intelligence was worried about radar secrets he may have given to the Russians.
00:41:22The FBI was concerned that an imposter might be using his papers to come to sneak into the United States.
00:41:28And the CIA had both a positive and a counterintelligence interest.
00:41:31The people who handled these files and who read them were branch chiefs and division chiefs and senior staff people in the clandestine services.
00:41:38What this all adds up to is a very significant level of interest in this man.
00:41:43Ironically, by that winter, Oswald decided he wanted to leave the Soviet Union.
00:41:54The work is drab.
00:41:56The money I get has nowhere to be spent.
00:41:58As my Russian improves, I become increasingly conscious of just what sort of a society I live in.
00:42:11He had become disillusioned with life here.
00:42:15He came here after reading a lot of Marx and Lenin, thinking that it was something good.
00:42:20But living here, he realized it was not so good.
00:42:28Then one night, he went to a dance at the Palace of Culture.
00:42:32A friend introduced him to Marina Prusakova.
00:42:37She was a very attractive lady.
00:42:40She dressed well.
00:42:44We went up to her with Liharvi Oswald,
00:42:47and he said straight away that he would like to get to know her.
00:42:50We were standing right here, beside that column.
00:43:00Of course, he fell in love with her straight away,
00:43:04at first sight, as we say in Russia.
00:43:11Marina Oswald declined to be interviewed for this program,
00:43:14but she did talk to writer Priscilla MacMillan.
00:43:20MacMillan befriended Marina after the assassination
00:43:22and wrote an intimate portrait of the Oswalds' life together.
00:43:30Marina liked Li for several reasons.
00:43:33One was that he was polite.
00:43:37She liked his being foreign.
00:43:39She thought that an American would treat her better than a Russian.
00:43:47Marina worked as a pharmaceutical assistant,
00:43:51and shortly after they met,
00:43:53I mean a few days after they met,
00:43:55he was hospitalized for trouble with his adenoids,
00:43:59and Marina went to visit him in the hospital.
00:44:03She did visit him several times,
00:44:06and by the time he was released from the hospital,
00:44:09he asked her to be his fiancée.
00:44:14Six weeks after they met,
00:44:16a hasty wedding party was arranged
00:44:18at the home of Marina's uncle.
00:44:20Because her uncle worked for Soviet domestic intelligence,
00:44:24questions have been raised about
00:44:25whether Marina herself was an agent.
00:44:28As for Marina,
00:44:30about whether she had been planted
00:44:32by the KGB as his wife,
00:44:34I was often asked this question.
00:44:38And I can say with authority
00:44:40that nothing of the sort happened.
00:44:42If we had done such a thing,
00:44:44we would have done it with a bit more finesse,
00:44:46not so crudely as they did their own wedding.
00:44:55The KGB continued to bug the apartment
00:44:58and monitor everything that went on inside.
00:45:00They married and they had a girl very soon.
00:45:09I don't think they were the happiest family in the world.
00:45:12They had a lot of quarrels all the time
00:45:14and some fights.
00:45:18Lee was still determined to return to the U.S.
00:45:20with Marina and his daughter June.
00:45:25He persisted for 18 months
00:45:27until Soviet and U.S. authorities
00:45:29granted permission.
00:45:34We concluded that he was not working
00:45:38for American intelligence.
00:45:41His intellectual training,
00:45:42experience and capabilities were such
00:45:45that it would not show the FBI
00:45:48and the CIA in a good light
00:45:50if they used people like him.
00:45:59Oswald's two-and-a-half-year Russian journey
00:46:01was over.
00:46:03On June 2, 1962,
00:46:05Lee, Marina and June
00:46:07left for America.
00:46:08Oswald assumed the press would flock
00:46:27to hear his story.
00:46:30He had prepared answers
00:46:32and statements
00:46:33anticipating reporters
00:46:36either at the ship
00:46:37or someplace down the line
00:46:39on the return.
00:46:40And I think he was surprised
00:46:41when he stepped off the plane
00:46:42in Dallas Love Field.
00:46:43He asked me,
00:46:44what, no reporter?
00:46:45I said, yes,
00:46:46I've been managed to keep it quiet.
00:46:48And that was it.
00:46:49But I think he was disappointed.
00:46:53Lee moved back in
00:46:54with his brother in Fort Worth.
00:46:57Soon after,
00:46:58the FBI interviewed him
00:47:00about his time
00:47:01in the Soviet Union.
00:47:03Oswald appeared
00:47:03at the Fort Worth
00:47:05resident agency
00:47:06and was interviewed
00:47:08by two agents
00:47:09who happened to be
00:47:10in the office.
00:47:11This interview
00:47:12did not turn out
00:47:14to be too successful
00:47:15because Oswald
00:47:16was in an aggressive,
00:47:19surly mood
00:47:20and they finally
00:47:22broke the interview
00:47:22off after a little while.
00:47:25According to the FBI report,
00:47:28Oswald's answers
00:47:28were evasive.
00:47:29He said,
00:47:32they even asked me,
00:47:33you know,
00:47:34if I'd ever been
00:47:34an agent
00:47:35of the federal government
00:47:36or the CIA.
00:47:38He says,
00:47:39well, don't you know?
00:47:39And he just laughed.
00:47:41He was in control
00:47:43of the FBI then.
00:47:44They didn't know
00:47:44for sure
00:47:45if he was an agent
00:47:46or not.
00:47:46He was toying with them
00:47:48and he toyed
00:47:49with people like that.
00:47:52Officially,
00:47:52the FBI
00:47:53was the only agency
00:47:54that questioned Oswald.
00:47:56It has always been
00:47:57a mystery
00:47:57why the CIA,
00:47:59which had a growing file
00:48:00on Oswald,
00:48:01maintains it
00:48:02never talked to him.
00:48:04The FBI
00:48:04would certainly
00:48:05interview him
00:48:06for counterespionage purposes
00:48:07and to try
00:48:08and find out
00:48:09whether the KGB
00:48:11had recruited him,
00:48:12whether he was going
00:48:13to be somebody
00:48:13that they had
00:48:14to continue to watch,
00:48:15what his motives were
00:48:17and all the rest
00:48:18of those things.
00:48:19And it was the FBI's
00:48:20responsibility
00:48:21and if they interviewed him
00:48:22once or twice,
00:48:23that would seem to me
00:48:24to have been adequate.
00:48:27One former CIA officer,
00:48:29however,
00:48:29says he read
00:48:30an agency debriefing
00:48:32of Oswald
00:48:32in 1962.
00:48:35Donald Denslia
00:48:36still does undercover work
00:48:37but agreed to be
00:48:38interviewed in shadow.
00:48:41I received across my desk
00:48:43a debriefing report.
00:48:47It was a debriefing
00:48:49of a Marine redefector.
00:48:52He was returning
00:48:54with his family
00:48:55from the Soviet Union
00:48:57and was back
00:48:58in the United States.
00:49:00The report was approximately
00:49:02four to five pages
00:49:03in length.
00:49:04It gave a lot of details
00:49:05about the organization
00:49:08of the Minsk radio plant.
00:49:11It was signed off
00:49:12by a CIA officer
00:49:14by the name of Anderson.
00:49:15This is that missing document.
00:49:19The internal document note
00:49:20of September 28th,
00:49:2119...
00:49:22Frontline researchers
00:49:23poured through Oswald's
00:49:24recently declassified CIA file
00:49:27at the National Archives.
00:49:29They found hard evidence
00:49:30which supports Denslia's story.
00:49:33Internet of security.
00:49:35We're very interested
00:49:36in the marginally
00:49:37and the handwritten notes
00:49:38on these files.
00:49:39And one day I picked up
00:49:40a piece of paper
00:49:40and turned it over
00:49:41and could see through the back
00:49:42I could read handwriting
00:49:43that said Andy Anderson
00:49:4500 on Oswald.
00:49:48Later on we found out
00:49:50that 00 really is the symbol,
00:49:52the office symbol
00:49:52for the Domestic Contacts Division
00:49:54which would have had
00:49:55the debriefing mission
00:49:57on Oswald
00:49:57had there been one.
00:50:01Frontline showed the document
00:50:03to former Director Helms.
00:50:08I know of no contact
00:50:10that was made by CIA
00:50:11with Oswald
00:50:12when he returned
00:50:13to the United States.
00:50:14There may have been one
00:50:15but I'm not aware of it
00:50:16and I'm not able
00:50:17to shed any light
00:50:18on who it would have been.
00:50:20And this document
00:50:21doesn't change your mind?
00:50:21And that document
00:50:22doesn't change my mind
00:50:23in the slightest.
00:50:27Frontline interviewed
00:50:28over 30 CIA officers
00:50:30off the record
00:50:31including a former
00:50:32Deputy Chief
00:50:33of Domestic Contacts.
00:50:35He confirmed Denslia's story
00:50:37that the CIA
00:50:38had debriefed Oswald.
00:50:40It was just a routine contact
00:50:42he said.
00:50:44My feeling is
00:50:45at this point
00:50:45the report
00:50:46is buried somewhere.
00:50:48I don't know where it is
00:50:50but I'm sure
00:50:50it's probably
00:50:51in a contacts division
00:50:52somewhere
00:50:53or in one of the other
00:50:54filing systems
00:50:55at the agency.
00:50:57Several CIA officers
00:50:59remembered an Andy Anderson
00:51:01who worked
00:51:01for Domestic Contacts.
00:51:04The CIA
00:51:05has not responded
00:51:06to Frontline's request
00:51:07to identify Anderson.
00:51:11What now seems certain
00:51:12is that the CIA
00:51:13is still covering up
00:51:15its contact
00:51:15with Lee Harvey Oswald.
00:51:17Was it just
00:51:18a routine interview
00:51:19or something more?
00:51:21And why has it remained
00:51:22hidden for 30 years?
00:51:24In the autumn of 1962
00:51:34the Oswalds
00:51:35moved to Dallas.
00:51:37They were befriended
00:51:38by a group
00:51:39of Russian emigres
00:51:40who helped them
00:51:41settle in.
00:51:44One of them
00:51:45George de Morenschild
00:51:46had originally
00:51:47come from Minsk.
00:51:49He took a special
00:51:49interest in Lee.
00:51:50I actually believe
00:51:54that he was
00:51:54a very sincere person
00:51:55and with me
00:51:56he was extremely sincere
00:51:58because I treated him
00:52:00almost like
00:52:02a son of mine.
00:52:03You know,
00:52:03he could have been
00:52:04a son by his age
00:52:06or as a soldier
00:52:08in my regiment.
00:52:13De Morenschild
00:52:14helped Oswald
00:52:15find a job
00:52:15at a photo lab
00:52:16downtown
00:52:17where he worked
00:52:18beside
00:52:19David Ofstein.
00:52:20I met Lee Oswald
00:52:22when he came to work
00:52:23for Jagger's Child Stovall
00:52:24in October of 1962
00:52:25and was involved
00:52:27in training him
00:52:27on the equipment
00:52:28we used
00:52:28in the photographic department.
00:52:31About a month or two
00:52:32after Lee came
00:52:33to work for us
00:52:34he asked me
00:52:35what the company policy
00:52:36was about using
00:52:37the company equipment
00:52:38for making
00:52:39personal photographs
00:52:40enlargements
00:52:40of personal pictures
00:52:42family pictures
00:52:43that sort of thing.
00:52:45I told him
00:52:45at the time
00:52:46that the company policy
00:52:47was pretty much
00:52:48that you don't do it
00:52:49but that people
00:52:50did it anyway
00:52:50and as long as
00:52:51it didn't get out of hand
00:52:52the company usually
00:52:53didn't say very much
00:52:54about it.
00:53:02Lee apparently
00:53:03put his skills
00:53:03to use
00:53:04forging a new identity
00:53:05including a selective
00:53:07service card
00:53:07in the name
00:53:08of Alec J. Hiddell.
00:53:10It was the first
00:53:11alias Oswald
00:53:12was known to use.
00:53:17Lee was beginning
00:53:18to construct
00:53:19a secret life.
00:53:20He opened
00:53:21a post office box
00:53:22to receive mail
00:53:23for himself
00:53:24and Hiddell.
00:53:26Lee began
00:53:27to receive
00:53:28publications
00:53:30that he did not
00:53:31want to get
00:53:32at home.
00:53:33They were the worker,
00:53:35the newspaper
00:53:36of the American
00:53:37Communist Party
00:53:38the militant
00:53:40newspaper
00:53:40of the Socialist
00:53:41Workers Party
00:53:42all of this
00:53:43he wanted
00:53:44to receive
00:53:45without his
00:53:46landlords noticing.
00:53:57Lee was hiding
00:53:58things from his
00:53:59family too.
00:54:01That Thanksgiving
00:54:02the Oswald
00:54:03brothers gathered
00:54:04at Robert's
00:54:05house.
00:54:07Thanksgiving
00:54:07day,
00:54:08November 22nd
00:54:091962
00:54:09we're all
00:54:11having a pleasant
00:54:12holiday
00:54:13atmosphere.
00:54:15Everybody's
00:54:15getting along
00:54:16fine.
00:54:17John and Margie
00:54:18and his family
00:54:19have not seen
00:54:19Lee in nine
00:54:20years.
00:54:21It's been a couple
00:54:22of months
00:54:22since I've seen
00:54:23him.
00:54:23We talked
00:54:24about small
00:54:25things,
00:54:25hunting and
00:54:26fishing type
00:54:27thing.
00:54:27You know,
00:54:28what the families
00:54:28were doing
00:54:29and everything.
00:54:30And Lee
00:54:30didn't see him
00:54:31under any
00:54:31particular strain.
00:54:32no indication
00:54:33of any
00:54:33particular
00:54:33problems.
00:54:36But behind
00:54:37the facade
00:54:38Lee was
00:54:39beginning to
00:54:40lose control.
00:54:42He was
00:54:42picking fights
00:54:43at work
00:54:43and at home.
00:54:46Lee became
00:54:47more and more
00:54:48tense and he
00:54:49began to hit
00:54:50Marina,
00:54:51something he
00:54:52had never done
00:54:53before.
00:54:54And by the
00:54:55winter he
00:54:57hit her more
00:54:58and more
00:54:58frequently and
00:54:59harder.
00:55:02At the same
00:55:06time,
00:55:07Lee's interest
00:55:07in politics
00:55:08was growing.
00:55:10The left-wing
00:55:11papers he was
00:55:12reading embraced
00:55:12the issues that
00:55:13were important
00:55:14to him,
00:55:15such as civil
00:55:15rights and
00:55:16Castro's Cuba.
00:55:19As far back
00:55:20as the Marines,
00:55:21Lee was enamored
00:55:22with Fidel's
00:55:23romantic revolution.
00:55:25He now saw
00:55:26Cuba as the
00:55:27Marxist ideal,
00:55:28and he was
00:55:29highly critical
00:55:30of the
00:55:30administration's
00:55:31policies toward
00:55:32Castro.
00:55:36Yet those who
00:55:37knew him
00:55:37claimed Oswald
00:55:38liked the
00:55:39young president.
00:55:41He definitely
00:55:42was not an
00:55:43enemy.
00:55:44He was an
00:55:44admirer of
00:55:45President Kennedy.
00:55:46And we
00:55:47raised that
00:55:48question several
00:55:48times.
00:55:51Personal
00:55:52accounts differ.
00:55:54At a party in
00:55:54February 1963,
00:55:56Oswald was
00:55:57introduced to
00:55:58oil geologist
00:55:59Volkmar Schmidt.
00:56:01The two hunkered
00:56:01down by a window
00:56:02to talk politics.
00:56:05Lee Harvey
00:56:05Oswald brought
00:56:06up in the
00:56:07conversation with
00:56:08me the fact
00:56:10that he really
00:56:11felt very angry
00:56:13about the
00:56:14support which
00:56:15the Kennedy
00:56:15administration
00:56:16gave to the
00:56:17Bay of Pigs
00:56:18invasion.
00:56:20It turned
00:56:20out that Lee
00:56:21Harvey Oswald
00:56:21really idolized
00:56:22the socialism
00:56:23of Cuba.
00:56:25While he was
00:56:25critical of
00:56:26the socialism
00:56:26in the
00:56:27Soviet Union
00:56:28and he was
00:56:29just obsessed
00:56:30with his
00:56:30anger towards
00:56:31Kennedy.
00:56:34Schmidt says
00:56:35he tried to
00:56:35divert Lee's
00:56:36political anger
00:56:37toward a more
00:56:38worthy target.
00:56:41General Edwin
00:56:42Walker was a
00:56:43virulent
00:56:43anti-communist.
00:56:45He had
00:56:45recently been
00:56:45fired by
00:56:46Kennedy for
00:56:47preaching
00:56:47right-wing
00:56:48extremism to
00:56:49his troops.
00:56:50I mentioned
00:56:51General Walker
00:56:52who deserved
00:56:53criticism because
00:56:54he was a
00:56:55racist, retired
00:56:56general, ultra
00:56:58right-wing, and
00:56:59who had just
00:57:00a little time
00:57:01before talked
00:57:04to students at
00:57:05the University of
00:57:05Mississippi who
00:57:06then got so
00:57:07agitated that
00:57:08they shot and
00:57:08killed some
00:57:09reporters.
00:57:11Ole Miss had
00:57:12erupted when
00:57:13James Meredith
00:57:13was enrolled as
00:57:14the first black
00:57:15student.
00:57:18General Walker
00:57:18drove up from
00:57:19Texas to lead
00:57:20the white
00:57:20student revolt.
00:57:25The result was
00:57:26a bloody 15-hour
00:57:28riot and
00:57:29General Walker
00:57:29was arrested for
00:57:30inciting the
00:57:31violence.
00:57:33But after a
00:57:34week he was
00:57:35released.
00:57:36He was soon to
00:57:37start a cross-country
00:57:38tour to rally
00:57:39support for the
00:57:40overthrow of Castro.
00:57:41In hindsight, I
00:57:44probably may
00:57:46have given
00:57:48Lee Harvey
00:57:49Oswald the
00:57:50idea to go
00:57:52after General
00:57:53Walker.
00:57:54I certainly
00:57:55didn't tell him
00:57:56to take the
00:57:57law in his own
00:57:58hand, not at
00:57:59all.
00:58:00He may also
00:58:01have thought of
00:58:02General Walker
00:58:02independently.
00:58:05Using his
00:58:06alias, Lee had
00:58:07already ordered a
00:58:08.38 pistol through
00:58:09the mail.
00:58:09Now he
00:58:11ordered more
00:58:11firepower, a
00:58:13cheap Italian
00:58:14rifle.
00:58:20He apparently
00:58:21went on a
00:58:21reconnaissance
00:58:22mission to
00:58:22General Walker's
00:58:23house and
00:58:25scouted the
00:58:25alley in the
00:58:26back.
00:58:27Oswald had
00:58:28an entire book
00:58:29of operations
00:58:29for his Walker
00:58:30action, including
00:58:32photographs of
00:58:32Walker's house,
00:58:34photographs of
00:58:34an area that he
00:58:35intended to stash
00:58:36the rifle, maps
00:58:38that he had
00:58:38drawn very
00:58:39carefully.
00:58:39statements of
00:58:40political purpose.
00:58:42In the end, he
00:58:43wanted this to be
00:58:43an important
00:58:44historical feat,
00:58:45and this was to
00:58:46be the documentation
00:58:47left behind.
00:58:48He viewed
00:58:48General Walker
00:58:49as an up-and-coming
00:58:50Adolf Hitler, and
00:58:51that he would be
00:58:52the hero who
00:58:52stopped him on
00:58:53his rise to
00:58:54power.
00:59:00Lee's guns
00:59:01finally arrived
00:59:01in the mail.
00:59:03A few days
00:59:04later, he
00:59:05surprised Marina
00:59:06while she was
00:59:07hanging up
00:59:07the laundry
00:59:08in the
00:59:08backyard.
00:59:09Dressed
00:59:10all in black,
00:59:12he was carrying
00:59:12his rifle,
00:59:14had his pistol
00:59:15at his waist,
00:59:16and she
00:59:17burst out laughing
00:59:18and asked him
00:59:19what on earth
00:59:20he was doing
00:59:20in that costume,
00:59:22and he told her
00:59:23she was to
00:59:23take a picture
00:59:24of him.
00:59:28The backyard
00:59:29photographs remain
00:59:31among the most
00:59:31incriminating and
00:59:33controversial evidence
00:59:34against Lee Harvey
00:59:35Oswald.
00:59:37Oswald himself
00:59:38shown those
00:59:38photographs,
00:59:39denied that he
00:59:40owned a rifle,
00:59:41and denied that
00:59:41this was him in
00:59:42it.
00:59:43He said his
00:59:43head was pasted
00:59:44on it.
00:59:45The critics
00:59:46of the Warren
00:59:47Commission seized
00:59:49on this.
00:59:54The most famous
00:59:55critic is filmmaker
00:59:56Oliver Stone.
00:59:58I would like to
00:59:59thank the
01:00:00whatever commission
01:00:00Oswald was no
01:00:01angel, that's
01:00:02clear.
01:00:03But who was he?
01:00:05I'm lost, boss.
01:00:06Stone's movie
01:00:07suggests the
01:00:07photographs were
01:00:08faked in order
01:00:09to frame Oswald.
01:00:10He was not a
01:00:11real defector.
01:00:12That he was an
01:00:13intelligence agent
01:00:13on some kind of
01:00:14mission for our
01:00:15government and
01:00:15remained one
01:00:16until the day
01:00:16he died.
01:00:17The intelligence
01:00:18community murdered
01:00:18their own
01:00:19commander-in-chief.
01:00:20I never could
01:00:20figure out why
01:00:21this guy orders
01:00:22a traceable weapon
01:00:23to this post office
01:00:25box when he can
01:00:26go into any store
01:00:27in Texas, give a
01:00:28phony name, and
01:00:29walk out with a
01:00:30rifle which can
01:00:31never be traced.
01:00:31To frame him,
01:00:32obviously.
01:00:33There's a lot of
01:00:33smoke there, but
01:00:34there's some fire.
01:00:35We're talking about
01:00:36our government here.
01:00:37No, we're talking
01:00:37about a crime, Bill,
01:00:39pure and simple.
01:00:40Y'all got to start
01:00:41thinking on a
01:00:41different level like
01:00:42the CIA does.
01:00:44Now we're through
01:00:44the looking glass
01:00:45here, people.
01:00:47White is black,
01:00:48and black is white.
01:00:50Just maybe Oswald is
01:00:52exactly what he said
01:00:53he was, a patsy.
01:00:56We took very
01:00:57seriously these
01:00:58charges.
01:01:00We had first the
01:01:02evidence examined
01:01:03by the Warren
01:01:04Commission.
01:01:05Marina testifies that
01:01:06she took it, she
01:01:07identifies the camera
01:01:08that she used, the
01:01:10FBI was able to, to
01:01:12the exclusion of all
01:01:13other cameras, tie that
01:01:14camera to these
01:01:15photographs.
01:01:16Assuming that all
01:01:17that's fake, we went
01:01:19further with a
01:01:20photographic panel and
01:01:22studied very carefully
01:01:23all of the testimony
01:01:24about the shadows being
01:01:26inappropriate.
01:01:28Our photographic panel
01:01:29indicated in great
01:01:30detail that these
01:01:32shadows were not
01:01:33inappropriate, that the
01:01:35critics had simply not
01:01:36understood optics
01:01:38accordingly.
01:01:39Oswald gave a copy of
01:01:42the photograph to his
01:01:43friend George de
01:01:43Morinschild.
01:01:45On the back, someone
01:01:46wrote, Hunter of
01:01:47Fascist, in Russian, and
01:01:49Oswald signed it.
01:01:52The House Committee's
01:01:53experts concluded beyond
01:01:55a doubt the signature
01:01:56was his.
01:02:00Any notion that the
01:02:02photograph was faked by
01:02:03other people to frame
01:02:04Lee Harvey Oswald now has
01:02:06to explain the fact that
01:02:08Lee Harvey Oswald himself
01:02:09signed that photograph.
01:02:12On April 6th, Lee was
01:02:14fired from his job at the
01:02:15photo lab.
01:02:17No one knows where he
01:02:18spent his days.
01:02:21Marina says he spent a few
01:02:22evenings shooting target
01:02:23practice.
01:02:29On the night of April 10th,
01:02:31she says, he didn't come
01:02:33home at all.
01:02:33She waited until seven, and
01:02:36then she made herself a
01:02:37little supper.
01:02:40At about ten, he still
01:02:42hadn't come home.
01:02:44She was worried.
01:02:45She walked into a room, his
01:02:48study, which he told her
01:02:49never to enter.
01:02:51And there, on his desk, she
01:02:54saw a sheet of paper with a
01:02:57key lying on top of it.
01:03:00Lee wrote to Marina in
01:03:02Russian.
01:03:03Here is the key to the
01:03:04post office box.
01:03:06You can throw out my
01:03:07clothing, but as for my
01:03:09personal papers, I prefer you
01:03:10keep them.
01:03:11I left you as much money as I
01:03:13could.
01:03:14He then explained where to
01:03:16find the jail.
01:03:17And she had no idea what he'd
01:03:19gone to do, and she started
01:03:21to shake all over.
01:03:22That evening, someone fired a
01:03:30single shot through the window
01:03:31of General Walker's study.
01:03:35Looking the situation over,
01:03:37back there, 40 steps behind
01:03:39me, isn't...
01:03:40General Walker survived to tell
01:03:42what happened.
01:03:42A bullet crashed through the
01:03:45window and just missed me.
01:03:47And it felt much grit and dirt
01:03:51in my hair.
01:03:52And my arm was laying on the
01:03:53desk, and it was bleeding in
01:03:55three places, which turned out
01:03:57to be fragments from the shell
01:03:59casing.
01:04:01Walker's neighbor, Case Coleman,
01:04:03remembers the shot he heard as a
01:04:0514-year-old youngster.
01:04:06I was in the den working on a
01:04:11school project with my
01:04:12godfather, and he was helping me
01:04:14out on the typewriter, and we
01:04:15heard this loud bang.
01:04:16I ran out this door here and ran
01:04:18up to the fence.
01:04:20At the time, the church had built
01:04:21a six-foot stockade fence, but my
01:04:23kid's sister's bicycle was sitting
01:04:26here.
01:04:26So I jumped up on the bicycle
01:04:28looking over the fence.
01:04:29That's when I noticed the black
01:04:30Ford that had been backed in
01:04:32here driving down the alley.
01:04:34There was a 58 Chevy sitting over
01:04:35here with a guy I'd been in
01:04:36over the back seat, throwing
01:04:37something on the floorboard, and
01:04:38he went down towards Toll Creek.
01:04:40I can see it now, looking at the
01:04:4258 Chevy sitting down there.
01:04:43It's very vivid, very vivid.
01:04:48Based on his account, the Dallas
01:04:50police began looking for several
01:04:52suspects, which would suggest a
01:04:54conspiracy.
01:04:56But Marina says Lee told her a
01:04:58very different story.
01:05:01Later that night, about 11.30,
01:05:04Lee came in.
01:05:06white, covered with sweat, and looking
01:05:11quite wild in the eyes.
01:05:13And he said, I shot Walker.
01:05:17Lee explained to Marina that he had
01:05:19jumped on a bus, buried the rifle, and
01:05:23then he'd taken another bus.
01:05:25And he said when he took the bus, there
01:05:27they lose the scent.
01:05:29And the radio broadcast that a boy on
01:05:33the spot had seen one or two cars in the
01:05:36alleyway behind Walker's house, Lee
01:05:39laughed.
01:05:40He exploded in laughter.
01:05:42And he said, Americans are so spoiled.
01:05:46They think you always have to have a car.
01:05:48Whereas I got away on my own two feet.
01:05:51The Walker case would not be resolved until
01:05:55after the assassination, when Marina told her story, and the
01:05:58Walker bullet was linked to Oswald's ammunition.
01:06:02No co-conspirators were ever identified.
01:06:05Two weeks later, Oswald abruptly left town.
01:06:18In seven months, he would write into the history books.
01:06:21But for now, he was headed home, to New Orleans.
01:06:51This is PBS.