20

Oswald Had No Motive for Murder

Now I’m going to tell you a fact that’s often overlooked, but is very important. In addition to not having the means to commit the crime, Oswald did not possess a sufficient motive. Neither the Warren Commission nor the House Select Committee on Assassinations was ever able to establish any motive for Oswald to have committed the crime. That’s a big red flag to any real investigator. Why did he do it? It’s your Basic Crime Scene 101. They couldn’t even come up with a good reason so that’s why they always just described him as some kind of a “lone nut.”

Since when does such a high-profile crime not need a motive?

Why did Oswald do it? To this most important and most mysterious question the commission had no certain answer. It suggested that Oswald had no rational purpose, no motive adequate if “judged by the standards of reasonable men.”¹⁹²

But in addition to not having any motive, just the opposite appears to be the real story here. Oswald—and not many people know this—is on record as having admired President Kennedy.

After his arrest, he told the police that “My wife and I like the President’s family. They are interesting people.”

He said, “I am not a malcontent; nothing irritated me about the President.”¹⁹³

Well, it sounds to me like they should have thrown their whole “lone nut” theory right out the frigging window. He didn’t sound like a nut at all! In fact, he sounded like just what he said he was—a “patsy.”

Any way you look at it, Oswald’s actions were not consistent with those of a murderer. His actions and comments at the time of his arrest and afterwards are not indicative of his being one of the first political assassins in history to emphatically deny involvement in the murder. In fact, quite to the contrary, Oswald’s comments are indicative of a man concerned with much smaller issues.

The following compilation appeared in the 1978 edition of The People’s Almanac. They undertook that project for a very good reason, and they state that reason very clearly:

Almost everyone, it seems, has been heard from on the Kennedy assassination and on Lee Harvey Oswald’s guilt or innocence, except one person—Lee Harvey Oswald himself. From the time of Oswald’s arrest to his own assassination at the hands of Jack Ruby, no formal transcript or record was kept of statements made by the alleged killer. It was said that no tape recordings were made of Oswald’s remarks, and many notes taken of his statements were destroyed.

Determined to learn Oswald’s last words, his only testimony, The People’s Almanac assigned one of the leading authorities on the Kennedy assassination, Mae Brussell, to compile every known statement or remark made by Oswald between his arrest and death.¹⁹⁴

And Ms. Brussell’s conclusion bears noting:

After fourteen years of research on the JFK assassination, I am of the opinion that Lee Harvey Oswald was telling the truth about his role in the assassination during these interrogations.¹⁹⁵

Consider this. During questioning on the afternoon of his arrest, Oswald recognized FBI agent James Hosty, whom he had previously met, and Oswald told Agent Hosty the following:

You have been at my home two or three times talking to my wife. I don’t appreciate your coming out there when I was not there . . . Mr. Hosty, you have been accosting my wife. You mistreated her on two different occasions when you talked with her . . . I know you. Well, he threatened her. He practically told her she would have to go back to Russia.¹⁹⁶

Now ask yourself the following question: If you had just been involved in the assassination of the President of the United States and had just murdered a police officer in cold blood only a few hours before, would the matter of an FBI agent questioning your spouse without your permission be the focus of your attention and a priority about which you would be visibly concerned? The facts of the matter are that Oswald was concerned with points like that, nothing larger. His statements revealed that he was merely worried he was in trouble for having been caught with a revolver.

At the time of his arrest, Oswald’s comments in fact showed a man who was completely uncertain about the actual circumstances of his situation:

 

•  I don’t know why you are treating me like this. The only thing I have done is carry a pistol into a movie.

•  I don’t see why you handcuffed me.

•  Why should I hide my face? I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of.

•  I want a lawyer.

•  I am not resisting arrest.

•  I didn’t kill anybody . . . I haven’t shot anybody.

•  I protest this police brutality.

•  I fought back there, but I know I wasn’t supposed to be carrying a gun.

•  What is this all about?¹⁹⁷

The same was true of his comments in the police car on the way to the police station and then at the station after his arrest:

 

•  What is this all about?

•  I know my rights.

•  All I did was carry a gun.

•  Nothing irritated me about the President.

•  John Kennedy had a nice family.

•  I had nothing personal against John Kennedy.

•  I really don’t know what the situation is about. Nobody has told me anything except that I am accused of murdering a policeman. I know nothing more than that, and I do request someone to come forward to give me legal assistance.

•  When asked, “Did you kill the President?” Oswald replied:

ₒ  No. I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question . . . I did not do it. I did not do it . . . I did not shoot anyone.

•  I didn’t even know Governor John Connally had been shot.

•  Well, I really don’t know what this is all about, that I have been kept incarcerated and kept incommunicado.¹⁹⁸

It’s quite an oddity that the man suspected of killing the President was actually very fond of the man, as investigative authors Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan noted:

It is clear from a dozen witnesses that Oswald repeatedly spoke about John F. Kennedy in terms of admiration. He “showed in his manner of speaking that he liked the president,” said a policeman who talked with him in August of 1963. In a conversation about civil rights a month before the assassination, Oswald said he thought Kennedy was doing “a real fine job, a real good job.”¹⁹⁹

Oswald displayed confidence—even bragged—that his innocence would be revealed by the evidence, rather than fearing it for the sake of incrimination:

 

•  What are you trying to prove with this paraffin test, that I fired a gun?

•  You are wasting your time. I don’t know anything about what you are accusing me.

•  The FBI has thoroughly interrogated me at various other times . . . They have used their hard and soft approach to me, and they use the buddy system . . . I am familiar with all types of questioning and have no intention of making any statements.

•  When arrested, Oswald had FBI Agent James Hosty’s home phone and office phone numbers and car license number in his possession.²⁰⁰

 

Oswald’s actions were interpreted by experienced police officers as being somehow above and beyond his actual situation. Here’s how Dallas Police Officer B. J. Dale described him:

When Oswald would come out of the office and down the hall, what I observed was that he seemed to be toying with everybody. He was way ahead of everybody else. He knew what he was doing and seemed very confident. He acted like he was in charge and, as it turned out, he probably was.²⁰¹

Oswald’s confidence—or, more accurately, outright cockiness—may have been the result of his conviction that he was protected by his relationship to U.S. intelligence. He made numerous references which could be construed as such in the brief period between his arrest on Friday afternoon and his murder on the following Sunday morning:

 

•  Call the FBI. Tell them you have Lee Oswald in custody. (Spoken to Lieutenant Frank Martello, the interviewing officer at the time of his arrest in New Orleans.)²⁰²

•  Everyone will know who I am now. (This statement was made in a somber manner, as though now his cover was blown; not as though seeking fame, but in fact, quite the opposite.)²⁰³

•  I refuse to take a polygraph. It has always been my practice not to agree to take a polygraph.²⁰⁴

•  I am waiting for someone to come forward to give me legal assistance.²⁰⁵

•  (To Marina, his wife): It’s a mistake. I’m not guilty. There are people who will help me.

•  Everything is going to be all right. If they ask you anything, you have a right not to answer. You have a right to refuse. Do you understand? You are not to worry. You have friends. They’ll help you.²⁰⁶

•  (To his brother, Robert:) Don’t believe all the so-called evidence.²⁰⁷

•  (When Robert stared into Lee’s eyes for a clue, Lee told him:) Brother, you won’t find anything there.²⁰⁸

•  My friends will take care of Marina and the two children.²⁰⁹

Even in the minutes before his own murder, Oswald displayed a self-evident confidence. The following testimony is from the Dallas police officer who was handcuffed to him when Oswald was gunned down and killed in the Dallas jail:

OFFICER LEAVELLE: I was a homicide detective.

QUESTION: He was handcuffed to your left wrist?

OFFICER LEAVELLE: Right.

QUESTION: On his right wrist?

OFFICER LEAVELLE: Correct.

QUESTION: Anything said as you enter the basement?

OFFICER LEAVELLE: Well, I said this several times, but anyway, I did tell him on the way down, I said, ‘Lee, if anybody shoots at you, I hope they’re as good a shot as you are.’ Meaning they’d hit him and not me. And he kind of laughed and he said, ‘Ah, you’re being melodramatic.’ Or something like that. ‘Nobody’s going to shoot me.’ I said, ‘Well, if they do start, you know what to do, don’t you?’ He said, ‘Well, Captain Fritz told me to follow you, and I’ll do whatever you do.’²¹⁰

I don’t know about you but—after all the years of what our Government and our media have been telling us; fifty frigging years of it—that conversation noted above that took place right before Oswald got shot is sure a surprise to me. After all the malarkey we’ve had force-fed to us for decades, you just wouldn’t expect that he’d be kidding around with the people taking him around the jail and subservient like that—even respectful—to the officer escorting him and in the reference to Captain Fritz, the Chief of Homicide.

Oswald consistently denied committing any crime other than a scuffle during his arrest at the Texas Theater:

 

•  I didn’t shoot John Kennedy.

•  I did not kill President Kennedy or Officer Tippit (this was later in the questioning of Oswald, and he now knows the name of the officer, which he did not previously). If you want me to cop out to hitting or pleading guilty to hitting a cop in the mouth when I was arrested, yeah, I plead guilty to that. But I do deny shooting both the President and Tippit.

•  If you ask me about the shooting of Tippit, I don’t know what you are talking about. . . . The only thing I am here for is because I popped a policeman in the nose in the theater on Jefferson Avenue, which I readily admit I did, because I was protecting myself.

•  I didn’t shoot anyone . . . I never killed anybody.²¹¹

Oswald’s confidence in his innocence was such that it even allowed him to focus attention on the defense of other’s rights:

•  In the past three weeks the FBI has talked to my wife. They were abusive and impolite. They frightened my wife, and I consider their activities obnoxious.

•  Sheriff Roger Craig saw Oswald enter a white station wagon fifteen minutes after the assassination. Oswald confirmed this in Captain Fritz’s office. Oswald then responded:

ₒ That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Ruth Paine. Don’t try to tie her into this. She had nothing to do with it.²¹²

Oswald constantly and confidently defended his rights while in custody.

U.S. Secret Service Inspector Thomas J. Kelley approached Oswald, out of the hearing of others, except perhaps Captain Fritz’s men, and said that as a Secret Service agent, he was anxious to talk with him as soon as he secured counsel, as Oswald was charged with the assassination of the President but had denied it. Oswald said:

I will be glad to discuss this proposition with my attorney, and after I talk with one, we could either discuss it with him or discuss it with my attorney, if the attorney thinks it is a wise thing to do, but at the present time I have nothing more to say to you.

It isn’t right to put me in line with these teenagers. . . . You know what you are doing, and you are trying to railroad me . . . I want my lawyer.

You are doing me an injustice by putting me out there dressed different than these other men . . . I am out there, the only one with a bruise on his head . . . I don t believe the lineup is fair, and I desire to put on a jacket similar to those worn by some of the other individuals in the lineup. . . . All of you have a shirt on, and I have a t-shirt on. I want a shirt or something. . . . This t-shirt is unfair.

Why are you treating me this way?

I am not being handled right . . . I demand my rights.

Can I get an attorney?

I have not been given the opportunity to have counsel.

As I said, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee has definitely been investigated, that is very true. . . . The results of that investigation were zero.

I insist upon my constitutional rights. . . . The way you are treating me, I might as well be in Russia . . . I was not granted my request to put on a jacket similar to those worn by other individuals in some previous lineups.

I have been dressed differently than the other three. . . . Don’t you know the difference?

I still have on the same clothes I was arrested in. The other two were prisoners, already in jail.

Seth Kantor, reporter, heard Oswald yell, “I am only a patsy.”

I refuse to answer questions. I have my t-shirt on, the other men are dressed differently. . . . Everybody’s got a shirt and everything, and I’ve got a t-shirt on. . . . This is unfair.²¹³

So the bulk of the evidence, as far as what transpired while Oswald was in custody, indicates that Lee Harvey Oswald was precisely what he said he was: A patsy set up to take the fall for the actions of others.

¹⁹² Anthony Lewis, “Warren Commission Finds Oswald Guilty and Says Assassin and Ruby Acted Alone; Rebukes Secret Service, Asks Revamping,” 27 September 1964, The New York Times, Page One: nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0927.html

¹⁹³ Ibid.

¹⁹⁴ David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace, People’s Almanac #2; (Bantam Books: 1978) 47–52; “The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald: Compiled by Mae Brussell”

¹⁹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹⁹ Anthony Summers & Robbyn Swann, The Arrogance of Power (Penguin Books: 2001).

²⁰⁰ “The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald: Compiled by Mae Brussell.”

²⁰¹ Joe Nick Patoski, “The Witnesses: What They Saw Then, Who They Are Now,” Texas Monthly, November, 1998.

²⁰² Joan Mellen, A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, And the Case That Should Have Changed History (Potomac Books: 2007).

²⁰³ “The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald: Compiled by Mae Brussell.”

²⁰⁴ Ibid.

²⁰⁵ Ibid.

²⁰⁶ Ibid.

²⁰⁷ Ibid.

²⁰⁸ Ibid.

²⁰⁹ Ibid.

²¹⁰ Patoski, “The Witnesses: What They Saw Then, Who They Are Now”

²¹¹ “The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald: Compiled by Mae Brussell.”

²¹² Ibid.

²¹³ Ibid.