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Former Marine whose life, travels, and final days are the central thread of every JFK investigation.
Lee Harvey Oswald served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1956 to 1959 before defecting to the Soviet Union, where he lived in Minsk until 1962. After returning to the United States with his wife Marina, he worked briefly in Dallas and New Orleans, undertook a trip to Mexico City in late September 1963, and was arrested at the Texas Theatre on November 22, 1963. Approximately 45 minutes after the assassination of President Kennedy, Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit was shot and killed on East 10th Street in Oak Cliff; Oswald was charged with both murders the same day. He was shot and killed two days later by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being transferred between jails.
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Born at Old French Hospital, New Orleans, to Marguerite Claverie Oswald. His father, Robert E. Lee Oswald Sr., had died of a heart attack two months earlier.
Enlists in Dallas at age 17; reports to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, on October 26, 1956.
Appears at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and declares his intent to renounce U.S. citizenship. The CIA opens a 201 personality file on Oswald the following December.
Marries in Minsk, Belorussian SSR. Their first daughter, June, is born February 15, 1962.
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“CIA · From: DIRECTOR · To: WITHHELD · JFK-M-11 : F2 : 1999.02.03.15:32:55:436120 : CIA CORRESPONDENCE RE ARRB · Release: Redact”
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Service record, travels 1956–1963, and pre-assassination timeline.
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Arrives in New York with Marina and infant daughter June. Interviewed at Idlewild Airport by the FBI. Settles first in Fort Worth, then Dallas.
A rifle shot is fired through the dining-room window of Major General Edwin A. Walker's Dallas home. Warren Commission and ARRB records attribute the shot to Oswald.
Travels to Mexico City; visits the Cuban Consulate and the Soviet Embassy through October 2. CIA station cables record the contact; no visa is issued.
Begins work as a $1.25/hour order filler at the TSBD building at Elm and Houston in Dallas.
Shots are fired at the presidential motorcade as it passes the Texas School Book Depository. The Warren Commission concluded three shots were fired; the HSCA's 1979 acoustic analysis suggested a possible fourth, a finding later rejected by the NAS/Ramsey Panel. President Kennedy is fatally wounded; Governor Connally is seriously wounded; bystander James Tague sustains a minor injury from a bullet or fragment striking the curb of Main Street.
Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit is shot and killed on East 10th Street about 100 feet east of Patton Avenue in Oak Cliff. At least nine witnesses positively identify Oswald — five in police lineups by the evening of November 22, a sixth the next day, and three more from photographs.
Dallas Police arrest Lee Harvey Oswald inside the Texas Theatre, 231 West Jefferson Boulevard, Oak Cliff. He is charged with the Tippit murder the same evening, and with the Kennedy assassination later that night.
Marina Oswald is shown the CE-133 backyard photographs and testifies that she took them in the backyard of the Neely Street residence in late March or early April 1963.
During a jail transfer in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, Jack Ruby steps forward and fires a single round from a .38 Colt Cobra revolver (serial #2744 LW) into Oswald's abdomen.
Lee Harvey Oswald is pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where President Kennedy was pronounced dead 47 hours earlier.
George de Mohrenschildt, who befriended the Oswalds in Dallas in 1962-63 and testified before the Warren Commission, dies in Manalapan, Florida. The medical examiner rules the death a suicide by shotgun wound. HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi had attempted to interview him that afternoon.
“CIA · From: WITHHELD · To: DIRECTOR · JFK-M-11 : F2 : 1999.02.03.15:41:30:763120 : CIA CORRESPONDENCE RE ARRB · Release: Redact”
“CIA · OSW16 : V57 : 1993.06.24.14:11:37:840800 : · Release: Redact”
“HSCA · Redacted and declassified.Box 1. · Release: Redact”
“CIA · JFK-RH11 : F212 : 1998.08.18.06:53:47:123129 : · Release: Redact”
“CIA · From: M. D. STEVENS · To: FILES · JFK5 : F13 : 20031203-1019525 : · Release: Redact”
“CIA · From: STEVENS, M.D. · To: FILES · JFK48 : F17/3 : 20040226-1050431 : · Release: Redact”
“CIA · From: STEVENS, M. D. · To: FILES · JFK-RH05 : F108-5 : 20040331-1069923 : · Release: Redact”
“CIA · From: STEVENS, M. D. · To: FILES · OSW-SF : F2 : 20040322-1061937 : · Release: Redact”
“CIA · From: STEVENS, M. D. · To: FILES · JFK47 : F2A : 20040226-1050687 : · Release: Redact”