October 18, 2019, would have been Lee Harvey Oswald’s 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, here are 25 facts you were never told about this mysterious man.
FAMILY TIES
1). Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Lee Harvey Oswald was the fifth cousin (five times removed) of Confederate General, Robert E. Lee. In Fact, Lee Harvey Oswald’s father’s name was Robert E. Lee Oswald Senior.
THE EARLY YEARS
2). As a teenager, Lee Harvey Oswald was a fan of the TV show, I Led Three Lives. The show ran from 1953 to 1956 and is described as, “An advertising executive poses as a Communist agent but secretly reports to the FBI.”
3). Enlisting with the Marines in 1956, Oswald eventually obtained top secret security clearance and was stationed at the American U2 radar base in Atsugi, Japan where he monitored radar for American spy planes.
TO RUSSIA AND BACK
4). Oswald defected to Russia — America’s Cold War enemy at the time — in October of 1959 where he renounced his American citizenship.
(Those who believe Oswald killed President John F. Kennedy point to this defection as proof that Oswald was a communist, whereas those critical of the official story about Oswald’s involvement in the assassination point to this as one of Oswald’s covers as a U.S. intelligence agent in order to appear as a communist sympathizer. In the intelligence community this is commonly referred to as “sheep dipping.”)
5). Almost two years after defecting, Oswald typed a letter to the American Embassy on August 08, 1961, about returning to America. Strangely, he wrote in that letter, “I believe I could catch a military hop back to the States, from Berlin.”
Catching a ride on an American military plane would be an outlandish suggestion from someone that defected to America’s Cold War enemy and renounced his American citizenship, but not as outlandish as America’s response: the U.S. State Department actually loaned Oswald (a supposed enemy defector) $435.71 so he could fly back to America.
6). Oswald was (miraculously) not arrested upon his return and his new Russian wife, Marina, was also allowed into the country without reservation.
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
7). Oswald continued to present himself as a Marxist, while simultaneously becoming friends with avowed anti-communists such as Guy Banister (former FBI), David Ferrie (Civil Air Patrol and involved in CIA military training for anti-Castro exiles), and Clay Shaw (businessman and CIA informant).
8). Another one of Oswald’s anti-communist friends was European émigré, George de Mohrenschildt, a petroleum geologist who just happened to also be friends with CIA employee, George H.W. Bush. Yes, the same George H.W. Bush who would later become CIA director and the 41st president of the United States (and who claimed he couldn’t remember where he was the day JFK was assassinated).
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