Lee Harvey Oswald

About Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was, according to three United States government investigations, the assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. A former United States Marine who defected to the Soviet Union and later returned, Oswald was arrested on suspicion of killing Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit and later connected to the assassination of President Kennedy. Oswald denied any responsibility for the murders. Two days later — before he could be brought to trial for the crimes, while being transferred under police custody from the police station to jail — Oswald was shot and mortally wounded by Jack Ruby on live television.

In 1964 the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy single-handedly, a conclusion also reached by prior investigations of the FBI and the Dallas Police Department. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded, based on disputed acoustic evidence, that Oswald assassinated Kennedy "probably as a result of a conspiracy." The HSCA also stated: "The Warren Commission failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President."

Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, Robert Edward Lee Oswald, Sr. (New Orleans, 4 March 1896 – New Orleans, 19 August 1939), who had previously been married before marrying Oswald's mother on 20 July 1933, died two months before Lee was born. His mother, Marguerite Frances Claverie (New Orleans, 19 July 1907 – Fort Worth, Texas, 17 January 1981), largely raised Lee on her own along with two older siblings: his brother Robert and his half-brother, John Pic (1932–2000), Marguerite's son from a previous marriage. Oswald did have a stepfather, Edwin A. Ekdahl (1888–1965), from 1945 to 1948, when they divorced.