Lee Harvey Oswald 1939 – 1963

Biography

Lee Harvey Oswald was the man accused of assassinating President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Born in New Orleans in 1939, he had an unsettled childhood and joined the United States Marine Corps in 1956, where he trained as a sharpshooter. In 1959 he defected to the Soviet Union, living in Minsk for nearly three years before returning to America with his Russian wife, Marina. Back in Texas he worked at the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. On November 22, shots fired from the depository killed Kennedy as his motorcade passed Dealey Plaza. Oswald was arrested the same day and charged with the murder, but was himself shot dead two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while in police custody. His murder, broadcast live on television, deepened the nation’s shock, and the Warren Commission’s conclusion that he acted alone remains debated to this day.