[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

Robert also related an extraordinary moment when he talked to his brother after
he was charged with the assassination. Robert remembered “how completely relaxed
[Lee] seemed…His voice was calm and he talked matter-of-factly, without any sign of
tension or strain.” Finally, Robert asked “Lee, what the Sam Hill is going on?” Lee
replied “I don’t know.” Robert recited some of the evidence against his brother, who
“stiffened and straightened up” and said “I just don’t know what they’re talking
about…Don’t believe all this so-called evidence.” As he studied his brother’s face and
stared into his eyes, Lee Oswald said quietly, “Brother, you won’t find anything
there.” 207 After Ruby killed his brother, Robert wrote on a scrap of paper on December
11, 1963 that he would not judge his brother, leaving that to God, because “If I judge you
now I might never know the reason why…The child and young man I knew could not be
the one. What devil of devils possessed this brother of mine?” 208
Robert concluded that the assassination was Lee’s “final protest to a world that
had ignored him, sometimes mocked him, always failed to acknowledge his
superiority,” 209 Robert left open the possibility that someone may have influenced or
encouraged him. He also found a pattern in family history that he thought might help
explain his brother’s actions. He dismissed Lee’s alleged political motivations and
conspiracy theories that he thought were partly the result of his brother’s cultivated
mysteriousness and “enjoyment of intrigue.” 210 Instead, Robert noted that important
207 Oswald, 143-44.
208 Oswald, 182.
209 Oswald, 214.
210 Oswald, 216.
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