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

CHAPTER 3: OSWALD THE RED
Some writers, who accepted the lone assassin findings of the Warren
Commission, nevertheless thought the panel had downplayed Oswald’s ideological
motivation for the assassination. They took at face value Oswald’s stated left-wing
extremist views, in particular his support of Fidel Castro’s Cuba. They saw him as the
avenger for hostile U.S. actions against Cuba, including the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs
invasion and the Cuban missile crisis. Oswald was one of “them.”. These defenders of
the Warren Commission symbolically removed Oswald from the U.S. body politic; he
was an alien organism. These writers included people connected to the U.S. or Soviet
bloc intelligence agencies. Both sides of the Cold War divide had an interest in
downplaying any intelligence connections between Oswald and their own espionage
activities. However, some writers in the West suspected Oswald was part of a Soviet or
Cuban conspiracy. It was sometimes hard for these writers to determine whether Oswald
was a “lone wolf” left-wing assassin or one connected to a Red conspiracy. The “Oswald
the Red” interpretation particularly appealed to Americans concerned with the
Communist “menace” or who viewed Marxism as an alien or evil ideology.
Defenders of the Warren Commission faced a problem in the 1970’s, when a
presidential panel and a congressional investigation revealed the existence of CIA plots to
assassinate Castro with the assistance of organized crime figures. This information had
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