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

exploding the bomb from a nearby submarine; or just having an intermediary present
Castro with the gift of a skin diving suit contaminated with still another exotic poison.” 231
Russo argued that these plots almost brought the world to the brink of nuclear
annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis because the Soviets had placed the missiles
in Cuba to protect their ally, Fidel Castro. The covert program’s tentacles reached out
from Miami, Florida and New Orleans, Louisiana, where Russo contended that “a young,
emotionally vacant Castro admirer” – Lee Harvey Oswald -- became aware of the
activities and resolved to take action to defend his hero. 232
Russo’s biographical sketch of Oswald was in line with the other authors’ who
emphasized his ostensible Marxist beliefs and political motivation for the assassination.
Once again we are told of Oswald’s childhood conversion to Marxism, and his defection
to the Soviet Union, but Russo contended that Oswald’s life provided “fertile ground for
developing [his] negative qualities,” and that Oswald’s difficult childhood provided “a
framework in which to understand the adult Oswald.” 233 Many of the incidents outlined
in the Warren Commission report were included, but Russo provided one new wrinkle
involving Allen Campbell, a former resident of the orphanage that Lee stayed at when he
was young,. In an interview with Russo, Campbell claimed that residents of the
orphanage, including a four-and-a-half-hear-old Oswald, witnessed a priest raping girls,
231 Russo, 57.
232 Russo, 84.
233 Russo, 88.
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