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

who believed he had been abused and neglected.” In Bugliosi’s view, Oswald believed in
Marxism largely for psychological reasons: “Lee’s Communism had always been an
attitude rather than an activity.” 309 He was destined, in this account, of being frustrated
in his search for happiness and meaning in the Soviet Union and the United States, in his
attempt to travel to Fidel Castro’s Cuba, and in his personal relationships.
Bugliosi accepted the Warren Commission’s view of Oswald and his motivations.
He described Oswald as a “demented non-entity,” a “deeply troubled person and a
restless Marxist,” “a first-class ‘nut,’” and “a loser trying to give meaning to his life.” 310
This “nut” was in turn killed by Ruby, another “nut.” 311 Bugliosi point out that in a trial,
the prosecution does not have to provide a motive, but that it was valuable to provide one
to the jury who want to know why a crime was committed. While emphasizing Oswald’s
nuttiness, Bugliosi also agreed that Oswald had political motivations: to strike at the heart
of the capitalist power and to aid his hero Fidel Castro. “Oswald,” according to Bugliosi,
“viewed himself as a militant soldier of action in the Marxist class struggle to bring about
change, not by a slow, evolutionary process but by a violent revolution.” 312 In the end,
Bugliosi’s portrait of Oswald was perhaps even more one-sided and facile than the
portrait painted by the Warren Commission. He certainly used all the adjectives he could
find to describe the accused assassin: “If anyone ever had the psychological profile of a
presidential assassin, it was Oswald…He was a bitter, frustrated, and beaten-down loser
309 Bugliosi, 540.
310 Bugliosi, xxvii, xxvi, 945, 943.
311 Bugliosi, xxx.
312 Bugliosi, 937.
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