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

CHAPTER 7: SECRET AGENT OSWALD
In American culture, one of the enduring interpretations of Oswald’s life is that he
was a secret agent. To many interpreters, Oswald bore all the hallmarks of an agent of
U.S. intelligence, either the CIA or some other agency. Oswald’s apparent defection to
the Soviet Union, his return to the United States, and the fact that he was not prosecuted
on any espionage charge, even though he had threatened to reveal U.S. secrets at the
height of the Cold War, made many suspicious. Many of these conspiracy theorists,
including New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, believed Oswald also worked as a
double agent of the FBI. Oswald as secret agent brought to the forefront the suggestion
that U.S. intelligence agents played a role in the assassination, either as the main
conspirators or in combination with anti-Castro Cubans, the mob, Texas oilmen, or right-
wing extremists. This led many theorists to suggest that Kennedy had been killed
because he had sought to ease Cold War tensions – the “peace thesis” mentioned earlier.
In this rendering, the Cold War unleashed dark forces in American society that resist any
accommodation with the Communist enemy, even if it means committing treason and
killing the nation’s head of state. While Oswald the Nut or Oswald the Red was one of
“them,” Oswald the Secret Agent was one of “us.”
Like the Oswald as mob patsy theory, the Secret Agent Oswald arguments gave
President Kennedy a heroic cast – he was killed for trying to make peace. A right-wing
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