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

plot made sense ideologically, as well, since the right was the natural adversary of a left-
wing president. Oswald in these renderings is usually made a patsy of the far-right
because his intelligence background made him appear to be a left-wing extremist,
masking the true nature of the plot. Some of the double Oswald theories suggested that
intelligence operatives or some other right-wing party impersonated the former Marine in
order to bolster the case against him. Secret Agent Oswald theories appealed to those
concerned about the largely invisible power of the intelligence bureaucracy, and
supporters of Kennedy worried about the staunch opposition to his Cold War, civil rights,
and social policies. Secret Agent Oswald became a mainstay of the conspiracy books,
largely because the public was receptive to this idea after the scandals and revelations of
the 1960s onward. As political scientist Philip Melanson and historian John Newman
have shown, Secret Agent Oswald also has endured because a compelling case can be
made that it is true and fits with the historical context of his life. Some theorists,
however, posit an unbelievably vast conspiracy and cover-up that takes on the tinge of
Richard Hofstadter’s “paranoid style.”
Some of the first authors to investigate the Kennedy assassination believed that
Oswald was a secret agent of the CIA, FBI, or both. As discussed previously, the Warren
Commission, early on in its investigation, was faced with reports that Oswald had been a
confidential FBI informant. The Commission accepted the FBI’s denials – and the
denials of the CIA – that either agency had used Oswald as an agent or informant. This
did not stop the speculation that Oswald was in fact working for the government in a
strange activities on both sides of the Cold War divide.
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