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

German-born author Joachim Joesten, who had emigrated from his homeland
after the Nazis took power and eventually became a U.S. citizen, was one of the first
proponents of the Oswald as secret agent theory. In his 1964 book Oswald: Assassin or
Fally Guy?, Joesten dedicated his book to Mark Lane, praising the lawyer for destroying
“the Myth of the Demented Assassin.” 543 Joesten also criticized the evidence marshaled
against Oswald, but went a step further than Lane had done at that point in theorizing
about Oswald’s connection to the government and the nature of the alleged conspiracy to
assassinate Kennedy. Joesten wrote that “Oswald was a ‘fall guy’” – picked for the role
“precisely because, as a petty, and perhaps discarded, agent of the CIA, and later of the
FBI.” He claimed that Oswald was an “ideal scapegoat” because “his obtrusive display
of ‘Marxist’ feelings stamped him as the kind of man who could be made to appear an
irrational assassin and around whom a web of circumstantial evidence could be
woven.” 544 Joesten believed Oswald’s Marxism was the mask of a double agent.
Joesten’s own left-wing sympathies are apparent, especially in his condemnation
of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and the right-wing elements that supposedly killed
Kennedy. He urged the public to take a “good hard look at Mr. Hoover to see that ‘the
king is naked,’ that his patriotic vestments are spun out of thin air and are, indeed, in
Samuel Johnson’s famous definition, ‘The last refuge of a scoundrel.’” 545 Joesten also
concluded that “The conspiracy involves…some officials of the CIA and the FBI as well
543
Joachim Joesten, Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy?, (New York: Marzani & Munsell,
1964), 3.
544
Joesten, 11-12.
545
Joesten, 15.
241