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

as “Mr. X.” 562 The motive was a variation of the “peace thesis:” the oilmen were
threatened not only with losing their big tax break, but also all the money associated with
defense spending. Buchanan alleged “the murder of the President was provoked,
primarily, by fear of the domestic and international consequences of the Moscow pact:
the danger of disarmament which would disrupt the industries on which the plotters
depended and of an international détente which would in their view, have threatened the
eventual nationalization of their oil investments overseas.” 563 The authorities decided not
to probe too deeply into the matter especially since they suspected or knew that Oswald
was, in fact, “their own man.” 564
Another early critic of the Warren Commission, Harold Weisberg, became a
proponent of the Oswald as Secret Agent theory. Weisberg wrote the Whitewash series
of books criticizing the Commission’s investigation, and laid out his theories about
Oswald and the assassination in his 1967 tome Oswald in New Orleans: Case for
Conspiracy with the CIA. The book focused on Oswald’s activities in New Orleans in the
months preceding the assassination, and his alleged connection to the CIA, anti-Castro
Cubans, and right-wing extremists. Weisberg was a support of New Orleans District
Attorney Jim Garrison, and his research helped bolster the DA’s case for conspiracy.
Weisberg wrote that he was concerned with Garrison’s investigation in three ways: “My
published work contains a great deal of the story, my unpublished discoveries carry this
562 Buchanan, 147.
563 Buchanan, 144.
564 Buchanan, 152.
247