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

more as an enigma than a flesh and blood person. Throughout the novel, Brown has
characters comment on Oswald’s inscrutability. His own defense lawyer suggests to the
jury that Oswald was a spy, but acknowledged “I’m not going to pretend to tell you that I
know” who or what he was. 670
The trial of Oswald is more a novelistic vehicle to examine the evidence in the
case, rather than to characterize the alleged assassin. Brown wrote he had “neither love
nor sympathy” for Oswald, and that he considered him a “patsy” who had “blood on his
hands” by allowing him to be used by “those who pulled the trigger.” 671 Brown rued the
fact that Oswald – the self-declared “patsy” who thereby hinted at knowledge of the
forces behind the assassination – never stood trial. He concluded that “Above [John
Kennedy] is the eternal flame. All around him is the eternal doubt.” 672
More indelible portraits of Oswald have been seen on film and television screens.
For many Americans, seeing is believing in an age in which visual representations often
receive wider currency than texts. Multiple actors have given life to Oswald on screen,
reflecting different interpretations of the alleged assassin. The first movie depicting Lee
Harvey Oswald was a low-budget film from director Larry Buchanan, which was
released briefly in April 1964 before the Warren Commission report had been issued.
Surprisingly, the film – with the obvious title of The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald –
670
Walt Brown, The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald, (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992),
57.
671
Brown, xviii-xix.
672
Brown, 612.
290