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

The Commission’s defenders often emphasized one or the other aspects of
Oswald’s supposed motivation and personality. Oswald the Nut focused on his apparent
mental instability, his family woes, and personal failings. Oswald the Red stressed his
Marxist beliefs as the political motive for the assassination. The arguments emphasizing
Oswald’s political motivation often shaded into the possibility of a Soviet or Cuban-led
conspiracy, but more often, Oswald was seen as the lone gunman. Both theories
attempted to set Oswald apart as alien to American society – either socially or politically.
Creative artists in novels, books, films, television shows, and even a musical
explored Oswald’s psyche and the assassination in search of deeper truths. Some of these
works portrayed Oswald as an anti-hero – a radical individualist who committed a terrible
deed on behalf of his ideals. Films and television shows portrayed Oswald in a variety of
ways, sometimes using the vehicle of the trial that never took place to examine the
assassination controversy.
To the Warren Commission’s critics, Oswald was neither a lone nut nor a Red.
Instead, he was either the patsy of organized crime or an agent of U.S. intelligence. To
the critics of the Warren Commission, the murky details of Oswald’s life either show that
he is a pawn of U.S. intelligence, the mob, the Soviets, the Cubans, or anti-Castroites.
Many conspiracy authors, like Anthony Summers, believe U.S. intelligence and the mob
acted together, setting up Secret Agent Oswald to take the fall. The congressional
investigation blamed the mob, a politically more palatable conspiracy theory than one
involving U.S. intelligence. In some of the works presenting conspiracy theories,
Oswald was depicted as someone more or less innocent of involvement in the
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