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

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

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including in the Soviet Union. Oswald was an extremist through the U.S. political lens,<br />

but his arrogant and hostile brand of individualism, as portrayed by the Warren<br />

Commission, made him a poor choice as conspirator and in line with the “lone-nut”<br />

assassin thesis. He was supposedly a leftist unconnected with leftist groups in the United<br />

States, Soviet Union, Cuba, or elsewhere.<br />

In fact, if you take Oswald’s political views as presented by the Commission at<br />

face value, the assassination does not make much sense, since the alleged assassin spoke<br />

highly of Kennedy’s policies on civil rights and other matters. The Commission wrested<br />

Oswald from the political environment in which he lived, with strong communities of<br />

conservatives and right-wing extremists in New Orleans, Louisiana and Dallas, Texas.<br />

Oswald’s other alleged plans to assassinate other political figures make more sense if<br />

Oswald really had left-wing sympathies. The Commission concluded that Oswald fired a<br />

shot at right-wing extremist, retired General William Walker, while the General was in<br />

his Dallas home on April 10, 1963. The shot missed General Walker, and it was only<br />

after the Kennedy assassination and the Warren Commission inquiry that Oswald was<br />

tied to the attempted murder. Marina Oswald also testified that Oswald threatened to kill<br />

former Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican presidential nominee in 1960<br />

whose political success rested on his anti-Communism.<br />

In its report, the Commission provided a biography of the alleged assassin that<br />

emphasized his unsettled childhood, psychological problems, his rejection of U.S. society<br />

and dissatisfaction with Soviet life, his failures as a Marine, husband, and worker, and his<br />

31

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