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

was and his rejection of both the capitalistic United States and communism as he found it
practiced in the Soviet Union. Oswald began with the details of his birth in the United
States, saying that the death of his father “left a far mean streak of indepence [sic]
brought on by negleck [sic].” 71 (The Commission made a point of noting that Oswald’s
numerous misspellings may have resulted from a “reading-spelling disability,” or what is
known as dyslexia.) 72 Oswald went on to write that after two years in the Soviet Union
and “alot [sic] of growing up,” he decided to return home. 73 Oswald’s easy return to the
United States after ostensibly defecting to the Soviet Union seems odd to many
researchers, unless he was in fact a false defector.
According to the Commission, as he returned to the United States, Oswald
described his dissatisfaction with the United States and Soviet Union, and posited an
alternative that would apparently combine the best elements of both systems --
democracy and individual rights and a socialist economy. He denounced both the United
States and Soviet Union as offering “imperilistic [sic] injustice, tinted with two brands of
slavery.” Oswald considered himself an expert on political science (what the
Commission had called a “political prophet”) since he had lived under both systems. In
Oswald’s words, he foresaw the “emplacement of a separate, democratic, pure
communist society…but one with union-communes” and “democratic socializing of
production.” Oswald also criticized the mass purges and abuses by Soviet authorities,
71 WC Report, 395.
72 WC Report, 383.
73 WC Report, 397.
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