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

espionage, or other suspect activities.” 103 Yet, the authors rejected all these possibilities
as only rumors without any substance, and blamed Oswald’s supposed penchant for lying
and deception: “he cloaked his own acts in an air of mystery. He nurtured his own sense
of self-important with deliberate nonconformity.” 104
The authors’ portrait of Oswald reflected the Commission’s “lone nut” thesis that
Oswald was a failure at everything he did, and immature in lashing out at every society
he lived in: Oswald “was like a child who, failing to gain the attention he wants, finds
that smashing a toy or making a mess is the easiest way to obtain recognition.” 105
According to Ford and Stiles, Oswald’s marriage was a failure, and he was unable to
make connections with others. They recounted the familiar charges of Oswald as a
troubled youth, a wife beater, an inadequate lover and provider, and an unsuccessful left-
wing political activist who could not deal with failure. The two authors contended that
Oswald harbored a “deep-rooted resentment of all authority which he expressed in a
hostility toward every society in which he lived.” 106 They accepted Oswald as a true
Marxist and reflected Cold War attitudes toward the Soviet bloc. Ford connected
Oswald’s personal failures with Marxism, by stating that “if one were to stress the thing I
consider most deceptive about communism, it is the failure of its advocates to recognize
103 Ford and Stiles, 372.
104 Ford and Stiles, 371.
105 Ford and Stiles, 90.
106 Ford and Stiles, 540.
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