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

ody he had, the physique of a Greek God.” 124 In fact, Kennedy had suffered a gaping
head wound, and in life had struggled with disease and affliction.
The question for Manchester, then, was how a nonentity like Oswald could kill a
great god-king like Kennedy. Oswald’s political motives were dismissed. Manchester
echoed the Warren Commission’s description of the alleged assassin’s sexual
inadequacy, and also claimed that Marina had finally rejected Oswald in favor of her
friend, Ruth Paine, who she was living with. This, of course, hints at psychosexual
motives for the assassination, but Manchester did not emphasize this argument. Instead,
he blamed the extreme right-wing’s hatred of the President prevalent in Dallas for
swaying a “deranged mind” such as Oswald’s. 125 Manchester included many examples
of the Dallas far right’s hatred of the Massachusetts Democrat, while discounting
Oswald’s own ostensibly extreme left-wing views; otherwise the connection between
Oswald and his environment would not fit. He wrote that in Dallas, there was “a
stridency, a disease of the spirit, a shrill, hysterical note suggestive of a deeply troubled
society” along with “a dark streak of violence.” 126 Many advisors and confidants of
President Kennedy warned him of the danger in Dallas, and Manchester noted that many
Americans assumed before Oswald’s arrest, that the assassin had to be a right-wing
extremist. According to the author, Jacqueline Kennedy thought when told of Oswald’
arrest, “Oh my God…but that’s absurd…It even robs his [Kennedy’s] death of meaning.”
124 Manchester, 400.
125 Manchester, 287.
126 Manchester, 43.
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