New Oswald Resource

[Dan O'meara]

When I see pictures of folks like Oswald as happy kids who later went bad in life and did untold harm to society, I have to wonder what might have happened had there been some parent, teacher, friend, or mental health therapist who could have put him on a different path.  Many troubled kids are a headache to parents and teachers.  They don't want any part of them.  They get bounced around from school to school and end up doing harm to themselves and others.  Not many people go the extra mile to intervene.  Oswald bears the direct responsibility for his own actions but many others failed him.

It's impossible to sympathize with the man but it is possible to sympathize with the child.
Somewhere along the line that happy kid got lost.
There are plenty of words that can be used to describe Oswald and "lost" is as good as any.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Thanks W. Tracy, I was looking into the Oswald Russian timeline and used this excellent resource, I look forward to seeing how this story concludes?
But seriously, Oswald's life story is fascinating in a depressing sort of way, he just wanted to "be someone" but kept coming up short, if CT's just took the time to study the man himself and his motivations then perhaps they would see the light!

https://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/p/lee-harvey-oswald-soviet-union-1959-1962.html

The video on the following PBS website "Who was Lee Harvey Oswald" is well researched and gives some insight into, as the title implies, who was Lee Harvey Oswald!

https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-who-was-lee-harvey-oswald/

JohnM

The two other brothers - Robert and John - turned out fine, became good men. They came from the same family. But as Robert said his brother never had the stability, the structure that they did. Someone or some thing helped Robert and John, provided that support and stability; it was missing for Lee. I don't think he was a "bad seed", i.e., corrupt from birth, innately evil. It was nurture that created Oswald not nature. Still, he had agency, free will; he freely made those decisions, limited as they were, in life. They weren't forced on him. Many people have terrible childhoods: neglect, abuse. And they overcome it, don't succumb go the mistreatment they suffered.

What is puzzling, though, is that he seemed to find that stability in the Soviet Union. He had a good job, friends, a wife. But even that wasn't good enough. He wanted more. Priscilla Johnson said she thinks Oswald regretted leaving Minsk; that he never had it so good. Once he came back to the US all of that was gone and his life slowly disintegrated.

[Lance Payette]

The two other brothers - Robert and John - turned out fine, became good men. They came from the same family. But as Robert said his brother never had the stability, the structure that they did. Someone or some thing helped Robert and John, provided that support and stability; it was missing for Lee. I don't think he was a "bad seed"; corrupt from birth, innate. It was nurture not nature.

What is puzzling, though, is that he seemed to find that stability in the Soviet Union. He had a good job, friends, a wife. But even that wasn't good enough. He wanted more. Priscilla Johnson said she thinks Oswald regretted leaving Minsk; that he never had it so good. Once he came back to the US all of that was gone and his life slowly disintegrated.

Quite the opposite, actually, insofar as the USSR is concerned. He found what the rest of us might call stability, but he was fundamentally unstable. As previously stated, my wife and her sister were living in Minsk at the time and the sister was working at the Radio and TV Factory. By Soviet standards, Oswald had an unbelievably nice apartment and an unbelievably good income with the Red Cross subsidy. He was a mini-celebrity and, simply by being an American, an object of fascination for women. He was, and could have remained, a big fish in a small pond. Nonetheless, in no time at all he was bored and dissatisfied, incredibly lazy at work, openly flaunting the rules and principles of the Soviet system, and taking bizarre risks. Titovets liked him, but Titovets' book is scarcely a portrait of a stable character.

At least in my opinion, Oswald for pretty much all his life was under the delusion that he was a superior intellect and destined by fate to be a Great Man of History. The defection to the USSR held that promise, but then he found himself doomed to being a factory grunt in the backwater of Minsk. I think Marina hit on the head when asked where he might have been satisfied: "I don't know, maybe the Moon?" (or words to that effect). I think the realization that he would forever be a grunt and not a Great Man of History is certainly one of the keys to the JFKA.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Quite the opposite, actually, insofar as the USSR is concerned. He found what the rest of us might call stability, but he was fundamentally unstable. As previously stated, my wife and her sister were living in Minsk at the time and the sister was working at the Radio and TV Factory. By Soviet standards, Oswald had an unbelievably nice apartment and an unbelievably good income with the Red Cross subsidy. He was a mini-celebrity and, simply by being an American, an object of fascination for women. He was, and could have remained, a big fish in a small pond. Nonetheless, in no time at all he was bored and dissatisfied, incredibly lazy at work, openly flaunting the rules and principles of the Soviet system, and taking bizarre risks. Titovets liked him, but Titovets' book is scarcely a portrait of a stable character.

At least in my opinion, Oswald for pretty much all his life was under the delusion that he was a superior intellect and destined by fate to be a Great Man of History. The defection to the USSR held that promise, but then he found himself doomed to being a factory grunt in the backwater of Minsk. I think Marina hit on the head when asked where he might have been satisfied: "I don't know, maybe the Moon?" (or words to that effect). I think the realization that he would forever be a grunt and not a Great Man of History is certainly one of the keys to the JFKA.

Being bored and dissatisfied about life, believing you're not being properly recognized, is not for me in any way the same as having an unstable life. How is that instability?

He had an unstable life in the US: he was desperately poor, he couldn't hold a job, he was always failing, he had to rely on unemployment checks or the charity of others, the family spent long periods living apart. He complained bitterly to Michael Paine about the unfairness of America, about how workers were exploited. *That's* an unstable life. It was here that his life disintegrated.

Here is Marina, when they lived in New Orleans, finding him in the kitching weeping and sobbing in despair after losing (again) another job (this is from "Marina and Lee").



Nothing like this was taking place in Minsk. Boredom, feeling not being properly recognized is one thing; not being able to fundamentally get by in life - feeling totally lost with no purpose and future, sobbing in despair - is a completely different one.

[Lance Payette]

Being bored and dissatisfied about life, believing you're not being properly recognized, is not for me in any way the same as having an unstable life. How is that instability?

He had an unstable life in the US: he was desperately poor, he couldn't hold a job, he was always failing, he had to rely on unemployment checks or the charity of others, the family spent long periods living apart. He complained bitterly to Michael Paine about the unfairness of America, about how workers were exploited. *That's* an unstable life. It was here that his life disintegrated.

Here is Marina, when in New Orleans, finding him in the kitching weeping and sobbing in despair.



Nothing like this was taking place in Minsk. Boredom, feeling not being properly recognized is one thing; not being able to fundamentally get by in life - feeling totally lost with no purpose and future - is a completely different one.

The distinction I'm making is that his external circumstances were irrelevant. As I said, he had in the USSR what might look to you or me like the trappings of a stable life but was not for Oswald because he was fundamentally unstable. Both the USSR and the US failed to fulfill his delusion that he was a brilliant intellect destined to be a Great Man of History. He went to the USSR with the hope and expectation of becoming a major figure and returned to the U.S. with the same delusional hope and expectation, preparing for the hordes of reporters whom he thought would be waiting at the dock. Neither hope panned out, leaving him only with the delusional hope that his destiny would be achieved in Cuba. When Mexico City didn't pan out, the delusion suffered another blow.

I believe this is why you see his dissatisfaction in Minsk as a mystery. You're not looking at it through the eyes of someone who thinks he's been destined by fate to be a Great Man in History. Minsk was as big a blow to this delusion as was the U.S., even though the external circumstances were very different.

Back at ya with Marina:

Mr. RANKIN. Was there anything said about the United States--not liking the United States?
Mrs. OSWALD. No. I can't say---he liked some things in Russia, he liked. some other things here, didn't like some things there, and didn't like some things here.
And I am convinced that as much as he knew about Cuba, all he knew was from books and so on. He wanted to convince himself. But I am sure that if he had gone there, he would not have liked it there, either. Only on the moon, perhaps.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

Section on the Soviet Union for my timeline is now available:

https://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/p/lee-harvey-oswald-soviet-union-1959-1962.html

[Tom Graves]

If you have any interest in Oswald's early life check out:
https://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2024/10/my-timeline-of-early-life-of-lho-now.html

Is it true that when was a kid in the Bronx, he would shoot at people from an upper-floor window with his B-B gun?

[Lance Payette]

Is it true that when was a kid in the Bronx, he would shoot at people from an upper-floor window with his B-B gun?

When interviewed by a truant officer, Harvey and Lee both insisted they were together in a first-floor lunchroom eating Beanie Weenies, neither had ever owned a BB gun, and neither had any idea President Truman's limousine was even in the vicinity on the day in question. Harvey's mother, Marguerite, and Lee's mother, Marguerite, confirmed their accounts.