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Oswald and Cuba
At the age of 19, Oswald left the Marines ahead of schedule and visited the Soviet Union. He told the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1959 that he wanted to renounce his U.S. citizenship, but he did not. Instead, Oswald went to work in a Soviet radio factory. His letters home ranted against capitalism and the U.S. By 1961, Oswald returned to Fort Worth, Texas, with his young wife, Marina. He subscribed to Russian newspapers and magazines while pursuing a series of jobs from which he got fired. Oswald spent the summer of 1963 in New Orleans, a hotbed of anti-Castro sentiment, where he assumed a false name and began printing and handing out pro-communist leaflets on street corners with the message "Hands Off Cuba." He formed a one-man Fair Play for Cuba Committee chapter loosely connected to the national organization. Over the next three months, Oswald distributed pro-Castro literature and appeared three times on local radio and television supporting Communism in general-and Castro in particular. In early October 1963, frustrated in his unsuccessful attempts to travel to Cuba and possibly the U.S.S.R., Oswald took a temporary job filling book orders at the Texas School Book Depository.
Conservative Climate
One
of the most vocal ultra-conservative Dallas residents was Edwin A. Walker
(1909-1993). In 1961, Major General Walker served as commander of the
24th Infantry Division, U.S. Army, in Augsburg, Germany. U.S. government
officials accused him of indoctrinating his troops with right-wing literature
from the John Birch Society. The Army admonished him and relieved him
of his command. Declaring that the Kennedy Administration attempted to
muzzle the anti-communist comments of its officers, Walker resigned from
the Army in protest. He then embarked upon a career devoted to speaking
out against Communism, locating his headquarters in Dallas. Death of a Suspect
After two days' questioning, Oswald still denied everything, calling himself a "patsy," meaning he had been framed. During a transfer from the city jail to the county jail, local nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot Oswald. He died at Parkland Hospital, almost 48 hours to the minute after President Kennedy was pronounced dead. Within hours of the assassination and throughout the weekend, radio and television publicized Oswald's pro-Castro beliefs. Excerpts of his New Orleans interviews indicated that he strongly disagreed with the U.S. for its treatment of Castro and Cuba. Many
people, including newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson and some
in the Secret Service, feared that Kennedy's assassination was the prelude
to global war initiated by the Soviet Union. When Oswald became a suspect,
his background-including his three-years in the Soviet Union and public
support of Fidel Castro-elicited fears that the assassination was just
the beginning of a larger communist plot. The U.S.S.R. and Cuba denied
involvement and no imminent threats surfaced.
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allas
was a city of staunch political conservatism in 1963. Local right-wing
proponents often received publicity for their agendas in the daily newspapers.
Though relatively small in number, they grabbed attention, leading to
a perception that they spoke for the entire city.
ithin
an hour of arriving in Dallas on November
22, 1963, President Kennedy
was 
shot
and killed and Texas Governor John Connally was wounded. About 45
minutes later, Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippit was shot and killed in
nearby Oak Cliff, where a private citizen saw a 
suspicious
person duck into the Texas Theater and told the ticket taker to call police.
Officers arrested Lee Harvey Oswald after a fight in which he pulled a
gun and tried to fire.
he
chain of historic events that occurred during the presidency of John F.
Kennedy continues to shape American perceptions of Cuba today.