Boom clickclick. And he fell shot in the side of the head. Any effort to explain what happened in dallas must explain lee Harvey Oswald. He is not an easy man to explain. Did you shoot the president . No, im just a patsy. Narrator lone gunman or part of a conspiracy . The evidence is often ambiguous. Im a marxist, that is correct. Narrator on the 50th anniversary of president kennedys assassination, frontlines definitive investigation of the mysterious life and character of lee Harvey Oswald. Frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from and by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major support for frontline is provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information is available at macfound. Org. Additional funding is provided by the park foundation. Dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The wyncote foundation. And by tfrontline journalism fund, supporting investigative reporting and enterprise journalism. Captioned by train whistle blows narrator at the edge of downtown dallas, the Union Pacific railroad crosses a triple underpass near a place called dealey plaza. On the north side of dealey plaza are the Dallas County jail, the courthouse and the Texas School Book depository. In dealey plaza, it will always be november 22, 1963. I notice that there are a number of hidden zippers in these jackets. Now, what are these for, betsy . They cant be for. Is it for mad money . Well, it depends on where theyre placed. They can be wherever you want them. static good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Youll excuse the fact that im out of breath, but. This is from the united press, from dallas. President kennedy and governor John Connally have been cut down by assassins bullets in downtown dallas. They were riding in an open automobile when the shots were fired. The Texas School Book depository, headed for the triple underpass. There were three loud, reverberating explosions. Shots were fired and he happened to look up at about the fifth or sixth floor of the texas book depository. He said he saw the rifle being pulled back in. Bert . phone ringing lets see. Lets get reorganized here. Grab that cable over there. Were on the air, bert. And lets talk to you. Officials were en route as fast as they could get there to parkland hospital. This is what ive been told the president was shot in the head, connally was shot in the chest. Both of them were still alive when i left the hospital. Do you have some film . Yeah, i have film. Will you get the film and see if you can get it developed real quick . A priest has been ordered. Emergency supplies of blood also being rushed. When i first looked over the balcony. A gentleman just walked in our studio that i am meeting for the first time as well as you. This is wfaatv in dallas, texas. May i have your name, please, sir . My name is abraham zapruder. Mr. Zapuda . Zapruder, yes, sir. Zapruder, and would you tell us your story, please, sir . I got out about a halfhour early to get a good spot to shoot some pictures. As the president s coming down from houston street, making his turn, i heard a shot and he slumped to the side, like this. Then i heard another shot or two. I couldnt tell you whether it was one or two. And i saw his head practically open up, all blood and everything. And i kept on shooting. Thats about all. Im just sick i cant. I think that pretty well expresses the feelings of the whole world. Terrible. Narrator within two hours, the police had arrested 24yearold lee Harvey Oswald. He was a former marine who had once defected to the soviet union. Only weeks earlier, he had visited soviet and cuban Diplomatic Missions in mexico. The original complaint that the Police Department filed on lee oswald, around midnight on the 22nd of november, said that lee oswald did, in furtherance of an International Communist conspiracy, assassinate president john f. Kennedy. Narrator that night, as air force one brought John Kennedys body home to washington, the new president was afraid that oswalds apparent communist connections could spark an international crisis. President johnson ordered the District Attorney to drop any reference to a communist conspiracy. This is a sad time for all people. Johnson was fearful that if this had gotten out, it would inflame Public Opinion and could possibly lead to world war iii. This is exactly how world war i began with an assassination. Narrator nine months later, president johnsons Warren Commission concluded there had been no conspiracy. But in 1979, the House Assassinations Committee concluded there probably had been a plot to kill the president. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories have multiplied as hollywood movies and 2,000 books have accused the cia, the fbi, the pentagon, fidel castro, anticastro cubans, the kgb, the mafia, rightwing oil men and even Lyndon Johnson himself of assassinating john kennedy. Did you shoot the president . Im just a patsy. Narrator lone gunman, conspirator or patsy . Lee Harvey Oswald is the ambiguous figure at the heart of the kennedy assassination. Any effort to explain what happened in dallas must explain lee Harvey Oswald, you know, and lee Harvey Oswald is a mystery, wrapped up in an enigma, hidden behind a riddle. He is not, i put it in simple words, an easy man to explain. Narrator and easy explanations died 50 years ago, when oswald in his turn fell to an assassins bullet. gunshot hes been shot lee oswald has been shot he is shot oswald. It is oswald narrator as a boy, the bronx zoo was a haven for lee oswald. He seemed to prefer the company of animals to people. He had not set foot in school for nearly two months when he was picked up at the zoo for truancy and taken to juvenile court. Lee thought he had better ways to use his time than go to school. He spent his days at the Public Library and museums, and endless hours learning the new york city subway system. I remember him vividly. He was a skinny, unprepossessing kid. He was not a mentally disturbed kid. As a matter of fact, his iq was better than average. He was just emotionally frozen. He was a kid who had never developed a really trusting relationship with anybody. Narrator he was born october 18, 1939 in new orleans, the son of marguerite and robert oswald. You go back to the death of dad two months before he was born, thats a tremendous impact. What lee missed from his childhood, in comparison to me, was the whole family being together all the time the continuity there. The stability. The lack of stability, i think, entered into that to a large degree. Narrator marguerite sent the older boys into an orphanage. Lee stayed with his mother. I dont know at what age mother verbalized to lee to the effect that she felt he was a burden to her. Certainly by age three, he had the sense that, you know, we were a burden. Narrator when he was three years old, lee, too, was sent to the orphanage. Like lee, marguerite herself grew up without a parent. It was their common bond. She had certain characteristics that were so much like lee. The time and circumstances always seemed to be against her. The world owed her a living. She wanted to be somebody. I think this was passed on to lee. Narrator at the age of 12, lee was back with his mother. They moved to a small apartment in the bronx. While marguerite worked days in a dress shop, lee spent his time alone. From what i could garner, he really interacted with no one. He made his own meals. His mother left at around 7 00 and came home at 7 00 and he shifted for himself. You got the feeling of a kid. Nobody gave a darn about him. He was just floating along in the world with no emotional resources at all. Narrator his political awakening came in 1953, when julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death as russian spies. The first instance we have of lee Harvey Oswalds politics is that he picked up a leaflet in new york city about the coming execution of the rosenbergs. And as he reads this, it begins to show him that theres a way of finding himself by opposing the established order. I was looking for a key to my environment, and then i discovered socialist literature. I had to dig for my books in the back dusty shelves of libraries. Narrator when the truant officer came after lee again, he and his mother fled new york. They moved back to new orleans, to the edge of the french quarter. But their home was far from the tourists on bourbon street. That street at that time was one den of iniquity after another strip joints, gambling joints. It was a place where every hustler and pimp in new orleans plied his trade. Oswald grew up in a community and environment of crime and corruption. Dear sirs i am sixteen years of age and would like more information about your youth league. Narrator his interest in socialism may have diverted lee from the vices in his neighborhood. I am a marxist and have been studying socialist principles for well over fifteen months. I am very interested in your y. P. S. L. Sincerely, lee oswald. Narrator when he was 16, lee joined the civil air patrol, a youth auxiliary of the air force. Then, just after his 17th birthday, he enlisted in the marines. It was 1956, the height of the cold war. soldiers shouting to him, the marine corps was a vehicle for escaping from all the things that were holding him down in his life. Look what he got as a marine. He learned to use a rifle. He learned to travel. And he got away from his family. Is that 200 meters . Narrator oswald received extensive training in marksmanship. Some have claimed he was a poor shot. But military records indicate otherwise. He shoots on a rifle range 212, which means he qualifies for the second highest position in the marine corps, that of a sharpshooter. Near the end of his stay in the marines, in 1959, he went back to requalify himself on the range, still shot 191 and still qualified as a marksman. gunshots narrator oswald asked to be a radar controller. He received training and then shipped out for what would be his first great foreign adventure a posting at atsugi, japan. What he arrived at, at atsugi air base in japan, wasnt simply an air force defense base. It was a cia base, and the cia program taking place at that base involved one of americas most secret and important Reconnaissance Missions the spy plane which became famous as the u2 plane. Narrator did oswald develop ties to the cia at atsugi . There is no hard evidence. What is known is that he started to learn russian and openly espoused the virtues of marxism to fellow marines. If you complained about, oh, weve got to go on a march this morning or weve got to do this this morning, scrub barracks or whatever we had to do, if you were complaining about it, he would say that that was the capitalist form of government making us do these things. Karl marx and his form of government would alleviate that. Narrator even though he was nicknamed osvaldovich, no one investigated him or his political sympathies. This man was a man with a security clearance. This man was a man who had access to highly sophisticated materials, and he is now showing an interest in marxism. In retrospect, i think that what this indicates and this was the judgment of the committee is that our own people arent as efficient as we might think they ought to be, that more often than not, its keystone cops, you know, and not stainlesssteel efficiency. Narrator oswald found himself at odds with the marine code of discipline. Possession of an illegal pistol earned him a courtmartial and a long stint of kp duty. soldiers shouting angry and resentful, he challenged the sergeant who had busted him to a fight. Courtmartialed for a second time, he was sent to the brig. He applied for an early discharge and a passport. He was secretly planning to go to russia. Oswald didnt defect to the soviet union on a sudden impulse. We know that. This was well planned. And the question is, could oswald have planned this alone or did he have help . Narrator oswalds defection meant travelling from new orleans to france, england and finland. From there, on october 15, 1959, he boarded the train for moscow. Where did he get the money for his travels . He later claimed he had saved over 1,000 while in the marines, but records show he had only 200 in his bank account. accordion music playing as a deluxeclass tourist, oswald had his own intourist guide rimma shirokova. I took him for an excursion round the city. We went to the most important sights of moscow, such as tretyakov art gallery, the cathedrals, and the treasury of the moscow kremlin. accordion music continues narrator but oswald seemed uninterested in the sights. On their second day, he told rimma his real reason for coming he wanted to defect. I was shocked and i asked his motives, his reasons, and he said that it was his political views. He said that he was a communist. He doesnt approve of the american way of life. Narrator with rimma as their gobetween, the kgb considered oswalds request to stay in russia. Vladimir semichastny, a former head of the kgb who reviewed oswalds case, explains why the kgb rejected oswald. translated when he came to us and began to ask for asylum here so insistently, the first reaction was to refuse and not to give him permission to stay in the soviet union, let alone to give him political asylum. Narrator oswald recorded his despair in what he called his historic diary. I must leave country tonight at 8 00 p. M. , as visa expires. I am shocked. My dreams i retire to my room. That same afternoon, we were to meet downstairs, as usual. Some time passed, but he didnt appear. Certainly, i was nervous and wanted to know what had happened, so thats why i rushed upstairs. I knocked at the door, but there was no answer. Narrator Hotel Security men finally broke down the door. We all tumbled in the room, and behind the shoulders of the two men, i saw lee in the bath. It was water there and it was reddish, so it was blood. Lee cut his wrist. siren blaring narrator oswald was rushed unconscious to botkin hospital. His wounds were quickly stitched up and bandaged. He was then transferred to the psychiatric ward. Dr. Lydia mikhailina was on duty when lee arrived. translated it was my impression immediately that this was a sure Suicide Attempt, since he was refused political asylum which he had been demanding, and he tried to obtain permission to stay in the soviet union by inflicting the wounds. Narrator after seven days, oswald was ready to be discharged. But then the kgb called the hospital, telling them to hold him until they arrived. translated sometime later, about 40 minutes, a large black car arrived and three young men came in. They confiscated his medical history, his discharge paper and all his documents, and then they told me they were taking him away. Narrator the kgb wanted to see if oswald could be useful to them. translated counterintelligence and intelligence, they both looked him over to see what he was capable of, but unfortunately, neither could find any ability at all. Narrator oswald was moved to a hotel while the kgb considered his fate. After three days, he decided hed had enough. It seems like three years. I must have some sort of a showdown. Narrator on october 31, he went to the u. S. Embassy and demanded to see the consul, richard snyder. He put a piece of paper on my desk. It said, i have come to revoke my american citizenship. I have applied for soviet citizenship. He also volunteered the information that hed been. While in the marines, hed been a radar technician, and that when he became a soviet citizen, he intended to offer to the soviet authorities everything that he had learned. Narrator snyder reported oswalds threat to washington, and the marines changed their radar codes. But the kgb says it was unimpressed by the military intelligence oswald was sharing with them. translated there were conversations, but this was such outdated information, the kind we say the sparrows have already chirped to the entire world, and now oswald tells us about it. Not the kind of information that would interest such a highlevel organization like ours. Narrator meanwhile, word of oswalds Suicide Attempt had reached the top levels of the kremlin. Yekatrina furtseva, seated just behind nikita khrushchev, was the highestranking woman in the politburo. Furtseva became oswalds champion and demanded the kgb reverse its decision and allow him to stay. translated if he is begging, to hell with him. Let him stay here in order to avoid an International Scandal on account of such a nobody. We were not convinced this would be his last act of blackmail. We expected he would try again, which would be difficult to deal with in moscow, so we decided to send him to minsk. Narrator in january 1960, oswald moved to minsk. He now had the chance to become what he had always wanted to be a model young marxist. Soviet authorities set him up in style. Despite a chronic housing shortage, he was given a choice apartment, a luxury unheard of for a young bachelor. At the minsk radio and television factory, oswald helped to build prototypes of new models. As in the marines, he got off to a good start. Leonid tsagoika worked with oswald. translated when he started work after his training, he joined the team. He fit in well and worked well, too. Narrator oswald also befriended some College Students interested in learning english. He became fast friends with ernst titovets. Titovets made tape recordings of oswald to study his southern accent. from recording the door of henrys lunch counter opened and two men came in. They sat down at the counter. Whats yours . George asked them. I gave him rather chance pieces to read, and those happened to be, well, shakespeare, from othello, ernest hemingway. from recording the two men at the counter read the menu. From the other end of the counter. Narrator titovets also interviewed oswald in mock dialogues. In one interview, lee played the part of a killer. from recording will you tell us about your last killing . from recording well, it was a young gi