
Evidence Against Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin or wrongfully accused? Even though many people believe Oswald was not guilty or that he was not the only assassin, important evidence points all fingers directly at Lee Harvey Oswald. There are many key factors involved in the Warren Commission’s investigation that helps convict Lee Harvey Oswald. Though there are many skeptics of the Warren Commission Report, any theories supported by such people who believe that Oswald was not guilty are clearly missing all the facts and are overlooking evidence that shows Oswald to be guilty. The primary evidence, as well as secondary and circumstantial evidence make it clear that Lee Harvey Oswald had motive, means and opportunity to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.
To understand why Oswald was arrested for the murder of J.F.K., you need to know of Oswald’s whereabouts during and after the time of the shooting and why the police knew where to find him. At approximately 1:16 p.m. on November 22, 1963, a Dallas police officer by the name of J.D. Tippit was shot and killed. Oswald was seen on Jefferson Boulevard less than one mile from the shooting of the officer and was seen by Johnny Calvin Brewer, a manager of a shoe store a few blocks from the Texas Theater. Brewer described Oswald as acting suspicious, he stated, “When he heard the police sirens, he looked up…and turned around and walked up West Jefferson avenue towards the theater” after the police car turned around (Warren Commission Report, pg. 177-178). Mr. Brewer followed Oswald to the Texas Theater because of his suspicions after hearing on the radio announcements of Kennedy being shot. When Mr. Brewer reached the theater he noticed that the man he was following (Oswald) had entered the theater without paying. Mr. Brewer informed Mrs. Postal, the ticket office sales person, and she then phoned the police. At 1:45 p.m., police officers appeared at the Texas Theater where Brewer pointed out Oswald to them. Officer McDonald then approached Oswald and while attempting to reach for the gun on Oswald’s waist, Oswald struck McDonald (Warren Commission Report, pg. 178). McDonald seized the gun from Oswald and Oswald was arrested as a suspect in the murder of J.D. Tippit. This is very important because if not for Oswald entering the theater without paying, he may not have been arrested and then later be singled out in several police lineups. 
Howard L. Brennan was an eyewitness to the shooting of John F. Kennedy. Brennan testified that he saw a man fire shots from the sixth floor window of the Texas Schoolbook Depository. The window was approximately one hundred and twenty feet away from Brennan, (Warren Commission Report pg.44), putting him in an excellent position to observe anyone in the window. The night of the assassination, Brennan identified Oswald in a police lineup as the man who most clearly fit the description of the person he saw firing shots from the Depository window. With an eyewitness to the murder of J.F.K, the police now had someone under the arrest for the murder of the President.
Brennan had testified that it was the sixth floor window from which he had seen Oswald firing shots and it was there that the police recovered a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. This rifle had the markings including “MADE ITALY”, “CAL.6.5”, “1940” and the serial number C2766 (Warren Commission report pg. 81). Joseph D. Nicol, who at the time was the superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation for the state of Illinois, and Robert A. Frazier, a special agent of the FBI (Warren Commission Report pg.84), testified to the Warren Commission. They positively stated that the bullet found on the stretcher at Parkland hospital and bullet fragments found with in the presidential limousine were fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with the serial number C2766 to the exclusion of all other rifles. Now that the gun that killed Kennedy had been identified, the next step was to positively identify the owner of the gun. The FBI learned that the rifle was distributed from Crescent Firearms Inc, which shipped the rifle with the serial number of C2766 to Klein’s Sporting Goods Co. The store searched its records and found that that rifle had been shipped to an A. Hidell to a post office box in Dallas Texas. The order had a coupon attached with A. Hidell printed as the person purchasing the gun. The handwriting matched perfectly to that of Oswald’s when compared to documents of his such as his passport application and letters he had written. The Italian Armed Forces Intelligence Agency established that the rifle with the serial number of C2766 was one of a kind. Lee Harvey Oswald (Warren Commission Report pg.119) rented the post office box to which the rifle was shipped. The .38 caliber revolver Oswald had on him the day he was arrested was purchased by mail order coupon also with the listed purchaser as “A.J. Hidell” with handwriting matching that of Lee Oswald’s. 
Sebastian Latona, supervisor of the Latent Fingerprint section of the FBI’s identification Division (Warren Commission Report pg.123) testified that the palm print found on the barrel of the rifle belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald. Not only was the gun found in the Book Depository identified as the gun that killed Kennedy, it was purchased by Oswald, contained his prints and also contained cotton fibers similar to that of a shirt of Oswald’s. On the day Kennedy was killed, Lee Oswald was wearing a shirt of dark blue, gray black and orange yellow cotton fibers, exactly the same fibers that were recovered from the rifle. In the crevice between the butt plate of the rifle and the wooden stock was a tuft of several cotton fibers of dark blue, gray black and orange yellow shades. Through tests of colors, shades and twists of the fibers found on the gun, Mr. Paul Stombaugh, a special agent assigned to the Hair and Fiber Unit of the FBI Laboratory, matched the fibers found on the gun to the fibers from Oswald’s shirt perfectly. (Warren Commission Report Pg.124)
With all of the incriminating evidence mentioned in the above paragraphs, there is another piece of evidence that is very important to the Warren Commission’s case. The gun that killed Kennedy was found on the sixth floor of the Book Depository and was owned by Lee Harvey Oswald with his imprints and cotton fibers left on it. Another important piece of evidence that the Warren Commission found extremely incriminating towards Oswald was his presence on the sixth floor approximately thirty-five minutes before the assassination. Oswald lacked having an alibi, which would attempt to prove he was somewhere else at the time of the shooting. At approximately 11:45, Charles Givens, an employee of the Book Depository was the last person to see Oswald until after the assassination. Givens saw Oswald with a clipboard in hand, walking from the South East corner of the sixth floor toward the elevator. Givens asked Oswald if he was going down stairs and Oswald repeated, “No sir” (Warren Commission Report pg.143). Frankie Kieser, an employee, found a clipboard hidden in the north west corner of the sixth floor at the west wall, a few feet away from where the rifle was found. The clipboard was made by Kieser and it had been Oswald’s since he had begun working there. The clipboard contained three invoices dated from November 22, in which all the books were located on the first and sixth floors and Oswald did not fill any of the orders. (Warren Commission Report Pg.143)
The evidence against Oswald continues with mere circumstantial evidence. For example the facts about his personal life, beliefs, problematic behavior and his marksmanship skills give an incriminating insight to what kind a person Oswald was.
In Gerald Posner’s Case Closed, Oswald’s life from beginning to end is described.
When Dr. Renatus Hertog evaluated Oswald, he found traits of dangerousness in Oswald. Dr. Hertog concluded that Oswald “had a potential for explosive, aggressive, assualtive acting out”. Dr. Hertog also described Oswald as “Intensely self-centered” (Case Closed, page 12). Oswald admitted to occasionally hitting his mother and stated, “I don’t want a friend and I don’t like to talk to people…I dislike everybody”. Dr. Hertog concluded that Oswald had a “Personality pattern disturbance with schizoid features and aggressive tendencies” (Case Closed, page 13). At age thirteen Oswald was already a threat to society. With passing years, Oswald became more violent and aggressive. He continued to abuse his mother and later when he was married to Marina, he frequently beat her too. It takes more than a mentally disturbed person to be capable of assassinating the President, it takes skill, as was needed in the assassination of JFK. In 1956, when Oswald joined the Marine Corps, he was given a series of aptitude tests in which he scored below average on. After three weeks of training with an M-1 rifle, Oswald shot a 212, two points over the score, which qualified him as a sharpshooter. This excellent shot would have given him the ability to hit a ten-inch bull’s eye, from a minimum of two hundred yards, eight times out of ten-from a standing position (Case Closed, page 20). Not only was Oswald skilled enough to make the shot from the sixth floor Texas School Depository Window (fatal shot that killed JFK), he was last seen just fifteen minutes before the shooting on the sixth floor of the building.
Whether the evidence is circumstantial, primary or secondary, there is plenty of evidence that is verifiable as found by the Warren Commission. Oswald had the means to assassinate the President and left his evidence behind. The rifle and the prints on it were a vital part of the Commission’s investigation and case against Oswald. With all the evidence against Oswald it is hard to understand why some people insist on some conspiracy. Perhaps some people believe that our own government set up Oswald, or that there was several “Oswald’s”, or it was the mob that killed the President. Perhaps it was the quick apprehension of Oswald and the immediate release of his life that stirred suspicion in people as to whether or not Oswald was really guilty. Suspicion and theories can not convict; it is hard evidence that is the underlying factor as to why Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the assassination of the President. Our country believes in innocent until proven guilty and the Warren Commission has proven Lee Harvey Oswald guilty of assassinating President John F. Kennedy.
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