From the Wall Street Journal
NOVEMBER 24, 2007
Oswald was a dedicated communist who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 out of disgust with American capitalism. After becoming disillusioned with Soviet life, he returned to the U.S. in 1962. In early 1963, he bought a scoped rifle through the mail and soon used it to fire a shot (which missed) at retired general Edwin Walker, the head of the John Birch Society in Dallas. In the summer of 1963, Oswald was active in street demonstrations in support of Castro. In September 1963, he visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City seeking a travel visa that would allow him to travel to Cuba.
Oswald was among the radicals of the time who saw Third World revolutionaries like Castro as the wave of the communist future. He was well aware of Kennedy's efforts to overthrow Castro's regime. As a Senate investigative committee suggested in 1975, Oswald shot Kennedy to interrupt his administration's plans to assassinate Castro or to overthrow his regime in Cuba.
Ignoring Oswald's communist links, journalists and political leaders quickly claimed the president was a martyr to civil rights. Earl Warren said that Kennedy had "suffered martyrdom as a result of the hatred and bitterness that has been injected into the life of our nation by bigots." Martin Luther King said the assassination had to be viewed against the backdrop of violence against civil rights marchers in the South. James Reston wrote in the New York Times that "something in the nation itself, some strain of madness and violence, had destroyed the highest symbol of law and order."
The consensus opinion was that Kennedy was a victim of hate and bigotry, a casualty of his support for civil rights. The Cold War and Kennedy's ongoing feud with Castro were rarely mentioned as factors behind the assassination. The reasons? Mrs. Kennedy wanted her husband remembered as a modern-day Abraham Lincoln. Lyndon Johnson feared complicating relations with the Soviet Union. Liberals feared a replay of the McCarthy period, when the Wisconsin senator inflamed public opinion about fears of domestic communism.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119586848318702756.html
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Lee Harvey Oswald
From Wikipedia (with lots of references at site) :
Around the age of fifteen, he became an ardent Marxist solely from his private reading on the topic. He wrote in his diary, "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."[13] At 16 he wrote to the Socialist Party of America, stating that he was a Marxist who had been studying socialist principles for "well over fifteen months," and asked for information about their youth league.[14]
While in the Marines, Oswald was trained in the use of the M1 Garand rifle. Following that training, he was tested in December of 1956, and obtained a score of 212, which was 2 points above the minimum for qualifications as a sharpshooter. In May 1959, on another range, Oswald scored 191, which was 1 point over the minimum for ranking as a marksman.[17]
Small and frail compared to the other Marines, he was nicknamed Ozzie Rabbit after the cartoon character. His shyness and Soviet sympathies alienated him from his fellow Marines. Ostracism only seemed to provoke him into being a stauncher, more outspoken communist. For his steadfast beliefs, his nickname ultimately became Oswaldskovich.
Life in the Soviet Union
In October 1959, Oswald immigrated to the Soviet Union. He was nineteen, and the trip was planned well in advance. Along with having taught himself rudimentary Russian, he had saved $1,500 of his Marine Corps salary,[19] got an early "hardship" discharge by (falsely) claiming he needed to care for his injured mother,[20] got a passport, and submitted several fictional applications to foreign universities in order to obtain a student visa (and possibly help avoid Marine Corps reserve duty).
After spending only three days with his mother in Fort Worth, he departed by ship from New Orleans on September 20, 1959, for the Soviet Union, first arriving in Le Havre in France, then to London,England and eventually Oswald to a Finnair flight to Helsinki, Finland as part of a package tour. Oswald landed to Helsinki airport in October 10 at 23.30 a.m. he registered at the Hotel Torni but two days later , he moved to the Kurki Hotel.Oswald applied for a visa at the embassy on October 12, his first business day in Helsinki. Oswalds visa was issued on October 14. It was valid until October 20 and permitted him to take one trip of not more than 6 days to the Soviet Union. He left from Helsinki Central Railway Station by train next day on October 15 to Moscow and when he crossed the Finnish-Russian border at Vainikkala, he arrived to Moscow on October 16." [21] When he arrived in the Soviet Union and showed up unexpectedly at the Embassy in Moscow, he said he wanted to renounce his U.S. citizenship.[22][23] When the Navy Department learned of this, it changed Oswald's Marine Corps discharge from "hardship/honorable" to "undesirable."[24]
Oswald told a reporter in Moscow, "For two years I've had it in my mind, don't form any attachments, because I knew I was going away. I was planning to divest myself of everything to do with the United States."[25] To another reporter he said, "I would not consider returning to the United States," and referred to the Soviet government as "my government."[26] His wish to remain in the Soviet Union was initially applauded by the Soviets, but although he had some technical knowledge acquired in the Marines they soon discovered he had little of real value to offer the Soviet Union and his application for Soviet residency was rejected.[27] In response, Oswald made a bloody but minor cut to his left wrist in his hotel room bathtub. After bandaging his superficial injury, the cautious Soviets kept him under psychiatric observation at the Botkin Hospital.[28][29] Although this attempt may have been no more than an attention-getting ruse, the Soviet government feared an international incident if he were to attempt something similar again.
New Orleans
Oswald returned to New Orleans, arriving on the morning of April 25, 1963 looking for work. After Oswald got a job as a machinery greaser with the Reily Coffee Company in May, Marina was driven there by family friend Ruth Paine. Oswald was fired for inefficiency and dereliction of duty on July 19.
During this period, Oswald began to consider returning to the Soviet Union or going to Cuba.[57] He had Marina write to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. about the possibility of their returning to the Soviet Union.[58] His Marxist ideals became focused on Fidel Castro and Cuba and he soon became a vocal pro-Castro advocate.