Inside The Oswald Puzzle
The new book by David Boylan and myself should be in print and available in January, we’ve just completed working with the publisher on the photo section, something which proved to be an interesting exercise because it led us to explore the wealth of Oswald related photographs that the Warren Commission collected – but which never received much, if any, attention by the press and media following the assassination.
Taking a deep dive into those images was fascinating and I had never realized the extend of the Warren Commission and Dallas Police collections. The Dallas Police took in an immense amount of his personal possession and photographed it, including his family photo albums, letters, reading material and even receipts.
Yes, receipts, Oswald can only be thought of as something of a pack rat, he kept virtually every piece of paper that passed though his hands, not to mention what must have been hundreds of his own personal photographs. Interestingly the DPD did their photographic record in what seems to be a totally unstructured manner, with no organization a what can best be described as simply a jumble of photographs. It makes wading though it all something of a challenge but there are real finds if you have the patience and the background to reference it to his personal history. What the police actually did with the photographic record escapes me as I see no sign it ever really played any role in their investigation.
Digging through those photos, and putting them into a chronological and contextual sequence gave us a much more personal insight into what was important to Oswald, and how much he was actually engaged with others, especially following his return from the Soviet Union with a family. He was not at all the isolated figure that the Commission and media presented to the public. One example of that would be the letters of thanks he received from attendees at his presentation to students at a Jesuit preparatory school early in the summer of 1963. Those letters praise his remarks as being objective, enlightening and well informed. They reminded me of the Marine officer who testified that when engaging in geopolitical discussions Oswald knew as much if not more than he did – and the officer was a political science graduate of prestigious eastern university.
The discussion of Oswald’s photographic record came up in a lengthy chat with Chuck Ochelli, in which we discussed the background and overall contents of the book – as well as the methodology behind the book itself. Certainly we will talk in more detail about the contents of the book once its in print, but for the moment if anyone wants to hear more about the insights we gained into Oswald as an individual you can check out the following link:
