We found no indication at all that Oswald was a man addicted to violence. The first indication of an act of violence came after he, Oswald, had been killed, and Mrs. Oswald told us about the attempt on General Walker's life by Oswald. No one had known a thing about that. I think in the Enquirer article there is reference to the fact that the Dallas Police knew or suspected Oswald of possibly being a party to the shooting into the house of General Walker. Chief Curry specifically denies that. There was no connection of that kind and there was no evidence that Oswald had any streak of violence.
We went back into his Marine Corps record. He was a "loner." He didn't have many friends. He kept to himself, and when he went abroad, he defected to Russia. The first evidence we had of him in our file was a statement to the press in Moscow. And then later, about 22 months later, he returned to the Embassy there and according to the report of the Embassy we have and which the Commission has been furnished, the Embassy gave him a clean bill. He had seen the error of his ways and disliked the Soviet atmosphere, et cetera, and they, therefore, cleared him, paid his way and paid his wife's way to come back to this country.
At no time, other than the so called street disturbance in New Orleans, was there any indication that he might be a fighter. Well, in that particular instance he was handing out leaflets that he printed for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and some of the anti-Castro forces, we have several thousand of them in New Orleans alone, happened to see him and they moved in on him and immediately the police moved in and arrested him. I believe they fined him $10 for disorderly conduct. There was no evidence in the place where he was employed in Dallas of acts of violence or temper or anything of that kind on his part.

Representative Boggs.

You have spent your life studying criminology and violence and subversion. Would you care to speculate on what may have motivated the man? I know it would be just speculation.

Mr. Hoover.

My speculation, Mr. Boggs, is that this man was no doubt a dedicated Communist. He prefers to call himself a Marxist, but there you get into the field of semantics. He was a Communist, he sympathized thoroughly with the Communist cause.
I don't believe now, as I look back on it, that he ever changed his views when he asked to come back to this country. I personally feel that when he went to the American Embassy in Moscow originally to renounce his citizenship he should have been able right then and there to sign the renouncement. He never could have gotten back here. I think that should apply to almost all defectors who want to defect and become a part of a system of government that is entirely foreign to ours. If they have that desire, they have that right, but if they indicate a desire for it, let them renounce their citizenship at once.
That was not done. He stayed in Moscow awhile and he went to Minsk where he worked. There was no indication of any difficulty, personally on his part there, but I haven't the slightest doubt that he was a dedicated Communist.
There has been some question raised which cannot be resolved, because Oswald is dead, as to whether he was trying to kill the President or trying to kill the Governor. He had had some correspondence with the Governor as to the form of his discharge from the Marine Corps. It was not a dishonorable discharge, but a discharge less than honorable after he defected.
Governor Connally had left the Navy Department, and was back in Texas as Governor. Oswald may have had his anger or his animosity against the Governor, but no one can say definitely--that is mere speculation, no one can tell that, because the gun and the sighting of the gun was directed at the car.
Now, first, it was thought that the President had been shot through the throat that is what the doctors at the Parkland Hospital felt when he was brought in.
If that had been true, the shot would have had to come from the overpass. But as soon as the body arrived in Washington, the doctors at Bethesda Hospital performed the autopsy and it was then determined definitely from their point of view that he had been shot from the rear, and that portions of the skull had been practically shot off. There was no question but that the gun and the telescopic lens could pinpoint the President perfectly. The car was moving

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