Lee Harvey Oswald

Why wasn't he executed as a traitor when he came back from the Soviet Union?

One of the many reasons, I suspect. The two assassinations (well, one failed attempt, one successful) maybe factored into it, too I'm not sure.

do you know how hard it is to get someone executed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Rosenberg

"The Rosenbergs were the only two American civilians to be executed for espionage-related activity during the Cold War.[26] "

True, though, to change the question a little - why wasn't he at least arrested and tried?
You'd think a discharged marine that went to the soviets offering to spill the beans on his training would have gotten more notice.

maybe the US just wanted to track him for a while. or maybe they didn't know.

Originally posted by joneschr
True, though, to change the question a little - why wasn't he at least arrested and tried?
You'd think a discharged marine that went to the soviets offering to spill the beans on his training would have gotten more notice.

"In fact, early on there were assertions that Oswald was a federal undercover agent. According to a biographical sketch of Waggoner Carr, the Texas Attorney General who led the investigation in Texas into the assassination and worked with the Warren Commission, “Carr testified that Lee Harvey Oswald was working as an undercover agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was receiving $200 a month from September 1962 until his death in November, 1963. However, the Warren Commission preferred to believe J. Edgar Hoover, who denied Carr’s affirmations.”

Yet, the problem is that Hoover could be expected to lie about such an association and thus, his denial is meaningless.

Much has been made about Oswald’s communist sympathies, including his defection to the Soviet Union and his affiliation with a group called the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

Yet, those actions are entirely consistent with being a CIA undercover agent. For one thing, Oswald was a Marine. Most people who join the Marines are patriotic individuals who have the utmost loyalty to their government. How likely is it that a person who hates America is going to join the U.S. Marine Corps? Not very likely at all. In fact, wouldn’t the Marines be a likely place that the CIA would do recruiting?

Many people point to Oswald’s dysfunctional behavior, including his propensity for violence, citing the fact that he beat his wife. But the problem is that the CIA has a history of attracting dysfunctional people to work there, including alcoholics and people who have a propensity for violence. Indeed, what better types of people to assassinate and torture than dysfunctional people with a propensity for violence?

The thing that I have long found mystifying is the U.S. government’s reaction to Oswald when he returned from the Soviet Union. Did they arrest and indict the guy? Did they even subpoena him to appear before a federal grand jury? Did they harass him?

No, none of the above."

For more of this article go here

http://revolutionradio.org/?p=24867

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Why wasn't he executed as a traitor when he came back from the Soviet Union?

The answer is:

Because the US doesn't execute people without trying them first and the US authorities were probably unaware of his previous actions in the USSR at the time. Hindsight is 20/20; but at the time, Oswald was a very small fish.


I'm not sure if you're alluding to this, but I'll also tell you what the answer is NOT:

Oswald was a CIA double agent of some sort who was later used as a patsy to deflect attention from the fact that the CIA/FBI/US Military/ Military-Industrial complex/ KGB/ Fidel Castro/ Cuban Mob/ Various other Mobs all conspired to murder JFK.

Originally posted by zeeblebot
maybe the US just wanted to track him for a while. or maybe they didn't know.

Well, at least they knew: a couple quotes from wikipedia:

Even before November 22, 1963, Oswald received a small measure of national notoriety in the U.S. press as an American who had defected to the U.S.S.R. and returned.

When the Navy Department learned of <his attempt to communicate with the soviets>, it changed Oswald's Marine Corps discharge from "hardship/honorable" to "undesirable".

it wasn't illegal to travel to the USSR, was it? on what basis would they execute him?

Originally posted by zeeblebot
it wasn't illegal to travel to the USSR, was it? on what basis would they execute him?

Lying to get a discharge, renouncing his citizenship and offering to tell the Soviets anything he knew as a marine specialist in radar or whatever he did.

Originally posted by sh76
The answer is:

Because the US doesn't execute people without trying them first and the US authorities were probably unaware of his previous actions in the USSR at the time. Hindsight is 20/20; but at the time, Oswald was a very small fish.


I'm not sure if you're alluding to this, but I'll also tell you what the answer is NOT:

Oswald was a CIA double ...[text shortened]... trial complex/ KGB/ Fidel Castro/ Cuban Mob/ Various other Mobs all conspired to murder JFK.

No, I'm not a conspiracy kinda guy.

Originally posted by zeeblebot
it wasn't illegal to travel to the USSR, was it? on what basis would they execute him?

As soon as he arrived in the Soviet Union he offered to the soviets to disclose confidential information he acquired while training as a radar operator in the marines.

So, I guess the basis would be treason.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
No, I'm not a conspiracy kinda guy.

Smart man 🙂

Originally posted by joneschr
As soon as he arrived in the Soviet Union he offered to the soviets to disclose confidential information he acquired while training as a radar operator in the marines.

So, I guess the basis would be treason.

yeah, but did the US know that at the time?

i'm guessing that neither the Soviets nor Oswald volunteered that.

Originally posted by zeeblebot
yeah, but did the US know that at the time?

i'm guessing that neither the Soviets nor Oswald volunteered that.

As of November, 1959, they knew. And strangely enough, it really was Oswald that volunteered the information -- when trying to renounce his U.S. citizenship.

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh18/pdf/WH18_CE_908.pdf

See the second page:

that he had voluntarily stated to unnamed Soviet officials ... he would make known to them such information concerning the Marine corps and his specialty...