My friend Lee Harvey Oswald

The frustrated loser I knew was desperate to prove he was "truly exceptional"

Oswald
(Image credit: (CORBIS))

IT WAS 7 A.M. on Sunday when the phone echoed through my parents' red-brick house in Fort Worth. "Mr. Gregory," a woman said as my father picked up, "I need your help."

The caller said that she had been a student in his Russian language course at our local library, and that he knew her son. My father, Pete Gregory, linked the voice to a nurse who sat in the back of his class and had once identified herself as "Oswald." Until this phone call, he hadn't realized that she was the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union only to return two and a half years later with a Russian wife and a 4-month-old daughter. My father had helped Lee and his young family get settled in Fort Worth a year earlier. The Oswalds had been my friends.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up