The Oswalds

This “lucid, insightful” memoir by a man who knew Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife offers “an informative view of a killer’s marriage and lethal motivations” (Kirkus Reviews).

Merely two hours after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, television cameras captured police escorting a suspect into Dallas police headquarters. Meanwhile at the University of Oklahoma, watching the coverage in the student center, Paul Gregory scanned the figure in dark trousers and a white V-neck tee shirt and saw the bruised and battered face of Lee Harvey Oswald. Shocked, Gregory said, “I know that man.” In fact, he knew Oswald and his Soviet wife, Marina, better than almost anyone in America.

Identified by the FBI as a “known associate of LHO,” Gregory soon faced interrogations by the Secret Service. Later he would testify before the Warren Commission. Here, in The Oswalds, he offers the intimate details of his time spent with Lee and Marina in their run-down duplex in Fort Worth, and candidly assesses the murder that marked a turning point in our history. His riveting recollection includes memories both casual and deadly serious, such as the dinner at his parents’ house introducing Marina to the “Dallas Russians,” a front-yard incident of spousal abuse, and a further rift in the marriage when he revealed to Marina that Oswald was not the dashing, radical intellectual whose Historic Diary would be a publishing sensation. Gregory also gives a fascinating account of his father’s role as an eyewitness to history, serving as Marina’s translator and confidant in the first four days after the assassination.

“A definitive personality sketch of Oswald . . . Gregory’s book will stand the test of time.” —Mark Kramer, Director of Cold War Studies, Harvard University