Possible Influence of Anti-Kennedy Sentiment in Dallas
It has been suggested that one of the motivating influences operating on Lee Oswald was the atmosphere in the city of Dallas, especially an atmosphere of extreme opposition to President Kennedy that was present in some parts of the Dallas community and which received publicity there prior to the assassination.[C7-403] Some of that feeling was expressed in the incident involving then vice-presidential candidate Johnson during the 1960 campaign, in the treatment of Ambassador Adlai Stevenson late in October of 1963 and in the extreme anti-Kennedy newspaper advertisement and handbills that appeared in Dallas at the time of the President’s visit there.[C7-404]
The Commission has found no evidence that the extreme views expressed toward President Kennedy by some rightwing groups centered in Dallas or any other general atmosphere of hate or rightwing extremism which may have existed in the city of Dallas had any connection with Oswald’s actions on November 22, 1963. There is, of course, no way to judge what the effect of the general political ferment present in that city might have been, even though Oswald was aware of it. His awareness is shown by a letter that he wrote to Arnold Johnson of the Communist Party U.S.A., which Johnson said he did not receive until after the assassination. The letter said in part:
On October 23rd, I had attened a ultra-right meeting headed by General Edwin A. Walker, who lives in Dallas.
This meeting preceded by one day the attack on A. E. Stevenson at the United Nations Day meeting at which he spoke
As you can see, political friction between “left” and “right” is very great here.
Could you advise me as to the general view we have on the American Civil Liberties Union?[C7-405]
In any event, the Commission has been unable to find any credible evidence that Oswald had direct contact or association with any of the personalities or groups epitomizing or representing the so-called rightwing, even though he did, as he told Johnson, attend a meeting at which General Walker spoke to approximately 1,300 persons.[C7-406] Oswald’s writings and his reading habits indicate that he had an extreme dislike of the rightwing, an attitude most clearly reflected by his attempt to shoot General Walker.