The Spy J.F.K. and Lee Harvey Oswald Loved

The President and His Assassin Were Both James Bond Fans—But Only One of Them Cast Himself in a 007-Style Operation

President John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald were both killed in Dallas on the same weekend in November 1963. They were men from distinctly opposed walks of life, and ended up being on opposite sides of a murder. But they also had things in common. Both were also given to hiding parts of themselves, and engaged in the kind of daring behavior exhibited by James Bond in Ian Fleming’s novels.

John F. Kennedy first read Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale while recovering from back surgery in 1954. When he became president …

Our Man in Minsk

Lee Harvey Oswald's Soviet World

I went to Minsk to find Lee Harvey Oswald. Not the man, of course. His world – his apartment, on 4 Communist Street; the television and radio factory where he …