Lone Gunman

PBS repeated its excellent Frontline documentary, "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?" last night. The program never really answers the question--Oswald himself couldn't answer it--but it's a stunning piece of investigative work.

Unlike most people, I think Oswald acted alone, and that was pretty much Frontline's conclusion as well, despite some continuing mysteries. Oswald exemplifies a classic American type: the pathetic "nobody" who has to be "somebody," even if (paradoxically) he has to die trying. Ultimately, a gun becomes the answer for this particular species of obsessive misfit, which represents the negative side of the Horatio Alger myth.

An odd, disturbing moment in the program: a series of Oswald's baby and childhood pictures, in which he wears that same smirking Alfred E. Neuman expression he so often had as an adult.

Recommended reading: Don DeLillo's terrific novel about Oswald, Libra.