Mental Instability

One of the dominant themes of the book is mental instability. Both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby had a history of mental problems dating back to their childhood. Lee's mother fled New York to keep her son from being committed to a psychiatric institution. Jack's moths had him committed to one because she could not control him.

Lee lived in somewhat of a fantasy world in which he always lied trying to make himself appear to be important. When he defected to the Soviet Union, he was allowed to stay because he tried to commit suicide when he knew they were going to tell him to leave. Since they just had recently improved relations with the United States somewhat, they did not want to create an incident and assigned him to work in Minsk. They considered him to be mentally unstable and refused him a visa...