I think he Oswald felt he was a failure and for the United States

Host: The night was solemn, the rain deliberate — every drop a punctuation mark against the black marble of memory. In the distance, the flame at Arlington burned steady, refusing to surrender to the wind. The world had grown quieter since that November day decades ago, yet the air still trembled with questions history never managed to answer.

Under the shadow of the memorial wall, two figures stood: Jack, his coat dark and soaked, his eyes fixed on the eternal flame; and Jeeny, holding a small umbrella that barely kept the rain from tracing cold lines down her face.

The city lights blurred beyond the mist, the echo of the past alive in every raindrop, every sigh.

Jeeny: (softly) “John Sherman Cooper once said, ‘I think he — Oswald — felt he was a failure and for the United States and for President Kennedy and all of us. He knew he was a failure at everything he tried, frustrated, with a very sad life, but he was a Marxist.’”

Jack: (quietly) “Failure. Frustration. Ideology. That’s the trinity of tragedy.”

Host: The wind stirred the edges of Jeeny’s coat, and for a moment, the umbrella trembled — not from the rain, but from the weight of the words that hung between them.

Jeeny: “It’s strange, isn’t it? How a single broken man can fracture an entire nation’s soul. One disillusioned life — and history bleeds for half a century.”

Jack: “That’s the curse of conviction without belonging. Oswald wasn’t evil — he was empty. And emptiness, when dressed in ideology, becomes dangerous.”

Jeeny: “Cooper saw that too — not as justification, but as understanding. A man who hated himself so much he aimed the gun at symbols of everything he could never be: leadership, purpose, hope.”

Jack: “You make it sound poetic.”

Jeeny: “It’s not poetry. It’s pathology.”

Host: The flame flickered, throwing shadows across their faces. Behind them, the marble seemed to breathe — cold, eternal, unyielding.

Jack: “He wanted meaning, and when he couldn’t earn it, he tried to steal it. History’s full of men like that.”

Jeeny: “Yes. But his tragedy wasn’t just personal — it was collective. America in the ’60s was already a wound. Kennedy was hope personified, and Oswald was despair with a rifle.”

Jack: “So the bullet wasn’t just his. It belonged to an entire disillusioned generation.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But Cooper was right — Oswald was also a Marxist. He thought ideology could fill his void, give him structure, purpose, identity. The irony is that the system he worshiped would’ve erased him faster than his country ever did.”

Jack: (grimly) “That’s what ideologies do — they offer belonging to those who never belonged, then devour them when they try to matter.”

Host: A pause fell between them, the kind of silence that feels like mourning — not for a man, but for what he represented: the frailty of purpose, the loneliness of conviction.

Jeeny: “Do you think Cooper pitied him?”

Jack: “I think he recognized the pattern — a broken man reflecting a broken world. America wanted heroes, but it was breeding ghosts.”

Jeeny: “Ghosts who believed ideas could redeem pain.”

Jack: “Or that violence could.”

Host: The rain softened, becoming a mist that hung in the air like breath that refused to fade.

Jeeny: “It’s strange. Oswald wanted to be remembered, but not like this. Even his infamy is borrowed. History remembers him only as the shadow behind another man’s light.”

Jack: “Which is fitting. That’s what failure does — it steals light and calls it justice.”

Jeeny: “And yet, Cooper’s tone was almost compassionate. He didn’t absolve Oswald, but he humanized him — saw his failure not as villainy, but as sorrow.”

Jack: “Because Cooper understood politics, and politics is just psychology scaled up. A desperate man and a desperate nation are never far apart.”

Host: A rumble of thunder rolled across the horizon, and the flame wavered but did not die.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why Cooper called him a Marxist — not just politically, but spiritually. Someone who believed utopia could fix loneliness.”

Jack: “And when utopia didn’t answer, he aimed at the man who embodied its denial.”

Jeeny: “It’s terrifying, isn’t it? That despair can disguise itself as conviction.”

Jack: “Despair always does. It needs a costume to survive — a flag, a manifesto, a cause. Something to make its death wish look noble.”

Host: The camera drew closer, capturing the faint tremor in Jeeny’s hand as she adjusted the umbrella, her eyes glistening with a mix of empathy and exhaustion.

Jeeny: “Do you ever think, Jack, that the real tragedy of men like Oswald is that they believed being remembered for destruction was better than being forgotten in silence?”

Jack: (quietly) “Yes. Because they never learned that obscurity isn’t failure — it’s peace.”

Jeeny: “Peace was something he never met.”

Jack: “And America never forgave him for making sure no one else did either.”

Host: The rain stopped, leaving the world washed and still. The eternal flame steadied, burning with the stubborn persistence of memory.

Jack and Jeeny stood in silence, side by side — two souls staring into the eternal dance of light and shadow that defines every human act.

Jeeny: “Cooper saw him clearly — a man who wanted to matter, who mistook destruction for purpose. He failed, but in failing, he became immortal — a sad irony, the only success he ever had.”

Jack: “Success without dignity. Legacy without life. That’s the cruelest kind of fame.”

Jeeny: “And yet… maybe we study men like him not to excuse them, but to remember what loneliness, unhealed, can do.”

Host: The camera pulled back, revealing the solemn expanse of the memorial — flame, rain, marble, and night bound together in one quiet composition of grief and grace.

And as the scene faded, John Sherman Cooper’s words lingered in the air like a historical heartbeat, echoing through the silence:

that failure unredeemed becomes fury,
that loneliness seeks ideologies when love is absent,
and that a man stripped of belonging
will aim at the nearest symbol of meaning —
even if it is the heart of hope itself.

For the tragedy of Lee Harvey Oswald
was not only what he did to a President,
but what he proved
about the fragile line
between despair and belief,
between failure and infamy,
between a sad man
and a shattered world.