The spy both J.F.K. and Lee Harvey Oswald loved? Bond, James Bond.

President John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald were both killed in Dallas on the same weekend in November 1963. They were men from different walks of life, and ended up on opposite sides of a murder. But they had things in common. Both were also given to hiding parts of themselves, and engaged in the 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 and a reporter asked him to name his favorite books, he included Fleming’s "From Russia, with Love." Sales of the novel skyrocketed.

But while Kennedy may have resembled Bond—handsome, debonair, and with a reputation for secret entanglements with mob boss girlfriends, colleagues’ wives, and Marilyn Monroe—it was Oswald who pulled off a Bond-style covert operation.

Oswald’s own secret life is said to involve the Miami Cubans, the KGB, the CIA, Dallas oilmen, and the gay New Orleans underground. But his hidden life was not about allying with covert figures to carry out the greatest homicide of the 20th century, but how to advance beyond his meager circumstances and achieve fame and recognition.

He and his mother were locked in a “conspiracy of one”—a desperate campaign to matter. When opportunity presented itself Nov. 22, 1963, Oswald did not let it pass.

It was a lifetime in the making. As a boy, Oswald had a predilection for spying, going undercover, and tricking people. He spent a great deal of time at the library, especially in New Orleans, his birthplace. The records at the Napoleon branch of the New Orleans public library show that Lee was a regular in the stacks and had wide-ranging reading interests. (Among the books he checked out in the months immediately preceding the assassination were the Bond novels "Goldfinger," "Thunderball," "Moonraker," and "From Russia, with Love."

Drawing on his diverse literary inspiration, Oswald made himself the star and director of dramatic scenes throughout his short life. These included violent bullying—often directed at his wife—and loud proclamations of his rights at the mention of any infraction.

His mother was his biggest fan, although her admiration was conditional. Privately, she was withholding and distant, but in public, whenever he was involved in an altercation or dispute, she was quick to utter the mantra of those who feel that they are perpetual victims. “My son did no such thing … he would never do that,” she would say to anyone who accused Lee of misbehavior. In the years following the assassination, her proclamations on behalf of her son reached new heights. “Well, even if my son did kill J.F.K.,” she told reporters, “he’s a national hero because the President had Addison’s disease and Lee put him out of his misery. He should be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.”

Of course, that did not happen. Oswald was interred in Fort Worth–in “the middle-class section,” as she made a point of saying proudly to a journalist. Years later, Marguerite was buried in a neighboring plot. For both, a dream had been fulfilled. Lee had finally won fame and recognition—and with it, the everlasting approval of Marguerite. Meanwhile, Marguerite, who had spent her life working menial jobs and feeling dismissed and disparaged, finally felt acknowledged. As the mother of the assassin, she courted and received reporters, basking in the spotlight that she had long desired.

J.F.K. screened a rough cut of "From Russia, with Love" two days before he was killed—the last movie he’d see. He had been communicating privately in those final weeks with Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev, and the two men were approaching agreement on plans for total nuclear disarmament, according to reports that surfaced after the assassination.

But it was Oswald who knew a more intimate side of Russia. He had lived there as a defector, attending parties, dating women, and acquiring a beautiful Russian wife named Marina. He returned to the U.S. in June 1962 with Marina on his arm—and the copy of "Time" with J.F.K. on the cover that his mother had sent to him in Minsk.

Then, on the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, Oswald embarked on his own spy-thriller operation. He picked up the rifle that he had been hiding in a friend’s garage and headed to work at the Texas School Book Depository. Shortly after noon, he whacked the president, and before long, he himself would enter the history books that he was packing up on the job.

“Even the highest tree,” Fleming wrote in "From Russia, with Love," “has an axe at its foot.”

Deanne Stillman writes literary nonfiction. Her latest book is "American Confidential."

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: The spy both J.F.K. and Lee Harvey Oswald loved? Bond, James Bond.