Cox explores the parallel lives of John F. Kennedy, born into wealth and celebrity, destined for glory and a violent death and of Lee Harvey Oswald, born into poverty and obscurity, murdered in police custody and convicted, without a lawyer or a trial, of the killing of JFK. 50 years after both men were murdered, Alex Cox provides a chronological account of their lives' strange intersections, their shared interests and the increasing evidence which suggests that Oswald was working for a branch of the government, most likely the FBI or IRS, as an agent provocateur.