Warren Commission (09 of 26): Hearings Vol. IX (of 15)

by United States. Warren Commission

TESTIMONY OF GEORGE S. DE MOHRENSCHILDT RESUMED

The testimony of George S. De Mohrenschildt was taken at 9 a.m., on April 23, 1964, at 200 Maryland Avenue NE., Washington, D.C., by Mr. Albert E. Jenner, Jr., assistant counsel of the President's Commission. Dr. Alfred Goldberg, historian, was present.

(Having been previously duly sworn.)

Mr. Jenner. On the record.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt, you testified yesterday it was your then recollection that Marina did not live with your daughter, Alexandra, then Mrs. Gary Taylor.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That's right. I think she spent one night with them, but never lived with them, as far as I know.

Mr. Jenner. Maybe that's it. Now, perhaps to refresh your recollection, Marina testified—this question was put to her. "Did you have anything to do with the Gary Taylors?" "Answer: Yes; at one time when I had to visit the dentist in Dallas, and I lived in Fort Worth, I came to Dallas and I stayed with them for a couple of days."

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. She probably is right. I think she spent only one day. But I could not swear to that.

Mr. Jenner. Now, I want to stimulate your recollection in another respect. Your daughter has made a statement that in September of 1962, "My father asked me to allow Marina Oswald and her child to reside with me at my then home at 1512 Fairmont Street, Dallas. My father explained that Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife Marina had recently arrived in Dallas, Tex. They had no money and Lee Oswald was unemployed. He told me that while Marina resided with me, Lee Oswald would reside at the YMCA." Does that serve to refresh your recollection?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I frankly do not remember. I have the impression that I said "Help her as much as you can," but I do not recall saying that she would live with them. I do not think I would have imposed that on my daughter.

Mr. Jenner. Well, that testimony of Marina that she did live with your daughter for several days, and your daughter's statement, does not——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not know about it. Maybe they did, maybe they did not. I just do not recall that.

Mr. Jenner. All right.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I repeat again that they were out of my mind—completely—after the last time we saw them.

Mr. Jenner. Well, this is September of 1962.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. 1962, sure. They were out of my mind. I forgot the Oswalds.

Mr. Jenner. No; 1962, sir.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No, no. Now the Oswalds were out of my mind.

Mr. Jenner. You mean you have not been thinking about them.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I have not been thinking about them.

May I say a few things here that I remember? As I told you before, we met the Oswalds through Bouhe, and then we talked about them to Max Clark, and again to Bouhe. And I asked Mr. Bouhe "Do you think it is safe for us to help Oswald?"

Mr. Jenner. You did have that conversation.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Why did you raise that question?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I raised the question because he had been to Soviet Russia. He could be anything, you see. And he could be right there watched day and night by the FBI. I did not want to get involved, you see. And I distinctly remember, No. 1, that George Bouhe said that he had checked with the FBI. Secondly, that in my mind Max Clark was in some way connected with the FBI, because he was chief of security at Convair—he had been a chief of security. And either George Bouhe or someone else told me that he is with the FBI to some extent. You never ask people "Are you from the FBI?" And to me it is unimportant. But somehow in my mind I had this connected. And so my fears were alleviated, you see. I said, "Well, the guy seems to be OK." Now, I am not so clear about it, but I have the impression to have talked—to have asked about Lee Oswald also Mr. Moore, Walter Moore.

Mr. Jenner. Who is Walter Moore?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Walter Moore is the man who interviewed me on behalf of the Government after I came back from Yugoslavia—G. Walter Moore. He is a Government man—either FBI or Central Intelligence. A very nice fellow, exceedingly intelligent who is, as far as I know—was some sort of an FBI man in Dallas. Many people consider him head of FBI in Dallas. Now, I don't know. Who does—you see. But he is a Government man in some capacity. He interviewed me and took my deposition on my stay in Yugoslavia, what I thought about the political situation there. And we became quite friendly after that. We saw each other from time to time, had lunch. There was a mutual interest there, because I think he was born in China and my wife was born in China. They had been to our house I think once or twice. I just found him a very interesting person. When I was writing this book of mine, a very peculiar incident occurred.

Mr. Jenner. Which book?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. The last one—the travelogue. One day we left for Houston on a business trip, and I left all my typewritten pages, some 150 typewritten pages, in my closet. When I returned from the trip and started looking through the pages, which had not been touched, supposedly, by anybody I noticed small marks on the pages—"No. 1" after five pages, "2"—small marks with a pencil, another five pages, No. 3, and so on and so forth.

I told my wife "Jeanne, have you fiddled around with my book?" She said, "Of course not." I said, "That's impossible." And I forgot it for a while.

In the evening we got back home, and we stayed in bed, and all of a sudden the idea came back to me that somebody must have been in my apartment and checked my book and read through that and took photographs. And it was such a horrible idea that Jeanne and I just could not sleep all night. And the next morning we both of us went to see Walter Moore and told him, "Now, look what happened to us. Have you Government people"—and I think I asked him point blank, you know—"Have you FBI people looked through my book?" He said, "Do you consider us such fools as to leave marks on your book if we had? But we haven't." I said, "Can't you give me some protection against somebody who has?" He said, "Do you have any strong enemies?" I said, "Well, I possibly have. Everybody has enemies." But I never could figure out who it was. And it is still a mystery to me.

So I am not so sure whether I asked point blank Clark or Walter Moore about Oswald. I probably spoke to both of them about him. My recollection is, and also my wife's recollection is, that either of them said he is a harmless lunatic. Later on Max got disgusted with him and said that he is a no-good b-----d, a traitor, and so on and so forth. But by that time we already forgot Oswald—got Oswald out of your lives, you see. This is one point.

The second point is as you can see the whole of the Russian colony in Dallas were interested in Oswald one way or the other, because they represented somebody who had been to their old country just recently, and could give them the latest information on what was going on. As I said, the old guard were naturally against them right away. The others were just curious. But this particular couple, Natasha and Igor Voshinin, refused to see them. And I insisted several times, "Why don't you see them? You love all the Russians. Why don't you meet Marina Oswald?" And she said, "We don't want to, and we have our reasons for not meeting them." And it kept on in my mind. I did not want to raise that question. But why didn't they want to meet them?

Mr. Jenner. Well, tell me what is your speculation as to why they did not want to meet them?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not have the slightest idea. Maybe they knew something about Oswald, of some connection.

Mr. Jenner. Or maybe they were alarmed, and didn't want to take any chances.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Maybe just that.

Mr. Jenner. But they were pretty firm in not having any traffic with them.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Absolutely firm. The only ones. Maybe they were just more recently arrived in the United States and they were not so secure like we were, you see. And possibly they were just alarmed of meeting somebody who just came from Soviet Russia.

Mr. Jenner. I think I will ask you at this point, Mr. De Mohrenschildt, you are a man of very superior education and extremely wide experience and acquaintance here and in Europe, South America, West Indies—you have lived an extremely colorful life. You are acquainted to a greater or lesser degree with a great variety of people.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Did there go through your mind speculations as to whether Oswald was an agent of anybody?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. Why? Before I put it that way—when you say "No," am I correct in assuming that you thought about the subject and you concluded he was not an agent of anybody? Is that what you meant?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I never thought even about it. I will tell you why I thought he never was—because he was too outspoken. He was too outspoken in his ideas and his attitudes. If he were really—if he were an agent, I thought he would have kept quiet. This would be my idea.

Mr. Jenner. You say he was outspoken. What do you base that on?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. For instance, he showed me his—he discussed very freely with me, when he showed me his little memoirs.

Mr. Jenner. I am going to show you those papers in a little while.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Those memoirs I think are very sincere. They explain more or less the sincere attitude of a man, sincere opinion of a man.

Mr. Jenner. Before I show you any papers, I want you to finish this reasoning of yours.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I did not take him seriously—that is all.

Mr. Jenner. I know you didn't. Why didn't you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well——

Mr. Jenner. You are a highly sophisticated person.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, he was not sophisticated, you see. He was a semieducated hillbilly. And you cannot take such a person seriously. All his opinions were crude, you see. But I thought at the time he was rather sincere.

Mr. Jenner. Opinion sincerely held, but crude?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. He was relatively uneducated.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Oh, yes.

Mr. Jenner. Quite, as a matter of fact—he never finished high school.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I did not even know that.

Mr. Jenner. Did you have the feeling that his views on politics were shallow and surface?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Very much so.

Mr. Jenner. That he had not had the opportunity for a study under scholars who would criticize, so that he himself could form some views on the subject?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Exactly. His mind was of a man with exceedingly poor background, who read rather advanced books, and did not understand even the words in them. He read complicated economical treatises and just picked up difficult words out of what he has read, and loved to display them. He loved to use the difficult words, because it was to impress one.

Mr. Jenner. Did you think he understood it?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He did not understand the words—he just used them. So how can you take seriously a person like that? You just laugh at him. But there was always an element of pity I had, and my wife had, for him. We realized that he was sort of a forlorn individual, groping for something.

Mr. Jenner. Did you form any impression in the area, let us say, of reliability—that is, whether our Government would entrust him with something that required a high degree of intelligence, a high degree of imagination, a high degree of ability to retain his equilibrium under pressure, a management of a situation, to be flexible enough?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I never would believe that any government would be stupid enough to trust Lee with anything important.

Mr. Jenner. Give me the basis of your opinion.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, again, as I said, an unstable individual, mixed-up individual, uneducated individual, without background. What government would give him any confidential work? No government would. Even the government of Ghana would not give him any job of any type.

Mr. Jenner. You used the expression "unstable." Would you elaborate on that?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, unstability—his life is an example of his instability. He switched allegiance from one country to another, and then back again, disappointed in this, disappointed in that, tried various jobs. But he did it, you see, without the enjoyment of adventure—like some other people would do in the United States, a new job is a new adventure, new opportunities. For him it was a gruesome deal. He hated his jobs. He switched all the time.

Mr. Jenner. Now, let's assume he switched jobs because he was discharged from those jobs. Does that affect your opinion? That is, assume now for the purpose of discussion that he lost every one of his jobs.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, frankly, if I—you always base your opinion on your own experience. If I had my own country since my childbirth, and my government, I would remain faithful to it for the rest of my life. He had a chance to be a marine. Here was a perfect life for him—this was my point of view. He was a man without education, in the Marines—why didn't he stay in the Marines all his life? You don't need a high degree of intelligence to be a marine corporal or a soldier.

Mr. Jenner. That is, it was your thought——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That was my idea.

Mr. Jenner. That if he had an objective that he could have had, it would be to stay in the Marines and become a marine officer, and have a career in the Marines.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is right. Well, instead of that he disliked it and switched to something else. I do not know the details of all his jobs, you see, but I certainly can evaluate people just by looking at them—because I have met so many people in my profession—you have to evaluate them by just looking at them and saying a few words.

Mr. Jenner. Did you form an impression of him, Mr. De Mohrenschildt, as to his reliability in a different sense now—that is, whether he was reasonably mentally stable or given to violent surges of anger or lack of control of himself?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Of course, he was that. The fact that we took his wife away from him, you know, was the result of his outbursts and his threats to his wife.

Mr. Jenner. What kind of threats?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, that he will beat the hell out of her. I think Marina told me that he threatened to kill her. It comes back to my mind, you see. You asked me yesterday a question, what actually precipitated us taking Marina and the little child away from Oswald.

Mr. Jenner. You actually took Marina and the child away?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes. So what actually precipitated that? Something must have precipitated it. I cannot recall what it was. But now I seem to vaguely remember that Marina said that he would kill her, that he will beat her sometime so hard that he will kill her. So that is the reason we went out there and said—well, let's save that poor woman.

Mr. Jenner. Where were they living then?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. They were living then at the first address in Oak Cliff—Ruth Street, I think. It is a two-story brick building.

Mr. Jenner. Mercedes?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Ruth Street. I do not remember Mercedes Street.

Mr. Jenner. Elsbeth?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Elsbeth—yes.

Mr. Jenner. He never lived on any street by the name of Ruth.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. Yesterday you adverted, I thought, to a concept that this man seemed—he responded when you would bring him into a conversation or situation.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. That he was somewhat egocentric in that respect?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Very much so. And that is probably the reason that he was clinging to me. He was clinging to me. He would call me. He would try to be next to me—because, let's face it, I am a promotor and a salesman. So I know how to talk with people. I usually do not offend people's feelings. When I talk to people, I am interested in them. And he appreciated that in me. The other people considered him, well, he is just some poor, miserable guy, and disregarded him.

Mr. Jenner. Now, I would like to go into that a moment. It gradually developed, did it, that the people in the Russian colony, their curiosity—they had curiosity at the outset, and they had interest at the outset.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That's right.

Mr. Jenner. They met him at your home and other homes?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. I take it you now suggest that after a while their interest in him waned?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It disappeared mainly; yes.

Mr. Jenner. And was it replaced by something else?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Dislike, mostly dislike, and fear.

Mr. Jenner. What was the fear?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Especially on the part of a scary individual, like George Bouhe—he was actually physically afraid of him.

Mr. Jenner. George Bouhe was?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. George Bouhe. He was actually physically afraid of him. He told me, "I am scared of this man. He is a lunatic." I said, "Don't be scared of him. He is just as small as you are."

Mr. Jenner. Yes, but George Bouhe is a small man. You are a well-built, athletic, six foot-one. What did you weigh then?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. 185 pounds. I was not afraid of him, naturally, but George Bouhe was.

Mr. Jenner. And that is not your nature, anyhow, that is not your personality as I observe you testifying.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; he was that way, you know. Now, Max Clark naturally was not afraid of him because Max Clark himself is an athlete, an ex-colonel in the Air Force, I think. He just disliked him, and he said to hell with that fellow, because Lee was rude to him.

Mr. Jenner. Who was rude?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Lee Oswald was rude to Max Clark and to his wife. They invited him on some occasion—this I remember vaguely—they invited him at some occasion to come to their house. And Lee said, "Well, I will come if it is convenient to me." Imagine that—an answer of that type.

Mr. Jenner. Now, the Clarks, certainly Mr. Clark—I do not know too much about Mrs. Clark—but Mr. Clark is an educated man.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Very educated man.

Mr. Jenner. And a man of attainment. He is an attorney, is he not?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Did it occur to you that here is a person who is relatively uneducated, of limited capacity—I think this man had intelligence——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Being invited to the home socially of a man of capacity?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. A lawyer, a leader in the community with a fine service record. What was your reaction to that?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, Max invited him purely because his wife was Russian and she would like to speak Russian once in a while.

Mr. Jenner. You think Lee resented that, do you—that the interest was in Marina and not in Lee Oswald?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; definitely. Oh, that is an exceedingly important point, you know. Lee resented the interest that people would take in Marina. He wanted the interest concentrated on himself.

Mr. Jenner. And did he exhibit that in your home and at other gatherings where you saw him? Did he interrupt so that the attention might be drawn to him and away from her?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; he was not——

Mr. Jenner. I do not want to put the words in your mouth.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, I understand what you mean. I am trying to think of a particular case that I would remember. I do not remember any particular case, but I always took him and considered him as an egocentric person. I do not remember any particular incident, but I knew that he wanted the attention to himself, always. Not in any particular case, but always. And he would rather disregard what Marina would say. And this is possibly the reason for his not wanting to—for Marina to learn English, so she would stay completely in the background.

Mr. Jenner. Now, you opened that subject which I want to inquire of you about. Did you people in the Russian colony—did you consider that? Did you regard that as unusual?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Right from the very first day my wife told Marina, "You have to learn English, you have to be able to communicate, and especially since you do not get along with your husband and you are going to leave him some day—you have to be able to support your child and yourself. You have to learn English and start immediately on it." We gave her some records to study English—not mine, but my wife's and her daughter's records, of Shakespearian English, how to learn English, and they obviously still have those records.

Mr. Jenner. Yes, they were found in Mrs. Paine's home.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. We even gave them a phonograph, I think, a cheap phonograph, to play the records.

Mr. Jenner. You gave them records?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. You also gave them an instrument to play them on?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. A cheap phonograph, to play those records.

Mr. Jenner. What else do you recall giving them—dresses?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not——

Mr. Jenner. Toys for the baby?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Toys for the baby, definitely. And I am sure that my wife had given some dresses. But she will remember better than I do. But we never gave them one cent of money. This I recall—never—and Lee would not take money, you see. I might have given him a little bit if he had asked. But he was very proud about it. He resented when people gave something to Marina. Marina would take anything, you see—she would take anything from 5¢ up to anything. And the more the better. But Lee did not want to take anything. He had a very proud attitude. That is one of the reasons I sort of liked him, because of that. He was not a beggar, not a sponger.

Mr. Jenner. Did you notice over the period of time you knew him developments of resentment on his part of, say, these people in the Russian colony who had come here and had established themselves to a greater or lesser degree?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; it was a very strong resentment on his part. It was almost an insane jealousy of people who succeeded where he could not succeed.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever have any discussions with him on that? How did you acquire this feeling?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That was again through my understanding of human nature, rather than from direct conversation. From hearsay, rather. You see, No. 1, for instance, the fact that he was so rude to the Clarks, because they lived very well. It is an insult in his face, the house that the Clarks have—very luxurious home, two cars, and so on and so forth. It is a slap in his face. This same thing that George Bouhe, a refugee, would give Marina $30 or $40 or a new baby crib, like that, like nothing. That was a slap in his face. The fact that I had a new convertible was a slap in his face. But he was not stupid enough just to say so. But you can feel that.

Mr. Jenner. Well, it might have been——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. And maybe George Bouhe, unfortunately annoyed him unintentionally with that.

Mr. Jenner. Well, that might be possible. George Bouhe—my impression of him is that he is a direct man.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. George Bouhe's intention was to take Marina away from Oswald very soon—not for himself, but to liberate her from Oswald. That is a fact.

Mr. Jenner. You had discussions with George Bouhe?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; he said, "We have to take this girl away from him," and this is one of the things that prompted us to take Marina and the child away from Oswald. We discussed all that with George Bouhe—to make her a little bit happier—maybe she will make another life for herself, and especially for the baby. I had lost my child, you know, just a year and a half before, or 2 years before. I am fond of babies. I wanted this baby to be happy and have some sort of a future.

Mr. Jenner. Did you discuss with Oswald this subject of Marina acquiring a greater facility in the command of the English language?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. And what was——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He said, "I don't want her to study English because I want to speak Russian to her, I will forget my Russian if I do not practice it every day." These are the words which I remember distinctly. And how many times I told him, "You have to let your wife learn English. This is a very egotistical attitude on your part."

Mr. Jenner. Very selfish.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Very selfish. He would not answer to that.

Mr. Jenner. Did it occur to you as a possibility, or among others in the Russian colony, that he might have had another objective, and that is that she would return to Russia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Never. That never occurred to me. I do not think that. Knowing Marina, she would never go back to Russia. She liked the United States. She liked the facilities of life here. Of course, you never know people. You cannot vouch for them. But that was our opinion. Maybe we simplified too much the matters. I do not know.

Mr. Jenner. Did there come a time in the spring or the midwinter of 1963, latter part of January, and in February, in which there was any discussion, or you learned that Marina had made application to the Russian Embassy to return to Russia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. No discussion?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No discussion of that.

Mr. Jenner. And except for my now uttering it, you have been wholly unaware of it?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Wholly unaware of it. Totally unaware of that, never heard of that. What we learned, at that period—that she had her child christened in the Greek Orthodox Church against Oswald's strong objections.

Mr. Jenner. Were you personally aware of those objections?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No. I just heard that he objected to Marina doing it—and she took the child to church anyway and had the child christened. But I do not recall the circumstances. Somebody told me that.

Mr. Jenner. But you are unaware of any discussion of her returning to Russia in the spring or late winter of 1962—1963, that winter?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. And she never appealed to you that he was forcing her to make application to the Russian Embassy?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall anything of that kind.

Mr. Jenner. Mr. De Mohrenschildt, it appears to be the consensus in that Russian colony, that community, that Oswald reached a point where he resented all the people other than you; that he had a liking for you.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, I explained to you that I do not know whether he had a liking or not.

Mr. Jenner. Or respect, or something.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I treated him nicely. My wife treated them like human beings, disregarding their bad qualities. Because that is our way of treating poor people. My philosophy is—you may object to that—but my philosophy is not to bend in front of the strong and be very nice to the poor—as nice as I can. And they were very miserable, lost, penniless, mixed up. So as much as they both annoyed me, I did not show it to them because it is like insulting a beggar—you see what I mean.

Well, the other Russians obviously do not have such a charitable attitude. I do not think he has ever been, for instance—I am trying to think whether he had a resentment against all of the Russian colony or not. I would not say so. I do not know how was his attitude toward Mr. Gregory. I think they remained pretty—not close, but on speaking terms.

Mr. Jenner. That seems to be so.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Because Mr. Gregory is a very fine person—very fine person, who is an elderly man, who is nice to a poor person.

Mr. Jenner. Your impression is that he, to use the vernacular a little bit—he was sort of eating on himself, he wanted to amount to something, and he appeared to be unable to, and was constantly groping.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes. That is his main—his makeup—trying to do something. One conversation I had with him—I asked him "Would you like to be a commissar in the United States," just teasing him. And he said—he sort of smiled—you could see that it was a delightful idea. To me it was a ridiculous question to ask. But he took me seriously. I laughed with the guy. Sometimes I would laugh, I would tease him. And it was amusing. But I tried not to offend him, because, after all, he was a human being. And in addition to that—in my case we had a point of contact which was the fact that he lived in Minsk, where I lived when I was a child also, where my father was this marshal of nobility. And later on in life I lived in Poland, very close to that area. I was interested in how the peasants were getting along, what does he find in the forest there, what kind of mushrooms you find, that type of conversation went on sometimes.

Mr. Jenner. Did he appear to have knowledge and recollection of things in which you were interested in the community, the countryside?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Very much so. That was a likable characteristic he had. For instance, he liked animals. My dog was sort of friendly with him. When he would come, my dog would not bark. He liked walking. He told me that around Minsk he used to take long walks in the forest which I thought was very fine. Those are contacts that possibly brought a certain understanding between us. He spoke very interestingly about the personalities of fellow workers there at his factory.

Mr. Jenner. I want you to keep ruminating in this fashion, because these things will come to you. What did he say about his work there?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, he said that the work was all right, not too hard, not too well paid, that it was very boring. That later, after the work, he had to be present at all sorts of meetings, political meetings. He said he got bored to death. Every day he had to stay for an hour at some kind of a meeting, the factory meeting. And this is a thing I thought was very intelligent, because that is one of the points that is really hateful in a Communist country—the meetings after work. That I noticed through my own experience in Yugoslavia, that the engineers and the plain workers just hated that—a political meeting after working 8 hours. And Lee Oswald also resented that in Russia. And I thought it was a rather intelligent—-one of the intelligent remarks that he made. And he repeated that very often—that is the thing he hated in Russia; resented, rather than hated.

Well, he described the personalities of some of the people that he knew there which I do not recall anymore. But some of them nice, and some of them less nice, and some of them very much interested in the United States, some of them unfriendly—that sort of vague recollection.

Mr. Jenner. Did you engage him in conversation respecting Communism as a political ideal and his reactions to that?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He kept on repeating that he was not a Communist. I asked him point blank, "Are you a member of the Communist Party?" And he said no. He said, "I am a Marxist." Kept on repeating it.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ask him what he meant by that?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I never frankly asked him to elaborate on that, because again, you know the word "Marxism" is very boring to me. Just the sound of that word is boring to me.

Mr. Jenner. What impression did you get in that connection as to whether he was seeking some mean or middle ground between democracy and what he thought Communism was?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Possibly he was seeking for something, but knowing what kind of brains he had, and what kind of education, I was not interested in listening to him, because it was nothing, it was zero.

Mr. Jenner. I see. It was your impression, then he could contribute nothing?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No, he could contribute absolutely nothing except for a remark like that about the meetings, which was just an ordinary remark a person of his intelligence could understand. But when it comes to dialectic materialism, I do not want to hear that word again.

Mr. Jenner. Did discussions occur as to his attempted defection?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. From the United States to Russia?

Mr. Jenner. Yes.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. How it happened?

Mr. Jenner. Yes.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Why it happened and how it happened?

Mr. Jenner. Yes.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Tell me about that.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. A few words I remember now. He said that while he was in Japan he saw tremendous injustice. By that he meant, I think, the poverty of the Japanese working class or the proletariat, as he called them, and the rich people in Japan. He said it was more visible than anywhere else. Now, I have never been in Japan, and I cannot vouch for that. But that is what he told me. And he also told me that he had some contacts with the Japanese Communists in Japan, and they—that got him interested to go and see what goes on in the Soviet Union.

Mr. Jenner. Just concentrate on this, please. Tell me everything you can now recall as to what he said about—you used the term, what we lawyers call a conclusion. You said he had some contacts with the Communists in Japan. Now, try and recall what he said or as near——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I see what you mean. Since it was so removed from my interest, I did not insist. I just heard that.

Mr. Jenner. Just give me your best recollection.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is all I recall—that he said, "I have met some Communists in Japan and they got me excited and interested, and that was one of my inducements in going to Soviet Russia, to see what goes on there."

Mr. Jenner. Did you form any opinion that this man, because of his meager boyhood, on the verge of poverty, or in poverty all during his youth and up to the time he went into the Marines at least, that he had some groping for a ready solution that would not permit that sort of thing?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Naturally. That's the whole point. I could understand his point of view, because that is what happens exactly in the whole world with dissatisfied people. If they are constructive, they study more and try to get good jobs and succeed. The other try to form a revolutionary party. And he was one of them.

Mr. Jenner. The other try to do it overnight, by force of arms.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That's right.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever discuss with him that there are many great men and women who have come from poverty?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Oh, yes. You could not discuss it with Oswald because he knew it all.

Mr. Jenner. He always knew what the answer was.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He always knew what the answer was. And possibly that is why he was clinging to us, to my wife and me, because we did not discuss it with them, because we did not give a damn. After we found out what was going on in that town of Minsk, what was the situation, what were the food prices, how they dressed, how they spent their evenings, which are things interesting to us, our interest waned. The rest of the time, the few times we saw Lee Oswald and Marina afterwards, was purely to give a gift, to take them to a party, because we thought they were dying of boredom, you see—which Marina was.

Mr. Jenner. She was?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. She was, because he never would take her any place. That was the reason we invited them twice—once to a party at Declan Ford's—and that was, I think, a Christmas party. And another time a party at Everett Glover's, where I was showing my movie to the whole group. Because I thought they would be exceedingly—Marina was dying of boredom there.

Mr. Jenner. Let me get to that party at Declan Ford's. That was—was that a New Year's Day or New Year's Eve party?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think it was right at Christmas or New Year's Eve.

Mr. Jenner. The party went on for a couple of days, didn't it?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. A couple of days?

Mr. Jenner. Yes.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I did not know that the party ran for a couple of days. But we arrived at 9 o'clock and left around 1 or 2, and it was still going strong.

Mr. Jenner. Well, I suppose when a witness said it lasted a couple of days, maybe the witness was thinking it started in the early evening of one day and did not end until well into the next day.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; it was not any of those wild parties. It was a very friendly, very good party.

Mr. Jenner. I'm not suggesting the party was wild. There is no intimation of that.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No—on the contrary, they are very hospitable people invited, and always had a congenial crowd there. And that is why we suggested, let's bring that miserable Marina and Oswald there, so they would meet some people. And I think if people continued doing that, if people did that, maybe this tragedy might not have occurred.

Mr. Jenner. Or it might have become worse—his resentment.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Maybe so.

Mr. Jenner. Did Marina smoke?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes. Oh, boy, this is an interesting question. She loved to smoke and would smoke as many cigarettes as she could lay her hands on. And you know, Oswald did not smoke and forbade her to smoke. This is the reason—one of the reasons they fought so bitterly—because he would take the cigarette away from her and slap her.

Mr. Jenner. In your presence?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. In my presence, would take the cigarette away from her and push her, "You are not going to do that", in a dictatorial way. So I would say, "Now, stop it, let her smoke." And then he would relax. But that is the type of person he was. But not in our presence—when we were away, Marina said he would not let her smoke nor drink, I think. He refused to let her drink either. And she liked to have a drink. With all her defects, she is more or less a normal person, and rather happy-go-lucky, a very happy-go-lucky girl.

Mr. Jenner. What about his drinking?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I never saw him drink. Maybe he would take a very little, but I never saw him drink more than half a glass—as far as I remember. I didn't pay too much attention. Maybe that is why he was tense, because he did not drink enough. He was always tense. That guy was always under some kind of pressure.

Mr. Jenner. You have that impression?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; always some kind of a pressure.

Mr. Jenner. And this was an inward pressure, you thought?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; some inward pressure.

Mr. Jenner. See if I can refresh your recollection a little about that party, the first of the parties. I am going to ask you about the second one as well in a moment.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Do you remember being present at that party Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Ray?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes. If they are the people whom I identify as he being a man in the advertising business and she a girl of Russian origin—a friend of Mrs. Ford.

Mr. Jenner. He married her when he was in Germany.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; that's it—something like that. You know, in this group of the Russian emigres, there were two people who came from Soviet Russia—there were Mrs. Ford and this lady, an entirely different type of individual—the new blood. They were younger and they were brought up in Soviet Russia.

Mr. Jenner. Yes; they were people——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. They were so-called—what do you call—displaced persons, who were grabbed by the Germans and displaced in Germany, and then the American soldiers grabbed them and married them. Both of them were the same type. Very nice people, but they had a different background.

Mr. Jenner. Now, this party occurred on the 28th and 29th of December.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. As far as I remember, it was around New Year's Day.

Mr. Jenner. And it was at the Declan Fords?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Was George Bouhe there?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think so.

Mr. Jenner. And Mr. and Mrs. Meller?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think so, too. And a lot of other people.

Mr. Jenner. There is another Ray couple, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Ray.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That I do not know.

Mr. Jenner. Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Harris?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall them.

Mr. Jenner. Charles E. Harris?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think I recall this person. He is a tall man with grayish hair.

Mr. Jenner. From Georgetown, Tex.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. A tall man with grayish hair.

Mr. Jenner. His wife was Russian born.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I don't know them well. I probably would recognize them if I saw them.

Mr. Jenner. Were there some people by the name of Jackson at that party who had a very lavish house?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Jackson? I know a Jackson who has a very lavish house. He is a geologist also. But I do not recall seeing them at the party.

Mr. Jenner. There is some testimony that in the early morning hours the party adjourned to the Jackson's house.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, we had already left.

Mr. Jenner. John and Elena Hall. They were there.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall that. I met them, I think, only once—I met her twice or three times. I recall her pretty well. But I do not recall him.

Mr. Jenner. Tatiana Biggers.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is the person I could not identify. I don't know who she is.

Mr. Jenner. Also present, Lydia Dymitruk.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think so. I think I remember her.

Mr. Jenner. A single person, divorced.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I think I remember her.

Mr. Jenner. Slightly built, slender, short.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I remember her. She was married to some "cuckoo nut," another "cuckoo nut" who escaped from Soviet Russia—Dymitruk. He came to ask me for a job, her husband. He came to ask me for a job several times, and then he disappeared.

Mr. Jenner. Lydia Dymitruk's husband?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; her ex-husband. I understand she is a very nice person, very hard working, and is making a living for herself, and that she left him. That is my recollection.

Mr. Jenner. You brought the Oswalds to the party?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. And——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Having asked previously either myself or my wife—having asked Mrs. Ford would she mind having the Oswalds, because they seemed to be bored to death, especially Marina seemed to be bored to death. And she said yes.

Mr. Jenner. And after a while you folks left, around midnight?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. And did you take the Oswalds with you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think we did. And this is the reason why—because I think they left the child in our house while they came to the party, and we asked another friend of ours, an elderly lady, Mrs. Frangipanni, to take care of the baby while they were gone, which she did.

Mr. Jenner. Did Oswald drink at that party?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That I do not recall. I know I drank quite a few glasses.

Mr. Jenner. What impression did you have as to how the people at the party reacted to Marina and to Oswald—take them separately.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I did not pay any attention. I left them to their own devices. I spoke to various people. I thought I had done my duty by bringing them along. What really impressed me that particular night was an extraordinary interest which developed between this Japanese girl, Yaeko—I don't remember her last name—but I already had given that impression of mine at the American Embassy so they could check on that. She was a Japanese girl, very good looking, who worked, I think, at Neiman-Marcus in Dallas, and was brought into Dallas from Japan by some people in the cotton business to take care of their babies.

Now, this girl is a much superior girl as to be just a baby caretaker. She eventually left that couple—that is all hearsay, you see, and became sort of a girl friend of a Russian musician who lives in Dallas by the name of Lev Aronson. And I do not recall whether he was at the party or not. But Yaeko was, and they developed an immediate interest in each other—Oswald and Yaeko. They just went on sight and started talking and talking and talking. I thought that was understandable because Oswald had been in Japan, you see. But the interest was so overwhelming that Marina objected, and became very jealous. She told us, either that night or later, that Oswald got her telephone number, she noticed that Oswald got this girl's telephone number. And once or twice later on she told us that she has the impression that Oswald is carrying on something with this girl. Now, this is hearsay again. But——

Mr. Jenner. Well, it is not hearsay that Marina told you.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; but hearsay that they are carrying something on. That is what she told us. But nothing definite.

Mr. Jenner. Did you notice any incidents in which—at that party—in which people——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. My wife will tell you more about this Yaeko incident, because she knows a little bit better.

Mr. Jenner. I will make a note of that so I can talk to her about it.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. And she is more on the gossipy side. I'm always happy if a girl likes a boy and a boy likes a girl—it does not matter who they are.

Mr. Jenner. Were there any incidents that you recall in which members at that party were talking with Marina and Oswald interrupted?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I do not recall, because I did not speak to them. I just left them alone, hoping that they would find some people to talk to.

Mr. Jenner. And the contacts you had with Marina and Lee, was there ever any discussion on the subject of whether people in Russia when they were there were chary about talking with Lee because they were afraid he might be an agent of some kind?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It is a question I have to try to think a little bit about.

I have a vague recollection that either Lee or Marina did tell me the people were afraid of him, and I think that was probably Oswald that told me, that the people were afraid of him, like many foreigners. So I thought that was very understandable, because you know the Communists are scared—not the Communists, but the people in Russia are scared to talk to foreigners.

We had an incident ourselves when we went to Mexico, to a Russian exhibit, to a Russian Fair, and tried to speak to an architect there in charge of the architectural exhibit. This was a lady architect, a charming woman. We spoke to her for about 5 minutes, and then she disappeared, and you could not find her any more. She ran away from us. She was scared of us. That is the usual thing.

So I did not pay particular attention to that fact. If people were scared of talking to Oswald, it was understandable.

Mr. Jenner. Did that ever arise, discussions as to why—possibly affecting his desire to return to the United States?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall that. The most important answer I think I got from Oswald—and that was one of the reasons we liked him and thought that he was rather intelligent in his estimation of Soviet Russia—is the fact that we asked him, both my wife and I, "Why did you leave Soviet Russia", and he said very sincerely, "Because I did not not find what I was looking for."

Mr. Jenner. And did you ask him what he was looking for?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. A Utopia. I knew what he was looking for—Utopia. And that does not exist any place.

Mr. Jenner. This man could not find what he was looking for anywhere in this world.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He could not find it in the States, he could not find it any place.

Mr. Jenner. He could find it only in him.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Exactly. He could find it in himself, in a false image of grandeur that he built in himself. But at the time that we knew him that was not so obvious. Now you can see that, as a possible murderer of the President of the United States, he must have been unbelievably egotistical, an unbelievably egotistical person.

Mr. Jenner. Do you know what paranoia is?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Well——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I know it very well.

Mr. Jenner. Did you notice——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Because I am interested in medicine.

Mr. Jenner. Did you notice any tendencies—this may be rationalization, of course, now that you are thinking back.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I would call him a stage below definite paranoia, which means a highly neurotic individual. But even an M.D. would not give you a right definition, or a right demarcation between the two.

Mr. Jenner. Did you have any feeling, while you knew him, and before this tragic event occurred, that there was any mental aberration of that nature?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I did not know anything about his background, you see. I did not know anything about his previous background, except that he had been in the Marine Corps, that he came from a poor family, that he had lived in New Orleans. That is all I knew about him.

Mr. Jenner. I wanted to ask you about that. Was your discussion with him as to his background, let us say, if I may use a conclusion myself, superficial?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Very superficial, because I was not—I know that type of person, I know his background. I know the people in New Orleans. I lived there. I know people in Texas of the very low category. I know the way they live. I could see clearly what type of background he had. I did not have to ask him questions. And he mentioned that while living in New Orleans, and very poorly, he started going to the public library to read the Marxist books, all by himself. That he was not induced by anybody. I said, "Who told you to read the Marxist books"—that interested me. And he said, "Nobody, I went by myself. I started studying it all by myself."

Mr. Jenner. He read those high-level books, but in your opinion he did not understand them?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I would not understand them. I would not bother reading them. I never read any Marxist books, because I know what they contain.

Mr. Jenner. But you could read them with a critical mind, could you not?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I could read with a critical mind. But that is something that does not interest me. And I know that they are very difficult. I know that they are written in a difficult manner, that they are highly theoretical, and to me very boring.

Mr. Jenner. There is some intimation that at this party Oswald had said several times that he liked Russia and he might go back. Did you overhear any of that?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. And from all your contact with him, had he ever expressed that notion to you, that he might go back?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall exactly, but something comes to my mind that he might have mentioned that, that if he does not get a better job, or if he does not become successful, he might as well go back to Russia.

Mr. Jenner. Well, this was really something said in despair.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. More or less—"After all, what is my life in Russia"—I remember he said that, that his life in Russia was actually better than here. But Marina never said that.

Mr. Jenner. She didn't?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. Do you remember some people at that party by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel F. Sullivan of Lafayette, La., a divisional geologist for Continental Oil Co.?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. Was there any discussion at that party about the possibility that Oswald might be a Russian agent?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I never heard that.

Mr. Jenner. And that this theory was thrown out because Oswald was broke, and that it could not be that way, because Russia would not permit one of its agents to be that penniless?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is an intelligent estimation, but I certainly have not heard that.

Mr. Jenner. Any discussion there or speculation that there was something peculiar in the fact that allegedly they had had little trouble in getting Marina out of Russia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That he had trouble getting her out?

Mr. Jenner. Relatively little.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is a question that always was sort of a big question mark to me. Not being interested, I did not probe them. But it always remained a question mark in my mind, how is it possible for somebody to take a citizen of Soviet Russia so easily out of the country. But I have known of other examples of it being done.

Mr. Jenner. Was there any discussion at any time while you knew the Oswalds about any attempt to commit suicide?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. When he was in Russia, no; I don't remember anything about that.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever notice he had a scar on his left wrist?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I didn't notice it.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever note whether he was right or left handed?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Something vaguely I remember that he might be left handed but I could not recall.

Mr. Jenner. This is pure vagueness on your part?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Very, very. My wife may recall that.

Mr. Jenner. You wouldn't want to express any opinion one way or the other on it?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever discuss with him his experiences in Russia with respect to hunting?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Never have.

Mr. Jenner. No discussions?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Or the use of any weapons or his right to have weapons when he was in Russia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I did not know even that he was interested in weapons 'til the day—which probably you will ask me later on—Easter, I think, when my wife saw his gun. I didn't know he was interested. I didn't know he had the gun. I didn't know he was interested in shooting or hunting. I didn't know he was a good shot or never had any impression.

Mr. Jenner. Now that you have mentioned that we might as well cover that fully in the record.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Tell me about that incident.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That incident is very clear in my mind.

Mr. Jenner. This was in 1963?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. In 1963, and the last time we saw them.

Mr. Jenner. It was the last time?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. The very last time we saw them.

Mr. Jenner. This was around Eastertime?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Around Eastertime.

Mr. Jenner. In April?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. In April. It was in the second apartment that they had.

Mr. Jenner. That was on Neely Street?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. On Neely I think one block from the previous place they used to live.

Mr. Jenner. Yes.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. And Jeanne told me that day, "Let's go and take a rabbit for Oswald's baby."

Mr. Jenner. This was on Easter Sunday?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Easter day. I don't remember it was Easter Sunday.

Mr. Jenner. Easter is always on Sunday.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; maybe it was the day before, the day after, but I think it was on the holiday. Maybe my wife will remember the date exactly. And so we drove over quite late in the evening and walked up—I think they were asleep. They were asleep and we knocked at the door and shouted, and Lee Oswald came down undressed, half undressed you see, maybe in shorts, and opened the door and we told him that we have the rabbit for the child. And it was a very short visit, you know. We just gave the rabbit to the baby and I was talking to Lee while Jeanne was talking to Marina about something which is immaterial which I do not recall right now, and all of a sudden——

Mr. Jenner. Excuse me. Mr. Reporter, Jeanne is spelled J-e-a-n-n-e.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. And I think Oswald and I were standing near the window looking outside and I was asking him "How is your job" or "Are you making any money? Are you happy," some question of that type. All of a sudden Jeanne who was with Marina in the other room told me "Look, George, they have a gun here." And Marina opened the closet and showed it to Jeanne, a gun that belonged obviously to Oswald.

Mr. Jenner. This was a weapon? Did you go in and look?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I didn't look at the gun. I was still standing. The closet was open. Jeanne was looking at it, at the gun, and I think she asked Marina "what is that" you see. That was the sight on the gun. "What is that? That looks like a telescopic sight." And Marina said "That crazy idiot is target shooting all the time." So frankly I thought it was ridiculous to shoot target shooting in Dallas, you see, right in town. I asked him "Why do you do that?"

Mr. Jenner. What did he say?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He said "I go out and do target shooting. I like target shooting." So out of the pure, really jokingly I told him "Are you then the guy who took a pot shot at General Walker?" And he smiled to that, because just a few days before there was an attempt at General Walker's life, and it was very highly publicized in the papers, and I knew that Oswald disliked General Walker, you see. So I took a chance and I asked him this question, you see, and I can clearly see his face, you know.

He sort of shriveled, you see, when I asked this question.

Mr. Jenner. He became tense?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Became tense, you see, and didn't answer anything, smiled, you know, made a sarcastic—not sarcastic, made a peculiar face.

Mr. Jenner. The expression on his face?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is right, changed the expression on his face.

Mr. Jenner. You saw that your remark to him——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Had an effect on him.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Had an effect on him. But naturally he did not say yes or no, but that was it. That is the whole incident. I remember after we were leaving, Marina went in the garden and picked up a large bouquet of roses for us. They have nice roses downstairs and gave us the roses to thank for the gift of the rabbit.

Mr. Jenner. Do you recall an occasion when you came to their home——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Excuse me, before I forget I wanted to insist on one thing which I meant to tell you before that. What was the main thing that I really liked about Oswald, you see. You asked me that question before.

Mr. Jenner. Yes.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He was ferociously, maybe too much so, for integration, advocate of integration. He said that it was hurting him, the fact that the colored people did not have the same rights as the white ones, and this is my opinion also, you see. I was very strongly opposed to segregation, and I am sometimes very violent on that subject, because it hurts me that I live in Texas you know and I do not have colored friends. I cannot afford to have colored friends, you see. It annoys me. It hurts me. I am ashamed of myself. And I try to make some friends among the colored people and the situation is such that it is hard to keep their friendship in Texas, you know. So I know what the situation is. On that point Oswald and I agreed. And this is another reason why Oswald and Bouhe fought so bitterly, because Bouhe is a segregationist. He is an old-guard segregationist that he learned from the Texans you know that the colored man is just a flunky. And I had quite a few fights with him about that, with Bouhe. And possibly his animosity, Oswald's animosity to Bouhe and vice versa were based on that, you see, although I am not so sure about it. But I assumed that that was one of the reasons.

And I think that was a very sincere attitude on his behalf, very sincere.

Mr. Jenner. I would like to return to this gun, this weapon incident, the Walker incident.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Was there ever an occasion after this time, when you and Mrs. De Mohrenschildt came to see the Oswalds, that as soon as you opened the door, you said, "Lee, how is it possible that you missed?"

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Never. I don't recall that incident.

Mr. Jenner. You have now given me your full recollection of that entire rifle incident?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Weapon incident, and what you said to him?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, yes, yes, yes; that is right. How could I have—my recollections are vague, of course, but how could I have said that when I didn't know that he had a gun you see. I was standing there and then Jeanne told us or Marina, you know, the incident just as I have described it, that here is a gun, you see. I remember very distinctly saying, "Did you take the potshot at General Walker?"

The same meaning you know, "Did you miss him," about the same meaning? I didn't want him to shoot Walker. I don't go to that extent you see.

Mr. Jenner. You didn't want him to shoot anybody?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Anybody. I didn't want him to shoot anybody. But if somebody has a gun with a telescopic lens you see, and knowing that he hates the man, it is a logical assumption you see.

Mr. Jenner. You knew at that time that he had a definite bitterness for General Walker?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I definitely knew that, either from some conversations we had on General Walker, you know—this was the period of General Walker's, you know, big showoff, you know.

Mr. Jenner. He was quite militant wasn't he.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He was, yes.

Mr. Jenner. Mr. De Mohrenschildt, up to that moment, is it your testimony that you never knew and had no inkling whatsoever, that the Oswalds had a rifle or other weapon in their home?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Absolutely positive that personally I didn't know a damn thing about it, positive, neither did my wife.

Mr. Jenner. And as far as you know your wife didn't either?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. Did you see the weapon?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I did not see the weapon.

Mr. Jenner. I won't show it to you then. Was there any discussion about the weapon thereafter?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No, no discussion. That ended the conversation, the remark about Walker, ended the conversation. There was a silence after that, and we changed the subject and left very soon afterwards.

Mr. Jenner. Did you have a feeling that he was uncomfortable?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Very, very uncomfortable, but I still did not believe that he did it, you see. It was frankly a stupid joke on my part. As the time goes by it shows that sometimes it is not so stupid. But you know my wife will tell you probably that I have a very stupid, bad sense of humor, she says, you know.

Mr. Jenner. Some people say you have a sadistic sense of humor.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Possibly. She says so also, my wife usually says that I like to tease people.

Mr. Jenner. And you do, don't you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. She dislikes it. I like to, certainly, and I don't mind if people tease me. I never get mad you know. It is perfectly all right if somebody teases me.

Mr. Jenner. Are you a member of a group in Dallas known as the Bohemian Club?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Oh, yes, yes.

Mr. Jenner. Tell us about the Bohemian Club. Did you organize it?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; Mr. Ballen and I organized it together and the occasion arose one day when Mr. Ballen and I were driving back from a well, an oil well we were driving far away from Dallas. It was a long drive and we were discussing our lives in Dallas and a little bit exchange about the sort of boring people we have around in Dallas you know, nothing but Texans. And then by God, says Ballen, "We should do something about it. We should organize—there are some interesting people in Dallas. We should organize a group for free discussion. And also we should put—we all like to eat well. Let's combine it with good eating." And that is how the idea originated.

Mr. Jenner. And you called it what?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. We called it the Bohemian Club, a little bit based on the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. And we invited—we decided to invite people who are sort of unusual and in different professions, and that no business should be discussed during the meetings, that the member whose turn it is to make a speech should also provide the dinner, and either cook it himself or his wife would cook it or he should invite all of us to a restaurant of his choice. This lasted I guess for a year or 2 years you know. We had quite a few meetings, very interesting, controversial meetings, because the main point was that you had to express yourself freely on the subject which is very important to you. Then followed a discussion of all the other members.

Mr. Jenner. On the subject.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. On the subject.

Mr. Jenner. Was it intended that the discussions be provocative or presented in a provocative fashion?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. As much as possible, and we had some real lulus there, some very provocative discussions.

Mr. Jenner. Was there an occasion when you had this club at your home or restaurant that you supplied the meal?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; one day I think I made one particular speech that I made on the subject of Vlacsov's Army which are the White Russians and refugees who decided to fight with the Germans against Soviet Russia. They were helped by General Vlacsov who was a Soviet General, and then later on became Commander, was made prisoner by the Germans and then decided to fight the Communists, because obviously he was dissatisfied with the Stalinist regime, and it was quite a large group. I never met any people of that type, but Mr. Voshinin provided me the material on that subject, and I made this little speech and I think everybody was very satisfied with the speech except Lev Aronson who is a Jewish friend, a Jewish friend of mine who was in the German concentration camp and he obviously had met some of those Vlacsov soldiers, and anyway he criticized me quite a lot on that speech.

Mr. Jenner. Did he criticize you during the course of the meeting?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. During the course of the meal?

Mr. Jenner. Yes.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, yes.

Mr. Jenner. Did you accuse anybody of being a Nazi?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Did he accuse?

Mr. Jenner. Did you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Did I accuse anybody?

Mr. Jenner. In the way of provoking the discussion?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Of provoking the discussion? I don't remember that. Possibly I had, but I don't remember that. Actually he accused me more or less of being pro-Nazi by giving that speech you see. He accused me of being, which I am not you know, but that expresses my opinion of the difficulty that sometimes the refugees are in when their opinions, political opinions, differ with their own country you see. Those are the people who are fighting their own country because they were deeply inside anti-communists, you see. I didn't say that I was all for them you see. I just described this as an interesting incident because I just read a book on that subject or something you know, and I thought that it was an interesting incident of the last war that occurred.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever see Oswald operate an automobile?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I had the impression that he didn't know how to drive and I was quite surprised——

Mr. Jenner. What gave you the impression that he didn't know how to drive?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I couldn't swear to that, but I think I asked him "Do you know how to drive an automobile? Why don't you buy yourself an automobile?" I remember saying.

Mr. Jenner. Where would he get the money?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, you know you can buy a car for $20, or $30, some old wreck, and somebody with any mechanical ability could fix it.

Mr. Jenner. What was his response to that?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I have the impression that he said that he didn't know how to drive, but I couldn't swear to that. And naturally Marina was needling him all the time to buy an automobile.

Mr. Jenner. Oh, she was?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; she was.

Mr. Jenner. You have a definite impression?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. A definite impression of that. She was needling him.

Mr. Jenner. Apart from an impression, as a matter of fact you were present and knew she was needling him to purchase an automobile?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I could almost swear to that, but again it is so vague I could not recall the exact words, you see.

Mr. Jenner. But you do have a definite impression of that?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, I have a definite impression of that. I might have put it in her mind you know. Either my wife or I might have put it in her mind because it is incomprehensible to live in Texas without an automobile. It is not like New York. They were completely isolated where they were living, you see.

Mr. Jenner. And you were suggesting it.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I might have suggested it.

Mr. Jenner. Because of that.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Or my wife.

Mr. Jenner. What impression, if you have any, do you have with respect to his sexual habits? Did you ever have any thoughts?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. As to whether he was a homosexual?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. He was not in your opinion?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I don't think so, I think he was an asexual person, asexual, and as I told you before, Marina was bitterly complaining about her lack of satisfaction. This is really the time that we decided just to drop them you see. One of the reasons you see we decided not to see them again, because we both found it revolting, such a discussion of marital habits in front of relative strangers as we were, see.

Mr. Jenner. And this occurred more than once?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. You see this occurred probably in the first period when we knew Oswald. You know there was a first period when we knew them, until about October. Then we didn't see them any more, and I think it was caused by many factors you know. We just got tired of them. We didn't like them. We did not like this particular remark about sex life, and other things you know. We just were not interested in them, and then the fact that she returned back to Oswald, see what I mean, after we had taken her away from him, that she went back to him that disgusted us.

We told her, "Now we helped you. We are not going to do anything more about you." And we didn't see them in October, November, December, see.

Mr. Jenner. Except for this party?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Except for the party, and then Christmas came and we thought well, the Oswalds all by themselves you know. It is Christmas time, we should take them out. For that period they were completely out of my mind you see. Then we decided to take them out, and I think it was in January after this party that we took them again to meet Everett Glover.

Mr. Jenner. I will get to that in a moment.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think actually there were two parties that we took them to. One at Ford's and the other at Everett Glover's. No, pardon me, I made a mistake. We took them also, both of them one afternoon, and I think it was still in the first period of us knowing them, to the house of Admiral Bruton who is a friend of ours, and a retired U.S. Admiral who works in Dallas and has; both he and his wife are good friends of ours. And they are very kind people.

Mrs. Bruton loves the children. She is a grandmother, and we told her that here we have that miserable couple with a child, could we bring them to the pool 1 day? And she said "fine, bring them along." And we brought them to the pool, and no sooner the admiral saw Oswald you know, and heard a few words from him, he said "take this guy away from me." This Bruton was quite a hero in the war you know, and he immediately sensed that Oswald was a revolutionary character you see, and no good. He sensed that, being a military man you see. I think he asked him a few questions "is it true that you were in the Marine Corps?" And Oswald made kind of a sour face about the Marine Corps. So it was very short and very unpleasant interview because the admiral left you know, and his wife, being a kind person, stayed there for a while you know, and then we took the Oswalds back again.

Mr. Jenner. You never did use the pool?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. They never used the pool because I don't think Oswald liked swimming. And just recently I got a letter from Mrs. Bruton in Paris saying "is that the same man that you brought once to my house?" She has been reading the story of Oswald.

Mr. Jenner. When you went over to pick up the Oswalds to take them to that Christmas party did you enter their home?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It is just vague to me. I don't remember how we got them. Whether I did or my wife did—I do not recall how it was done.

Mr. Jenner. I was going to ask you whether you noticed if they had a Christmas tree or any indication of celebration of Christmas?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I have some vague recollection of some kind of celebration but I do not recall.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever have any discussion with him as to whether he did or didn't believe in Christmas?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I don't remember. I assumed that he did not. Marina was naturally interested in Christmas.

Mr. Jenner. She was?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. She was.

Mr. Jenner. Did the Oswalds, either together or separately, come to your home frequently or several times and spend the day with you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I was trying to pin down how many times we saw them in all, and it is very hard you know. I would say between 10 and 12 times, maybe more. It is very hard to say.

Usually they were together.

Mr. Jenner. She come alone?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Sometimes she came alone; yes. I don't recall his coming all by himself. I don't recall any incident.

Mr. Jenner. There was some testimony to the effect—I want you to pause before I ask you another question, exhaust your recollection on this.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Were there occasions when they came in the morning and stayed all day?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Marina might have stayed all day you see, or 3 or 4 hours you see. My wife will remember, will have a better recollection of that, because I was at that time busy on three projects, and really my mind was on something else, you see.

Mr. Jenner. Having exhausted your recollection, there is testimony to the effect, about Marina, that "we used to come early in the morning, and leave at night. We would spend the entire day with them. We went by bus."

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. By bus? My wife will remember that better. Possibly I was not at home you see. I was running around doing business, my business you know.

Mr. Jenner. You came to their home for short visits?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I came to their home for short visits, and sometimes would find Marina alone, maybe twice, something like that you see, would find Marina alone, and ask her, "How are you getting along? Goodbye."

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever visit them and bring some foodstuffs?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall that. My wife will remember that better than I do.

Mr. Jenner. Does this refresh your recollection in any degree, testimony that "the De Mohrenschildts visited us, they usually came for short visits. They brought their own favorite vegetables such as cucumbers. George likes cucumbers."

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I like cucumbers, and I am sure that my wife will remember that, because it was her idea, not mine. She was in charge of food you know. If they did spend the whole day with us, it is possible it was at the very beginning when my wife took Marina to the doctor, you know, and then brought her back again, something like that. I don't remember seeing them in the house all day long.

Mr. Jenner. But they might have been there all day long when you weren't around.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. They might have been, might have been. My wife will remember that, you see.

Mr. Jenner. Were there occasions when they had meals at your house?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Oh, yes; I think so. I think so. I don't remember the exact occasion but I am sure that we fed them quite often, because they were hungry.

Mr. Jenner. As a matter of fact you went out of your way to see that they were fed?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, yes; I think so. My wife did, not I.

Mr. Jenner. Was there any discussion on your part with Oswald with respect to his family, his mother, his brothers?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; this is very interesting. I remember distinctly that Marina especially told me that they had lived with the brother, and that he told them to leave the house. Now we assumed that it was——

Mr. Jenner. Recapture your recollection a little more about this.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It is something to that effect, you know, and it was a little bit surprising to me, and then after seeing her for a little while, I realized why they did, because she was incredibly lazy you see. She wouldn't help anybody.

Mr. Jenner. Who was incredibly lazy?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Marina, very lazy, wouldn't help anybody with anything. When she stayed for instance with the Mellers, and the baby you see, Mrs. Meller told us that she wouldn't help her at all, you know, around the house.

Mr. Jenner. Yes.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Would sit there and smoke and do nothing. Now I have a recollection, a vague recollection of Lee telling me that he didn't get along with his mother. Actually it was surprising how little he spoke about his family. It was just something completely that was not discussed you know.

He didn't talk about it. But I have a vague recollection that he disliked his mother. He didn't get along with his mother, and Marina disliked the mother.

Mr. Jenner. Marina disliked the mother also?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Marina disliked the mother also.

Mr. Jenner. You have a definite recollection of that?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I have a recollection of some kind, not in any exact words, but that is the impression I had.

Mr. Jenner. Was there any discussion or did you become aware that they had lived also with the mother as well as the brother?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall that.

Mr. Jenner. But you have a definite recollection that Marina had met the mother and had a reaction to her?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; Oh, that she met the mother, definitely. I assumed that you knew.

Mr. Jenner. And that reaction was an unfavorable one?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Unfavorable reaction, and possibly my wife will remember more than I do.

Mr. Jenner. Did you get any reaction as to how Oswald felt with respect to his brother?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Again a vague idea that he did not get along with his brother.

Mr. Jenner. Did you become aware that he had two brothers?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I didn't even know he had two brothers.

Mr. Jenner. Was there any occasion when it came to your attention that there was any alarm on Marina's part with respect to Lee possibly inflicting some harm on Vice President Nixon, or former Vice President Nixon?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. That doesn't ring a bell at all?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It doesn't ring a bell at all. But what I wanted to underline, that was always amazing to me, that as far as I am concerned he was an admirer of President Kennedy.

Mr. Jenner. I was going to ask you about that.

Tell me the discussions you had in that connection. Did you have some discussions with him?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Just occasional sentences, you know. I think once I mentioned to him that I met Mrs. Kennedy when she was a child you know, she was a very strong-willed child, very intelligent and very attractive child you see, and a very attractive family, and I thought that Kennedy was doing a very good job with regard to the racial problem, you know. We never discussed anything else. And he also agreed with me, "Yes, yes, yes; I think it is an excellent President, young, full of energy, full of good ideas."

Mr. Jenner. Did he ever indicate any resentment of Mr. Kennedy's wealth?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is definitely a point there, you know. He did not indicate, but he hated wealth, period, you see. Lee Oswald hated wealth, and I do not recall the exact words, but this is something that you could feel in him, you see. And since he was very poor, you know, I could see why he did, you see. I even would tell him sometimes, "That is ridiculous. Wealth doesn't make happiness and you can be poor and be happy, you can be wealthy and be very unhappy; it doesn't matter." I met a lot of wealthy people in my life and found that quite a few of them are very unhappy and I have met quite a few poor people and they are very happy. So it is nothing to be jealous of.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever discuss with him Governor Connally?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Never discussed it with him.

Mr. Jenner. Did he ever express any opinion with respect to Governor Connally?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Never had a word about it. You see, I was not familiar with the fact that he did have a dishonorable discharge.

Mr. Jenner. That is another subject.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. You were not familiar with that at all? It was never discussed?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It was only in the papers that I read after the assassination that I read in the papers that he had a dishonorable discharge. I assumed that he had an honorable discharge. I assumed that.

Mr. Jenner. There was never any discussion in the Russian colony on the subject that he had not had an honorable discharge?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall that. I do not recall. But I was again probing in my mind whether I heard anything about this dishonorable discharge or not.

Mr. Jenner. As you are sitting there, you are probing your mind?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, my mind, thinking about it, now you know, and it is impossible to say because I read in the paper that he had a dishonorable discharge, after the assassination.

Mr. Jenner. And you don't want to rationalize?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not want to.

Mr. Jenner. Now let us turn to the party at the Glovers.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. You were acquainted with Mr. Glover, were you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Everett Glover?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Everett Glover.

Mr. Jenner. Who is Everett Glover?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Everett Glover is a chemist at Magnolia Laboratories, Standard Oil of New York Research Laboratories.

Mr. Jenner. Now, had Everett Glover met the Oswalds prior to this party at his home?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He might have, I don't recall. He might have met them, either Marina or both of them, for a short time.

Mr. Jenner. Have you exhausted your recollection on that subject?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. My wife may remember this more distinctly.

Mr. Jenner. But have you exhausted your recollection?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I don't recall.

Mr. Jenner. Does this serve to refresh your recollection?

Mr. Glover has stated that he had met Marina previously.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. At your home several times?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It could be; yes.

Mr. Jenner. It could be?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It could be; yes.

Mr. Jenner. And had been invited to your home several times because she was a Russian-speaking person who was having marital difficulties with Lee Oswald?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Very possible, very possible. Now I recall even this, since you mention this. I suggested that they might live with Everett Glover, this couple.

Mr. Jenner. You made a suggestion?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. To whom?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. To Glover. "You have an empty house. Why don't you let them live with you and pay you so much per month?" And I think he declined that.

Mr. Jenner. He did organize this party, however?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Who? Everett?

Mr. Jenner. Yes.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Now he says it was on February 23, 19——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. 1963.

Mr. Jenner. 1963?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is about it.

Mr. Jenner. Does that refresh your recollection?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I was placing it around January or February; at that time.

Mr. Jenner. Did you attend that party?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; as far as I remember, I did.

Mr. Jenner. And Jeanne as well?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Who else was there?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. At this party was a lot of friends of Everett Glover's whose names I do not recall.

Mr. Jenner. Volkmar Schmidt?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, yes; definitely. We called him Messer Schmidt. He is a German; very intelligent, young Ph. D. in sociology who also works at the same laboratory as Everett Glover.

Mr. Jenner. Magnolia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Magnolia Laboratory.

Mr. Jenner. And was living with Glover at that time?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Was living with Glover at the time, I think.

Mr. Jenner. He was present?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. He is a bachelor?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. A bachelor.

Mr. Jenner. And who else?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think we invited our neighbors, Mrs. Fox who lived right next door to us, to that party.

Mr. Jenner. Mrs. Fox?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. What is her first name?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Mary Fox.

Mr. Jenner. What is her husband's name?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. She is a widow, I think, but it might have been a different party, but I have the impression that she was there.

Mr. Jenner. Anybody else?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think we invited our landlord also.

Mr. Jenner. Who is your landlord?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I forgot his name. Anyway he is my landlord. I forgot his name. My wife has a better memory of names.

Mr. Jenner. Anybody else that you recall?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. And Ruth Paine.

Mr. Jenner. Ruth Paine?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Had you ever met Ruth Paine before?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I think that was the first time we met Ruth Paine.

Mr. Jenner. You have never been in any singing groups with her?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. Of which she was a member?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No, no.

Mr. Jenner. You did engage in some singing groups, did you not?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; but a different type of singing. I was engaged only in the church choir singing and I think she engaged in some sort of classical music singing.

Mr. Jenner. Madrigal?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I beg your pardon?

Mr. Jenner. Madrigal?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Madrigal; that is right. There is a group in Dallas to which Everett Glover belongs, you know, who I think spent some time singing in the madrigal.

Mr. Jenner. Have you exhausted your recollection now as to everybody who was present?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. There were quite a lot of people there, but if you mention the names I will say yes or no.

Mr. Jenner. I want you to exhaust your recollection first.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I am not so sure. I think my daughter was there.

Mr. Jenner. Alex?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Alex. I don't remember if Gary was there.

Mr. Jenner. That is her husband?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Her husband.

You see, we showed our movie quite a few times.

Mr. Jenner. Did you show it that night?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think we showed the movie that night.

Mr. Jenner. Were Mr. and Mrs. Norman Fredricksen present?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That name is familiar to me but I couldn't identify them.

Mr. Jenner. Were these people interested in meeting the Oswalds?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think Oswald mentioned to me—Glover mentioned to me that Mrs. Paine was a student of the Russian language, that she would like to meet somebody with whom she could practice. That is my recollection.

Mr. Jenner. Did the people engage in conversation with both of the Oswalds?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. They were surrounded by the whole group. I do not recall what happened, because I was busy making the description of our trip while the movie was being shown. That movie, by the way, did not interest Oswald at all. He was not interested.

Mr. Jenner. The Mexican trip movie?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; he was not interested. Neither Marina nor Oswald were interested.

Mr. Jenner. Neither one?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. Why was that, do you think?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. They were not the outdoor-type people who would appreciate that sort of thing, not sufficiently outdoor-type people, not sufficiently sophisticated to appreciate that sort of a thing. At least that was my impression.

Mr. Jenner. Did any of these people inquire of Oswald as to his life in Russia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think so. I think after the movie there was quite an animated discussion there asking many questions and many answering. He was there very happy you see, because he loved to be asked questions. He loved to be the center of attention, and he definitely was the center of attention that night.

Mr. Jenner. That night. What about Marina?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, you know that she couldn't speak English.

Mr. Jenner. Yes. There were people there who could speak Russian, weren't there?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think she was talking mainly to Mrs. Paine, and I noticed immediately that there was another nice relationship developed there between Mrs. Paine and Marina.

Mr. Jenner. Did you have some acquaintance with Mrs. Paine afterward; you and Mrs. De Mohrenschildt?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Never saw them again. Never saw them again as far as I remember. That in my recollection was the only time I saw her. I remember her distinctly because she is a very interesting and attractive person.

Mr. Jenner. Do you remember a Richard Pierce and a Miss Betty MacDonald attending that party?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I remember now Betty MacDonald. I don't remember whether she was at the party but I think she was the librarian at the Magnolia Research Laboratory.

Mr. Pierce is another friend of Everett's who also works at Magnolia, who eventually became his roommate, or maybe he was already a roommate at the time. I think he became a roommate later on.

Mr. Jenner. Is there anything that occurred at that meeting that you think might be significant that you would like to tell us about?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I really do not remember anything significant.

Mr. Jenner. Did you remain throughout the whole evening, or did you leave before the party was over?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall.

Mr. Jenner. I take it you did not bring the Oswalds to that meeting?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall either. I think they possibly have come by themselves. Maybe somebody else brought them. Maybe, Everett brought them.

Mr. Jenner. Either that or Everett?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; somebody else might have.

Mr. Jenner. It was not your party?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. You assisted him, however, in arranging it?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; exactly.

Mr. Jenner. Do you recall anything said at that meeting with respect to their eliciting from Oswald his views with respect to Russia, and in particular the former government in Russia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I remember quite a vivid discussion going on, you know, because all those people are highly intelligent, and, very intellectual group of people interested in what goes on in the world, and as far as I know none of them has ever seen a Russian, and it was just like a new specimen of humanity, you see, that appeared in front of them, both Marina and Oswald, an American but who had been to Russia. But I don't remember any particular discussion or disagreement or agreement. I think probably Oswald was talking most of the time.

Mr. Jenner. Oswald was pretty proud, was he, of his ability to speak Russian?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He was proud of it, yes; because it is quite an achievement for a man with a poor scholastic background to have learned the language. It is surprising to me. It was an extraordinary surprise for my wife and myself that he was able to learn to speak it so well for such a short time as he was supposed to have stayed in Russia. As I understand it, he stayed there some 2 years, I gather.

Mr. Jenner. That is all.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. And it is amazing.

Mr. Jenner. In speaking of that, as I recall, you noted he had a conversational command of the language.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. But that he did not speak a refined Russian.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No, no; not a refined Russian.

Mr. Jenner. He had trouble with his grammar?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, yes.

Mr. Jenner. Were there occasions when you knew them in which Marina would correct his grammar and there would be an altercation between them or something?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Oh, yes; there was bickering all the time. There was bickering all the time. I don't remember whether it was especially on the point of grammar, but there was bickering between them all the time.

But as I said before, the bickering was mainly because Marina smoked and he didn't approve of it, that she liked to drink and he did not approve of it. I think she liked to put the makeup on and he didn't let her use the makeup. My wife will explain a little bit more in detail what was going on between them, you see, because she was a confidante of Marina's, you see. I was not.

Mr. Jenner. Would you elaborate, please?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, my wife being a woman was interested in a woman's problems, you see, Marina's, in the baby and in her makeup, in the way she dressed and the way she behaved, you see. She tried to correct her manners, correct, teach her how to be a human being, you see, which Marina did not know very well. She was doing her best to learn. She wanted to, but she really had a very poor background, you see.

Mr. Jenner. You made a comment that you just said your wife had confidence in Marina, but you didn't. What did you mean by that?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Confidence from what point of view?

Mr. Jenner. I don't know.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I mentioned that because I don't like a woman who bitches at her husband all the time, and she did, you know. She annoyed him. She bickered. She brought the worst out in him. And she told us after they would get a fight, you know, that he was fighting also. She would scratch him also.

Mr. Jenner. She would scratch him?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. She would scratch him also.

Mr. Jenner. Do you recall the time?

I will put the question this way in order to draw on your recollection, rather than mine.

There was an occasion, was there not, that Marina left Lee by herself?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Without being taken?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I have a recollection of that.

Mr. Jenner. Tell us about that. When did it occur?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I don't remember when it occurred.

Mr. Jenner. Does October 1963 refresh your recollection?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Very possible, but that was the period when we were very busy with our cystic fibrosis campaign.

I do recall that one day I was in Fort Worth and I decided to come to see Mrs. Hall, with whom Marina was staying.

Mr. Jenner. Were you aware of the fact that Marina was at Mrs. Hall's?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Were you aware of how she had gotten there?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall how it happened, but I was aware, somebody told me that, that she was staying at Mrs. Hall's.

Mr. Jenner. The Halls were separated at that time, were they not?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; and Mrs. Hall had the boy friend who was a friend of mine.

Mr. Jenner. What was his name?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. A long name, German name, but he was of Polish extraction. He was in the plastic business. Now, his name, Doctor—he worked for some plastic company in Fort Worth. Kleinlerer, Alex Kleinlerer. That is the name.

Well, I had a very hard time finding the house where Mrs. Hall lived. I think Mr. Clark told me. That is probably it.

Mr. Jenner. Max Clark.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Max Clark probably told me that Marina is there.

Mr. Jenner. Is that 4760 Trail Lake Drive?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; Trail Lake Drive. That is the place. And I drove over and here was Marina, Mrs. Hall and Alex Kleinlerer. I don't remember what we were talking about, what we discussed at that time. It was a friendly visit to say how are you.

Mr. Jenner. What I was getting at, Mr. De Mohrenschildt, was that this was an occasion when Marina had left her husband?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. And come to the Halls?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. That is, it is an occasion distinct from the one in which you took Marina?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Oh, yes.

Mr. Jenner. Away from her husband. And this occasion we are now talking about at the Halls occurred subsequently to the time that you had taken her to the Mellers?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes. I think it was after our taking her away to the Mellers.

Mr. Jenner. When you arrived there, what did you discuss in respect to why Marina was there?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I think I was discussing, I was talking to Alex Kleinlerer and to Mrs. Hall.

Yes; something vaguely comes to my mind that Mrs. Hall was saying that Marina should leave their place.

Mr. Jenner. Should leave the Halls?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Should leave the Halls. The husband is coming back or something like that, something to that effect.

Mr. Jenner. Her husband is returning?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; something to that effect.

Mr. Jenner. And did Marina leave?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That I do not recall.

Mr. Jenner. You don't recall that she then went somewhere else?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I do not recall. If you could refresh my memory I may remember better. Again, I want to underline that all this is history for me, you see.

Mr. Jenner. I appreciate that, and I must avoid trying to put things in your mind also.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Which is what I am attempting to do.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is right. As I remember, take Mrs. Hall—yes; I remember what we were talking about.

Mrs. Hall had had an accident, and she had either a broken leg or a broken arm, something like that, and she was in a cast. That is it. So we were talking about the accident most of the time, you see, what happened.

Mr. Jenner. Well, that is a fact.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; she had an accident. I remember now.

Mr. Jenner. Did you have any discussion or do you have any opinion with respect to Marina's religious belief, whether she had any, any religious feeling?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I had a vague impression—I don't remember because I do not discuss religion too often—that she had religious beliefs of some sort, you see. She was a Greek Orthodox and did have some sort of religious belief.

Mr. Jenner. What about Lee, on the other hand?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Lee, I think religion did not exist for him.

Mr. Jenner. He didn't believe in God?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. God, I don't know, because I didn't ask him a straight forward question, but I know that he did not believe in any organized religion. That is for sure. But he never was militantly against religion as far as I remember.

Mr. Jenner. But you have no recollection of any discussions or any impression on your part about Marina going back to Russia at any time?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Something vaguely goes on in my head.

Mr. Jenner. Oswald trying to get her to return to Russia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Something vaguely goes on in my mind, but I do not recall. Very possible, you see, that something was mentioned like that. I didn't pay any attention, in other words.

Mr. Jenner. Did Oswald express views with respect to individual liberty and freedom of the press?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I don't think he understood the freedom of the press, and individual liberties. I think he was too stupid to understand the advantages we have of the free press and the free speech. Not too stupid, I mean, but too uneducated to understand the great advantages we have in free press and free discussion and in individual freedoms.

Like many native-born Americans, he did not appreciate the advantages you get in this country, you see. You have to be a foreigner to appreciate it a little bit more. Many Russians, all the Russian refugees appreciate that, you see, but many who are born here don't appreciate it. Not all of them.

Mr. Jenner. What about Marina and her politics?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Marina was definitely more appreciative of life in the United States.

Mr. Jenner. Was she inclined to discuss politics?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Not too much; no. That was Lee's main point, you see, to discuss politics.

Mr. Jenner. What was her attitude toward Lee's views in that respect?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. She more or less considered him a crackpot, as far as I remember, you see. A few times she said, "Oh, that crazy lunatic. Again he is talking about politics."

This is one of the reasons we liked her, because that was a very intelligent attitude, you see, but it was very annoying to Lee.

Mr. Jenner. That was another source of annoyance between them?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; there were so many sources of annoyance, as you know, that it was just an unhappy marriage.

Mr. Jenner. You have stated at one time Oswald gave you something to read that he had written.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I don't remember at what particular time, but he gave me to read his typewritten memoirs of his stay in Minsk.

Mr. Jenner. Was it in the form of a diary?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, more or less the form of a diary, not day by day, but just impressions. And as far as I remember, I read through these typewritten pages, I don't remember how many of them there were, and made comments on it, you see. But I don't think they were fit for publication.

Mr. Jenner. Were they political in nature?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; not political in nature, but there was nothing particularly interesting to an average person to read. It was just a description of life in a factory in Minsk. Not terribly badly written, not particularly well.

Mr. Jenner. Not good, not bad?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Not good, not bad. Nothing that I really remember too well. I don't remember too well what was written there.

Mr. Jenner. I will show the witness pages 220 through 244, Commission Document No. 206. Would you glance through those pages and tell me if it has the material he showed you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I don't remember seeing that beginning.

Mr. Jenner. Let's get over to the area in Minsk.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; that is not at all familiar to me.

Mr. Jenner. The witness is now looking at page 232.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Starting here at the bottom of page 232 it looks familiar to me. How many mistakes he makes here, it is terrible. It does not look familiar to me. I think it was something else that he showed me. I do not recall that. That I definitely do not remember.

Mr. Jenner. What?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I would have remembered that sentence, you know.

Mr. Jenner. You are now on page 235:

"I am having a light affair with Nell Korobka."

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I would have remembered something like that, you see. Again another sentence I do not recall.

Mr. Jenner. "My conquest of Anna Tachina, a girl from Riga."

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Do you want me to glance through that? It does not look like the same document.

Mr. Jenner. If it is not the same document——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I don't think it is the same document.

Mr. Jenner. Now I will have the witness look at pages 247 through 301. This is a composition entitled "The Collective" and "Minsk, Russia," with a foreword, an autobiographical sketch of Oswald.

I will direct your attention to some of these headings, "Description of Radio Factory," "Quota Conditions," "Description of TV Shop," "Background of Shops," "Individual Workers," "Controls of Collectives," "Demonstrations in Meetings," "Factory Makeup," and "Peoples," "Layout of City of Minsk," "Tourist Permits and Tourist Passports," "Collective Farms and Schools, Vacations."

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I don't remember this document, but I think I remember something, "Layout of City of Minsk," because that would have attracted my attention.

Mr. Jenner. All right, let's find that spot.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That looks familiar to me.

Mr. Jenner. First there is a heading, "About the Author." I call your attention to a statement which says, "Exotic journeys on his part to Japan and the Philippines and the scores of odd islands in the Pacific." Did he ever discuss that with you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. He was at Subic Bay in the Philippines?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I don't remember him mentioning that to me.

Mr. Jenner. Now the witness is looking at part 1, which is on page 248.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; this looks slightly, vaguely familiar, starting from page 248. That looks vaguely familiar. I am not going to read all this because it looks very boring to me. I mean it is something that doesn't interest me. It looks vaguely familiar.

Mr. Jenner. Does it also refresh your recollection of discussions you had with him before his life in Russia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That looks familiar to me.

Mr. Jenner. This whole division?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. This whole division looks familiar to me. As I said before, I did not look carefully when I originally saw this document, and I think this is the same one, because it looks familiar to me.

I just glanced through. I realized that it is not fit for publication. You can see it right away. Who is interested to read about comrade this and comrade that, you see?

But it is a factual, it seems like a factual report on his conditions of life of a worker.

Mr. Jenner. It is horrible grammar.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Horrible grammar.

Mr. Jenner. And horrible spelling.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. But it could be reworked by somebody?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is right.

Mr. Jenner. Let's get to the next division here.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Here is something that I remember we discussed.

Mr. Jenner. You are now at page 262.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think here he talks about those meetings.

Mr. Jenner. That he did not like?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That he did not like.

Do I have to read that? Frankly, it is very——

Mr. Jenner. No; you don't. We are trying to find out whether this is the paper he showed you.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Here is something.

Mr. Jenner. I now direct your attention to page 269.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. This is something that is much more familiar to me because I was interested in the town itself.

Mr. Jenner. And this is the paragraph beginning, "The reconstruction of Minsk is on an interesting story reflecting the courage of its builders."

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; that was something that interested me because I lived in my childhood in this town and I remembered some of the buildings. I remember asking Oswald about what happened to this street and that street, you see. But I forgot the names. I just described them. What happened to this street and that street?

He gave me some sort of an answer that now it is full of big buildings, you see, and I remember it as being full of small provincial houses, you see. And again I cannot swear to the fact that that is the same paper I saw.

Mr. Jenner. But this seems to you more familiar?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. More familiar maybe because I paid more attention to the city than I paid to something else.

Mr. Jenner. This is quite a long diatribe.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It couldn't be the same document because that wasn't as long as that.

Mr. Jenner. It was not?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No.

Mr. Jenner. I now exhibit to the witness a series of five untitled compositions on political subjects appearing in the same exhibit I have already identified, the first of which is at page 304.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. This is definitely not familiar to me.

Mr. Jenner. And runs through page 309.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I am just glancing through but it doesn't look familiar to me. Maybe I just didn't pay any attention.

Mr. Jenner. The next commences on page 310 and runs through to page 312. It is a short one.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; that doesn't look familiar to me.

Mr. Jenner. The next commences at page 313 and concludes at page 315.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It does not look familiar to me. As I said before, I have the impression that the pages he showed me were only about the city of Minsk and the TV factory there, but not about his life.

Mr. Jenner. Were they typewritten or in longhand?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Typewritten.

Mr. Jenner. The balance is on pages 318 through 329. Would you glance through those, please?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Oh, that is definitely nothing that I have seen before, because it has the name of General Walker in it.

Mr. Jenner. And you had not seen it?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; I had not seen it. Now, the publication, not the publication, the document I saw was, as far as I remember, not political, but a very simple account of his life in Minsk, and in the TV factory.

Mr. Jenner. I think we had better call Mrs. De Mohrenschildt and tell her——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That she is ready for action?

Mr. Jenner. No; that we are going to run you well into the afternoon. I have got a couple more pages of notes here. Maybe around 3:30 will be closer.

If you think it would be better to release her for the afternoon or find out where she is going to be.

(Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the proceeding was recessed.)

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