Mr. Jenner. Whether they pay you or not——
Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I have never been a member of any group of any kind. My life was too busy, as you can see, in order to be involved in anything like that.
Mr. Jenner. Now, we covered your two Yugoslav ventures, your Ghanian venture—the time that you had the company when you were a young man in Europe, traveled around Europe.
We covered all your employments in the United States, from the time you came here in May of 1938.
I think we have reached the point of your great venture which you started to tell us about, and I had you hold off—your trip down into Mexico and the Central American countries—tell us about that in your own words, how it came about, and what you did.
Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, I started explaining that already, that it is not a new idea for me. I said before that 20 years before, Roderick MacArthur and myself set out on a limited trip of this type, when we were both young men in Mexico.
And I have always been interested in Mexico as a very rich country mining wise, and I thought that it would be very interesting and useful for me to take a trip along the old trails of the mining of the Spaniards as they went through Mexico during the days of the Conquistadors.
You see, the Spaniards went to Mexico for the purpose of finding mines, and the routes they made in Mexico and through Central America are all directed toward certainly logical prospects, certain mines. And I started collecting through the years—I started collecting information on routes of the Spaniards in Mexico.
But I never thought I would really be able to do it, until came the time in 1960 when my boy died, and I was in very—practically out of my mind, because this was my only son. And I said to hell with all that—I had some money saved up, and I said I am going to stay away from my work and from the civilized life for 1 year, and I am going to follow the trails of the Spanish Conquistadors, all throughout Central America, and possibly all the way to South America.
And to do it the hardest possible way, because I believe in physical therapy for your mental problems.