Mr. Slawson. In Commission Exhibit No. 911, which is John McVickar's memorandum to files about his conversation with you, he quotes you as saying, "Miss Johnson remarked that although he used long words and seemed in some ways well-read, he often used words incorrectly as though he had learned them from a dictionary."
Was that in reference to these economic discussions you had with Oswald?
Miss Johnson. Yes. I think really he didn't use long words too much about economics. I felt if I could have, I could have made an impression. Words were important to him. And he was not qualified, mind you, for a technical discussion of economics.
It wasn't that he was qualified for it. If I had been, I felt I would have had a value to him.
Mr. Slawson. I wish you would elaborate on this: What kind of knowledge you felt Lee Oswald had on economics, and his general ability to engage in abstract argument and discussion.
Miss Johnson. He liked to create the pretense, the impression that he was attracted to abstract discussion and was capable of engaging in it, and was drawn to it. But it was like pricking a balloon. I had the feeling that if you really did engage him on this ground, you very quickly would discover that he didn't have the capacity for a logical sustained argument about an abstract point on economics or on noneconomic, political matters or any matter, philosophical. Actually the conversation kept coming back to him, and this was not only my desire for an interview. It was the way he led it. He really talked about himself the whole time.
Whatever he was talking about was really Lee Oswald. He seemed to me to have really zero capacity for a sustained abstract discussion on economics or any other subject, and I didn't think he knew anything about economics.
In fact, if I had been a little smarter I would have just used the economic words that I could have remembered, compelled his respect and he wouldn't have known that I didn't know anything.
Mr. Slawson. You said that you did not get into much political discussion with him.
Miss Johnson. No, we didn't. Partly I couldn't engage him directly on the Soviet Union because I had a poor status there as a correspondent. I worked for the weakest of the American agencies. I was always in danger of being expelled with my visa expiring. Even then I was only on a 1 month visa, and at that only because of the spirit of Camp David. I had just barely gotten back in the country.