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 yourthought——
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 hiswife 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 hadintelligence——
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 wasnot——
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 donot——
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 hadasked. 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 havebeen——
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 whatwas——
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 certainunderstanding 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 asnear——
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. Sheloved 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 werepeople——
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 andYaeko. 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 whichpeople——
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 Presidentof 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 younotice——
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 asudden——
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 tohim——
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 theirhome——
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. Andthis 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.