Chapter XVII: Part 17

She said it was her dream some day to live in an apartment like that. And that is where Lee Oswald lived. And eventually when they met--I remember they met at some dance--I think he was ill, something like that, after that dance, and she came to take care of him. That is something I have a vague recollection of--that she took care of him, and from then on they fell in love and eventually got married. But she said it was the apartment house that was one of the greatest things she desired to live in, and she found out later on that Lee Oswald lived in that apartment house, and she finally achieved her dream.

It sounds ridiculous, but that is how in Soviet Russia they dream of apartments rather than of people.

She told us a tremendous amount of things which will come to me as things go on.

Mr. JENNER. Go ahead.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Naturally I was talking to her and to him--I was trying to find out what is life of young people in Soviet Russia, what are the prices on food, what can you get for your money, what salary you get, what amusements you get.

Mr. JENNER. Tell us what they said.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. The salaries--she was getting an equivalent of $60 a month. He was getting something like $80 a month. That almost all of it had to be spent on food. The lodging was very cheap, almost nothing, because it was provided by the Government. That the food was rather plentiful, you could get it--but it was rather monotonous. Sometimes you could not get meat. They used to have discussions between them all the time--always they quarreled about--Lee Oswald and Marina always quarreled between themselves as to what actually were the prices, what actually were the conditions of life in Soviet Russia.

Mr. JENNER. Tell me about the differences here.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. The attitudes she had, and the attitude he had.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He liked Russia more than she did. I think he liked the conditions in Russia more than she did.

Mr. JENNER. Why?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Because he was a foreigner there, and he had a privileged position. He had a nice apartment. He said that people were interested in him, you see. That very often--he worked in a TV factory--the workers would come to him and ask him questions about the United States and so on, and that pleased him very much, because he was that type of an individual who needed attention.

Marina was more inclined to criticize the living conditions there than he did--as far as I remember. Yet she was not too critical, you see. It was a livable way of life.

Actually, they came to think that possibly their life was better there than in Fort Worth. In other words, both were disappointed in what happened to them after they came back to the United States. And I think that Lee more than Marina. Because as the time went on, Marina was getting more and more things from people--people like the Clarks, like ourselves, like George Bouhe, started giving her gifts, dresses and so on and so forth. She had some hundred dresses.

Mr. JENNER. A large number of dresses?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. About a hundred dresses.

When we carried them out to live with the Mellers, my car was loaded with her dresses. It was all contributions from the various people, in Fort Worth and Dallas.

Mr. JENNER. In addition to dresses and clothing, what other things?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, mainly baby things. She had two cribs, I remember. She had a baby carriage.

I think George Bouhe gave it to her. Toys for the baby. Many things like that.

Mr. JENNER. Now, you say you carried her out and took her to the Mellers?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. This was already possibly 2 weeks after we met them.

Mr. JENNER. Now, what was the occasion that you did that, and why did you do it?

That was a pretty forward thing to do, was it not?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. In the meantime, Lee lost his job and George Bouhe told him that he should move to Dallas, he will give him an introduction at the Texas Employment Agency--he knew somebody there. And eventually he got a job through that Texas Employment Agency. I don't remember the name of the person who was there--some Texas lady whom George Bouhe knew.

And I told him that I would help him, too, to find a job, and even spoke to Sam Ballen about it, can he give him a job. And that is probably the only time that Sam Ballen met Oswald. I told him to go to Mr. Ballen's office--he has a reproduction business, a very large one in Texas.

Mr. JENNER. Reproduction?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Reproduction, electric log reproduction service. When they reproduce electrical logs from the oil wells. And also, they print catalogs and things like that in his office. It is quite a large business that he has--with branch offices all over Texas, and even in Denver, Colorado.

I said, "Why don't you see if you can give him a job?" And I remember that Sam saw Lee Oswald and found him very interesting.

I remember I saw him the next day and said, "How did you like Lee Oswald?" and he said, "Nice fellow, very nice fellow, very interesting fellow."

Mr. JENNER. But he did not have any work for him?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He didn't have a job for him. And at the same time he received a job at some other outfit--I forgot the name of it--the traffic outfit, and they moved from Fort Worth to Dallas.

Mr. JENNER. You said you entered and took Marina out of the house, and the baby?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That was a little bit later on--when he already moved to Dallas, he already had the job. But now I am trying to recall who moved him from Fort Worth to Dallas, and I think that was Gary Taylor, my ex-son-in-law, and Alex, my daughter. I think they both drove to Fort Worth.

I told them to do so--"Go to Fort Worth and help them, they have no car, they have no money--help them to move."

I think in the meantime Lee found a job at Jaggars, and was looking for a place to live, and found a place to live himself in Oak Cliff, this address which I don't remember now--the first address in Oak Cliff. He had two addresses. I forget the exact address. My wife will remember that.

Anyway, my daughter and her husband went there and moved them.

Mr. JENNER. When was this?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, maybe 2 weeks after we met the Oswalds.

Mr. JENNER. September of 1962?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. About that time--about September.

A little before that, I think, because in September we started the campaign on the cystic fibrosis, and we completely lost track of them--we were very busy on that. And I think it was in September that this campaign started.

Mr. JENNER. And before you started your campaign on cystic fibrosis, they had already moved to Dallas?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. They already moved to Dallas. We already had moved them--had taken Marina away from her husband. And she already had returned back to her husband.

Mr. JENNER. All right. Now, you say you had already taken Marina away from her husband. Tell us how that occurred.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In the meantime. George Bouhe became completely disgusted with Lee.

Mr. JENNER. Why?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Because--I don't know exactly why--because he liked Marina very much.

Mr. JENNER. Bouhe?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Bouhe--he is an elderly man.

Mr. JENNER. Yes, I appreciate that.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He wanted--almost like a daughter, you see. To him she was a poor girl whose father was an ex-officer, and she needed help. And he really gave her money. He would give her $30, $40, I think, all at once.

Mr. JENNER. Did he ever collect money from you and others to contribute?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't think so.

Mr. JENNER. Did you ever give Lee Oswald any money?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No.

Mr. JENNER. Did you ever give Marina any money?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Not as far as I remember. Maybe a dollar--maybe 50 cents, something like that, for a bus. But never any money. I was in very difficult financial condition myself at that time. I don't think I gave her even 50 cents.

Sometimes we would invite them to eat a little bit, you see, in the house.

Mr. JENNER. You invited them to your home to eat?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. I think maybe once or twice they came to the house to eat.

Mr. JENNER. Your home on Dickens Street?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. All right, tell us the circumstances----

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Of how we took her away?

Mr. JENNER. And why.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, George Bouhe started telling me that "George, Lee is beating Marina. I saw her with a black eye and she was crying, and she tried to run away from the house. It is outrageous."

And he was really appalled by the fact that it actually happened. And Jeanne and I said, let's go and see what is going on.

George Bouhe gave me their address, as far as I remember, there in Oak Cliff, because I didn't move them--it was my daughter who moved them, I think.

So we drove up there to that apartment, which was on the ground floor, and indeed Marina had a black eye. And so either my wife or I told Lee, "Listen, you cannot do things like this."

Mr. JENNER. Was he home at this time?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I think he was. Or maybe he wasn't. I just am not so sure. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. But anyway, he appeared a little later.

Mr. JENNER. While you were still there, he appeared?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And when you entered that apartment on the first floor, you observed that she had a black eye?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. A black eye, and scratched face, and so on and so forth.

Mr. JENNER. Did you inquire about it?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. What did she say?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. She said, "He has been beating me." As if it was normal--not particularly appalled by this fact, but "He has been beating me", but she said "I fight him back also."

So I said, "You cannot stand for that. You shouldn't let him beat you."

And she said, "Well, I guess I should get away from him."

Now, I do not recall what actually made me take her away from Lee.

Mr. JENNER. Now, Mr. De Mohrenschildt, there has to be something.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes, I know.

I do not recall whether she called us in and asked us to take her away from him or George Bouhe suggested it. I just don't recall how it happened. But it was because of his brutality to her. Possibly we had them in the house and discussed it, and I told him he should not do things like that, and he said, "It is my business"--that is one of the few times that he was a little bit uppity with me.

And then again George Bouhe told me that he had beaten her again. This is a little bit vague in my memory, what exactly prompted me to do that. My wife probably maybe has a better recollection.

Anyway, on Sunday, instead of playing tennis, we drove to Marina's place early in the morning and told Oswald that we are going to take her away from him, and the baby also, and we are going to take her to Mr. and Mrs. Meller. I think George Bouhe made the previous arrangement, because he was closer to the Mellers than I was. Or maybe I called them. I don't remember exactly.

Anyway, they were ready to receive her.

And Lee said, "By God, you are not going to do it. I will tear all her dresses and I will break all the baby things."

And I got very mad this time. But Jeanne, my wife, started explaining to him patiently that it is not going to help him any--"Do you love your wife?" He said yes. And she said, "If you want your wife back some time, you better behave."

I said, "If you don't behave, I will call the police."

I felt very nervous about the whole situation--interfering in other people's affairs, after all.

Well, he said, "I will get even with you."

I said, "You will get even with me?" I got a little bit more mad, and I said, "I am going to take Marina anyway."

So after a little while he started--and I started carrying the things out of the house. And Lee did not interfere with me. Of course, he was small, you know, and he was a rather puny individual.

After a little while he helped me to carry the things out. He completely changed his mind.

Mr. JENNER. He submitted to the inevitable?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He submitted to the inevitable, and helped me to carry things. And we cleaned that house completely.

We have a big convertible car, and it was loaded--everything was taken out of that house. And we drove very slowly all the way to the other part of the town, Lakeside, where the Mellers lived, and left her there.

Mr. JENNER. Did Lee accompany you?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; that was it. The next day or a few days later--I don't remember exactly when--George Bouhe called me and said, "George, you should not give Lee the address of where Marina is." I think he came to see me about that--"because he is a dangerous character, and he has been threatening me, and he had been threatening Marina on the telephone."

Mr. JENNER. He knew where Marina was?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Maybe I am confused a little bit. He knew George Bouhe's telephone number. He had been threatening him, and wanted to know the telephone number or the address of where Marina was. And this time my wife and I said we do not have the right not to let him know where she is, because she is his wife, and we should tell him where Marina is.

Now, I do not recall how it happened--maybe Lee came over to our apartment in the evening. Anyway, we gave him the address of the Mellers, you see, and told him that the best way for him to do is to call ahead of time if he wants to see Marina, talk to her on the telephone, and if she wants to see him, she will see him. And he was very happy about that--because I thought it was a fair thing for the fellow to do.

I repeat again--I liked the fellow, and I pitied him all the time. And this is--if somebody did that to me, a lousy trick like that, to take my wife away, and all the furniture, I would be mad as hell, too. I am surprised that he didn't do something worse.

I would not do it to anybody else. I just didn't consider him a dangerous person. I would not do it to somebody else.

Well, anyway, later on--this is from hearsay again, now--Marina moved to Declan Ford's house, because I think the Mellers got tired of her, and then she moved eventually to somebody else's house--the name you mentioned here before--a Russian girl who married an American--Thomas something.

Mr. JENNER. Ray?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Ray. She moved to Ray's house, and then----

Mr. JENNER. Excuse me. You took her to the Mellers?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And she went from the Mellers to the Halls?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That I do not remember any more. I do not recall that. I thought she moved from the Mellers to Mrs. Ford, and from Mrs. Ford to the house of the Rays.

What I recall now is that she had moved before to Mrs. Hall's house.

Mr. JENNER. You learned that she had already been at Mrs. Hall's home?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Something like that is in my mind--that she had already tried to go away from Lee, and stayed with Mrs. Hall. But I am not 100 percent sure.

I know that for the second time she was at Mrs. Hall's house, a little bit later.

Mr. JENNER. What was your understanding of the difficulties they were having?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Why was he physically beating her?

The difficulties were this: She was--just incompatibility. They were annoying each other, and she was all the time annoying him. Having had many wives, I could see his point of view. She was annoying him all the time--"Why don't you make some money?", why don't they have a car, why don't they have more dresses, look at everybody else living so well, and they are just miserable flunkeys. She was annoying him all the time. Poor guy was going out of his mind.

Mr. JENNER. And you and your wife were aware of this, were you?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And had discussed it----

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. We told her she should not annoy him--poor guy, he is doing his best. "Don't annoy him so much." And I think I mentioned before one annoying thing. She openly said he didn't see her physically--right in front of him. She said, "He sleeps with me just once a month, and I never get any satisfaction out of it." A rather crude and completely straightforward thing to say in front of relative strangers, as we were.

Mr. JENNER. Yes.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I didn't blame Lee for giving her a good whack on the eye. Once it was all right. But he also exaggerated. I think the discussions were purely on that basis--purely on a material basis, and on a sexual basis, those two things--which are pretty important.

Mr. JENNER. Yes; they are.

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In politics they agreed more or less. She--they were both somewhat dissatisfied with life in Soviet Russia. I had that impression. They wanted a richer life. And as far as I remember, it was Marina who convinced Oswald to leave Soviet Russia, and go back to the United States.

Mr. JENNER. You have a definite----

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I have a definite recollection of that. I do not recall in exact words how it was said. But either one of them told me that--that it was Marina who wanted to come to the States, and made him go to the--back to the United States Embassy, and ask for his passport. And I remember very distinctly what he told me, that he illegally took a train from Minsk to Moscow, because being a foreigner, he was not supposed to leave town without notifying the police. He did that illegally, and went to Moscow, and presented himself at the United States Embassy.

Mr. JENNER. Did it come to your attention, or did he ever say to you that--even before he was married, that he had determined to return to the United States, and had taken some steps to do so?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; I don't recall any of that.

Mr. JENNER. Your distinct recollection, however, is that she did tell you that she desired to come to the United States, and she pressed him to do so?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; and possibly he was disgusted by that time also, because he was the fellow who needed attention, he was a new fellow in Minsk, a new American, so they were all interested in him. And then they lost interest in him eventually. So he became nothing again. So he got disgusted with it. And Marina told him, "Let's go back to the States, and you take me to the States." Now, what is not clear to me--and I never inquired into it, because I was not particularly interested--how she got the permission from the Soviet Government to leave. That I don't know.

Mr. JENNER. You never discussed that with her?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Never discussed that. Somehow I was not interested to ask her that question. I should have, possibly.

Mr. JENNER. Did you ever ask him about it?

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Never asked him this question.

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.