Chapter XXII: Part 22

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I believe it was one of my very first ones. I don't remember which one was first. Just a very, very, short time, a couple of months. I remember I worked for Lombardy when Pearl Harbor happened. That was December 7. I will never forget it.

Mr. JENNER. And your employment in Dallas was----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. 1953.

Mr. JENNER. I should take it chronologically. What was the company for which you worked in 1953?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Nardis; Nardis of Dallas.

Mr. JENNER. And that spanned about what period of time?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That spanned almost a year, starting summer 1953.

Mr. JENNER. All right.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I think I terminated the contract around April.

Mr. JENNER. Around April of 1954?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; approximately.

Mr. JENNER. Then you worked for whom?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. From then on, I moved to California, and I started to work for Style Garment, Los Angeles.

Mr. JENNER. That would be 1954?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That was 1954, and I think it lasted not too long, just until Christmas. And then I had nothing at all until I had an offer from Clark in the spring of 1955.

Mr. JENNER. And that----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That was my first job with Clark, because I worked for Nardis before.

Mr. JENNER. And you worked for Clark for how long?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. For Clark, on and off almost until our trip, our walking trip to Central America. I worked with them until 1960.

Mr. JENNER. That was in 1960?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. 1960.

Mr. JENNER. Then you had your walking trip throughout the spring and summer and fall of 1960?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; it was just fall. We started October 6. We left Dallas on October 6 or October 5.

Mr. JENNER. 1960?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. 1960.

Mr. JENNER. And you returned when?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. And we returned to Dallas fantastically close to the same date--in the very first days of October. I worked for another company for one season, 6 months, Justin McCarthy, before our trip.

Mr. JENNER. Spring or fall?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That was summer, just before we went on our trip. I believe it was June, July, and August, September, maybe too. 1960. I worked almost until the last day before we left on our trip.

Mr. JENNER. And you got back in 1961. Then did you return to work when you got back?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; I didn't, because we thought we are going to go back to Haiti in 6 weeks. The contract that my husband was negotiating was supposed to materialize within 6 weeks. And I was stupid enough to talk about it, tell everybody. So, naturally, I could not take the job for a short time, because designing you are involved. You start and cannot drop it. And then it was dragging and dragging and dragging, and actually took a year instead of 6 weeks to materialize the whole thing.

Mr. JENNER. But it did eventually materialize?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; fortunately it did. Because I was badly hurt by it, and so was he, because everybody knew he is going to go off on this, and he couldn't do very much, either.

Mr. JENNER. And----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. For me it was really drastic.

Mr. JENNER. But you went to work--you did return to work before you went to Haiti?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; but a short time. I just did it because we needed to do it.

Mr. JENNER. What did you do?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Millinery. I was working in the millinery department, Sanger and Harris, Preston Center, Dallas.

Mr. JENNER. Preston Center?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; Preston Center Store.

Mr. JENNER. And you worked in the millinery department until just before----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Before we left for the east, before we made a trip east. And we left 19 April. We drove off from Dallas. Nineteenth of April we left Dallas. Instead of staying a week or 10 days as we planned, because George had so much trouble with his little girl, and then he was also in Washington.

We returned almost at the last days of May. I had 2 days to pack the whole house, and store the furniture, and separate the clothes, and God knows--we almost went crazy, you know. We did it all in 2 days. And then we drove back to Miami, because we had to ship a car. Grace Line wasn't going to Haiti any more. So we drove to Miami, and we flew over, and our car came over later on, on a boat, with our clothes, with everything.

Mr. JENNER. From the time you left for Haiti from Miami, which, I think, was on the second of June----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. We arrived 2 June. Oh, yes; that is right.

Mr. JENNER. 2 June 1963, have you been back to the United States other than this trip you have now made to testify?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; we have been a couple of days in San Juan about 10 days ago. That is as close as we came to the United States. In fact, we didn't leave the country at all.

Mr. JENNER. That applies to your husband?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; absolutely.

Mr. JENNER. Do you recall the period of time when your present husband was on a mission for the International Cooperation Administration in Yugoslavia?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Did you join him there?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I joined him there. I forgot exactly the date. Right after my collection was opened, right after I finished designing--I joined him--it was supposed to be only 6 weeks, it was my vacation. But within this time these letters were sent out by my husband. I had a telegram something happened, a very mild excuse, and they have somebody else. Of course, when I returned, I went back with this firm again. But at that particular time I lost the job.

Mr. JENNER. You joined him in Yugoslavia. What town was that?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Zagreb.

Mr. JENNER. And you were with him in Zagreb how long?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't remember exactly, but maybe a week or 10 days. It wasn't very long. He was switched from one area to another. He worked for one company, then he was switched to another company. And then we went to the seashore, which is exactly what we wanted. It was Petrovaz, a little town.

Mr. JENNER. And he remained there, and you remained there how long?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In Petrovaz?

Mr. JENNER. Yes.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I think it was a few weeks or so. Then he had time for a vacation, and we moved a little north, to Milicher. That was an old king's palace converted into a hotel. Did he tell you they had been shooting at us in Yugoslavia?

Mr. JENNER. When you were at the shore? Yes; he said something about that. But I would like to have you tell me about it.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, we don't like public beaches. We like to be by ourselves, and we like real wild nature--nothing that already will be prepared for us. So we took--in the morning we took a walk in the mountains. We climbed the mountains.

In the afternoon we took a canoe and just rowed along the coast. And it was beautiful, an absolutely beautiful coast--the most beautiful spot in the world. And the mountains--we saw something that looked like a fortification. I noticed a ladder standing there. So we were rowing and pointing to it. And all of a sudden we hear shots. We thought it was old fortifications from Italian time, or whatever they were. But they were actually their fortifications and they thought we were interested in it. They were pointing a rifle at us and shooting, and just doing this, go away further. And we had to really go very far out in the sea.

He didn't want to. He said, "At least if they shoot at us, I want to do something to them--this way we are just lost at sea. Nobody would know a single thing happened to us." He didn't want to row out.

Mr. JENNER. Who is obnoxious?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. My husband. I said that is silly, I don't want to be shot like a chicken. Go out to the sea and we will go back to the shore. I want to make a complaint. And we rowed out. He rowed out--his bottom was raw beefsteak, on the slippery boards of the boat. The current was very strong, against us, and all the way out in the sea it was very difficult.

So when we came back he talked to some people over there. They said, "They shoot at us, too. If accidentally you wander too close to Brioni, the villa where Tito lives--they shoot at us, too." That wasn't enough. We went another day again, and we started rowing around, and we saw a little island. We left the canoe.

Mr. JENNER. Canoe or rowboat?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. This was a canoe. The first time was a rowboat. So we were swimming and all of a sudden he took my photograph in front of a beautiful cave, and I was taking his photograph standing in the water in front of another cave. It was beautiful--just like a curtain drape. And all of a sudden, boom, the cannon shot, about a yard from me in the water. So, of course, we went right under the water in the cave and we were sitting there--what are we going to do? We are quite far, an hour or so from our hotel in a canoe. We thought, well, they shot at us, they probably think something, they are going to come and talk with us. So we are sitting there waiting for them to come to talk to us, but nobody came.

So we sat for a couple of hours. Finally, we got disgusted. So we dived in, swam a little, behind the rocks, we got out on the seashore. Somebody gave us a ride back to the hotel. And this time he really got angry. He made complaint to the government, and some of their officials came over to discuss it, and said that was just unintentional, it was another accident. The little island we thought was completely empty, not a soul on it, they had fortification on that island. So that is what happened to us in Yugoslavia.

When George told me the American people thought he was making sketches of something, I said I can understand the Yugoslavs thinking such things, but I said I couldn't understand about the United States Government.

Mr. JENNER. Well, they don't know at the time. They just see somebody doing some sketching.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; just like in Haiti, every day--he went for a walk in the mountains, sometimes with me, sometimes with Nero.

Mr. JENNER. Nero is one of your pups?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; he is the one that made the trip. So, of course, Haitians--they almost called him Longaron--that is a werewolf, Lougrow. So that could get him in trouble, too. But Haitians are very mild people. They just enjoyed it.

Mr. JENNER. When did you leave Europe on that occasion?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. When--1957?

Mr. JENNER. Yes.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I cannot tell you exactly. But it was in the fall.

Mr. JENNER. Did you both return to the United States together?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Oh, no; he stayed there for quite a while. He stayed there much longer. He returned in November, because I remember right after he returned Clark was in New York.

Mr. JENNER. That is I. Clark?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. And in fact he went with me to meet him at the airport, and we talked and talked and talked, and they talked me into going back to Texas, which I wanted anyway. So then we returned together to Texas. We went to visit his brother first, in Dartmouth.

Mr. JENNER. At Hanover, N.H.?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; and then we drove slowly--we drove through Florida, because I had never been in Florida, never saw it--St. Augustine. We have a convertible car always, so we like to drive close to the sea, so we can stop and bait. And then through Pensacola, through New Orleans. We stopped in New Orleans, with his old, old friends, the Crumps, but they are dead now, I believe. They have tremendous gardenia gardens there. We arrived Thanksgiving Day at Dallas.

Mr. JENNER. Of what year?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. It was 1957; still 1957.

Mr. JENNER. Now, do you recall your husband making a trip to Ghana?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; he did. I believe it was in 1958, in late spring.

Mr. JENNER. And----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Not for long. It was about 3 weeks or so.

Mr. JENNER. That was for what purpose? What did you understand it to be for?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, to make--he was working for some people, for the company, to find out if there is any possibilities for oil, and he made some reports. In fact, his reports were printed even in the National Geographic. He did very good research. And the things he said now came true. They discovered a tremendous amount of oil in Nigeria.

Mr. JENNER. Nigeria and Ghana, are they the same?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. They are not the same, but they are close. He was in Ghana, Togoland, and Nigeria. You see, you can trace the lines throughout the whole world by the formations. It is a fascinating business. If it wouldn't be too late for me, I would switch to that now. It is a fantastic business.

Mr. JENNER. It is fantastic?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. If you love nature. Otherwise, it is no fun at all.

Mr. JENNER. Well----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In fact, I try to help him whenever I can. I draw maps. Just now I made for him some maps in the Dominican Republic about this nickel mine and everything. He couldn't have it photostated. They were too old. So I sit down and draw it any time I can, because I really love that.

Mr. JENNER. Tell us without too much elaboration particularly about your trip down through Mexico and Central America.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, I tell you, it is a trip I will never forget, as long as we live. And I don't think we ever had a more exciting, wonderful time, in spite that we almost died a few times, and in spite that some days it was so difficult that we were walking almost like in a daze, because we didn't know what will happen to us.

Of course, we could endure a trip like that because we had a tragedy with George's little boy. So we didn't care what will happen to us--we get killed or not killed--the only thing we worry about Nero being an orphan if something happen to us.

But it was absolutely fantastic, because we walked through little trails, old Camino Reales, old Spanish trails. And they planned it so well, at the end of each day we always found water. We never carried water, because the poor mule was already overloaded. We always took water supply in the afternoon. And we also tried to buy his corn in the afternoon, his dinner.

Mr. JENNER. The mule?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; it is just for him like gasoline, the corn. Like high octane gas. And it took us about 5-1/2 months through Mexico. Then it was Guatemala, Salvador. It really was very interesting.

Mr. JENNER. Costa Rica?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Not yet. After Salvador, we were trying to cross by boat directly to Nicaragua, because we didn't want to make that horrible big corner in Honduras, but we couldn't. So we had to go through Honduras and then Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama. And then we were planning to spend another year and go all the way to Chile. And we would. We were so tough by then, nothing could hurt us. We were thin like rails. And George has never been that thin in his life. He was in good physical shape. But the torrential rains--we were almost swept out a couple of times. And we would have to wait 6 months in Panama in order to proceed. We couldn't take that much time from our life, from our work. So I talked him into going to Haiti. He was going to return to Dallas. And I didn't want to.

Mr. JENNER. Before you get to Haiti--was that purely a business trip--I mean a pleasure trip?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. It was pleasure trip plus he collected a lot of minerals on the way. And he sent them--he had been sending them to be safe. And they were all lost. A tremendous amount of minerals. We found mercury, such perfection of samples that you never could see such perfect crystallization. And they are all gone, all lost.

But we do have the names and addresses of people and villages where we have it, and then we discovered some pyramids which, when we have time to take off, we are going, of course, to fly there and work on it, because it is fascinating. We couldn't take much time for anything, because we only had 6 months' visa through Mexico.

Mr. JENNER. Your visa in Mexico permitted you to stay there 6 months?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. A tourist visa, 6 months. We were up on the border--that means we have to fly to Mexico City to extend it, it would be too much trouble. We were sort of in a hurry.

But in Guatemala we were rewarded for the whole trip. There was a volcano erupting. Hakaia, and it was absolutely fantastic. Can you imagine what is an erupting volcano? I was dreaming about that since I was this big, that I want to see a volcano, I want to look in the crater. So we climbed every volcano. And this one was erupting. The lava was gushing down. We have photographs and movies. I am from the red lava a yard away, just burning. And poor little Nero--my hair is standing on my head from the heat. It was a fascinating sight. Then we walked in lava, and it was all smoking like that.

Mr. JENNER. Now, was there any consideration other than you have indicated, any purpose--I will put it that way--of your trip other than you have indicated?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No.

Mr. JENNER. Did it have any connection with any government, any agency, or any government?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Not at all.

Mr. JENNER. Or have any political aspects whatsoever?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I know you have to ask these questions, but there was none at all, absolutely none.

Mr. JENNER. Now, while you were making your trip down through Mexico and the Central American countries, the Bay of Pigs invasion occurred, did it not?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. But we learned about it much later.

Mr. JENNER. Excuse me. Were you aware of the Bay of Pigs invasion in advance?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Advance? We were not even aware at the time of it.

Mr. JENNER. You were not?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No. But we noticed something very funny. We noticed some young people running around with little tiny hats. They looked like American boys. And then when we--we had----

Mr. JENNER. Where was that?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In Guatemala City. We have all our mail always sent to the American Embassy, in each country, and then as we arrived, asked them to hold it. They have been wonderful about it. So the minute we arrived to the city--we leave our mule and go right away to the Embassy to pick up our mail. And it was very funny. There was such a commotion, such confusion in the American Embassy, we just remarked about it. They were running around, busy, busy. I forgot the name of the American consul. He was on the phone all the time, such a confusion was going on.

So we noticed that. And we noticed those funny looking boys running around. I thought they were Canadian boys. And later on we learned that there was an invasion.

So maybe that was the people that were involved in it.

Mr. JENNER. That is all you know about the Bay of Pigs invasion?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is all we know about it.

Mr. JENNER. Have you ever been in Cuba?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No.

Mr. JENNER. There was an occasion, was there not, when your husband and you were in Mexico that there was a Russian mission?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Mikoyan?

Mr. JENNER. When was that?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That was exactly the time when Alexandra eloped. We were two weeks in Mexico City. George was on business. And there was also a Russian exhibit which we missed in New York.

Mr. JENNER. What was the time?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Do you have a date when she eloped--sometime in November.

Mr. JENNER. What year?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I am trying to get to the year now. 1959 must be. I think it was 1959.

Mr. JENNER. Wait a minute.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I believe it was November 1959, to my best belief. I cannot be sure.

Chronologically, it must be around there.

Mr. JENNER. You tell me about the incident and I will find the date.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. It was very simple. We had dinner with the presidential pilot and some other friends.

Mr. JENNER. That is the pilot of the President of Mexico?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. Captain Gordunio Nounio. I can't spell the name. Can we just say presidential pilot?

Mr. JENNER. Whenever you say anything, it gets on the record. Now, you have to tell us how to spell it. Spell it phonetically, as you understand it.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. G-o-r-d-u-n-i-o N-o-u-n-i-o.

They were giving him--the Mexicans were giving him a big farewell reception sort of party at the airport. And, of course, it was guarded, and nobody could get in there. He said, would you like to see Mikoyan? I said, of course I would.

Mr. JENNER. Who said that?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. The pilot.

I said, of course, we would like to see him. It would be a lot of fun to see somebody from real Russia, not just the immigrants. So then George wanted to go, too, to start with. And I said, "You better don't go, because it will be misinterpreted, it can be misinterpreted. If I go, they know very well I cannot do any harm, but if you go it may hurt you businesswise." People in Texas are very narrow-minded.

So I went in the morning. He picked me up at the hotel. We went to that reception. I did it out of sheer curiosity. I wanted to see the crowd, I wanted to see the people, I was looking at women. It was, of course, pathetic. Women don't even look like women.

Mr. JENNER. Who are you talking about?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. The Russian women, at the reception. The Russians are supposed to be good-looking people. They were not even good looking. There was only one man that was good looking. He was in some kind of uniform. I don't know what his rank or what it is, because I don't know the uniforms. There was only one handsome man in the whole tremendous crowd. And then we went all the way to the plane. I was with the captain, and he was very close--very good friend of Mikoyan. We came over. I didn't say one word in Russian all the time, I was speaking English. And then we came over to the plane.

Mr. JENNER. You went out to the airport?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. To the airport, when he was already leaving, after making all the speeches and everything. We went with the captain to say goodbye to Mikoyan, at the plane. They had the Russian plane standing there, the cameras, TV's. And he introduced me to Mikoyan, this is my friend Señora De Mohrenschildt. And I take his hand and said----

Mr. JENNER. You spoke in Russian?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes, I told him in Russian, how are you, Tovarish Mikoyan. And he was so shocked, because I didn't look like a Russian, I looked like a fashion plate, and spoke English all the time. And all of a sudden, I deliberately--it was sort of a prank. He almost fainted. It was fantastic. I didn't make any secrets. I told about it in Dallas to everybody.

Mr. JENNER. Well, that was purely an adventure?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Oh, sure. It was just a prank, just for fun.

Mr. JENNER. I see. You had no prior association with Mr. Mikoyan, or any member of the Russian mission when you went to Mexico--you had not anticipated the presence of the Russian mission?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. We didn't know that they were there, absolutely. George went on his business. It just happened to be that they had this exhibit there, and it happens to be that Mikoyan was there--I think they were offering a lot of money to the Mexican Government, and the Mexican Government refused it. They didn't take it. But they have been on friendly terms, they didn't quarrel about it--they just didn't accept it, they didn't accept his proposal.

And we happened to know about it because we had this friend, the presidential pilot.

Mr. JENNER. I see. All right. We have obtained, either from you or from your husband, the marriage date of Alexandra.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That must be November 1959.

Mr. JENNER. All right.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That happened within those 2 weeks we were in Mexico City.

Mr. JENNER. You went from Panama to Haiti?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. We were trying to go by boat. We went to Colon, to get the boat. There was no boat. So we had to fly.

Mr. JENNER. You flew to Haiti?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. What was the purpose of that visit to Haiti?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. The main purpose was to rest, and another purpose was to see a very, very old friend of my husband's father, 75-year-old man that according to his letters to George, he loved him like a son, and he had the same feelings to me. So I told George, if we don't go now, we might never see him.

Mr. JENNER. What was his name?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Michael Breitman. And he died within the next year.

Mr. JENNER. But that was--that visit to Haiti at that time was to visit this gentleman?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. And to rest.

Mr. JENNER. From your long, arduous trip through Central America?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. You then returned to the United States?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. By boat?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. By boat, by Lykes Line.

Mr. JENNER. And your harbor was what--St. Charles, or Lake Charles?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I think it is Lake Charles. They changed in the last month. They never know which port. We were met by friends over there, the Savages.

Mr. JENNER. And the Mitchells?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. And we crossed straight to their house, stayed with them a few days. Then a friend of ours loaned us a car and we drove to Dallas. And then he came over and picked up the car.

Mr. JENNER. Your friend----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. From Houston. We have quite a few friends in Houston.

Mr. JENNER. Now, I am going to, in a moment, bring you to the period when you met the Oswalds.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. But I want you to tell me first, if you will, slowly, the nature of the Russian colony in Dallas at that time.

Now, as I understand it, you met the Oswalds in the summer of 1962.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In the late summer.

Mr. JENNER. There was a small Russian colony?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. You see, I wouldn't classify it as a colony. There are some odds-and-ends Russian people.

Mr. JENNER. I am using a reference to identify a more or less heterogeneous group of people in Dallas who had a measure of common interests arising out of the fact that either they or their parents had been born or had a relatively immediate contact with Russia.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, you see, there are two types of Russian people there--some that came in after the revolution, and there are some new ones that escaped during the Second World War, from Germany.

Mr. JENNER. You are now telling me about this situation in Dallas, are you not?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I am trying to classify who was before and who came in later.

Mr. JENNER. But you are telling me about people in Dallas?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. All right. Go ahead.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. From what I know, the latest arrivals to the United States was, of course--Marina was, and I think there was another one, Declan Ford.

Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Declan Ford?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. She was on What's My Life, or something, a dramatic story. She married an American boy, and he rescued her, and so on and so forth. They came over and lived in Dallas. His name was Skotnicki, and then they divorced. I think he was Polish. He was a nice fellow, but he was too anxious to make too much money, so the marriage broke up.

Mr. JENNER. There were at this time in Dallas some people of Russian derivation. Some had come directly from Russia--that is, in the sense that they were caught up in the vortex of the Second World War.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. The Germans invaded Russia. They were prisoners, civil prisoners.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Her story is something like that.

Mr. JENNER. Taken by the Germans and brought to Germany, and when the war ended, they met American boys, and married them.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; but that is the only one I know. I don't know of anybody else.

Mr. JENNER. Then others had escaped Russia or Poland?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. For instance, one of them--she was never even in Russia--that type of Russian colony. She was married to an American man.

Mr. JENNER. Well, this is a group that had common interests--interested in each other?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Of course, they all criticize each other. Some people were closer, some people were further apart. They were not exactly all friends--I will put it that way.

Mr. JENNER. Let's see--you had been there--well, you were off and on commencing in 1953, and then relatively permanently commencing in 1957.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. 1956, 1957.

Mr. JENNER. Now, as people came to Dallas, that is persons with this history, did you people--and I don't mean just you alone, but I am talking about the whole group--become interested in them, seek to meet them, become acquainted?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, if anybody heard that there was all of a sudden a new Russian somewhere, there was, naturally, interest in people to know who they are, where they are from, what kind of people they are. And, of course, if they were destitute or something--and none of them were really--only Marina was--then we helped them.

But there were no organizations, no particular organizations to help or wait for them to come in, because there was no necessity.

Mr. JENNER. Now, were you generally--were you advised normally in advance that somebody new was coming?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No. In fact, they were talking about Marina for months to us. I said, after all, we should really meet that young girl. They were talking for a couple of months.

Mr. JENNER. Who?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, we found out about her actually through, I believe, George Bouhe. I think George probably told you the name.

Mr. JENNER. What about Max Clark?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Max Clark, too, because they lived in Fort Worth. Max Clark and Gali Clark. And actually George Bouhe was very active. He is an old busybody, and he loves to do things, charity things. He is the one that organizes things like that. So he said he even had a fund for them--the people would give money--because he gave money to pay for her teeth, you know, everything that was necessary.

Mr. JENNER. Mr. Bouhe did give you money----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. To pay for her dentist.

Mr. JENNER. And do you remember how much that was?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Oh, it wasn't very much--maybe $20; something like that.

Mr. JENNER. Did you receive, also, some money from George Bouhe for anything else with respect to the Oswalds?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't believe so.

Mr. JENNER. Now, I take it from what you have said, that you were wholly unadvised, you and your husband, that Marina and Lee were coming to the Fort Worth-Dallas area before they came. You knew nothing about it?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Nothing at all.

Mr. JENNER. Now----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't even know when they came.

Mr. JENNER. Had you heard anything about them at all, that he had been in Russia?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Before?

Mr. JENNER. Before, and then had married her, and come back, he attempted to defect?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; nothing at all--in spite that it was in some press somewhere--I believe it was printed.

Mr. JENNER. But you didn't see it?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Never saw it. Never had no idea.

Mr. JENNER. Had there been any discussion among you people, any of you--Bouhe, Clark, and Meller, Voshinins, Mamantov, Gravitis, Dymitruk, Raigorodsky----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is a character--Dymitruk was also imported recently. I think after we were there.

Mr. JENNER. What do you mean imported?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I mean he arrived--I call him imported. He was really a sad sack.

Mr. JENNER. He was the husband of Lydia Dymitruk?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. I will ask you about her.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. But I know very little about them.

Mr. JENNER. It may be important to us that you don't. But the part I want to emphasize here is--if it is the truth--I don't want to put any words in your mouth--that you had no advance notice that either of these people were coming, and you knew nothing whatsoever about them, never heard anything?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Absolutely.

Mr. JENNER. And was that generally true of all these people?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. From what we know; yes. I don't think anybody knew anything at all. All of a sudden they arrived on the horizon. And, actually, who discovered them for the first time, I don't even know that.

Mr. JENNER. All right.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I cannot even tell. I would like to know, myself, now, how it came about.

Mr. JENNER. They were brought to your attention?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And your recollection is it was George Bouhe?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. My recollection is that he finally--we were sort of ashamed of ourselves that we still didn't meet her, and we still didn't do anything, you know, for that girl. So, finally--I don't remember how, but either we drove, or whether they brought her to us for the first time. That is how it happened.

Mr. JENNER. And this was in the late summer of 1962?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. And I told him, Bouhe, at that particular time, we were financially not very well off, and I could not contribute any money, but I had time and a car, and I could take the baby to the clinic, and I could take her with her teeth, and anything of that sort I would be glad to do.

Mr. JENNER. We might digress a moment. In the summer of 1962 you and your husband were not as financially affluent as you had been?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, we were draining pretty well, because for a year we didn't make any money, on our trip.

Mr. JENNER. I am not criticizing. All I am doing is seeking the facts.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes, yes.

Mr. JENNER. Well----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Not enough to be charitable.

Mr. JENNER. By the way, your husband, he is a fine geologist and petroleum engineer. He is not a man who likes to concentrate on business, finances, is he?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, I would say he is pretty good with money. I am the one--I made money too easily, so I squandered money. He doesn't. But you see I always had a steady income. He doesn't have a steady income. He has an assignment for 2 or 3 weeks, he has very good money for it, and then we never know when it is going to come in.

He may have within a year two or three fantastic things--go to Ghana, go somewhere else, and he makes quite a lot of money.

But then maybe a year that he has nothing at all coming in. So he learned when he has something to hold onto it.

Mr. JENNER. So there were periods when his financial situation was good, so he was high?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. That is how we took our trip, because we were very fortunate before our trip--he had an assignment in Ghana, and he made some money, and I was making very good money, so we thought we can afford it. Besides he almost lost his mind. We had to go on that trip.

Mr. JENNER. Then there were valleys, financially, in which you were not as affluent?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Of course.

Mr. JENNER. But you folks were at no time wealthy people?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Real wealthy, no.

Mr. JENNER. You made----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I could have been if I saved the money, but I didn't.

Mr. JENNER. You made a comfortable living, and that is about it?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is it.

Mr. JENNER. But at this particular time, you were not in a position to assist the Oswalds financially in any material sense?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Exactly; none at all.

Mr. JENNER. But you were in a position that you could afford them time?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And attention?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. Not them--actually with Marina, because we couldn't do much for Oswald--just talk to a couple of people about him, and maybe get him a job. But even the job he had--I don't know who got it--I think it was an agency that got him the job he had.

Mr. JENNER. At Leslie Welding?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't know the name of the firm. He worked in a darkroom.

Mr. JENNER. That was later.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't even know the name of it.

Mr. JENNER. You are not clear in your mind, I take it, that when you first met the Oswalds; you don't know whether you went to their home or----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't remember. I really don't remember. And, believe me, I had enough time to think about it. I was trying to remember every little detail that can be useful. I cannot still remember exactly how it came about--whether they were brought to our house. I don't think we drove and got them for the first time. Maybe we took them back, you know, to Fort Worth. It could be. I don't know.

Of course, they had the baby with them. They always had to bring the baby--couldn't leave the baby with anyone.

Mr. JENNER. But in due course you did enter their home in Fort Worth?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I never entered their home in Fort Worth. George, I think, did once. George walked in, because Lee was asleep, I think, when we brought Marina--so he maybe walked in the house--because he went out to the door. I never did. They lived somewhere--there was a tremendous store, Montgomery Ward or something.

Mr. JENNER. Sears?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; I think it was Montgomery Ward. I don't remember. That is where they lived. It was a miserable-looking house. That is what I saw. A wooden building.

Mr. JENNER. You found them to be in destitute circumstances, did you?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, I wouldn't say they were completely starving, but they were quite miserable--quite, quite miserable, you know. Even if they were not destitute, the personality that Lee had would make anybody miserable to live with.

Mr. JENNER. All right. Tell us about Lee Oswald.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. What I think of the fellow?

Mr. JENNER. Your impressions of him, what you thought of him.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Disagreeable. He was very, very disagreeable, and disappointed. He is like a puppy dog that everybody kicked. And he was sort of withdrawn within himself. And his greatest objection was that people helped them too much, they were showering things on Marina. Marina had a hundred dresses given to her. The baby had a crib. My daughter didn't have it when I came to the United States, and I didn't have one-hundredth of what Marina had, because I didn't know anybody, and I didn't want to know anybody when I came over. I was in such circumstances. So, anyway, he objected to that lavish help, because Marina was throwing it into his face.

Mr. JENNER. She was?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Absolutely--see people, how nice they are? And she is always telling me--the people are nice, giving all these things, and he is insulting them for it. He was offensive with the people. And I can understand why, and maybe I was the only one that understood him, while he was offensive, because that hurt him. He could never give her what the people were showering on her. So that was very difficult for him, no matter how hard he worked--and he worked very hard. He worked overtime, he used to come in at 11 o'clock, she said, at night, and when he come home, he started reading again. So he was not running around.

He didn't drink, he didn't smoke. He was just hard working, but a very difficult personality.

And usually offensive at people because people had an offensive attitude to him.

I don't think he was offensive for that, because of the things we did, he could have killed us.

Mr. JENNER. What did you do?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, you see, he mistreated his wife physically. We saw her with a black eye once.

Mr. JENNER. And did you talk to him and to her about it?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; we did. I called him just like our own kids, and set them down, and I said, "Listen, you have to grow up, you cannot live like that. This is not a country that permits such things to happen. If you love each other, behave. If you cannot live with each other peacefully, without all this awful behavior, you should separate, and see, maybe you really don't love each other."

Marina was, of course, afraid she will be left all alone, if she separate from Oswald--what is she going to do? She doesn't know the language, she had nobody to turn to. I understand they didn't get along with Oswald's family.

Mr. JENNER. Now, this is what you learned in talking with them?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes, yes; through them actually, by facing them.

Mr. JENNER. I want you to identify your sources of information.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes, yes.

Mr. JENNER. You learned through Marina and Oswald, also, that they didn't get along well with their----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I cannot say through them, because maybe people talked about it, you know. She couldn't live in her sister-in-law's home, they didn't get along. And I understand that later on somebody mentioned that the reason was that she was just too lazy. She slept in the morning.

Mr. JENNER. What was your impression?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. She is lazy. You see, there are people that actually are no good, but still they have something very nice about them, that you cannot really be furious with them or mad, you really can't. She is lazy, and I know it, because she stayed once overnight.

Mr. JENNER. Where? At your home?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; with the baby. And I tell you--if I stay with somebody overnight, I will jump up the first thing in the morning, see what I can do to help, knowing I will be doing everything.

She didn't. She slept. I actually had to waken her up. She did the same thing--she stayed in our daughter's home overnight. Because when her teeth were pulled, she was not in condition to go back. She was the same way--very lazy. And I just couldn't understand it--a young person. Maybe she was ill. We talked about it--maybe we have just too much energy. For a young girl to sleep late, and not to be active.

The proof of her laziness is that she didn't do much about learning English, in spite I gave her the records, and we gave her one of our little phonographs. I had beautiful records to learn English--I bought them in New York when I arrived.

Mr. JENNER. Is it that she was lazy that she didn't pursue learning English, or did Oswald object to her learning English?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. According to her Oswald objected, and he also told us himself that he wants to speak with her in Russian, because he doesn't want to forget Russian.

But then we got onto Oswald.

Mr. JENNER. Tell me about it now.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He didn't want to forget his Russian. That was his reason--not to let his wife learn English--because she was the only person he could speak Russian to.

Mr. JENNER. He could still speak Russian to her, even though she learned English, couldn't he?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Of course, that is what we told him. We said, "You are crippling her, she has to learn English. She cannot live in this country without the language, she cannot do anything."

He was strange in many, many ways.

But he never appeared to be violent or anything. He was a little violent once, when we came to the point that we said we are taking your wife and child away. That is the only time he showed real nastiness.

Mr. JENNER. Please.

You reached the point where you and your husband took Marina and the child out of the home and away from Oswald against his objections.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Against his objections. Actually, we talked him into doing it peacefully.

Mr. JENNER. And where did you take Marina and June?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. We took Marina and June to the house of Meller.

Mr. JENNER. Anna Meller?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Anna Meller, yes. Very poor people--they put the baby's crib right in the dining room and everything. That is how nice people were, trying to help her. That was supposed to be temporary until we find another place where she could live with somebody for 2 or 3 months. We were trying to put her with Ford, with Declan Ford's wife, because she had a big house, and she had a newborn baby. But she is not a very easygoing person. She refused. I was furious with her that she refused, because she really could take Marina very nicely.

And I believe finally she was talked into it, and she had Marina maybe for a little while with her. I don't know. I am not sure.

Mr. JENNER. In October or November?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Maybe, yes. I don't even know.

Mr. JENNER. But why did you take Marina from the home?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Because he was beating her, and we didn't think it was right. We thought that a separation for them--they will decide whether they really love each other, they cannot live without each other, or they forget about each other. But that was absolutely useless to continue to live the way they were.

In fact, Bouhe had the same idea, but he was afraid to do it. He was always afraid of Lee. Naturally, being a bachelor--perhaps, Bouhe's type of person is afraid of his own shadow--there are people like that.

Mr. JENNER. Well, he is an older man.

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I think he saw a lot in his life, maybe.

Mr. JENNER. He is not a man of great physical stature, like your husband?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is it. Lots of things contribute to the personality.

Mr. JENNER. Now, Mrs. De Mohrenschildt, you had discussions with both Marina and Lee about their difficulties?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; we had them at the same time, in the same room.

Mr. JENNER. Now, what were the reasons that she advanced as to any--as to her dissatisfaction?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. What was the reasons what?

Mr. JENNER. What were the reasons she said why she was dissatisfied with him?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Oh, there was quite a few reasons. And I tell you--it was strange for me to hear from a young girl like that to speak so, how you say it--so boldy, about sex, for instance. I was shocked by it, you know--because in my times, even I was twice as old as she.

Mr. JENNER. Will you please tell me what she said?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, she said her husband doesn't satisfy her. She just--and he is just too busy with his things, he doesn't pay enough attention to her.

Mr. JENNER. That was one reason?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is one of the main reasons, yes.

And the second reason, he was cruel with her--for instance, she likes to smoke, and he would forbid her to smoke. Any little argument or something--like once something--she didn't fill his bathtub, he beat her for it. And, also, he didn't like for her to have a drink of wine. She liked wine very much. She wasn't a drunk or anything, but she likes to drink wine. And he would object to that, too. And that was their main disagreements.

And then with the baby, he was absolutely fanatical about the child. He loved that child. You should see him looking at the child, he just changed completely. He thought that she was not too good with the child. The child was already spoiled to no end. Every time the child makes a noise, she picked it up. If she is not there in a second to pick the child up, Lee is after her--why is the baby crying? And the baby is extremely difficult, because it doesn't know anybody but her or Lee. Nobody could pick her up. And she is constantly with her. She had the child with her all the time, from our observations. She just couldn't take it. It was very, very difficult. And still at the same time, she didn't do much to free herself from it.

Mr. JENNER. What were Marina's personal habits? Was she clean and neat? Did she keep her home clean and neat? Or did her laziness spill over into those areas?

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, it was halfway, because it seems to be neat, and still not very--she was not a woman to arrange the home or make a home. I don't think so. And I don't know enough about it, because they had so few things, and they were so poor. So what can you make a home out of, nothing. You cannot really judge. You cannot. I am sure if she has things to do it with, I am sure she will.

At that particular time, she could not. She didn't have enough things to make a home. The apartments they were living in in Dallas were miserable, very, very poor.

Mr. JENNER. Give me your opinion of----

Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. One thing I want to tell you.

When they were planning to move in Dallas, from Fort Worth, when I took her--the baby to the clinic, I was trying to find for them a little apartment somewhere closer to us, within the same area, University Park, or somewhere, knowing that I cannot race every time she needs something with the car to help them.

Lee insisted for some particular reason to live very, very far from everybody, from all these people. They lived in Oak Cliff--God knows where from us. Maybe he didn't want it because he didn't want other people to put their nose in his home. I don't think he had anything against us because we were with Marina. But I don't think he liked very much that Bouhe was showering her with things, and the other people give her so many things. Maybe that is why.

Why did he live so far?

We were very mad about it, too.

I said, "For God sakes, if we are to help them, I cannot race to Oak Cliff to help them with this or that"--if she had to go to the doctor. Why wouldn't they take a little place near us, it will be much easier for me to help her.

He had some reasons to live far away.

I don't know if anybody else mentioned that to you. That was everybody's impression. For some particular reason, he moved all the way out.

Mr. JENNER. Tell me of her personality.