TESTIMONY OF GEORGE S. DE MOHRENSCHILDT RESUMED (continued 2)

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; exactly.

Mr. Jenner. It is suggested by some people you are also unorthodox in your social habits.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; probably. What do they say—what do they mean?

Mr. Jenner. Well, you are prone to be a little——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Shock people.

Mr. Jenner. Shock people; yes. That is generally so?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. And why do you do that?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, it is interesting to see people's reaction—if you shock them, it is amusing to get people out of their boredom. Sometimes life is very boring.

Mr. Jenner. And get you out of your boredom, too?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Maybe my boredom also.

Mr. Jenner. Well——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. But generally people like to be asked provocative questions and to be given provocative answers. I think so, at least.

Mr. Jenner. You are a man—I will put it this way——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I hope so.

Mr. Jenner. You like to have fun?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. There has been some suggestion that maybe you could be a little more serious-minded?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It certainly has been suggested.

Mr. Jenner. It has even been said you might grow up a little bit?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. But you are fun-loving?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; that is right. That I am. Well, I don't believe, you know, in leading a life as if you were half dead. Might as well enjoy it, your life, to the fullest extent.

Mr. Jenner. I am trying to paint a picture here, Mr. De Mohrenschildt, of the milieu or background in Dallas when you first met the Oswalds, what kind of a community it was.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I understand.

Mr. Jenner. How you moved around in it, and what part you played in it, and what part your wife played in it. I gather that the community of which you speak, the people of Russian derivation, were close, you saw a good deal of them?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; it is close because there are not many. It is not like New York—although in New York I know also thousands of Russians, and in Philadelphia, and so on, and so forth. But mainly in Dallas there are only maybe, as you know, 30 families, maybe 25 families, all in all. So they are a little bit closer together. And a very pleasant relationship—because they are all good people—and with a few exceptions I think we all like each other, and used to get along very well, until Oswald appeared on the horizon.

Mr. Jenner. All right. I want to get to that.

I want this to be as spontaneous on your part as possible, rather than coming by any suggestion from me. Would you try and put in your own words this Russian community as it was when Oswald and Marina came to the Dallas area, Fort Worth, in June of 1962—without involving them now. What was the milieu and the background of the situation?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, a purely social group, a little bit divided by classes. You see what I mean?

Mr. Jenner. No; I don't.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. There was a little differentiation in classes there.

Mr. Jenner. Go ahead and tell us about it.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. In other words, people with good education and a little bit more money rather were together, and it is not so much a question of money as a question of good education, and of background. And Bouhe comes from an excellent family. This Gali Clark, of course, comes from a No. 1 family of Russia. Paul Raigorodsky comes from an excellent family, excellent education. Those were the people with whom we were very close.

Mr. Jenner. Was there a man by the name of Zavoico?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He is——

Mr. Jenner. What is his first name?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Basil.

Mr. Jenner. He lives in Connecticut now?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. He is a wealthy man?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Relatively wealthy man, well-to-do. He has had many, many, many years—many more than all of us, in the oil business.

Mr. Jenner. Never part of the community?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. We all knew him. Because there are so few people in this geological field. And he is an old acquaintance of mine.

Mr. Jenner. Now, there was a Professor Jitkoff in Houston?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. What is his first name?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I don't remember. I just met him once or twice. I know his wife better.

Mr. Jenner. Is his wife also a Russian emigre?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think she is of Armenian, or Russian and Armenian, extraction.

Mr. Jenner. In what connection did you meet him?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Already a long time ago. Oh, yes; I met him through another Russian, through ballerina, a Russian ballerina, another one who lived there—Natasha Krosofska, a famous ballerina.

Mr. Jenner. I am thinking of another name in Dallas, Mrs. Helen Leslie.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; that is her stepmother—the stepmother of the ballerina.

Mr. Jenner. She was part of the Russian group?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; also from a typical old guard family—really hundred percent. To show you the atmosphere—who does not believe there are any new houses built in Russia today? She said in her opinion the Russia of today doesn't have any new houses, none whatsoever—only the old palaces from the czarist days.

Mr. Jenner. I interrupted you.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. The really backward type old guard people. I am glad that you made such a distinction there.

Mr. Jenner. Is this old guard group a group that would be inclined to believe that if an American went to Russia and came back with a Russian wife, that that necessarily would mean that he must have had some connections of some kind with the Communists in order to get a Russian wife out of Russia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is an interesting question. They might believe anything, because they think that the Russians are such devils that they would go to any extent of diabolical combinations to do something like that.

Mr. Jenner. Now, among the Russian emigre group in Dallas, did you ever know of anybody that you even thought might be a Communist?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Not a single one.

Mr. Jenner. Or have any leanings toward communism?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; no leanings even. I am probably the most leftest of them all.

Mr. Jenner. And you do not——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. And as you know, I am not a member of any party.

Mr. Jenner. And you do not regard yourself as a Communist?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No. Not only do I not regard—I just am not. But I am probably the only one who has been in the Communist country, because of my job with ICA, and also, I forgot to tell you that I had visited Poland in 1958, after my job with ICA. I went to visit Poland, as a tourist, to see what happened to my ex-country. I just went there for a period of 10 days, to Warsaw, and then went to Sweden from there, and then returned back to the States.

Mr. Jenner. This was after——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. After I finish my job in Yugoslavia.

Mr. Jenner. Give me—I am going to pose a hypothetical to you. Let us assume that a Russian couple would come to Dallas, let us say right now—no friends, not know anybody in Dallas. What would normally happen? As soon as you became acquainted with the fact, or the community—the Russian group became acquainted with the fact that there was a Russian couple?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. They would be exceedingly interested, naturally.

Mr. Jenner. Curious?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Exceedingly curious.

Mr. Jenner. Now, if you were there, would that include you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. And your wife?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes. Well, aside from us—the most curious would be George Bouhe, because he actually met us first—the first in Dallas—he told us about Oswald, as far as I remember. Because he is curious by nature. He wants to know what is going on. He wants to convert them to the Greek Orthodox Church, and so on.

Mr. Jenner. Would there be any effort to help these people become acquainted throughout the community?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. If they—if that couple came from Soviet Russia, from the Soviet Union, you mean?

Mr. Jenner. Well, let's assume that.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, the old guard would not do anything. They would be curious, but—they might meet them and very soon afterwards they would get disgusted with them, because what they would say to them would not fit with their beliefs. And we know that Soviet Russia is a going concern. To them it is not, it does not exist. It just isn't there.

Mr. Jenner. All right. Now, when did you first meet either Marina—I will put it this way: When did you first hear——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. The first time——

Mr. Jenner. Of either of these people—Marina Oswald or Lee Harvey Oswald?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. As far as I remember, George Bouhe, who is a close friend of mine, and a very curious individual, told me that there is an interesting couple in Fort Worth, and that the Clarks know them already—Max Clark and Gali—they know them already. Somebody read about them in the paper—I don't know exactly, I don't remember the exact wording any more—that somebody read about them in the paper, maybe Mr. Gregory, and discovered them, made a discovery.

Mr. Jenner. Now——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. But we heard from George Bouhe the first time.

Mr. Jenner. At this time were you aware that there had been an American who had gone to the Soviet Union and attempted to defect to the Soviet Union?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. And that he had returned to the United States?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is what I heard from George Bouhe.

Mr. Jenner. That was the first you ever knew anything at all about——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I never heard about them, never heard anything about them before.

Mr. Jenner. Now, is that likewise true of Mrs. De Mohrenschildt?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Same thing. I think we were both together when this conversation took place.

Mr. Jenner. When did it take place?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I could not tell you the date. I think in the summer of 1962.

Mr. Jenner. Now, give me your best recollection of what George Bouhe said to you about the Oswalds on that occasion.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He said rather a complimentary account of them—I don't think he met them yet. I think he just heard about them.

Mr. Jenner. It is your recollection he had just heard about them, and heard she is very pretty, and comes from an excellent family—supposedly. And he is a fellow who got disappointed in Soviet Russia and returned to the United States, and that met with George Bouhe's approval—somebody who did that.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I don't think he even knew that he had been an ex-Marine, and all that. I don't think he knew anything about that.

Mr. Jenner. When George Bouhe spoke to you then—have you exhausted your recollections as to the conversation right at that point?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I am trying to think about it. I just remember that I got curious, what kind of a fellow he is, and what kind of a woman she is.

Mr. Jenner. Were you particularly interested when you heard she was pretty?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No, no; not particularly. No; because—but it is nice to know a good-looking girl rather than to know some monster.

Mr. Jenner. You have——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I am always curious to find somebody better looking than horrible. We are talking about serious things.

Mr. Jenner. Well, it is part of the atmosphere, Mr. De Mohrenschildt. You have always had an interest in pretty women, have you not?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Sure, sure; naturally.

Mr. Jenner. And you have pursued and courted them?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I still do, I hope. Until the day I die. But anyway, it was not really so. It was just an interesting couple who were—it pleased us to know that here is a pretty girl from Soviet Russia that had arrived, because we all picture Soviet Russian women like a commando—big, fat women, working in a brick factory.

Mr. Jenner. You were curious to find out more about them, were you not?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. What did you do?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Again, now, my recollections are a little bit vague on that.

I tried, both my wife and I, hundreds of times to recall how exactly we met the Oswalds. But they were out of our mind completely, because so many things happened in the meantime. So please do not take it for sure how I first met them.

Mr. Jenner. We want your best recollection.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. My best recollection—I even cannot recall who gave me their address in Fort Worth. I don't recall that. Either George Bouhe or the Clarks, because the Clarks knew them already, Max and Gali Clark, because they were from Fort Worth, you see.

And I think a few days later somebody told me that they live in dire poverty. Somewhere in the slums of Fort Worth.

I had to go on business to Fort Worth with my very close friend, Colonel Orlov.

Mr. Jenner. What is his first name?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Lawrence Orlov—he is an American, but he has a Russian name for some reason—maybe his great-grandfather came from Russia.

And to my best recollection, Lawrence and I were on some business in Fort Worth, and I told him let's go and meet those people, and the two of us drove to this slum area in Fort Worth and knocked at the door, and here was Marina and the baby. Oswald was not there.

Mr. Jenner. This was during the daytime?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Late in the afternoon, after business hours, 5 o'clock.

Mr. Jenner. You and Colonel Orlov?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Colonel Orlov.

Mr. Jenner. She answered the door.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. You identified yourself?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I said a few words in Russian, I said we are friends of George Bouhe. I think he was already helping them a little bit, giving them something for the baby or something. I think he had already been in—he helps everybody. He has been helping her especially. And so the introduction was fine. And I found her not particularly pretty, but a lost soul, living in the slums, not knowing one single word of English, with this rather unhealthy looking baby, horrible surroundings.

Mr. Jenner. Now we are interested in a couple of things. You found that she knew substantially no English?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No English at all at that time. I think she knew maybe—I remember that I asked her, "How do you buy things in the store," and she said, "I point with my finger and I can say 'yes' and 'no'." That is all.

Mr. Jenner. Did you go into the home—was it a house or apartment?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It was a shack, near Sears Roebuck, as far as I remember—near that area. I don't know if you went down there. A little shack, which had only two rooms, sort of clapboard-type building. Very poorly furnished, decrepit, on a dusty road. The road even was not paved.

Mr. Jenner. What did you talk to her about?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Just asked her how she likes it here, and how she was getting along, does she get enough food, something like that—completely meaningless conversation.

And I think Lawrence was there, you know, but he did not understand what I was saying. He doesn't know Russian.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ask about her husband?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I said, "Well, I would like to meet your husband." She said he should be back from work soon. She asked me to sit down, offered me something to drink, I think—she had some sherry or something in the house. This is the best of my recollection.

And Lawrence sat down, and found her very nice. And then after a little while, Oswald, Lee appeared.

Mr. Jenner. You say Lee appeared?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, Lee appeared.

Mr. Jenner. Lee appeared. You had never seen him before?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Never seen him before.

Mr. Jenner. And he came in?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. He came in.

Mr. Jenner. What happened, and what was said?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, he loved to speak Russian.

Mr. Jenner. Did you introduce yourself? And explain why you were there?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, I said, "I'm a friend of George Bouhe, I want to see how you are getting along."

Mr. Jenner. Did you speak in Russian or English?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. In English at first, and then he switched to Russian.

Mr. Jenner. What was your impression of his command of Russian?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, he spoke fluent Russian, but with a foreign accent, and made mistakes, grammatical mistakes, but had remarkable fluency in Russian.

Mr. Jenner. It was remarkable?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Remarkable—for a fellow of his background and education, it is remarkable how fast he learned it. But he loved the language. He loved to speak it. He preferred to speak Russian than English any time. He always would switch from English to Russian.

Mr. Jenner. Did you discuss life in Russia, how he got there?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I don't think the first time. I don't think the first time I said anything at all, you know. Possibly he told me that he had been in Minsk, and that got me curious, because I had lived in Minsk as a child, and my father was the so-called nobility marshal of Minsk. He got me curious, you know.

But I do not recall for sure whether it was the first time I met him or the second time or the third time. I don't remember. I think it was a very short meeting the first time, because Lawrence Orlov was there, and he wanted to get back home, so we just said, "Well, we will see you," and possibly Marina had mentioned that her baby needed—that she needed some medical attention with her teeth, and that the baby had not been inoculated. Possibly that was that time. But I am not so sure.

Mr. Jenner. At least there was a time when that did arise?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes, yes.

Mr. Jenner. Her need for dental care, some attention needed to be given to the child?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Your impression was the child looked rather on the sickly side?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; very much so. It was kind of a big head, bald big head, looked like Khrushchev, the child—looked like an undergrown Khrushchev. I always teased her about the fact that the baby looked like Khrushchev.

Mr. Jenner. I don't want to prod you, because I want you to tell the story in your own words.

Now, you had this visit, and you returned home?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think the first visit was very short, and we drove back with Lawrence, and I remember on the way we discussed that couple, and both had a lot of sympathy for her especially. But he also struck me as a very sympathetic fellow.

Mr. Jenner. Yes. Give me your impression of him at that time—your first impression.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. The first impression and the last impression remain more or less the same. I could never get mad at this fellow.

Mr. Jenner. Why?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Sometimes he was obnoxious. I don't know. I had a liking for him. I always had a liking for him. There was something charming about him, there was some—I don't know. I just liked the guy—that is all.

Mr. Jenner. When you reached home, you reported on this——

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. You know, he was very humble—with me he was very humble. If somebody expressed an interest in him, he blossomed, absolutely blossomed. If you asked him some questions about him, he was just out of this world. That was more or less the reason that I think he liked me very much.

Mr. Jenner. Yes; he did. It is so reported, and Marina has so said.

Well, that first visit didn't give you any opportunity to observe the relations between Marina and Lee, I assume?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I already noticed then that the couple—that they were not getting along, right away.

Mr. Jenner. What made you have that impression?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, there was a strained relationship there. You could feel that. And, you know how it is—you can see that the couple—that they are not very happy. You could feel that. And he was not particularly nice with her. He didn't kiss her. It wasn't a loving husband who would come home and smile and kiss his wife, and so on and so forth. He was just indifferent with her. He was more interested in talking to me than to her. That type of attitude.

Mr. Jenner. But you did notice throughout all your acquaintance with him that he blossomed when you paid attention to him, let us say?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Exactly.

Mr. Jenner. You drew him into conversation or situations—especially when you asked something about him?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; exactly. I think that is his main characteristic. He wanted people to be interested in him, not in Marina. And she remained quite often in the background.

Later on, even in conversation she would remain in the background, and he would do the talking.

Mr. Jenner. Did he have an arrogant attitude?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. No; with me he has never been arrogant. Even when we came to the incident, you know, when we took the baby away from him, and Marina away from him later—you know that?

Mr. Jenner. I want to get that in sequence. But you did it yourself, did you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. My wife and I; yes.

Mr. Jenner. Now, why do you not just go along and tell me as things develop. And how attitudes changed, and everything.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, then we started getting reports, you know, from George Bouhe and the Clarks about them. We didn't see them very often.

Mr. Jenner. Please, I don't want you to say you didn't see them very often. Maybe you didn't.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. I want to know how this developed.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well——

Mr. Jenner. When next did you see them, after this initial event?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That I don't remember. I don't remember. But I do know that we saw Marina very soon afterward, because either my wife went to get her or my daughter went to get her—I don't remember that any more—to take her to the hospital. Or maybe George Bouhe brought her to our house so that my wife, who was free at the time, could take her to the dental clinic. I think that was the next time that we saw Marina. Maybe a few days later.

Mr. Jenner. In any event, it was before Marina went to live with the Mellers?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. And it was before Marina went to live with the Taylors?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes.

She never lived with the Taylors. I think she spent 1 night with them, and that is all. She lived, I think—I think both of them lived somewhere in the neighborhood. I think she spent 1 night with my daughter, when she happened to be in Dallas for this medical care. And since they are about the age of my daughter—she is a little bit older, but about the same age—I don't remember how it happened, but either I or my wife introduced Marina to my daughter, and also Lee. This is very vague in my mind, what happened there.

Mr. Jenner. Well, your recollection is that within a few days George Bouhe brought Marina to your home?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I think so.

Mr. Jenner. For the purpose of having your wife take Marina to get some dental care?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. That is right.

Mr. Jenner. And where was she taken?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. She was taken to the Baylor Dental Clinic.

Mr. Jenner. That is located where?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It is right in the center of Dallas, near the Slaughter Hospital—what a name for a hospital. It is the name of the man who founded it.

Well, the dental clinic is right there next door. They give you dental care gratis, or almost for nothing.

George Bouhe was giving her money, by the way.

Mr. Jenner. He was giving her money?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. I mean small amounts of money, you know, either for injections or something like that—because she didn't have anything.

Mr. Jenner. She was destitute, was she?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Completely destitute—because Lee was at the time losing his job. I don't recall when he told me that—maybe already at the first meeting. He told me that he was about to lose his job. He was working somewhere in Fort Worth as a manual laborer, some ironworker.

Mr. Jenner. Leslie Welding Co.?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I don't know the name of it. This company was going bankrupt, or that he was going to lose his job. At least that was his version. Maybe he was fired.

Mr. Jenner. That was his version. That wasn't the fact.

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. It was a fact?

Mr. Jenner. It was not. Your wife also took the baby for some medical care?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Now, this I am not so sure. She told Marina where to go, and told her, "You have to give the baby such and such injections." And this I remember well—that she didn't do it. She didn't go to that children's clinic, because of pure negligence. She is that type of a girl—very negligent, poor mother, very poor mother. Loved the child, but a poor mother that doesn't pay much attention. And what amazed us, you know, that she, having been a pharmacist in Russia, did not know anything about the good care of the children, nothing.

Mr. Jenner. How did you find out she had been a pharmacist in Russia?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Well, that eventually came—the second time or the third time that we met her—she told us the story of her life.

Mr. Jenner. Do you have a recollection as to what she told you?

Mr. De Mohrenschildt. Yes. Well, she said exactly her story of her life as she told me, that she comes from a family of ex-Czarist officers. That her father had been a Czarist officer of some kind—you see what I mean? I don't remember whether it was navy or army. I don't recall it any more. That her mother remarried, and that her stepfather did not treat her well. That they moved—I think they lived in Leningrad when she was a child. That eventually they moved to Minsk. I don't remember what her father's profession was.

One thing I remember—that one of her uncles was a big shot Government official, something like that—colonel or something like that. That I remember she told me.

And then she went to this school of pharmacists, I think in Minsk, and graduated as a pharmacist. And one day she was walking by this river, which I also remember, in Minsk—the River Svisloch, which crosses the whole town, and where there are some new apartment buildings built, and in one of those apartment buildings there were very nice apartments, and that is where the foreigners lived.

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.