Mr. JENNER. That's the same Mr. Adams?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. That would indicate that when that reference was made, it
was found that Mr. Oswald was already working somewhere else?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, sir; it would indicate that Mr. Adams very likely
checked the following day in some fashion or it could be that Oswald
called Mr. Adams and reported that he was working.
Mr. JENNER. This reference was made on what day, according to that
record?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Are you using the word "reference" as we use the word
"referral," sir?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. 10-15.
Mr. JENNER. And then there is an indication that Mr. Adams made a check
on that reference the following day or the same day?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. I am uncertain which it is referring to, whether he
left the entry there--let me go back--"NR" that he called the employer
on the 16th and recorded the "NR," or whether there was a conversation
between him and Oswald on 16th, from where he got the information he
was working--I do not know whether he ever worked at Trans-Texas from
this.
Mr. JENNER. Does this complete the entries under that section of the
form?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Now, give me your impression of Lee Harvey Oswald, as you
recall him, doing your best to transport yourself back to the time that
you had contact with him.
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Self-contained, able, perhaps not giving any more
information than he was asked for, entirely presentable as far as
grooming and appearance was concerned; there was nothing at all that
I recall that was argumentative in my contacts with him. The general
appearance was of, and what these records indicate to me, was of a
young applicant with capability, not any sound or extensive work
experience, the longest period of the training and experience was in
the Marine Corps----
Mr. JENNER. And a limited education?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. A limited education, but he had done something about
it before he came to me or he wouldn't have a high school equivalency
certificate, if he did have. At least, I had no reason to question
that he did not have, after I got the test results from the Fort Worth
office.
Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Cunningham, would you tell me, please, your education
qualifications for the work you are doing and your experience
qualifications and what brought you into this field?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. I have a master's degree from the University of
Missouri, which was granted in 1938. It is a B.S. in educational and
vocational guidance.
Mr. JENNER. You have a master's--and you have a B.S.--did you say?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. I have the B.S. and the master's subsequent to it and
I have a B.S. in education from Southeast Missouri College in 1928,
which you see comes before this master's work.
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. I have taken some subsequent courses at night classes
as I could at a variety of universities, St. Louis University,
Washington University, in St. Louis, at SMU--a summer subsequent to the
master's at the University of Minnesota.
Mr. JENNER. All in what areas?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. The B.S. was education.
Mr. JENNER. That was in 1928?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And at Southeast Missouri, did you say?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Yes; Cape Girardeau. And my undergraduate majors are
math and science, I guess I've got one in English, too, that I picked
up.
Mr. JENNER. You graduated from college, then what did you do--there's
10 years there I wanted to cover.
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. I taught school and went to school some summers, I did
some social work during the depression days in the Southeast Missouri
area.
Mr. JENNER. I remember them--I was practicing law then.
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. You should have been down where they have good land
and poor people, down in the Boot Heel of Missouri.
Mr. JENNER. In the Wood River country?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. In the Boot Heel of Missouri where the Mississippi and
Ohio come together.
Mr. JENNER. I was down in the area where the Mississippi and Ohio come
together forming the tip of Illinois--down at Little Egypt.
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. In Cairo?
Mr. JENNER. Yes, in Cairo.
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. And part of the time I was a housewife. In 1938 I went
to Jefferson City where my husband was employed--this was Jefferson
City, Mo.
Mr. JENNER. That is the State capital?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Yes. I was with the Missouri Employment Commission
and I worked in the central office there and he was a teacher in the
public schools of the city and I went from there to the St. Louis
metropolitan office in the spring of 1940, I think.
Mr. JENNER. Was that the OPA?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. No; that was the War Manpower Commission--really
during the war period. You know, we moved from State to Federal and
then back to State--it was much easier going in than coming out--with
the stroke of a pen--we were in.
I moved with that agency, I guess, from interviewer to labor market
analyst for that metropolitan area and then I taught awhile. There may
have been a period where I was not employed, because Mr. Cunningham and
I have had heavy family responsibilities on the other end of life from
1940 to the death of his mother this past Christmas at 89, the same as
Churchill, and in 1951, we came down here.
I have basically worked for A. Harris as an accounting clerk. In 1957 I
had qualified under the Texas law and had taken the examinations, and
in August 1957--I was employed by the Texas Employment Commission as an
interviewer of some variety.
Mr. JENNER. And you have been at it ever since?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Cunningham, does anything occur to you that you think
might be helpful to the Commission in these areas about which I have
inquired of you which, due to my lack of knowledge of the facts or
for any other reason I have not brought out, that you would like to
volunteer and which you regard as pertinent to our investigation?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. I've never really been into the investigation--of
course, have never been into any kind which was of such grave
importance as this, sir. I couldn't really make a judgment of what
would be important to you.
Mr. JENNER. Well, I don't want you to try to make a judgment as to
what would be important--all I said, is there anything you think is
pertinent?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Yes. I would like to say this: As I said to the
gentlemen from the FBI who called me.
I have not been close to the Mellers recently. You see, this
acquaintance came through our both working for A. Harris.
Mr. JENNER. For whom?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. A. Harris & Co.
Mr. JENNER. What business is A. Harris?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. A retail trade--it is now Sanger-Harris, one of the
major department stores here, but I have no reason to believe otherwise
that the Mellers were good citizens and very grateful for American
democracy.
I rather suspect that the records show that I was a sponsor of Mr.
Meller for his citizenship, and I think, having been one made me value
my own greater, because I came down and sat in the courtroom and saw
what it meant to incoming people.
I also recounted to him that one time when we were playing tennis--Mr.
Meller came to the court, and he said, "I have a letter I want to
show you," in a state of excitement, and I said, "You have?" And he
got it out and it was from the U.S. Department of State, saying "You
registered as an alien" at such and such address. "We have a request
from Australia of a sister or a woman who purports to be your sister,
and she is asking for your address. Do we have your permission to give
it to her?"
And then Teofil said, "Nowhere else in the world would any Government
be this considerate of me. I am only an alien."
Now, I haven't seen him because our paths haven't crossed very much
in the recent years, but I think that that incident sticks with me
because, again, I'm a stick in the mud--I have been in Missouri and I
have been to Texas, and I just have to get some experience by reading
and by studying and by talking with people, and other experiences,
but when I worked at A. Harris, I talked with some of the displaced
people who had been through World War II and through the horrors of
that period and it was a broadening of my own experience. There was
some gaining of some firsthand knowledge of the Jewish people and
their history. I read some in the area. I helped them a bit with their
use of English in the trade and they were all apologetic to me for
involving me, you see, and I said--well, I just accepted the boy as
another applicant.
Mr. JENNER. It was the normal course, as far as you were concerned?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And you saw nothing that would lead you to believe it was
other than the normal course as far as the Mellers were concerned and
they were activated by charity in their hearts and desire to help out?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. That's right, and out of their own suffering. It is my
observation that people who have suffered and who have helped to share,
tend to do it a little more, probably, than those who have never known
what it is to starve.
Mr. JENNER. Do you ever recall a conversation of whether the subject
of Mr. Oswald's loss of these positions arose, and whether he said
anything on that subject?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Which positions, please, sir?
Mr. JENNER. You interviewed him 10-10--he had been employed prior
thereto by Leslie Welding Co., I think?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Doing sheet metal work, he says, "Made ventilators, cut
sheet metal--4 months"?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. That is a Fort Worth employer, is it not, sir?
Mr. JENNER. Yes; it is. All I am seeking to do is to stimulate your
recollection--if you have one--as to whether the subject ever arose
in which he said he was having difficulty obtaining a position or
retaining, either way, and whether he made any comments in that area?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. No, sir; the entry which is on the application card in
"Reason for leaving" is "Laid off." I do not know whose handwriting it
is in, and I did not delve into that.
Mr. JENNER. You didn't delve into that?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. No, sir--that says, "Dallas" doesn't it--10-62. I was
thinking it was a Fort Worth employer--I did not go into that, as I
recall, sir.
Mr. JENNER. I think it was a Fort Worth employer, as a matter of fact.
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. I don't know--why it seemed to stick in my head that
that Leslie Welding was Fort Worth, whether he told me he had worked
briefly in Fort Worth or how it got there.
Mr. JENNER. You have no entries in any of those papers to refer to the
fact that he had been in Russia and that he returned from Russia with
his Russian wife--why is that?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. I think that in the kind of job we are in, sir; we
never know who is sitting beside us. We are, as I say, a public agency
and there is a certain amount of information that is supplied us by
the applicant, and ours is not an investigative procedure. There is
a certain amount of information that one accepts and works from, and
I think that I would not have thought this a pertinent entry on this
employment.
He was back in the United States. I would work on the assumption that
the Federal Government would know why he was back and had given him
permission to be back. Sometimes, with noncitizens, we ask for some
kind of an emigration card or a visa and make that kind of an inquiry.
This young man came to me, presented as an American citizen, the record
indicated that; he had served in our Armed Forces and I guess that I
would also add, rightly or wrongly, that in my judgment this could have
blocked his getting employment here and if the employer learned it by
questioning him when he was an applicant, he would make use of the
information as he saw fit.
Basically, I try to assume that the other guy is telling me the truth
and unless it is apparent that some things don't stack up, I don't
probe and say, "Now, what were you doing between so and so and so,"
or if there is a big gap which could indicate a prison sentence or
hospitalization or what have you, I would probe there. If he has his
dates befuddled, I may work with him to help him to recall or suggest
to him that maybe some home work--he ought to write all this down so
that when he is filling an application form out for work so that he can
get it accurate.
As you well know, this is not too cosmopolitan an area, with people
with a lot of backgrounds in it, and you see "Oswald" is not again
a name that would indicate anything but an American background--the
appearance of the American, his speech, and so I just give those two
basic reasons.
Mr. JENNER. Did you inquire of him as to whether he spoke Russian with
a view in mind possibly of recording that as a job qualification?
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. No, sir; I did not. If he had been apparently a
Russian citizen or of Russian derivation, I could well have done it,
as I enter Spanish, or Polish, or German, and I would not think that
Russian would be very helpful because all of this background doesn't
say--translator--or again any of the rare jobs or professional, does
it, and that in our classification is professional work.
Mr. JENNER. I can think of nothing else that has stimulated me to
inquire further of you. I appreciate very much your coming over and
this has been a helpful interview and at some inconvenience to you, I
appreciate. You have been very helpful and very cooperative. Now, you
may read your deposition, make any corrections in it you wish, sign it
and Miss Oliver will have it ready sometime next week. If you will call
Mr. Barefoot Sanders' office and speak with his secretary, she will let
you know when it is ready to be read.
Mrs. CUNNINGHAM. Let me make a note as to when and where.
Mr. JENNER. All right--she will have it for you, and thank you again
very much.