The proceeding was reconvened at 7:55 p.m.
Mr. JENNER. When we adjourned for dinner you were telling us the
incident in August, I believe it was 1958, when you visited your mother
and your brother on your way to California on your assignment to Japan.
Mr. PIC. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Would you read me the last answer of the witness, please?
(The answer, as recorded, was read by the reporter.)
Mr. JENNER. Marilyn Murret is your cousin?
Mr. PIC. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. One of the children of Charles and Lillian Murret?
Mr. PIC. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. By the way, did your wife and children accompany you to
Japan?
Mr. PIC. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And you arrived in Japan about when?
Mr. PIC. 10 November 1958, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Were you aware before you left for Japan that Marilyn
Murret, was in Japan?
Mr. PIC. She was not in Japan then, sir.
Mr. JENNER. All right. You arrived in Japan and went over there
sometime while you were in Japan. By the way, first where were you
stationed?
Mr. PIC. My military address was U.S.A.F. Hospital, Tachikawa, APO 323,
San Francisco, Calif.
Mr. JENNER. You heard from or saw Marilyn Murret after you got there?
Mr. PIC. Right. In approximately October-November, early November,
the end of October 1959 she called me up at the hospital, and it had
been years since I had seen her, and she told me she had come from
Australia. She was traveling around the world, and I invited her out to
the house the next weekend.
She couldn't come during the week. She was teaching school in Japan and
as a freelance teacher working for no agency, just doing this to earn
her own traveling money. So she visited us on a Sunday, I believe.
We talked about the family and everything. She talked about Lee, about
how proud he was to be in the Marine Corps, and he really put on a big
show about this.
Mr. JENNER. How did she know that, did she reveal?
Mr. PIC. She had seen him, evidently, when he was first in the Marine
Corps. She described him in uniform, and----
Mr. JENNER. You had the impression she had actually seen him in Japan?
Mr. PIC. No; she wasn't in Japan the same time he was. This is a year
after I am in Japan, sir, before I had seen her.
Mr. JENNER. I see.
Mr. PIC. And she had seen him when he first joined the Marine Corps,
is my impression, sometime while he was in the Marine Corps and in the
States.
Mr. JENNER. You had the impression that Lee had visited their home in
New Orleans?
Mr. PIC. Yes, sir; that is the impression I got.
Mr. JENNER. Go on.
Mr. PIC. Well, at this time, my mother was still writing to me, I never
answered any of her letters. Maybe I would receive a letter from her
every once, every 2 or 3 months. I also was aware of the fact that Lee
was going to be discharged from the Marine Corps.
Mr. JENNER. You became aware of that through what means?
Mr. PIC. The letters I would receive from my mother. She informed me
that Marilyn Murret--that Lee upon his discharge had gone to Europe. I
asked her how did he ever decide that, and where did he get the money
and she said he saved it while he was in the Marine Corps.
Mr. JENNER. Did she say he had gone to Europe?
Mr. PIC. Yes, sir. Her quote, sir, to the best of my knowledge, "Do you
know that Lee is in Europe?" I said, "No, I don't know that." I had no
way of knowing that. So I started asking her about him, and this is
what she told me that Lee had gone to Europe.
It was that night, sir, on the 9 o'clock news that I learned that Lee
had defected.