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.