The testimony of George S. De Mohrenschildt was taken at 9 a.m., on
April 23, 1964, at 200 Maryland Avenue NE., Washington, D.C., by Mr.
Albert E. Jenner, Jr., assistant counsel of the President's Commission.
Dr. Alfred Goldberg, historian, was present.
(Having been previously duly sworn.)
Mr. JENNER. On the record.
Mr. De Mohrenschildt, you testified yesterday it was your then
recollection that Marina did not live with your daughter, Alexandra,
then Mrs. Gary Taylor.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That's right. I think she spent one night with
them, but never lived with them, as far as I know.
Mr. JENNER. Maybe that's it. Now, perhaps to refresh your recollection,
Marina testified--this question was put to her. "Did you have anything
to do with the Gary Taylors?" "Answer: Yes; at one time when I had
to visit the dentist in Dallas, and I lived in Fort Worth, I came to
Dallas and I stayed with them for a couple of days."
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. She probably is right. I think she spent only one
day. But I could not swear to that.
Mr. JENNER. Now, I want to stimulate your recollection in another
respect. Your daughter has made a statement that in September of 1962,
"My father asked me to allow Marina Oswald and her child to reside with
me at my then home at 1512 Fairmont Street, Dallas. My father explained
that Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife Marina had recently arrived in
Dallas, Tex. They had no money and Lee Oswald was unemployed. He told
me that while Marina resided with me, Lee Oswald would reside at the
YMCA." Does that serve to refresh your recollection?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I frankly do not remember. I have the impression
that I said "Help her as much as you can," but I do not recall saying
that she would live with them. I do not think I would have imposed that
on my daughter.
Mr. JENNER. Well, that testimony of Marina that she did live with your
daughter for several days, and your daughter's statement, does not----
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I do not know about it. Maybe they did, maybe
they did not. I just do not recall that.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I repeat again that they were out of my
mind--completely--after the last time we saw them.
Mr. JENNER. Well, this is September of 1962.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. 1962, sure. They were out of my mind. I forgot
the Oswalds.
Mr. JENNER. No; 1962, sir.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No, no. Now the Oswalds were out of my mind.
Mr. JENNER. You mean you have not been thinking about them.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; I have not been thinking about them.
May I say a few things here that I remember? As I told you before, we
met the Oswalds through Bouhe, and then we talked about them to Max
Clark, and again to Bouhe. And I asked Mr. Bouhe "Do you think it is
safe for us to help Oswald?"
Mr. JENNER. You did have that conversation.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Why did you raise that question?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I raised the question because he had been to
Soviet Russia. He could be anything, you see. And he could be right
there watched day and night by the FBI. I did not want to get involved,
you see. And I distinctly remember, No. 1, that George Bouhe said that
he had checked with the FBI. Secondly, that in my mind Max Clark was
in some way connected with the FBI, because he was chief of security
at Convair--he had been a chief of security. And either George Bouhe
or someone else told me that he is with the FBI to some extent. You
never ask people "Are you from the FBI?" And to me it is unimportant.
But somehow in my mind I had this connected. And so my fears were
alleviated, you see. I said, "Well, the guy seems to be OK." Now, I am
not so clear about it, but I have the impression to have talked--to
have asked about Lee Oswald also Mr. Moore, Walter Moore.
Mr. JENNER. Who is Walter Moore?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Walter Moore is the man who interviewed me on
behalf of the Government after I came back from Yugoslavia--G. Walter
Moore. He is a Government man--either FBI or Central Intelligence. A
very nice fellow, exceedingly intelligent who is, as far as I know--was
some sort of an FBI man in Dallas. Many people consider him head of FBI
in Dallas. Now, I don't know. Who does--you see. But he is a Government
man in some capacity. He interviewed me and took my deposition on my
stay in Yugoslavia, what I thought about the political situation there.
And we became quite friendly after that. We saw each other from time
to time, had lunch. There was a mutual interest there, because I think
he was born in China and my wife was born in China. They had been to
our house I think once or twice. I just found him a very interesting
person. When I was writing this book of mine, a very peculiar incident
occurred.
Mr. JENNER. Which book?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. The last one--the travelogue. One day we left
for Houston on a business trip, and I left all my typewritten pages,
some 150 typewritten pages, in my closet. When I returned from the trip
and started looking through the pages, which had not been touched,
supposedly, by anybody I noticed small marks on the pages--"No. 1"
after five pages, "2"--small marks with a pencil, another five pages,
No. 3, and so on and so forth.
I told my wife "Jeanne, have you fiddled around with my book?" She
said, "Of course not." I said, "That's impossible." And I forgot it for
a while.
In the evening we got back home, and we stayed in bed, and all of
a sudden the idea came back to me that somebody must have been in
my apartment and checked my book and read through that and took
photographs. And it was such a horrible idea that Jeanne and I just
could not sleep all night. And the next morning we both of us went
to see Walter Moore and told him, "Now, look what happened to us.
Have you Government people"--and I think I asked him point blank, you
know--"Have you FBI people looked through my book?" He said, "Do you
consider us such fools as to leave marks on your book if we had? But we
haven't." I said, "Can't you give me some protection against somebody
who has?" He said, "Do you have any strong enemies?" I said, "Well, I
possibly have. Everybody has enemies." But I never could figure out who
it was. And it is still a mystery to me.
So I am not so sure whether I asked point blank Clark or Walter
Moore about Oswald. I probably spoke to both of them about him. My
recollection is, and also my wife's recollection is, that either of
them said he is a harmless lunatic. Later on Max got disgusted with
him and said that he is a no-good b-----d, a traitor, and so on and so
forth. But by that time we already forgot Oswald--got Oswald out of
your lives, you see. This is one point.
The second point is as you can see the whole of the Russian colony in
Dallas were interested in Oswald one way or the other, because they
represented somebody who had been to their old country just recently,
and could give them the latest information on what was going on. As
I said, the old guard were naturally against them right away. The
others were just curious. But this particular couple, Natasha and Igor
Voshinin, refused to see them. And I insisted several times, "Why don't
you see them? You love all the Russians. Why don't you meet Marina
Oswald?" And she said, "We don't want to, and we have our reasons for
not meeting them." And it kept on in my mind. I did not want to raise
that question. But why didn't they want to meet them?
Mr. JENNER. Well, tell me what is your speculation as to why they did
not want to meet them?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I do not have the slightest idea. Maybe they knew
something about Oswald, of some connection.
Mr. JENNER. Or maybe they were alarmed, and didn't want to take any
chances.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Maybe just that.
Mr. JENNER. But they were pretty firm in not having any traffic with
them.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Absolutely firm. The only ones. Maybe they were
just more recently arrived in the United States and they were not so
secure like we were, you see. And possibly they were just alarmed of
meeting somebody who just came from Soviet Russia.
Mr. JENNER. I think I will ask you at this point, Mr. De Mohrenschildt,
you are a man of very superior education and extremely wide experience
and acquaintance here and in Europe, South America, West Indies--you
have lived an extremely colorful life. You are acquainted to a greater
or lesser degree with a great variety of people.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Did there go through your mind speculations as to whether
Oswald was an agent of anybody?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No.
Mr. JENNER. Why? Before I put it that way--when you say "No," am
I correct in assuming that you thought about the subject and you
concluded he was not an agent of anybody? Is that what you meant?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I never thought even about it. I will tell you
why I thought he never was--because he was too outspoken. He was too
outspoken in his ideas and his attitudes. If he were really--if he were
an agent, I thought he would have kept quiet. This would be my idea.
Mr. JENNER. You say he was outspoken. What do you base that on?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. For instance, he showed me his--he discussed very
freely with me, when he showed me his little memoirs.
Mr. JENNER. I am going to show you those papers in a little while.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Those memoirs I think are very sincere. They
explain more or less the sincere attitude of a man, sincere opinion of
a man.
Mr. JENNER. Before I show you any papers, I want you to finish this
reasoning of yours.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I did not take him seriously--that is all.
Mr. JENNER. I know you didn't. Why didn't you?