Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He said, "I don't want her to study English
because I want to speak Russian to her, I will forget my Russian if I
do not practice it every day." These are the words which I remember
distinctly. And how many times I told him, "You have to let your wife
learn English. This is a very egotistical attitude on your part."
Mr. JENNER. Very selfish.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Very selfish. He would not answer to that.
Mr. JENNER. Did it occur to you as a possibility, or among others in
the Russian colony, that he might have had another objective, and that
is that she would return to Russia?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Never. That never occurred to me. I do not think
that. Knowing Marina, she would never go back to Russia. She liked the
United States. She liked the facilities of life here. Of course, you
never know people. You cannot vouch for them. But that was our opinion.
Maybe we simplified too much the matters. I do not know.
Mr. JENNER. Did there come a time in the spring or the midwinter of
1963, latter part of January, and in February, in which there was any
discussion, or you learned that Marina had made application to the
Russian Embassy to return to Russia?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No.
Mr. JENNER. No discussion?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No discussion of that.
Mr. JENNER. And except for my now uttering it, you have been wholly
unaware of it?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Wholly unaware of it. Totally unaware of that,
never heard of that. What we learned, at that period--that she had her
child christened in the Greek Orthodox Church against Oswald's strong
objections.
Mr. JENNER. Were you personally aware of those objections?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No. I just heard that he objected to Marina
doing it--and she took the child to church anyway and had the child
christened. But I do not recall the circumstances. Somebody told me
that.
Mr. JENNER. But you are unaware of any discussion of her returning to
Russia in the spring or late winter of 1962--1963, that winter?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No.
Mr. JENNER. And she never appealed to you that he was forcing her to
make application to the Russian Embassy?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I do not recall anything of that kind.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. De Mohrenschildt, it appears to be the consensus in
that Russian colony, that community, that Oswald reached a point where
he resented all the people other than you; that he had a liking for you.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, I explained to you that I do not know
whether he had a liking or not.
Mr. JENNER. Or respect, or something.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I treated him nicely. My wife treated them like
human beings, disregarding their bad qualities. Because that is our way
of treating poor people. My philosophy is--you may object to that--but
my philosophy is not to bend in front of the strong and be very nice
to the poor--as nice as I can. And they were very miserable, lost,
penniless, mixed up. So as much as they both annoyed me, I did not show
it to them because it is like insulting a beggar--you see what I mean.
Well, the other Russians obviously do not have such a charitable
attitude. I do not think he has ever been, for instance--I am trying to
think whether he had a resentment against all of the Russian colony or
not. I would not say so. I do not know how was his attitude toward Mr.
Gregory. I think they remained pretty--not close, but on speaking terms.
Mr. JENNER. That seems to be so.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Because Mr. Gregory is a very fine person--very
fine person, who is an elderly man, who is nice to a poor person.
Mr. JENNER. Your impression is that he, to use the vernacular a
little bit--he was sort of eating on himself, he wanted to amount to
something, and he appeared to be unable to, and was constantly groping.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. That is his main--his makeup--trying to do
something. One conversation I had with him--I asked him "Would you
like to be a commissar in the United States," just teasing him. And he
said--he sort of smiled--you could see that it was a delightful idea.
To me it was a ridiculous question to ask. But he took me seriously. I
laughed with the guy. Sometimes I would laugh, I would tease him. And
it was amusing. But I tried not to offend him, because, after all, he
was a human being. And in addition to that--in my case we had a point
of contact which was the fact that he lived in Minsk, where I lived
when I was a child also, where my father was this marshal of nobility.
And later on in life I lived in Poland, very close to that area. I was
interested in how the peasants were getting along, what does he find
in the forest there, what kind of mushrooms you find, that type of
conversation went on sometimes.
Mr. JENNER. Did he appear to have knowledge and recollection of things
in which you were interested in the community, the countryside?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Very much so. That was a likable characteristic
he had. For instance, he liked animals. My dog was sort of friendly
with him. When he would come, my dog would not bark. He liked walking.
He told me that around Minsk he used to take long walks in the forest
which I thought was very fine. Those are contacts that possibly brought
a certain understanding between us. He spoke very interestingly about
the personalities of fellow workers there at his factory.
Mr. JENNER. I want you to keep ruminating in this fashion, because
these things will come to you. What did he say about his work there?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, he said that the work was all right, not
too hard, not too well paid, that it was very boring. That later, after
the work, he had to be present at all sorts of meetings, political
meetings. He said he got bored to death. Every day he had to stay for
an hour at some kind of a meeting, the factory meeting. And this is a
thing I thought was very intelligent, because that is one of the points
that is really hateful in a Communist country--the meetings after
work. That I noticed through my own experience in Yugoslavia, that the
engineers and the plain workers just hated that--a political meeting
after working 8 hours. And Lee Oswald also resented that in Russia. And
I thought it was a rather intelligent---one of the intelligent remarks
that he made. And he repeated that very often--that is the thing he
hated in Russia; resented, rather than hated.
Well, he described the personalities of some of the people that he knew
there which I do not recall anymore. But some of them nice, and some
of them less nice, and some of them very much interested in the United
States, some of them unfriendly--that sort of vague recollection.
Mr. JENNER. Did you engage him in conversation respecting Communism as
a political ideal and his reactions to that?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He kept on repeating that he was not a Communist.
I asked him point blank, "Are you a member of the Communist Party?" And
he said no. He said, "I am a Marxist." Kept on repeating it.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ask him what he meant by that?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I never frankly asked him to elaborate on that,
because again, you know the word "Marxism" is very boring to me. Just
the sound of that word is boring to me.
Mr. JENNER. What impression did you get in that connection as to
whether he was seeking some mean or middle ground between democracy and
what he thought Communism was?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Possibly he was seeking for something, but
knowing what kind of brains he had, and what kind of education, I was
not interested in listening to him, because it was nothing, it was zero.
Mr. JENNER. I see. It was your impression, then he could contribute
nothing?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No, he could contribute absolutely nothing except
for a remark like that about the meetings, which was just an ordinary
remark a person of his intelligence could understand. But when it comes
to dialectic materialism, I do not want to hear that word again.
Mr. JENNER. Did discussions occur as to his attempted defection?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. From the United States to Russia?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. How it happened?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Why it happened and how it happened?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Tell me about that.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. A few words I remember now. He said that while he
was in Japan he saw tremendous injustice. By that he meant, I think,
the poverty of the Japanese working class or the proletariat, as he
called them, and the rich people in Japan. He said it was more visible
than anywhere else. Now, I have never been in Japan, and I cannot vouch
for that. But that is what he told me. And he also told me that he had
some contacts with the Japanese Communists in Japan, and they--that got
him interested to go and see what goes on in the Soviet Union.
Mr. JENNER. Just concentrate on this, please. Tell me everything you
can now recall as to what he said about--you used the term, what we
lawyers call a conclusion. You said he had some contacts with the
Communists in Japan. Now, try and recall what he said or as near----
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I see what you mean. Since it was so removed from
my interest, I did not insist. I just heard that.
Mr. JENNER. Just give me your best recollection.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is all I recall--that he said, "I have met
some Communists in Japan and they got me excited and interested, and
that was one of my inducements in going to Soviet Russia, to see what
goes on there."
Mr. JENNER. Did you form any opinion that this man, because of his
meager boyhood, on the verge of poverty, or in poverty all during his
youth and up to the time he went into the Marines at least, that he had
some groping for a ready solution that would not permit that sort of
thing?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Naturally. That's the whole point. I could
understand his point of view, because that is what happens exactly in
the whole world with dissatisfied people. If they are constructive,
they study more and try to get good jobs and succeed. The other try to
form a revolutionary party. And he was one of them.
Mr. JENNER. The other try to do it overnight, by force of arms.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That's right.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever discuss with him that there are many great men
and women who have come from poverty?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Oh, yes. You could not discuss it with Oswald
because he knew it all.
Mr. JENNER. He always knew what the answer was.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He always knew what the answer was. And possibly
that is why he was clinging to us, to my wife and me, because we
did not discuss it with them, because we did not give a damn. After
we found out what was going on in that town of Minsk, what was the
situation, what were the food prices, how they dressed, how they spent
their evenings, which are things interesting to us, our interest waned.
The rest of the time, the few times we saw Lee Oswald and Marina
afterwards, was purely to give a gift, to take them to a party, because
we thought they were dying of boredom, you see--which Marina was.
Mr. JENNER. She was?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. She was, because he never would take her any
place. That was the reason we invited them twice--once to a party at
Declan Ford's--and that was, I think, a Christmas party. And another
time a party at Everett Glover's, where I was showing my movie to the
whole group. Because I thought they would be exceedingly--Marina was
dying of boredom there.
Mr. JENNER. Let me get to that party at Declan Ford's. That was--was
that a New Year's Day or New Year's Eve party?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I think it was right at Christmas or New Year's
Eve.
Mr. JENNER. The party went on for a couple of days, didn't it?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. A couple of days?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I did not know that the party ran for a couple of
days. But we arrived at 9 o'clock and left around 1 or 2, and it was
still going strong.
Mr. JENNER. Well, I suppose when a witness said it lasted a couple of
days, maybe the witness was thinking it started in the early evening of
one day and did not end until well into the next day.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; it was not any of those wild parties. It was
a very friendly, very good party.
Mr. JENNER. I'm not suggesting the party was wild. There is no
intimation of that.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No--on the contrary, they are very hospitable
people invited, and always had a congenial crowd there. And that is
why we suggested, let's bring that miserable Marina and Oswald there,
so they would meet some people. And I think if people continued doing
that, if people did that, maybe this tragedy might not have occurred.
Mr. JENNER. Or it might have become worse--his resentment.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Maybe so.
Mr. JENNER. Did Marina smoke?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. Oh, boy, this is an interesting question.
She loved to smoke and would smoke as many cigarettes as she could
lay her hands on. And you know, Oswald did not smoke and forbade
her to smoke. This is the reason--one of the reasons they fought so
bitterly--because he would take the cigarette away from her and slap
her.
Mr. JENNER. In your presence?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In my presence, would take the cigarette away
from her and push her, "You are not going to do that", in a dictatorial
way. So I would say, "Now, stop it, let her smoke." And then he
would relax. But that is the type of person he was. But not in our
presence--when we were away, Marina said he would not let her smoke
nor drink, I think. He refused to let her drink either. And she liked
to have a drink. With all her defects, she is more or less a normal
person, and rather happy-go-lucky, a very happy-go-lucky girl.
Mr. JENNER. What about his drinking?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I never saw him drink. Maybe he would take a very
little, but I never saw him drink more than half a glass--as far as I
remember. I didn't pay too much attention. Maybe that is why he was
tense, because he did not drink enough. He was always tense. That guy
was always under some kind of pressure.
Mr. JENNER. You have that impression?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; always some kind of a pressure.
Mr. JENNER. And this was an inward pressure, you thought?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; some inward pressure.
Mr. JENNER. See if I can refresh your recollection a little about that
party, the first of the parties. I am going to ask you about the second
one as well in a moment.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Do you remember being present at that party Mr. and Mrs.
Thomas Ray?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. If they are the people whom I identify as
he being a man in the advertising business and she a girl of Russian
origin--a friend of Mrs. Ford.
Mr. JENNER. He married her when he was in Germany.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; that's it--something like that. You know,
in this group of the Russian emigres, there were two people who came
from Soviet Russia--there were Mrs. Ford and this lady, an entirely
different type of individual--the new blood. They were younger and they
were brought up in Soviet Russia.