Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. When I read that article, then the idea started
coming--arising in my imagination.
Mr. JENNER. Assuming the article was correct, that Oswald had said to
Marina that he was going to get some money from some source?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; that is right.
Mr. JENNER. But you knew of no such thing?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No.
Mr. JENNER. And you had no hint of it while you knew the Oswalds?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; when we knew the Oswalds, they were always in
dismal poverty.
Mr. JENNER. When you visited Dallas at the end of May 1963, before you
went to Haiti, did you see the Oswalds then?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; I don't think so. My wife will tell you
exactly. I don't think we had time to see anybody. We were just
packing. As I recall it, I did receive a card, a postcard, from
Oswald--I don't remember when--before we left the United States,
saying, "We are in New Orleans," and giving the address. And I lost
that card.
Mr. JENNER. Did you write a letter to Mrs. Hugh D. Auchincloss in
December of 1963?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; I don't remember the date, but I did write a
letter to her.
Mr. JENNER. From where?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. From Haiti.
Mr. JENNER. You expressed your sympathy to her with respect to the
death of her son-in-law, John Fitzgerald Kennedy?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall making this statement in the letter: "Since
we lived in Dallas permanently last year and before, we had the
misfortune to have met Oswald, and especially his wife Marina, sometime
last fall."
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. What do you mean by the misfortune to have met Oswald and
especially his wife Marina?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, now, since all this happened, it causes--it
is not pleasant to have known the possible assassin of the President
of the United States. And since he is dead, it doesn't matter. But we
still know Marina. We had the misfortune of knowing her--it caused us
no end of difficulty, from every point of view.
Mr. JENNER. That is what you meant by misfortune?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; and misfortune--also now, when you look the
situation over, it was just a misfortune that we helped them, that
is all. We shouldn't have done it. We should have known better. And,
actually,----
Mr. JENNER. Why should you have known better, Mr. De Mohrenschildt?
What was wrong with what you did?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Nothing wrong. But it is wrong that we were
charitable to a person who turned out to be an assassin, maybe.
Mr. JENNER. But you wouldn't have been charitable if you had any notion
he might have been. So what you did was a spontaneous, normal thing
of an outgoing person who wanted to help somebody. Is that a fair
statement?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; it is correct. But still I regret that I
have known him. I shouldn't have been so extroverted.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall saying in your letter, "Both my wife and
I tried to help poor Marina, who could not speak any English, was
mistreated by her husband. She and the baby were malnourished and
sickly."
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. That is all correct?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And you told me all about that in some detail.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You also said, if you will recall--"some time last fall we
heard that Oswald had beaten his wife cruelly, so we drove to their
miserable place and forcibly took Marina and the child away from the
character."
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. And you have told me about that?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. "Then he threatened me and my wife, but I did not take him
seriously."
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is exactly right.
Mr. JENNER. "Marina stayed with a family of some childless Russian
refugees for awhile, keeping her baby, but finally decided to return to
her husband." You have told me about that course of events.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. And that is what you had in mind?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is exactly right.
Mr. JENNER. Then you comment, "It is really a shame that such crimes
occur in our times and in our country, but there is so much jealousy
for success, and the late President was successful in so many domains,
and there is so much desire for publicity on the part of all shady
characters, that assassinations are bound to occur. Better precautions
should have been taken." Now, let me ask you about the first two
sentences.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In my opinion, if Lee Oswald did kill the
President, this might be the reason for it, that he was insanely
jealous of an extraordinarily successful man, who was young,
attractive, had a beautiful wife, had all the money in the world, and
was a world figure. And poor Oswald was just the opposite. He had
nothing. He had a bitchy wife, had no money, was a miserable failure in
everything he did.
Mr. JENNER. Well, do you have a view, perhaps, that this might be a
way of this man--of what he thought of raising himself up by his own
bootstraps?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Exactly. It made him a hero in his own mind--it
made him a hero in his own mind. He did not realize possibly that he
was doing it at the expense to the whole Nation. He might have had a
mental blackout.
Mr. JENNER. Then you make the comment "better precautions should have
been taken."
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is my very strong opinion, that better
precautions should he taken by whatever authorities were in Dallas at
the time to protect the President.
Now, I do not consider myself an exceedingly--a genius. But the very
first thought after we heard that some character was mixed up in the
assassination of the President, when we were listening to the radio in
the house of an employee of the American Embassy in Port au Prince, and
he mentioned that the name of the presumable assassin is something Lee,
Lee, Lee--and I said, "Could it be Lee Oswald?"