Mr. JENNER. Excuse me. Have you looked at the original of that letter?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, it looks to me that this is the original.
Mr. JENNER. That is your signature on the letter?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You will note it is dated December 12, 1963.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. December 12, 1963.
Mr. JENNER. Would you look at the envelope that is attached to the
letter. Is that envelope addressed in your handwriting, or does it have
any of your handwriting on it?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; it is printed.
Mr. JENNER. Typed?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Typed, yes.
Mr. JENNER. And is that the envelope in which you dispatched that
letter?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; it looks like that envelope.
Mr. JENNER. What is the date of the stamp cancellation?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. December 13, 1963.
Mr. JENNER. Where?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It was sent from Haiti,
this letter.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; that is your letter, and you dispatched it?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Now, you say in that letter, after expressing your
sympathies to Mrs. Auchincloss, and your very kind comments about Mrs.
Kennedy, "I do hope that Marina and her children (I understand she has
two now) will not suffer too badly throughout their lives, and that the
stigma will not affect the innocent children. Somehow, I still have a
lingering doubt, notwithstanding all the evidence, of Oswald's guilt."
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Exactly.
Mr. JENNER. Now, please explain that remark in that letter.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Unless the man is guilty, I will not be his
judge--unless he is proven to be guilty by the court, I will not be his
judge, and there will be always a doubt in my mind, and throughout my
testimony I explained sufficiently why I have those doubts. And mainly
because he did not have any permanent animosity for President Kennedy.
That is why I have the doubts.
Mr. JENNER. And that expression in this letter is based on all the
things you have told me about in this long examination?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. A natural, I would assume, view on the part of any
humanitarian person--that you just cannot imagine anybody murdering
anybody else?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And he in turn had been murdered.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And his trial would never take place?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. And on the basis of what little you knew, you had lingering
doubts?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Exactly.
Mr. JENNER. Not because you felt that anybody else might have been
involved?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No, no.
Mr. JENNER. And you had no notion of anybody else, and no information
of anybody else being involved?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No information.
Mr. JENNER. I want to give you an opportunity to explain that fully.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; I have no information whatsoever, except what
you hear now living in Port-au-Prince from the foreigners who read
foreign papers. And, of course, they are all of the opinion that Oswald
did not kill the President, that there was a plot, that there was--that
somebody else was standing on the bridge, there was a car there on the
bridge from where they were shooting, that there were four shots--and
all those things are discussed all day long in Haiti right now, in the
colony of foreigners--Embassy people and businessmen who live in Haiti,
most of them Europeans, of course. They discuss it all day long.
Mr. JENNER. And they are confining their judgment to what they read in
the papers they receive from their homeland?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Purely; yes--purely. As you know, there are
sensational articles being published right now in Europe on that
subject.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. De Mohrenschildt, you know of no supposed facts that
you have read in these foreign language newspapers, do you?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Do I know what?
Mr. JENNER. You don't know if there is any merit one way or another?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; I don't know of any merit one way or the
other.
Mr. JENNER. And this remark of yours in the letter to Mrs. Auchincloss
was not intended to imply that?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No, no; it was not. It was purely based on
whatever was expressed in my testimony. And I think it will be fair to
say that I will have that lingering doubt for the rest of my life.
Mr. JENNER. You may have an opportunity to read the Commission report,
which I assume you will.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I wish you the best of luck.
Mr. JENNER. You wrote Mrs. Auchincloss again, did you not, in February
2, 1964?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. I hand you the envelope and letter. Do you identify those
as being the letter you sent to her and the envelope in which the
letter was enclosed?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; it is exactly the letter I have written.
Mr. JENNER. This letter leads me then into your Haiti venture. Tell us
about it. How did that arise, when did you first think about it?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I started doing geological work in Haiti in
1956, I think, the first time, where I worked for some Haitian people
connected with the Sinclair interests in Haiti.
I worked up a geological prospect for oil and gas drilling in the
northern part of Haiti, and we were able to sell the projects to a
company in Tulsa, and finally the deal fell through because of the
Cuban situation.
In other words, the company did not want to drill in Haiti because of
the expropriations going on in the Caribbean area. And the next time
then I was in Haiti, as I explained before, after our trip----
Mr. JENNER. That is the trip you made down there, Mexico and the
Central American countries?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes--in 1961--and started preparing this project
from then on.
Finally the project came to fruition in March 1963, and we left for
Haiti--at the end of May 1963.
Mr. JENNER. You made a trip to New York City before you went to Haiti,
did you not?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. The first part of May 1963?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. About 2 weeks?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; New York, Philadelphia, Washington.
Mr. JENNER. Visited your daughter?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Visited my daughter. And also was in Washington
preparing for the eventuality of this project, checking with the
people, Bureau of Mines, and so forth.
Mr. JENNER. Is there a gentleman by the name of Tardieu whom you were
attempting to interest?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No, no; he is actually interested, and he is a
Frenchman living in Haiti, who was instrumental to an extent in getting
this contract.
Mr. JENNER. I hand you a document which we will mark "De Mohrenschildt
Exhibit No. 1."
(The document referred to was marked "De Mohrenschildt Exhibit No. 1"
for identification.)
Mr. JENNER. It appears to be a piece of promotional literature issued
in connection with the Haiti venture.
Am I correct about that?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Did you send that to Mr. Raigorodsky?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Now, the upper portion is in French. Would you favor me by
reading first that which is on the left, and then that which is on the
right?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is a very long article. A magnificent
success for the Commercial Bank of Haiti. The result of a trip----
Mr. JENNER. That is a headline?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Headline.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Shall I make a short resume of that?
Mr. JENNER. I would prefer--can you translate that literally?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. "The recent trip to the United States of America
by Mr. Clemard Joseph Charles, the active president and manager general
of the bank, Commercial Bank of Haiti, has constituted a magnificent
success for this banking establishment which is prospering right now.
"In reality, during one of the most amicable ceremonies, the assistant
mayor of New York, Mr. James O'Brien, has given to Mr. Clemard Joseph
Charles the keys of the city of New York in the name of Mayor Wagner,
who was at that time in Europe.
"The dinners and lunches have been offered in honor of Mr. Clemard
Charles, namely, by the American Express, Patent Resources, Inc., and
the Hanover Trust Co. A short contact with Mr. Clemard Joseph Charles
has permitted us to obtain certain information for the readers. The
active president and director general of the Commercial Bank of Haiti
has been able to conclude an important contract with one of the largest
financial companies in New York which does business in the millions
of dollars. This enterprise guaranteed by the Import-Export Bank, the
Chase Manhattan Bank, and the Bank of America, will make possible to
the Haitian importers of American merchandise through the Commercial
Bank of Haiti the credits of unlimited amounts for 6 months and longer
periods.
"One other financial society which specialized in the real estate
business which does business for some $150 million per year, will start
through the intermediary of the Commercial Bank of Haiti a program of
construction of houses whereby the credit will be given for 10 years.
"A system of insurance will cover the construction and a house will
be given as a reward for the clients of the enterprise. Our country
will be benefited with important advantages because of the interesting
contracts taken by Mr. Clemard J. Charles in New York. The president
and the director general of the bank will take soon the plane for
Canada and Mexico in order to follow on these important contracts which
will be very favorable to our economy, and will permit the Commercial
Bank of Haiti to be of further advantage to the people of Haiti."
Mr. JENNER. You have read the two columns appearing under that heading
that you described.
Now, would you read the column to the right of those two columns?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. "Mr. C. J. Charles, honorary citizen of the city
of New York. Mr. Clemard Joseph Charles, president and director of
the Bank Commercial of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, has come back yesterday
morning with his charming wife, Sophie, from a trip of 2 weeks in New
York, and was accompanied by Mr. James R. Green, vice president of the
Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co., which is a large bank of Wall Street,
New York.
"Mr. Green spent just a few hours in the capital, just sufficient
time to visit the Commercial Bank with which Hanover Trust Co. wants
to do business. Mr. Charles is very satisfied from the contacts which
he has made during this trip, and satisfied with the promotion of his
commercial bank. The Haitian banker was honored by Mayor Wagner of the
city of New York, and has made his assistant, Mr. O'Brien, give the key
of the city as an honorary citizen, to Mr. Charles."
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Reporter, would you mark that "George S. De
Mohrenschildt Exhibit No. 1"?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. This is by the way the photograph of a paper.
Mr. JENNER. This is a photostat of two news items in the Haitian paper
in Port-au-Prince, together with a telegram.
Now, all those together comprised, did they, some of the promotion
literature with respect to your Haitian venture?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. In what respect? Can you give us the thrust of that?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In the respect that they acquaint the possible
investor with the personalities involved.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Who is the gentleman who sent the telegram?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Mr. Tardieu.
Mr. JENNER. What is his first name?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Mr. B. Juindine Tardieu, who is the agent and
you might say a broker who negotiated the contract with the Haitian
Government.