Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Oh, yes.
Mr. JENNER. You are?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Did your husband show you that letter?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Before he sent it?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He usually shows me most of the letters. I show
to him whenever I write to some friends. But if I want to add anything
or if he wants to add anything to mine.
Mr. JENNER. I show you De Mohrenschildt Exhibits Nos. 14 and 15, No. 14
being the original of your husband's letter of December 12, 1963, to
Mrs. Auchincloss, and No. 15 being the envelope in which that letter
was mailed.
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't think I really should read it.
Do you want me to read it again?
Mr. JENNER. You have read that exhibit?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I am just finishing; yes. Do you want me to read
this, too?
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. JENNER. Back on the record.
The second paragraph reads: "Since we lived in Dallas permanently
last year and before, we had the misfortune to have met Oswald and
especially his wife Marina some time last fall." Now, what did you mean
by "We had the misfortune to have met Oswald"?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, I am sure he meant, and I agree with him
because it is not pleasant to know if he really did it, to know the
killer of our President, I would rather not know them. I would rather
not have anything to do and be as far away as possible, unless that we
help, you know. That is what he meant, I am sure, and I am joining him
in the same feeling.
Mr. JENNER. The next sentence: "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."
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Correct.
Mr. JENNER. Now, all that is true; isn't it?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Absolutely true. She was just skin and bones.
The baby was not thin, but the baby had improper diet. She didn't know
how to feed that baby.
Mr. JENNER. She did not?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. She had no idea how to feed that baby. The baby
was raised on sugar, water and sugar, no food. It is just terrible,
like prehistoric times she was raising that baby. That is why I
insisted immediately she register the baby in the clinic. The baby was
9 months old, didn't have diptheria, whooping cough, polio injection,
didn't have anything.
I don't think the baby was ever at the doctor. The way she was feeding
him every time the baby cried she gave him sugar water, put sugar in
the milk, everywhere, you know. Children have to have a proper diet, a
balanced diet.
I told her, "You are living in a civilized country now. You have to
raise a baby correctly."
She constantly put the pacifier in the mouth, dropping it on the floor,
putting it in her mouth, infected teeth and putting it in the baby's
mouth. It is fantastic the baby wasn't sick all the time. Seeing all
that, I couldn't stand it. I insisted on her taking the baby to the
clinic, helping her, extract all those teeth.
Mr. JENNER. Marina's teeth?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; Marina's teeth that were infected because
they weren't doing her any good, anyway. It was too dangerous for the
baby to be close to the mother, with all this infection. In fact, I was
trying to make arrangements to make some bridges for her later on that
could be paid gradually, you know, and that is what I was trying to do
for her. This was logical and natural. Anybody would do the same thing.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; of course.
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. She just didn't know any better, you know.
That was shocking to me because I had the impression, in fact Marina
doesn't fit at all my ideal, not ideal but how to say it, my feeling
about Soviet youth. I pictured them entirely different. I pictured them
all sportsmen, very tough, you know, just thinking of their work,
sportsmen or something, you know. Some field that they are interested
in and that is it. She seems to be exactly opposite to everything. She
wasn't a sports girl at all. She didn't have any particular desire for
anything, you know. She didn't have determination and goal or anything
like that in her life. She was just loving, you know, absolutely
opposite, and when she told us how they behave in Russia, that was
absolutely too--I never thought that. I thought they were very, very
proper and very----
Mr. JENNER. What did she say about how they behaved?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, these sort of orgies, you know, wild
parties, and things like that that I would never think that youth
would be busy with that because we saw some youngsters in Yugoslavian
companies in the camps, maybe we saw the healthier ones and the bad
ones stayed in the city probably, but they were all just like Scouts,
you know, just like we were brought up, all interested in sports or
in collections or something, you know. They had wonderful healthy
interests.
And Marina was exactly opposite all of these things. In fact, in spite
of that, she was a pharmacologist, that means she has a good head. But
somehow she was not at all what I would picture as a Soviet girl. It
was entirely opposite, and maybe she is an exception, or maybe they all
are, I don't know.
Mr. JENNER. And she related to you these wild parties and orgies in
Minsk? Was that in the presence of Lee?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; I don't think so. Lee was there very, very
little, because he was always working or something. One evening I
talked with her very long when she came over to go to the dentist, and
the baby was asleep and George was asleep, and she wanted to talk, and
we sat down and had some wine and she could smoke all she wanted and
she had wine that she wanted. So she told me quite a lot of things. I
was really sorry for her.
I gave her a nylon nightgown and a little nylon coat that went on and
she was sitting and touching it. "Can you imagine me wearing that," you
know. It was to her something out of this world, to have such things on
her. That was sort of touching, you know. She really is pleasant. You
cannot be very angry with her.
Mr. JENNER. You have testified for quite awhile. Now, tell me what
kind of a person she was? What is your definite impression now? You
have told me she told you about these wild orgies. When you use that
expression I assume they were parties of----
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Sexual orgies. I mean the things that would never
occur to us.
Mr. JENNER. In this country?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In this country. I would say China, too. I was
brought up in China and never heard of such things, you know. Youth
never acted like that at all.
So it definitely looks like a degeneration, you know, definitely
degeneration.