Mrs. RICH. I smelled an element that I did not want to have any part of.
Mr. HUBERT. And that element was what?
Mrs. RICH. Police characters, let’s say.
Mr. HUBERT. Well, specifically it was, as I understood your testimony,
that you suddenly identified the man who was at the third meeting, but
not at any other, as possibly being the son of Vito Genovese.
Mrs. RICH. Possibly.
Mr. HUBERT. And that you made that recognition, or you associated that
man whom you saw with Vito Genovese, solely because you had seen a
picture of Vito Genovese.
Mrs. RICH. That’s correct.
Mr. HUBERT. And you came to the conclusion, then, that Vito Genovese
and that group of people were involved in this matter.
Mrs. RICH. Within my own mind; yes. I thought—then I got thinking
perhaps the higher-up that the colonel spoke of was perhaps the element
I did not want to deal with that was running the guns in, and God knows
what else.
Mr. HUBERT. Why didn’t you report it to the authorities in the interval
between the third meeting and the time you left Dallas?
Mrs. RICH. For the simple reason that I was hesitant about mentioning
anything about my husband’s past. I did not know how much of what my
husband had told me was true. I did not know how much of that he knew
before I knew it, or how deeply he was involved in anything. And quite
frankly if my husband was still alive, I would never have gone to the
FBI.
Mr. HUBERT. But you already told us at the end of the second meeting
you had decided to tell the authorities.
Mrs. RICH. Not when I see that element there.