Mr. DULLES. Did he drive himself?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, this is a report from the rifle range owner who said
he had seen Lee Harvey Oswald there on numerous occasions practicing,
and that he drove up in a car by himself. He always came by himself,
and I did ask her if he could drive and she said no, definitely.
Mr. REDLICH. Where did you read this report or where did you hear about
it?
Mr. MARTIN. It was right after the start there, in the Dallas papers.
Mr. REDLICH. This was something you read. This was not a personal
conversation you had with the owner of the rifle range?
Mr. MARTIN. No, it was a newspaper account.
Mr. REDLICH. Were there any other conversations you had with Mrs.
Oswald concerning rifle practice?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. REDLICH. Did you have any conversations with her concerning Lee
Oswald's ability as a rifleman?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. REDLICH. Did Mrs. Oswald ever discuss with you the fears that she
claims to have had that Lee Oswald would attempt to kill a public
figure as a result specifically of the Walker incident?
Mr. MARTIN. No, other than when she told me that she told him that
if he tried anything similar to the Walker incident she would have
him arrested. And she never mentioned to me a particular figure that
he would do anything like that. She evidently had it though or she
wouldn't have made the threat to him.
Mr. REDLICH. Other than the Nixon incident, and the Walker incident,
Mrs. Oswald never related to you any other specific incident with
regard to the attempt to take the life of anyone?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Representative FORD. Did Mrs. Oswald, Marina, ever indicate to you
her feeling toward guns; did she ever indicate any apprehension about
having one in the house?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Representative FORD. Related to rifles, pistols?
Mr. MARTIN. I have a 22 rifle in the house, for instance. Of course,
she may never have seen it. But I don't believe the question ever came
up at all.
Representative FORD. She never indicated to you that she had told Lee
Harvey Oswald that she was apprehensive about his use of a gun or his
having a gun in the household?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. REDLICH. Mr. Martin, I would like to ask you whether Mrs. Oswald
ever discussed with you any aspects of the life of Marina Oswald and
Lee Harvey Oswald while they were in Russia.
Mr. MARTIN. Let's see now--she mentioned one time to both my wife and
I that Lee had gone to Moscow, I believe, and an old boy friend called
her up and she went out with him while Lee was gone.
Mr. REDLICH. Did she indicate to you at that time the purpose of Lee's
trip to Moscow?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. REDLICH. Did she indicate to you whether she had told Lee about her
going out with this old boy friend?
Mr. MARTIN. She said she did tell him.
Mr. REDLICH. By the way, would you recall when Lee made this trip to
Moscow?
Mr. MARTIN. No, I don't think she mentioned the date at all. She may
have but I don't recall.
Mr. REDLICH. Did she indicate in connection with this trip of Lee
Oswald to Moscow that she herself subsequently went to Moscow while he
was there?
Mr. MARTIN. No. I think she said he was gone one day or one night and
came back the next day.
Mr. REDLICH. So that on the basis of your recollection, if there was a
trip in which Lee Oswald went to Moscow and she joined him there this
was a different trip from the one you are talking about?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. REDLICH. Is that right?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. REDLICH. Just to make sure of this you say to the best of your
recollection she said he went there for one day and returned?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. REDLICH. Can you think of any other aspects of their life in the
Soviet Union that Marina discussed with you.
Mr. MARTIN. He used to like her aunt. Now, which aunt I don't know.
Yes, I do. It is the aunt that is working as a secretary and her
husband is on a pension. She has an aunt and an uncle by blood.
Now, the aunt's husband is on a pension, and the uncle's--The uncle is
a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Army.
Mr. REDLICH. Now, the aunt and uncle that you say she liked very much,
is this the aunt and uncle with whom she was living at the time she met
Lee Oswald or is this a different aunt and uncle?
Mr. MARTIN. That was all very--always confusing to me because she
wouldn't call the spouse of the aunt, for instance, her uncle, and I
couldn't tell all the time which party she was talking about.
Mr. DULLES. These were both relatives to Marina, therefore, they were
not married.
Mr. MARTIN. Well, no; they were not married to each other.
Mr. DULLES. That is what I mean, yes.
Mr. MARTIN. There were two couples, and the aunt in one couple and the
uncle in the other couple. But she didn't refer to the opposite spouse
as an aunt and uncle.
Mr. REDLICH. Does the name Berlov refresh your recollection any?
Mr. MARTIN. Berlov?
Representative FORD. Did Marina ever indicate to you anything about her
education, what school she attended?
Mr. MARTIN. No, just the school of pharmacy, and she compared her grade
school or our grade school, which is, I guess similar to our grade
school in high school or junior high, anyway.
Representative FORD. She only referred to the pharmacy training?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Representative FORD. As any special training she received?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Representative FORD. But she did discuss that with you?
Mr. MARTIN. Not at length. Just stated the fact that she had finished
pharmacy school.
Representative FORD. But she didn't discuss any other training or
schooling of a special nature.
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Representative FORD. Did she ever discuss any special training that Lee
might have had while he was in Russia?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Representative FORD. Did she ever discuss Lee's employment while he was
in Russia?
Mr. MARTIN. Only that he was unhappy where he was working.
Representative FORD. Did she tell you where he worked, the kind of work
he was doing?
Mr. MARTIN. I don't know, I have an idea it was in a factory of some
kind, whether she told me that or whether it was an assumption, I don't
know.
Mr. REDLICH. Did she ever discuss their apartment, their living
quarters in Minsk?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes, she said she had a one-room apartment, and had a
balcony on it, and that as soon as the baby was born they were going to
move to a larger one. I questioned her about that because I understand
it is quite difficult to get more than a one-room apartment in Russia
and she said, well, Lee was an American and he could get things the
Russians couldn't get.
Mr. REDLICH. Did Mrs. Oswald give you the impression that in general
she and Lee Oswald had better treatment than other Russians?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes, and actually her past life even before she met Lee
seemed a little bit strange to me, going to the opera, taking vacations
and holidays as she says. I understand it is quite expensive to go to
the opera, and she was making, what did she say, 45 rubles a month, and
she would take a girl friend with her when she went to the opera.
Now, how much that cost, I don't know.
Mr. REDLICH. Did you ever question her about her financial situation in
Russia?
Mr. MARTIN. I asked her how she could afford it and she said she got
by. She was living at home or with her aunt and uncle. So I imagine
their expenses there weren't high.
Mr. REDLICH. Did she mention any extra income which Lee Harvey Oswald
may have had apart from his job?
Mr. MARTIN. No; I asked her about that specifically because I had heard
an account that he was supposed to be getting Western Union money
orders, and asked her about that. She didn't know what a Western Union
money order was, for one thing, so I reworded the question and asked if
he was getting money from anyone else other than where he was working,
and she said no.
Mr. REDLICH. This was true of this life in the Soviet Union?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes, apparently.
Mr. REDLICH. Did Marina ever discuss with you the uncle with whom she
lived who was apparently a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet army?
Mr. MARTIN. No; except she didn't like him.
Mr. REDLICH. Did she say why?
Mr. MARTIN. No. She preferred her aunt, who has the husband on the
pension.
Mr. REDLICH. Can you search your memory at this point and tell this
Commission anything that you have not yet told us about Marina's
conversations with you concerning her life in the Soviet Union?
Mr. MARTIN. Her aunt used to bring food and liquor home after parties
had at the government building where she was working. Other than
talking about--she pulled one tooth out before she came to the United
States. A tooth was either crooked or broken and she pulled the tooth
out. That caused the other one to twist. I don't know what that was.
Representative FORD. Did Marina ever indicate to you while she was in
the Soviet Union that she drank beer, wine, liquor?
Mr. MARTIN. Vodka.
Representative FORD. When she came to the United States, you could
observe it, did she drink beer, wine, liquor of any kind?
Mr. MARTIN. She drank, I guess she drank a bottle of beer every day,
and occasionally she would drink some vodka.
Representative FORD. But not a heavy drinker?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. REDLICH. Mr. Martin, have you ever been curious about how Mrs.
Oswald was ever able to leave the Soviet Union?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, I wasn't, until Don Levine brought up the subject. Of
course, I have no idea what it entails to get into Russia or out of it
as far as that is concerned.
But according to Mr. Levine, it is extremely difficult for people to
get out of Russia, especially when they have had the training that
Marina has had.
Mr. REDLICH. By training you mean what?
Mr. MARTIN. Pharmacy. He said they spent quite a bit of money on her
training, and he doesn't understand how she got out of Russia on such
short notice.
Mr. REDLICH. Did you ever ask this question of Marina Oswald?
Mr. MARTIN. She said that Lee arranged it, and that is all she would
say.
Mr. REDLICH. She never discussed any other aspect of her departure from
the Soviet Union?
Mr. MARTIN. No. Let's see, they were in Moscow, she waited a couple
of days while he was, how did she put it, collecting money or getting
money together to come over to the States. I have forgotten the name
of the hotel they stayed in. She even remarked they had pancakes every
morning and she didn't like pancakes.
Mr. REDLICH. In terms of her official negotiations to leave the Soviet
Union, you asked her nothing other than the question that I have
already discussed with you?
Mr. MARTIN. No, she said that Lee arranged everything.
Mr. REDLICH. I would like to ask you a few questions now about some of
the individuals that Marina and Lee Harvey Oswald knew in Fort Worth
and Dallas, and ask you in each case whether Marina Oswald discussed
any of these individuals with you.
The first is George Bouhe.
Mr. MARTIN. I know the name but I don't think Marina has ever mentioned
him; Katya Ford has though.
Mr. REDLICH. Are you personally acquainted with George Bouhe?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. REDLICH. Could you tell us what Katya Ford has told you about Mr.
Bouhe?
Mr. MARTIN. It was relating to Marina--I think Katya Ford and Bouhe are
friends, and they had been discussing Marina all the time she was in
seclusion, and wondering what had happened to her, where she was. Now
this was after the news was out where she was.