The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ford, you were given a copy of this statement were
you?
Mr. FORD. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. As to the purpose so you understand what we are doing
here today?
Mr. FORD. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Will you please rise. Do you solemnly swear the testimony
you give before this Commission will be the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. FORD. I do.
The CHAIRMAN. Be seated please and Mr. Liebeler will ask the questions.
Mr. LIEBELER. Will you state your name, sir?
Mr. FORD. Declan P. Ford.
Mr. LIEBELER. Where do you live?
Mr. FORD. Dallas, Tex.
Mr. LIEBELER. What is your employment?
Mr. FORD. I am a consulting geologist.
Mr. LIEBELER. Are you independently employed?
Mr. FORD. Yes; I am self-employed.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you give us a brief statement of your educational
background?
Mr. FORD. I was graduated from the University of California at Los
Angeles in 1948, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology, and was
first employed by Tidewater Associated Oil Co. as a geologist, later
with the Continental Oil Co. as a geologist, and then later with
DeGollyer McNaughton, a consulting firm in Dallas, Tex., until 1962,
October. I went into business for myself as a consulting geologist. All
this time has been in exploration, development of oil and gas fields
both in the United States and foreign countries.
Mr. LIEBELER. Have you been employed in and about the Fort Worth and
Dallas area ever since you graduated from college?
Mr. FORD. No; I have only been in the Dallas area since January 1960.
Mr. LIEBELER. Your wife's name is Katherine Ford?
Mr. FORD. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. When were you married?
Mr. FORD. We were married July 1960. July 2.
Mr. LIEBELER. Were you married at any time prior to that?
Mr. FORD. No; I was not.
The CHAIRMAN. '62, did you say?
Mr. FORD. 1960.
Mr. LIEBELER. Are you acquainted with Jack Ruby?
Mr. FORD. No; I am not.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know of any connection between Lee Oswald and Jack
Ruby?
Mr. FORD. No; I don't.
Mr. LIEBELER. Directly or indirectly?
Mr. FORD. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know Mr. John M. Grizzaffi?
Mr. FORD. Yes; I knew him.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know whether or not he is a friend or associate of
Jack Ruby's?
Mr. FORD. I don't know. I have heard that he knows Jack Ruby, I don't
know how well he knows him.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know whether Mr. Grizzaffi had any contact with
the Oswalds or knew them?
Mr. FORD. None that I knew of.
Mr. LIEBELER. When did you first meet the Oswalds?
Mr. FORD. In 1962, and I think it was in August of 1962, I am not sure
of the exact date.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you tell us the circumstances of the meeting?
Mr. FORD. I was a guest at the house of some friends, the Mellers, and
the Oswalds had been there for lunch, and we came over after lunch to
have cocktails and to meet Lee and Marina Oswald.
Mr. LIEBELER. Who was there at that time?
Mr. FORD. Mr. Meller and his wife, Anna Meller, George Bouhe, my wife
and myself, Marina and Lee Oswald, and I can't remember for sure if
anybody else. It seems to me there was somebody else there but I can't
remember who it was. Someone else may have come in later or something
like that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you mention George Bouhe as being there?
Mr. FORD. Yes; George Bouhe was there.
Mr. LIEBELER. You mentioned him?
Mr. FORD. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Who invited you to that luncheon?
Mr. FORD. Mrs. Meller.
Mr. LIEBELER. Had you heard of the Oswalds prior to that time?
Mr. FORD. Yes; I had.
Mr. LIEBELER. How?
Mr. FORD. I first heard of them, I think, from either George Bouhe or
maybe from Max Clark who lives in Fort Worth but I think it was George
Bouhe. He had mentioned the name of Lee Oswald and briefly described
his history, his story of his going to Russia, attempting to give
up his American citizenship, and later returning from Russia with a
Russian wife and child, and living in Fort Worth, and we were, my wife
is Russian and we were interested in meeting her. George Bouhe, I
think, at the time was attempting to help Lee Oswald find employment.
Mr. LIEBELER. When you say "her" in that sentence you are referring to
Mrs. Marina Oswald?
Mr. FORD. Yes; Marina Oswald.
Mr. LIEBELER. Is that the reason why basically you went to the lunch at
the Mellers to meet Lee and Marina Oswald?
Mr. FORD. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was there any conversation with the Oswalds at that time?
Mr. FORD. There was, most of the conversation was in Russian which
I don't understand. I had very little conversation with Lee himself
because he spoke Russian most of the time that afternoon and Marina
didn't speak any English at all.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any conversations in English with Oswald
about living conditions in Russia, about his expenses in Russia?
Mr. FORD. A little bit. He showed me pictures of people that he had
worked with in Russia. I believe they were on a picnic together, a
group of men, and various other pictures of places he had seen in
Minsk, and he briefly described the living conditions in Russia, I
guess the conditions under which he had lived in Russia, the small room
they had to live in, and he said something about how much money he made
there. I don't remember how much it was though.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he tell you what kind of a job he had?
Mr. FORD. No, he didn't. I think George Bouhe told me he had been a
sheet metal worker or something similar to that.
Mr. LIEBELER. In Minsk?
Mr. FORD. In Minsk, yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Oswald compare to you the amount of money that he was
paid with the amount of money that other workers in the plant were paid?
Mr. FORD. No; he said nothing about it.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he indicate in any way any source of income other
than from his job?
Mr. FORD. None.
Mr. LIEBELER. At any time did he do that?
Mr. FORD. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever learn of anything like that?
Mr. FORD. No; I have heard people speak of it but I have never heard
him or anybody that knew him say he had another source of income.
Mr. LIEBELER. You have heard people speak of it when, since the
assassination?
Mr. FORD. Since the assassination.
Mr. LIEBELER. But you heard nothing of it prior to the assassination?
Mr. FORD. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you get any impressions of Oswald at this first
meeting?
Mr. FORD. I had an impression that he was not the type of person I
could make friends with very easily. He didn't impress me as being
friendly to me as a person. He was kind of closed up within himself.
And it seemed to me he preferred to speak in Russian rather than in
English. He wanted to practice speaking Russian with the Russian
speaking people rather than talking to me.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Mrs. Oswald have any bruises on her at that time?
Mr. FORD. Yes, she did. On her face.
Mr. LIEBELER. On her face. Was there any conversation about that?
Mr. FORD. Not directly with me. My wife told me that Mrs. Oswald told
her it was due to some accident of running into a door at nighttime
while she was getting up to see what--the baby crying, something like
that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you accept that explanation?
Mr. FORD. I didn't--well, really, I didn't accept it. It just didn't
make much sense but it didn't make an impression one way or the other
to me. I frankly at the time thought of a standard cartoon joke of
a kid explaining his black eye, by a kid explaining he ran into a
doorknob.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was there anything that happened at this first luncheon
that impressed you about Oswald or his attitude, in any way that you
think the Commission should know about?
Mr. FORD. Very little. Except he seemed reserved, and I would call
excessively polite, and the fact I don't think he made any effort to
make friends with the other people.
Mr. LIEBELER. When was the next time that you had any contact with
Oswald?
Mr. FORD. The next time I saw him was the night I drove Marina from our
house to another friend's house, Mr. Frank Ray's house. She had been
staying at our house for about a week and she had been separated from
him.
I had been out of town and when I came home she was invited to stay
over at Mr. Ray's house and I took her over there, I think it was on a
Friday evening.
Lee Oswald called and wanted to talk to Marina and wanted then to come
out and see her. Mr. Ray told him if he would get on the bus and come
to the bus stop nearest their home that he would pick him up, and I
went with Mr. Ray to pick up Lee Oswald at the bus stop.
We went back to Mr. Ray's home, and had a short conversation with Lee
Oswald but he said he wanted to talk to Marina, and he and Marina went
into another room. I don't know exactly how long it was but we sat
down and had one or two drinks, and then Lee came back in and said he
and his wife were going to have a reconciliation and she wanted to go
home with him that evening. Mr. Ray offered to drive them back to their
place in Oak Cliff, and then I went home.
Mr. LIEBELER. You were out of town throughout the entire time that
Marina stayed with your wife?
Mr. FORD. Except for the last night. She stayed there one more night
after I came home.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you form any impression on Oswald that evening
different from the one that you originally had of him?
Mr. FORD. Only it confirmed my original thought. I remember one
instance. Frank asked him where he was working and he would never
identify the place he was working. He would hedge, I forget his exact
words, but he mentioned that he was working, I think in a printing
shop, either printing or photographic developing shop, and Mr. Ray
asked him the name of the place, I think, twice, and he avoided
answering. He would just start talking about something completely
different.
In other words, when he didn't want to answer a question he would
either change the subject or just start talking to somebody else.
Mr. LIEBELER. You had no independent knowledge of where he was working
at that time?
Mr. FORD. I didn't know the name. I had heard he was employed in this
shop that I think was a printing and photographic developing shop.
Mr. LIEBELER. You didn't have anything to do with his getting that job?
Mr. FORD. No, I didn't.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know whether your friend did?
Mr. FORD. I am not sure. I think either George Bouhe or maybe Theo
Meller may have introduced him to the owner of the shop but I am not
sure about it.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any conversations with either Mr. Meller or
Mr. Bouhe about this?
Mr. FORD. I have had conversations with them, but it was prior to this
night when Lee came to make a reconciliation with his wife.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did they tell you that they had anything to do with his
getting this job?
Mr. FORD. I don't specifically remember that they said so. I either
assumed this or something they said led me to believe it.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any conversations with the Rays that evening
while you were taking Marina over there about the difficulties that the
Oswalds had in their marriage?
Let's expand the question. Think about that, and also think about any
conversations that you may have had with your wife about that after
you went back, and tell us the conversations that you had with anybody
at that time about the incidents of the separation, what caused it and
what was the trouble between the Oswalds?
Mr. FORD. I don't believe I had any discussion with either Mr. or Mrs.
Ray about specifically the difficulties in their marriage between
Marina and Lee Oswald.
The only thing I remember is frankly saying something to the effect,
well, he is really a screwy nut, or something, he can't find ways to
work, something to that effect.
I have not discussed their personal problems. But I have discussed it
with my wife about it prior to that and after that and also after the
assassination and it was my understanding when she left her husband it
was because he had beat her up.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did anybody tell you any of the details about why he had
done that or what the cause of the trouble was?
Mr. FORD. Not at the time. My wife didn't tell me anything about that.
Again, after the assassination, she told me more about it, but I don't
know if Marina had mentioned this prior to the assassination, the year
before that when she stayed at our house, or whether she mentioned it
after the assassination, I don't know the exact time that these details
were brought out.
My wife did mention that perhaps Marina antagonized him by arguing with
him, talking back to him, or something like that whereas if she just
learned to be quiet when he said something he might not have hit her.
Mr. LIEBELER. But you don't recall whether that was developed during or
at the time or later on?
Mr. FORD. I don't remember whether she told me that before the
assassination or not. I know we have talked about it since the
assassination.
Mr. LIEBELER. When was the next contact that you had with the Oswalds?
Mr. FORD. The next contact was after Christmas 1962. Between Christmas
and New Year's we gave a cocktail party and some friends of ours,
George De Mohrenschildt and his wife were invited and later called my
wife and asked her if it would be all right to bring Lee and Marina to
the party and my wife said sure, bring them along or might have asked
me if it was all right to bring them along and I said sure. It was
prior to December 28.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Oswald come with De Mohrenschildt?
Mr. FORD. Yes, he came with De Mohrenschildt.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you know anything about the relations between Oswald
and the De Mohrenschildts?
Mr. FORD. I knew they were friends, no more than that. How often they
saw each other or what they talked about or anything they talked about
I don't know.
Mr. LIEBELER. How old are the De Mohrenschildts?
Mr. FORD. I guess George De Mohrenschildt is between 50 and 55 years
old.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did it seem curious to you that a man that age would be
close to Lee Oswald who was around 21 or 22 at that particular time?
Mr. FORD. Not in the particular case.
Mr. LIEBELER. Why do you say that?
Mr. FORD. Well, George De Mohrenschildt has a reputation for being
a left-wing enthusiast or something, I don't mean a member of the
Communist Party, but he is, I have heard other people say he has
expounded the ideals of Marxism and since Lee Oswald was supposedly a
Marxist or a Communist they would agree on their political views.
Again, I have never heard George De Mohrenschildt expound on any of
these ideas. I have met him socially several times and he is very
pleasant, a big, good looking man, but other than their agreement on
what is the ideal political system, I can't think of anything else they
would have in common.
Mr. LIEBELER. Your knowledge of De Mohrenschildt's political views are
hearsay?
Mr. FORD. All of it is hearsay.
Mr. LIEBELER. How did you learn about Oswald's political views?
Mr. FORD. Also hearsay, from other people.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you tell us who told you about it?
Mr. FORD. I can't remember anybody, any specific statement from
anybody, but I have discussed it with people like both my wife and
George Bouhe and I don't remember if I discussed it with the Mellers
or not but it seems I have heard this from several different people
about just about everybody who knew them, the Oswalds, this was one of
the things that people were leary about in dealing with him was his
reputation for being a Communist.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he have that reputation in the community?
Mr. FORD. Yes, I think he had that reputation of either--not being
a member, say, of the Communist Party, but his political ideas were
either Marxist or Communist or something he had derived from reading
Karl Marx, I suppose.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know whether he expressed any extreme antagonism
or antagonism of any sort toward the Government of the United States?
Mr. FORD. The only occasion I know of was the first time I met him, he
did blame the U.S. Embassy for delaying his exit, the exit of he and
his wife from Russia.
He did state if it had not been for their delaying the exit visa that
his daughter would have been born in the United States rather than
Russia.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he say anything more about that, do you remember any
more in detail?
Mr. FORD. Not that I heard of or can remember.
Representative FORD. Did he think the birth of his daughter in Russia
rather than in the United States was something important, did it appear
that way?
Mr. FORD. I don't know how important he thought it was. It actually
started as a joke. We also had a baby born shortly before that and I
said, "Pretty little Russian girl" or something like that, and he made
a statement, "She is just as much a Texan as your son," and then went
on to explain that if the U.S. Embassy had acted more quickly that he
and Marina could have left Russia and that June, the daughter, would
have been born in the United States.