Mr. LIEBELER. Pardon me.
Mr. FORD. I think during the period of 1962 that George Bouhe, for
example, thought it would be helpful for Marina to learn English and he
tried to encourage her to learn English and I had heard later that Lee
Oswald resented this, he didn't want her to learn English.
Mr. LIEBELER. When did you hear that?
Mr. FORD. That was back in 1962. I can't remember the specific time,
but----
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Harris at
the party at your place on the 28th of December?
Mr. FORD. Oh, yes; I had conversations with them.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you hear of an incident where Mrs. Harris was trying
to teach English to Marina at the party and certain American customs
and Oswald objected to it?
Mr. FORD. I didn't observe it. She may have tried to teach her some
American customs. I don't remember hearing Oswald say anything about
it, Lee Oswald say anything about it.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Mrs. Harris say anything about it to you?
Mr. FORD. Not that I can remember.
Mr. LIEBELER. So you have no knowledge of that incident if it occurred
at all?
Mr. FORD. No. It seems to me I have heard somebody else mention this
but I did not see it or hear anything myself.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now, after the party on the 28th of December that was
held at your house, when was the next contact that you had with either
one of the Oswalds?
Mr. FORD. Well, I heard a few times or my wife had heard something
about Marina living in Irving, but never actually saw either one of
them until after the assassination. Then the first contact we had with
Marina was, I believe, my wife tried to get in touch with her, either
invite her to come to my house or to tell her that once things had been
cleared up, the investigation had been cleared up, to feel free to come
by, and let her know she still had friends.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did anybody suggest to you shortly after the
assassination that Marina should come and live with you?
Mr. FORD. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever express any hesitancy to anyone in
connection with any suggestion that Marina should come and live with
you?
Mr. FORD. I don't remember ever expressing it. If somebody had
mentioned it the afternoon or next day after the assassination I
probably would have been a little bit hesitant about it. But I don't
remember saying anything to anybody.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did there come a time when Marina moved into your home
after the assassination?
Mr. FORD. Yes; but this was in February of this year.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you express any hesitancy at that time?
Mr. FORD. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you don't recall expressing any immediately after the
assassination or before?
Mr. FORD. No. I don't remember talking to anybody at all about it. I
mean the first few days immediately after the assassination, I don't
recall saying anything to anybody about it, where she was going to live
at my house or anybody else's.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever have any conversations with Mr. Jim Martin
on that subject?
Mr. FORD. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now prior to the time that Marina came to live in your
home, your wife has testified she talked to Marina on the telephone
several times and that Marina came to visit on two or three occasions,
two occasions, I believe, at your home.
Mr. FORD. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you talk to your wife about what Marina had said
during your wife's visits with Marina?
Mr. FORD. When she came to visit us in our home?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. FORD. I talked to her about what she had talked to Marina, and I
couldn't carry on much of a conversation with Marina myself because she
didn't speak much English but I would ask my wife, and my wife would
tell me what she had said.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember whether there was any discussion about
Marina's testimony before this Commission, either before she went to
Washington or after she came back?
Mr. FORD. No; not--my wife never told me before she came to Washington
to testify before the Commission. After she came back, I did overhear
some conversation between Marina, my wife, and Mr. William M. McKenzie
regarding the testimony given to the Commission.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you tell us what that was to the best of your
recollection?
Let me ask you this: Where did this occur?
Mr. FORD. I think it was in Mr. McKenzie's office, it may have been
either in his office or my home but I think it was in his office, and I
believe the FBI had been questioning her this afternoon, I am not sure
of the date, and I came back later to pick up my wife and Marina and in
my presence Mr. McKenzie asked my wife to ask Marina in Russian if she
had told the Commission this Nixon story. I don't know the details of
the story, but something regarding the threat to Mr. Nixon.
And I think Marina, again through my wife, told Mr. McKenzie that she
had not mentioned this to the Commission. But that she had mentioned it
to the FBI, and she had mentioned it, I believe to the FBI prior to the
Commission hearing.
Mr. LIEBELER. Who told you that?
Mr. FORD. Well, I was standing there while Mr. McKenzie was talking to
Marina using my wife as a translator.
Representative FORD. Was this in your home, did you say?
Mr. FORD. I think it was in Mr. McKenzie's office; it might have been
in my home. Several times I have overheard conversation either in Mr.
McKenzie's office or at my home.
Representative FORD. It could have been in either?
Mr. FORD. It could have been either, but it seems to me it was at
his office. I think as Marina said, she had not said anything to the
Commission about this, and then I think Mr. McKenzie asked her why
not, and she said well she hadn't thought of it or nobody asked her;
something to that effect.
I think he was trying to establish whether or not she had purposely
withheld information from the Commission and she said no.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever hear Marina Oswald make any remark to the
effect when she was before the Commission she just answered questions
and did not volunteer anything?
Mr. FORD. I never heard her say that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did anybody ever translate that, a remark like that, so
that you heard it when it was translated?
Mr. FORD. No; I never heard anybody translate for Marina and say that;
no.
In my presence, I never heard her say that and have it translated by
anybody.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever hear from anybody else that she had said
that?
Mr. FORD. Not until yesterday when I was talking about it with you,
that I can remember anything.
Mr. LIEBELER. And yesterday when we talked about it, I asked you the
question, had anybody said that, isn't that right?
Mr. FORD. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you obtain any information concerning the Nixon,
any detailed information concerning the Nixon affair as a result of
detailed conversations with your wife after she had had conversations
with Marina? I am assuming Marina would speak in Russian to your wife.
Did your wife ever tell you what Marina had ever said to her about the
Nixon affair?
Mr. FORD. A little bit, not all the details. But something to the
effect that Lee Oswald was threatening, I don't know whether to shoot
Nixon, and in some way she had locked him in a bathroom and kept him
there, I think all day. He had calmed down or cooled off and wasn't
going to do anything. Just how she managed to do this, I don't know.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you discuss the question with your wife as to how?
Mr. FORD. No; not--again, I never discussed it until yesterday, last
night. I was talking to her and wondered how the devil she managed to
lock him in the bathroom.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you discussed that with your wife last night as a
result of a similar question that I asked you yesterday afternoon when
we were reviewing the testimony?
Mr. FORD. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you learn anything relating to the Walker affair as a
result of conversations with your wife?
Mr. FORD. Well, I had read about it in the newspapers; I had read
stories that Lee Oswald had told Marina that he had taken a shot at
General Walker and my wife did tell me later on she asked Marina if
this were true and I think Marina said this was true, that Lee Oswald
had told Marina he was the one who had taken a shot at General Walker.
Mr. LIEBELER. Is that the extent of your conversations about the Walker
incident?
Mr. FORD. No; she mentioned something else that my wife told me about.
That after Lee had taken a shot at General Walker, he had hidden
the gun somewhere and went back the next day or a few days later
and recovered the gun. And that Lee was reading the reports in the
newspaper and made some statement, "Well, how stupid can the police
be," something to this effect. In other words, expressing the idea
that the police were unable to find out what happened in the Walker
incident. And then also Marina had said at one time, I believe the day
after the shooting of Walker or attempted shooting of Walker, George De
Mohrenschildt had come into the house and made some statement to them
regarding it. I can't remember the exact words but it was referring to
it, Walker, somebody shooting at General Walker, and asking Lee how he
could miss and she was surprised that De Mohrenschildt knew about it
and Marina thought Lee had told George De Mohrenschildt about it.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever learn how George De Mohrenschildt had
learned about it?
Mr. FORD. No; I imagine he was surprised that Lee had done the shooting
and to him it would have been a good joke.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember anything else about the Walker incident
that you and your wife may have talked about?
Mr. FORD. Yes; we have discussed it some after, I believe, Marina came
to stay with us, and I expressed the doubt that Lee Oswald was the one
who took a shot at Walker.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any basis for expressing that doubt?
Mr. FORD. The only basis for it was that there was a story in one of
the newspapers that they could not identify the bullet taken out of the
wood in Walker's home as having come from a gun that Lee Oswald owned,
it was too badly destroyed and they couldn't be sure it was the gun,
the same gun, that shot the bullets at President Kennedy and Governor
Connally.
Mr. LIEBELER. So on the basis of that newspaper story you expressed
doubts as to whether Oswald was actually involved in the Walker
incident?
Mr. FORD. Well, I expressed the doubt. It was possible that he really
wasn't the one who took a shot at General Walker but just claimed he
did and this to me would not be surprising.
Mr. LIEBELER. Why do you say that?
Mr. FORD. Well, I think, my opinion of Lee Oswald is that he would do
anything to gain attention for himself, draw attention to himself, make
not necessarily a hero out of himself but just a well-known person. He
wanted attention. He wanted to be a big shot.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you think in an attempt to do that he might claim he
had been the one who shot at Walker where, in fact, he was not the one
at all?
Mr. FORD. It is possible, I think it is possible.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any conversations with your wife in which
your wife told you anything that Marina said about the details of the
assassination, about Lee's coming home to Irving and his leaving for
Dallas the next morning?
Mr. FORD. Well, we talked about it; I don't recall all the details of
what my wife told me, whether they were my wife's opinions or things
she had heard directly from Marina.
Apparently Marina was surprised that he would come home in the
middle of the week rather than on weekends or come to visit her,
and I gathered that Marina had thought of these things after the
assassination, as she tried to figure things out. Well this increased
her belief that Lee Oswald was the man who assassinated the President,
because he did so many strange things that week, I mean that day
before, not the week, the day before the assassination.
Mr. LIEBELER. To your knowledge, has Marina expressed any feeling about
Oswald's guilt while she lived with you or while you were acquainted
with her after the assassination, other than the fact he was guilty?
Mr. FORD. No; so far as I know she just accepts the fact he was guilty.
He was the man who shot the President. And she believes this is true.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever discuss this question with Robert Oswald?
Mr. FORD. No, not specifically, I didn't. I never asked Robert Oswald
if he believed that his brother shot the President.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Oswald ever indicate to you that he did not believe
that?
Mr. FORD. Not directly. The only thing that might have indicated it
was when Life published a picture of Lee Oswald on the front cover and
I read a newspaper article which stated that Mrs. Marguerite Oswald
was intending to sue Life Magazine and I wondered why, was the picture
faked, and Robert Oswald said no it was a true picture of Lee Oswald
but the title of the picture, that is what he was upset about, and I
think the title was Lee Oswald holding the gun he either used to shoot
or used to kill the President, and I didn't pursue the subject further
with him.
I don't know specifically what he was upset about, if he thought his
brother did shoot the President. There was nothing wrong with the
statement except he may not have liked it in print.
Mr. LIEBELER. That was the only statement Robert Oswald made to you
about the subject.
Mr. FORD. But he never said he didn't believe his brother did it.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any other reasons for thinking that Oswald is
the kind of person who would claim to do something that he hadn't done
just to get attention drawn to him?
Mr. FORD. Well, yes; I think he was erratic enough in his behavior
throughout his whole life to indicate that. Of course, I have read a
lot about his life since the assassination, so it is not all opinion I
formed prior to the assassination.
It is hard for me to distinguish which things I thought before the
assassination from those I have thought about since the assassination.
Mr. LIEBELER. In that respect let me ask you this question: Were
you surprised when you heard that Oswald had been charged with the
assassination?
Mr. FORD. Yes, I was.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you think on the basis of your knowledge of him
before the assassination that he would have been capable of such a
thing?
Mr. FORD. No; I wouldn't have thought so prior to the assassination and
when I first heard he was picked up, I first thought, well, as I said
to my wife, "This nut has gone down and got himself mixed up just to
get some publicity."
Representative FORD. You said that to your wife?
Mr. FORD. Yes; that was my first opinion. When I heard that Lee Oswald
was the man arrested, and I said I think I said, "This idiot has got
himself arrested and got himself mixed up to get some publicity".
Mr. LIEBELER. What made you say that?
Mr. FORD. Again, I considered him to be erratic and unpredictable, I
don't know how to explain the things that he would do.
For example, he had gone to Russia and he didn't like it there, he had
gone back to Fort Worth and he didn't like it there. He didn't seem to
like any place that he was, he didn't seem to make lasting friendships
with anybody. And he would hop from one job to another, and move from
one town to another. He never seemed to be satisfied and I considered
his whole behavior rather erratic, and I suppose the main reason was,
I felt that he had no desire to support, and I felt this prior to the
assassination, he had no desire to support his wife and child, and he
wanted and would be quite willing to sponge off anybody to get their
support, and this was my primary reason for not wanting to associate
with him rather than any political feelings he had.
Mr. LIEBELER. How did these things lead you to think that he was not
capable of doing the assassination or that he just went there to get
involved?
Mr. FORD. Prior to the assassination I never even considered the
possibility of his killing a man but if somebody had asked me prior to
the assassination, I would have answered no, I don't think he would
kill anybody. But I don't think I really even considered it.