Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. We read a statement to the witness.
The purpose of this hearing is to take the testimony of Mr. and Mrs.
Declan P. Ford, and Mr. Peter Paul Gregory. The Commission has been
advised that Mr. and Mrs. Ford made the acquaintance of the Oswalds
shortly after their arrival in the United States in June of 1962,
and that Mrs. Marina Oswald lived in the Ford home on two different
occasions, in November 1962, and for a period following February 12,
1964.
The Commission has also been advised that Mr. Gregory was contacted by
Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald shortly after Mr. Oswald's return from Russia
as a result of which Mr. and Mrs. Oswald made the acquaintances of a
large number of Russian speaking people in the Dallas and Fort Worth
area. Since the Commission is inquiring fully into the background
and possible motive of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, it
intends to ask the above witnesses questions concerning Mr. Oswald,
his associations and relations with others, and any and all matters
relating to the assassination.
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Will you raise your right hand and be sworn, please, Mr.
Gregory.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you give before this
Commission will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you God?
Mr. GREGORY. I do.
The CHAIRMAN. You may be seated.
Mr. Liebeler will ask the questions of you.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you state your name for the record, please?
Mr. GREGORY. My name is Peter Paul Gregory.
Mr. LIEBELER. And will you tell us where you were born?
Mr. GREGORY. I was born in Chita, Siberia.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you tell us briefly how you came to the United
States?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir.
I came to the United States on or about August 1, 1923. I landed in San
Francisco; came from Japan where I lived for 2 years prior to that. And
my purpose was, of course, to come as an immigrant and to attend the
University of California.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you attend the University of California?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir; I enrolled at the University in 1923 and I
stayed out of the University for a couple of years but I graduated in
1929 as a petroleum engineer at Berkeley.
Mr. LIEBELER. What educational background did you have in Russia or
Japan before you came to the United States?
Mr. GREGORY. I started my primary education in Russia, in 1912, and my
education was interrupted by civil war in 1919. I finished high school
or the equivalent of high school in Tokyo, Japan, where I attended the
American school in Japan.
Mr. LIEBELER. Where did you learn to speak English?
Mr. GREGORY. I learned it in Japan.
Mr. LIEBELER. Were you personally involved in the civil war in Russia?
Mr. GREGORY. Not personally, no. I was too young; I was only 16, 17 at
the time.
Mr. LIEBELER. Were any of your relatives involved in that?
Mr. GREGORY. My older brother was an officer in the White Russian Army.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you presently reside in Fort Worth?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir. I have been residing in Fort Worth for the past
20 years, and prior to that in the oilfields in the western part of
Texas for 15 years, and prior to that I resided in California from 1923
to 1929.
Mr. LIEBELER. You are presently self-employed in Fort Worth, is that
correct?
Mr. GREGORY. I am presently chairman of the Yates Pool Engineering
Committee which is a group of engineers supervising activities in
the Yates oilfield in Pecos County, Tex., and I am also a consulting
petroleum engineer.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you are fluent in the Russian language, are you?
Mr. GREGORY. I am, I think.
Mr. LIEBELER. In fact, you teach Russian at the Fort Worth Public
Library, is that correct?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, I do; as a civic enterprise. I teach Russian once a
week from 10 to 20 weeks a year.
Mr. LIEBELER. Approximately how long have you been doing that, sir?
Mr. GREGORY. For about 3 or 4 years.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you tell us about your first contact with Lee
Harvey Oswald?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir.
It was in the middle of June 1962. On that particular morning, I was in
the office, my telephone rang, and the voice on the other end told me
that my name was given to him by the Fort Worth Public Library. He knew
I was teaching Russian at the library, that he was looking for a job
as a translator or interpreter in the Russian and English languages,
and that he would like for me to give him a letter testifying to that
effect.
He spoke to me in English, so I suggested to him, not knowing who that
was, that he might drop by my office and I would be glad to give him a
test. He did. He came by the office, about 11 o'clock that morning, and
I gave him a short test by simply opening a book at random and asking
him to read a paragraph or two and then translate it.
He did it very well. So I gave him a letter addressed to whom it may
concern that in my opinion he was capable of being an interpreter or a
translator.
Mr. LIEBELER. What happened after you gave Mr. Oswald--this individual
was Lee Harvey Oswald?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir; that individual was Lee Harvey Oswald.
After that, I asked him--I noticed that he spoke with what I thought
to be a Polish accent, so I asked him if he were of Polish origin, and
he stated that he was not, that he was raised in Fort Worth, Tex., but
that he learned Russian in the Soviet Union where he lived for 2-1/2 or
3 years.
He also told me that he married a Russian girl, and that he brought
his wife with him, and that they also had a baby. I told him that I
knew of no openings at the time--I didn't know of any--for services of
a translator or interpreter, but that if he would leave his address I
would be glad to get in touch with him if and when I learned of any
such openings.
He gave me his address. He lived with his brother at that time at the
western edge of Fort Worth.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever send him any work as a translator or
interpreter?
Mr. GREGORY. No, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you and Mr. Oswald have lunch together that day.
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir. It was about noontime when I gave him that test,
so I invited him to lunch, and during the lunch being naturally curious
about the present day life in the Soviet Union, I was asking him
questions, asked how people lived there, and so forth.
He told me that he was employed in a factory in Minsk as a sheet-metal
worker. He told me a little bit about the working conditions and living
conditions in that country.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he tell you how he was paid as a worker?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes; I think I asked him what he was paid and my
recollection is that he told me he was getting about 80 rubles a month.
I may be wrong about that but that is my recollection.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he compare his salary with the salary of other
workers in Russia?
Mr. GREGORY. Other workers in the Soviet Union?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. GREGORY. No, he did not. By way of comparison. I was curious as to
what the purchasing power of his earnings would be, I asked him what 80
rubles would buy, and I think he mentioned, as I say, a pair of shoes
cost around 15 rubles.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he indicate to you that he had any source of income
other than his job at the factory?
Mr. GREGORY. No, sir; he did not.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he tell you anything about why he went to Russia?
Mr. GREGORY. The only statement he made that I remember, he said, "I
went to the Soviet Union on my own," but I did not feel like prying
into his affairs. I did not press the question.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you notice anything about the way he was dressed or
anything else about him that would seem strange to you?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes; it was a very hot morning. You know in Texas in the
middle of June, it is generally hot. I remember that he wore a flannel,
woolen coat, suit, and atrocious looking shoes that were made in Russia.
I know he was very uncomfortable because he was too warmly dressed for
that time of the year.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Mr. Oswald tell you anything else at that time about
conditions in the Soviet Union or his attempt to come back to the
United States or bringing his wife back that you can recall?
Mr. GREGORY. I don't recall of anything outstanding that he told me.
But I think he did tell me that they, he and his wife, left Moscow by
train, and they went through East Germany to Berlin, I believe, and
that their destination was Amsterdam, I believe, where they took a ship
to come to New York.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he express anything about any difficulties that he
might have had in returning to the United States?
Mr. GREGORY. No, sir; not to my recollection.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did it seem extraordinary to you that his wife was able
to leave the Soviet Union with him or didn't you think about that?
Mr. GREGORY. I thought at the time it was more than extraordinary.
Mr. LIEBELER. Why do you say that?
Mr. GREGORY. Because simply from reading accounts of the difficulties
experienced by so many Americans who married Russian girls in the
Soviet Union, and all the difficulties they had to secure permits from
the Soviet Government for an exit visa for their wives.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you discuss that with Mr. Oswald?
Mr. GREGORY. I did not.
Mr. LIEBELER. When was the next time you saw him?
Mr. GREGORY. The next time was a few days later, and the occasion was
this, to the best of my recollection. My youngest son Paul, who at
the time was a junior at the University of Oklahoma, Paul majoring in
economics and also studying the Russian and the German languages, Paul
expressed a wish to meet Marina Oswald simply because she was fresh
from the country, Russia; that presumably her language was pure Russian
language as compared to mine which became, shall we say, affected by
my 40 years living in the United States, is not pure Russian any more
probably, in fact, he thought that maybe he could take lessons of the
Russian language from Marina Oswald.
So, I arranged; I called Lee Oswald at his brother's residence, and
asked if it would be, if they would be, at home, that my son and I
would come out to visit them, and we did. I don't remember the date but
it must have been within possibly within 10 days, the first 10 days
after his initial contact with me at the office.
Mr. LIEBELER. Let us try to set the date of your initial contact. I
have here a copy, not a confirmed copy, but just a typewritten copy of
a letter entitled "To Whom it May Concern." I show it to you and ask
you if that is the letter to the best of your recollection that you
gave to Mr. Oswald?
Mr. GREGORY. I think that is a copy of the letter I gave. That was on
June 19, 1962.
Mr. LIEBELER. I ask that it be admitted in evidence and marked as the
next exhibit.
The CHAIRMAN. It may be marked.
It will be marked as Exhibit 384.
Very well, it is admitted as Exhibit 384.
(The letter referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 384 for
identification and received in evidence.)
Mr. GREGORY. I would hazard a guess that the second contact with Lee
Oswald that I just referred to was made, say, around the 25th, toward
the end of June 1962.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you went to see him at his brother's house?
Mr. GREGORY. At his brother Robert's, Robert Oswald's house. Paul and I
spent there perhaps an hour, speaking Russian with Marina, and mostly
with Marina. They showed some pictures, snapshots of their friends, of
themselves, taken in Minsk. We talked about the living conditions, just
in a very general way.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you discuss politics with Mr. Oswald?
Mr. GREGORY. No, sir; we did not.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you discuss politics with him at any time?
Mr. GREGORY. Not with Lee Oswald, no.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you get the impression from just talking to the
Oswalds at this time that Oswald was treated pretty much as other
Russians were in Russia or did you think he had a special situation
there in any way?
Mr. GREGORY. My personal impression was that he was treated there as
the rest of the Russians.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did your son subsequently have additional contacts with
the Oswalds?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes. He and I made arrangements for Marina Oswald to give
him lessons, conversational lessons, I believe it was twice a week, and
Paul paid her for these lessons. I don't remember the exact amount,
whether it came under the minimum or not, it was around a dollar and
a half an hour. And he took those lessons after he made a visit to
his aunt in San Francisco in July of 1962. So, I would say that he
took lessons from Marina Oswald, say, from approximately August 1 to
September 15 when he went back to the university of Oklahoma.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember when the last contact was that your son
had with the Oswalds?
Mr. GREGORY. To the best of my knowledge his last contact with them was
the Thanksgiving Day of 1962.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did your son tell you whether he had discussions with
Oswald concerning politics and economics and things like that?
Mr. GREGORY. He mentioned once, I believe, that there were political
discussions.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did he tell you about that?
Mr. GREGORY. He told me that he thought Lee Oswald was pretty silly in
his views.
The CHAIRMAN. Pretty silly?
Mr. GREGORY. Silly.
The CHAIRMAN. Silly.