Mr. LIEBELER. Tell us about it?
Mr. GREGORY. Sunday morning, November 24, about 7 o'clock in the
morning, from Dallas.
Representative FORD. This is the mother called?
Mr. GREGORY. The mother. Sunday morning about 7 o'clock in the morning,
and she said, I still remember, she said, "Mr. Gregory, I need your
help. The reporters, the news media were badgering me." I think that is
the word she used. She said, "I wonder if some of your friends or you
could provide a place for me to hide from them." And it sounded like
she was crying on the telephone, although I think that woman is not
taken to crying.
So I told her--she did not want to identify herself when she called
me first. I asked her, I said, "Who are you?" And she said, "I would
rather not tell you who I am but I shall identify myself by saying I am
one of the students in the Russian class in the library." Of course, I
knew it was Mrs. Oswald. In fact, I guessed who she was before she even
tried to identify herself. So I told her, I said, "Now, I will tell you
what I will do, Mrs. Oswald, you stay where you are and I will promise
to you that I will come to see you sometime today." Of course, I knew
where she was because the Secret Service told me where they had her
before.
Mr. LIEBELER. The Secret Service contacted you the day before?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. On Saturday?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Isn't it a fact they had asked you to come and translate
an interview with Marina Oswald?
Mr. GREGORY. That is correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. But you didn't do it because you didn't need to do it
that day?
Mr. GREGORY. No, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you see Lee Oswald that day?
Mr. GREGORY. No, I did not see him.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you later on Sunday go to see Mrs. Marguerite Oswald?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes. As soon as I hung up the phone, I was talking to
Marguerite Oswald, I called the U.S. Secret Service and reported this
call, of course, and an agent, I called Agent Howard, who lives just
north of Fort Worth, and he said, "Well, that is fine, we will find a
hiding place for her, for Marguerite and Marina Oswald and the babies,"
and he suggested he come by my house in a matter of 45 minutes or an
hour and we will go to Dallas and then proceed from there. And that is
what we did then. We went to Dallas.
Mr. LIEBELER. You went to the Executive Inn where Marina and Mrs.
Oswald were staying at that time, is that right?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir; we went to the Executive Inn, and on the way
we stopped en route on the turnpike, where the agents arranged a
rendezvous with Robert Oswald and other agents, and we went to the
Executive Inn in Dallas by the airport, and Robert and I went in and
we told the women to pack up, that we were going to take them to,
Robert told them we were going to take them to, the farm of his wife's
parents, north of Fort Worth.
Mr. LIEBELER. But Mrs. Oswald objected to that?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, she objected, she said she didn't want to go there.
But I told her that she bothered me to come, to call me at the house to
provide a place for her and here I am, and if she doesn't like it then
I am just through with her.
Mr. LIEBELER. You told her that?
Mr. GREGORY. So she packed up and we got with the agents in two or
three cars, two cars, and we started toward that farm of Robert
Oswald's parents. But en route we detoured because Marguerite Oswald
mentioned the fact that the two little babies were all wet, and that
there were no diaper change for them, that Marina and she had no change
of dresses, and so forth, and she insisted that we go by Irving where
Marina lived with Ruth Paine.
Mr. LIEBELER. Then you went and obtained some materials for the babies
there?
Mr. GREGORY. Well, we didn't go to the house because we got the report
that Lee Oswald was shot. You see, that all happened Sunday morning, it
was 11 o'clock in the morning, we were driving from Dallas to Irving
and we got this report that Lee was shot, and the police advised us not
to go to the house because there was a mob, so we went to the Chief of
Police of Irving, to his residence. Marina telephoned Ruth Paine from
there to gather these things for the babies and a change of dress for
her and some money and so forth.
Mr. LIEBELER. You went from there, then, to Parkland Hospital where
some events occurred and then you came back to the Inn of the Six Flags?
Mr. GREGORY. That is correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. I want to ask you about something that might have
happened or happened at the Inn of the Six Flags.
There has been a newspaper report, and Mrs. Marguerite Oswald has said
that on Saturday night an FBI agent came to the Executive Inn and
showed her a picture of a man who she claims to be Jack Ruby. Have you
seen newspaper reports to that effect?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, I have seen reports to that effect.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now, Mrs. Oswald says, also, that while at the Inn of the
Six Flags she observed a newspaper that had Jack Ruby's picture in it
and exclaimed in the presence of other people that that was the same
picture as the FBI had showed her, that is what she says. Did you ever
hear her say anything like that?
Mr. GREGORY. No, sir; not to my recollection.
Mr. LIEBELER. She never did anything like that in your presence?
Mr. GREGORY. No, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. After you met Mrs. Oswald, Marguerite Oswald, and had a
chance to observe her, did that further your judgment of Lee Harvey
Oswald in any way?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir. I felt that a lot of his, many of his,
peculiarities, possibly were brought on by the influence of his mother.
To me, she impressed me as being not necessarily rational. She is
quite clever, but she certainly is most peculiar. She demands public
attention, she wants to be the center of attention. As, for example,
standing there in the middle of the room at the motel of that Six
Flags, standing in the middle of the room saying "I want to make a
statement," and she made those statements throughout the frequent
intervals and always she would precede the statement by saying, "I want
to make a statement. I feel that my son can't be buried anywhere but at
the Arlington National Cemetery."
Mr. LIEBELER. And you detected similarities between Mrs. Oswald and Lee?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes; I felt they both craved public recognition or to be
craving attention or publicity or whatever you wish to call it.
Mr. LIEBELER. In our conversation last evening about your testimony, I
asked you about Mrs. Ruth Paine, and you told me that Mrs. Ruth Paine
had come to visit you at a time subsequent to the assassination.
Mr. GREGORY. No, sir; she never did. Ruth Paine?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. GREGORY. No. She called me on the phone once.
Mr. LIEBELER. Called on the telephone?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes. But I have never met her.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was the conversation between you and her?
Mr. GREGORY. She asked me if I would tutor her in writing letters in
Russian. If I remember, she mentioned that she either was going to
write to the Soviet Embassy or Soviet Union, something like that, but
I told her I was just too busy, I have no time for that. In fact, I
didn't want to have anything to do with that sort of--I didn't want to
write letters to the Soviet Union or to the Embassy or anybody else.
Representative FORD. How long have you taught Russian, Mr. Gregory?
Mr. GREGORY. In the library?
Representative FORD. Yes.
Mr. GREGORY. For approximately 3 or 4 years from 10 to 20 weeks a year.
Representative FORD. Have you taught Russian in any other area or
capacity?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes, sir; I taught Russian a couple of years ago, not more
than 2 years ago, at Carswell Air Force Base at Fort Worth, where I had
a class of officers and men in the Russian language. With the result
that two out of my class passed the Russian examination, and the rest
flunked.
Representative FORD. How long would you estimate it would normally
take for a person of average intelligence to learn to speak and write
Russian as fluently as Oswald did?
Mr. GREGORY. If he lived in this country or in that country? That would
make a lot of difference.
Representative FORD. Well, let's take this country first.
Mr. GREGORY. This country. That would depend again on the effort put
out by the particular individual. If he were in earnest I would think
he could do it in about 4 years.
Representative FORD. That is an ordinary person living in the United
States?
Mr. GREGORY. Living in the United States.