Mr. DULLES. Two have been introduced already, have they not?
Mr. McKENZIE. Yes, I think you are right, Mr. Dulles.
Mr. JENNER. That is correct. A letter of November 8, 1959, introduced
in evidence yesterday. I don't recall what the second one was, but at
least----
Mr. DULLES. Were they marked at that time as exhibits?
Mr. JENNER. That was marked as an exhibit. And Mr. Liebeler has it.
The November 8 letter, Mr. Chairman, is marked Commission Exhibit No.
294, and it is in evidence.
Mr. DULLES. There was only one letter, or were there two?
Mr. JENNER. There was just one letter. I think, if you please, you have
reference to a telegram, which is Exhibit No. 293.
Mr. DULLES. That is it--the telegram.
Mr. JENNER. Being a telegram dated 14 June 1962.
Mr. DULLES. And these other exhibits cover what period?
Mr. JENNER. They commence--the first, Commission Exhibit No. 295, is
a letter of eight pages dated November 26, 1959, and concluding with
Exhibit No. 322, a letter of two pages dated March 16, 1963.
Mr. DULLES. Were those all from Russia?
Mr. JENNER. They were all from Russia, save the letter dated March 17,
1963, being Exhibit No. 322, a letter of two pages. All the others are
from Russia.
Mr. DULLES. Where was that letter from--do you recall?
Mr. JENNER. It is postmarked--the envelope "Lee H. Oswald, P.O. Box
2915, Dallas, Texas."
And the cancellation stamp likewise says Dallas, Texas.
The date is that which I have already recited.
Mr. DULLES. That was after Lee Harvey's return from the Soviet Union?
Mr. JENNER. Yes, he returned in June of 1962.
Mr. DULLES. And that letter is dated what?
Mr. JENNER. March 17, 1963.
Would you follow me, Mr. Oswald? In each instance, when we compared
the letters and the envelopes, it is a fact, is it not, Mr. Oswald,
that the letter in question was contained in the envelope of which we
have a photostatic copy--and was received by you intact? That is, the
envelope was sealed, and the letter content was in the envelope, that
you personally opened the envelope and removed the letter content? That
in each instance, the letter content is in the handwriting of your
brother, Lee Harvey Oswald, entirely, with the exception of Commission
Exhibit 299, which is a letter of three pages dated May 31, 1961, upon
the last page of which there is a paragraph in the handwriting of
Marina Oswald, written in the Russian language?
Mr. OSWALD. Yes, sir; I take that to be Mrs. Marina Oswald's writing at
that time.
Mr. JENNER. And there appears on that page following that paragraph
written in Russian what purports to be an English interpretation of it?
Mr. OSWALD. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Furthermore, that in each instance the envelope and the
letter content is--are in the same condition now as they were when you
received them?
Mr. McKENZIE. Except for opening.
Mr. JENNER. Except for the opening of the envelope which was necessary
for you to do in order to remove the content. Is my statement correct?
Mr. OSWALD. With this exception, sir. That a number of the letters were
not opened by me personally. By that, I mean my wife opened them when
she received the mail at the house.
I have marked the chronological date on the front of them in the last
few days.
Mr. JENNER. So that there appears on these exhibits in your handwriting
a date on the envelope and in some instances on the letter content?
Mr. OSWALD. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Which you wrote thereon, and which was not on either the
envelope or the letter at the time it was received by you?
Mr. OSWALD. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Those exhibit numbers--excuse me. There are three
postcards--Commission Exhibit No. 310, dated December 11, 1961, which
is a Christmas card, Commission Exhibit 319, which is a postcard dated
October 10, 1962, and Commission Exhibit 321, a postcard dated April
10, 1962. Each of those was received by you in due course, Mr. Oswald,
as you related to me yesterday.
I want you to confirm this. And is in the handwriting of your brother,
Lee Harvey Oswald.
And except for notations of dates which appear thereon or may appear
thereon in your handwriting, they are in the same condition now as
when you received them?
Mr. OSWALD. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Now, I wish you would--I want to exhibit to you the
postcard dated April 10, 1962, which is Commission Exhibit No. 321.
Mr. DULLES. As I understand it, these letters have not yet been
formally introduced in evidence.
Mr. JENNER. They have not, sir.
Mr. DULLES. Very well.
I might add, Mr. McKenzie, that, of course, one does not know whether
those letters were opened by the authorities in the Soviet Union before
being forwarded. I think that ought to be on the record.
Mr. McKENZIE. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Commission Exhibit No. 321 I now hand you, Mr. Oswald.
There is a date appearing thereon which reads, according to my
interpretation 10--and then I cannot quite decipher it.
Would you look at the original, please?
Mr. DULLES. The European system of marking is different from the
American system.
Mr. JENNER. That is what I seek to bring out, sir.
Do you now have the original before you?
Mr. OSWALD. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Would you read the figures to which I point? The first is
10?
Mr. OSWALD. 10/4/62.
Mr. JENNER. Indicating what date?
Mr. OSWALD. April 10, 1962, in accordance with the European system of
dating.
Mr. JENNER. Of putting the day first, the month second, and the year
last?
Mr. OSWALD. That is correct.
Mr. DULLES. Do you recall whether these letters were opened by cutting
or opened by unsealing?
Mr. OSWALD. I believe without exception, sir, looking at the originals,
that they were opened by unsealing, rather than cutting.
Mr. DULLES. I was asking because it is sometimes possible, by modern
methods, to determine whether a letter has been opened and resealed,
and if the letter is cut, that can be done.
If the letter has been torn open where the seal is, you cannot do
anything with it. You cannot always do this, but there are certain
techniques.
Mr. McKENZIE. Mr. Chairman, did you have reference to when Robert
opened the letters?
Mr. DULLES. Well, what I had reference to is to whether if the letters
were cut and not resealed, then there is a certain possibility of
ascertaining whether the letter has been previously opened by a censor,
and then resealed. I was just getting at that.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Dulles is interested, I see, in whether the letters had
been censored in Russia before they arrived in the United States.
Mr. DULLES. That was my point.
Mr. JENNER. May I inquire of the witness on that subject further?
Mr. McKENZIE. Let me state this for the record. When Robert Oswald or
his wife opened the letters, as you can plainly see from the letters
here in front of you, they were either opened by letter opener--a knife
or a letter opener, or just torn open.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Chairman, it is entirely possible and might even be
probable that the Commission would be interested in examining the
originals on this subject--that is, to determine through experts as to
whether the envelopes had been opened and censored, and the contents
censored, before being resealed, if they had been so opened, and
dispatched to the United States. And I take it that your inquiry was
directed towards that.
Mr. DULLES. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. May I inquire of Mr. McKenzie, in the light of that fact,
as to whether these originals of these letters would be available to us
so that we may have expert examination of them for that purpose?
Mr. McKENZIE. Yes, sir; I will make them available at any time that the
Commission so desires.
And I would like further to say, Mr. Chairman, that it is my opinion,
based on a reading of these letters--and I feel that Robert Oswald
concurs in my opinion here--that many of the letters were censored,
because the letters actually have reference to the censor in many
instances. And I speak of that--the censor in the Soviet Union.
Mr. DULLES. Yes. I have not yet read the letters.
Mr. JENNER. The photostats that we have of the letters will reveal
that to which Mr. McKenzie is now referring. We took the face of each
envelope and in most instances of the reverse side of the envelope. And
in each instance the front and reverse side of each postcard.
Mr. DULLES. And in each case I believe we will have in our records,
will we not, the date when it was mailed and the date of receipt?
Mr. JENNER. To the extent that is revealed by the face and reverse side
of the envelope; yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. Because if you have a case where a letter takes four or
five days, longer than another letter, that may mean nothing, or it may
mean quite a good deal.
Mr. McKENZIE. In some instances, Mr. Chairman, it took five days to
receive a letter from the Soviet Union to Fort Worth, Texas.
Mr. DULLES. That is par for the course, I guess.
Mr. McKENZIE. Yes, sir.
But I might also add sometimes it takes five days for a letter to get
from downtown Dallas to the suburbs in Dallas, Texas.