Mr. MARTIN. John M. Thorne.
Mr. RANKIN. On Exhibit No. 279 were those stricken out before the
discussion of the contract?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Was that done when you were there?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you observe the signing?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. LEECH. They were not signed the date it says they were signed.
Mr. MARTIN. On the 5th.
Mr. LEECH. The date it says they were signed that is the date they were
drawn up but they were all signed the same time, weren't they, Mr.
Martin?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Can you tell us what the facts are in that regard, Mr.
Martin?
Mr. MARTIN. The contracts were drawn--let's see--the contracts were
drawn and Robert wanted to go over them, so we held it in abeyance. I
think he was there on a Sunday and he came back on a Tuesday, I am not
sure about the days, and signed the contracts.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know the signature of Marina Oswald?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us whether or not Exhibit No. 279 bears her
signature?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes, it does.
Mr. RANKIN. It appears to be witnessed by you, is that your signature?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. And the acceptance at the bottom of Exhibit No. 279, do you
know whose signature that is?
Mr. MARTIN. John Thorne's.
Mr. RANKIN. And you say that the exhibit was, the contract, Exhibit No.
279 was executed on the 6th rather than the 5th day of December.
Mr. MARTIN. Well, I can't recall the dates on it.
Mr. LEECH. Excuse me for just a minute.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. LEECH. Counsel, for what it is worth, Robert's was executed at the
same time as the other ones. I believe his is dated the 9th, isn't it?
So it would have been the 9th or afterwards. They were all executed at
the same time.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Martin, do you know that?
Mr. MARTIN. I know they were all executed the same time.
Mr. RANKIN. Whether or not it was the 9th or the 6th you don't recall
at this time?
Mr. MARTIN. No. I am fairly certain it was not the 6th.
Mr. RANKIN. Are you certain what date it was?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. What is your best recollection in that regard?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, it was several days after the contracts were drawn
that they were executed, and I believe the contracts were drawn, and
the date that they were drawn was entered on the contract.
Mr. RANKIN. You think that might have been December 5 that they were
drawn then?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Chairman, that is already in evidence.
Mr. DULLES. It has already been admitted.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. Mr. Rankin, we would like to have a short adjournment at
10:30. The members of the Commission would like to speak with you.
(Short recess.)
Mr. DULLES. The Commission will resume. Mr. Rankin, will you please
continue with the examination?
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Martin, I have been asking you about some of your
contractual and financial arrangements with Marina Oswald and also Mr.
Thorne's and Robert Oswald's. If you and your counsel won't object
I would like to depart from that because I would like to have this
information developed when some of the members of the Commission are
here who might not be at other times during your examination.
Mr. MARTIN. One thing Mr. Leech brought to my attention was that he
thought maybe you might be under the impression that these contracts
were all drawn on the same date, December 5. They weren't drawn on the
same date. I think it was the 5th, 6th and 7th, or the 5th, 6th, and
9th. Robert's was drawn on the 9th, mine was drawn the 6th, and Mr.
Thorne's was drawn the 5th.
Mr. RANKIN. Thank you.
I want to ask you about a particular incident that was referred to in
the Houston Post, an article in the paper and the source was given as
you and that is in regard to Mr. Nixon, Richard Nixon, former Vice
President of the United States.
Did Marina ever say anything to you about Lee Oswald planning any
violent action or assassination of Richard M. Nixon?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. When did you first learn about that?
Mr. MARTIN. I don't remember the date. It was sometime in January, and
she mentioned it, said that he had come home one night and said, one
evening, and said that he had waited for Nixon to shoot him.
Mr. RANKIN. Where was this?
Mr. MARTIN. In Dallas.
Mr. RANKIN. What time was it that he came home that night?
Mr. MARTIN. I didn't question her too much about the time. I assumed
that it was after work.
Mr. RANKIN. At about what time of the day was it?
Mr. MARTIN. Five or six o'clock. She said they were living on Neely
Street, and he came home that night, and told her about it. So the
next morning he got up, Nixon had not come into town, so he said that
he would be in the next day, and so he got up the next morning and got
dressed with a suit, I believe she said, and she locked him in the
bathroom and kept him there all day, they said.
Mr. RANKIN. Did she say how she locked him in the bathroom?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ask her how she could do that, whether there was a
lock on the inside of the bathroom or outside?
Mr. MARTIN. No, I thought it was a little--I thought the story was a
little far-fetched myself.
Mr. RANKIN. What did you say to her about it?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, I said, "Don't go around telling people something
like that."
Mr. RANKIN. Did she say anything about whether it was true or not?
Mr. MARTIN. She said it was true.
Mr. DULLES. May I ask a question?
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. Was this brought up in connection with anything in
particular or just come out of the blue, blurted out?
Mr. MARTIN. It just came out of the blue.
Mr. DULLES. There was no prior conversation that led up to this or any
background to it?
Mr. MARTIN. Not that I recall. It was just a statement that she made. I
think she was talking about Oswald----
Representative FORD. Was she prone to come out with these kinds of
comments or was this an unusual circumstance?
Mr. MARTIN. No. She at times referred to some particular incident
in Russia or various things like that. And they would be completely
unattached to anything that we had been talking about.
Mr. RANKIN. What more did you say to her about this incident when she
brought it up?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, the only time I recall Nixon being in Dallas was in
November. Now, she was not living with Oswald in November, and----
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say that to her?
Mr. MARTIN. No. I just let the thing go.
Mr. RANKIN. You didn't even ask her how she locked him in the bathroom?
Mr. MARTIN. No. I thought about it, because I know the only bathroom
doors I have seen lock from the inside and they swing in.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ask her what he did after he was locked in the
bathroom?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. What did she say about that?
Mr. MARTIN. She said he didn't do anything. When she let him out that
night, and I suppose he would be pretty mad at her, and she said no, he
wasn't.
Mr. RANKIN. Did she say she kept him in the bathroom all day?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Representative FORD. Was anybody else present at the time of this
statement by her to you?
Mr. MARTIN. My wife.
Representative FORD. Did your wife make any inquiry?
Mr. MARTIN. No. We thought it was some kind of a story.
Mr. RANKIN. You mean you thought it was an untrue story?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes, and why, I don't know. It didn't sound logical.
Mr. RANKIN. Were there other conversations with Marina that you had
where you thought she was telling you things that were untrue?
Mr. MARTIN. She would relate stories about Russia that I would listen
to but they didn't sound right.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall any?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, they mostly dealt with boy friends.
Mr. RANKIN. What did she say in that regard?
Mr. MARTIN. Oh, she would talk about some individual boy friends,
usually a non-Russian, someone from Rumania or Germany or from some
other country.
Mr. RANKIN. What did she say?
Mr. LEECH. Is this going to be made public?
Mr. RANKIN. This might be, yes.
Mr. MARTIN. Oh, I don't know about specific incidents. She would remark
about she knew--I am trying to think of a specific--one was, let's see,
she left Leningrad and went to Minsk because of an association with a
married man there.
Representative FORD. In Leningrad?
Mr. MARTIN. It was either she left Leningrad to go to Minsk or vice
versa.
Representative FORD. But she left one or the other to go to the other
because of an association with a married man?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Where was the association, in Leningrad or in Minsk?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, it was in the city that she left.
Mr. RANKIN. She was getting away from that association, was she?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. By going to the other city?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall any other conversation when she told you
something that you don't believe?
Mr. MARTIN. Oh, she remarked about people that she knew in Russia that
had, we will say, lovers----
Mr. DULLES. Did she tell anything about a letter that she wrote to a
boy friend in Minsk?
Mr. MARTIN. After she was here in New Orleans?
Mr. DULLES. Yes.
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. What did she say about that?
Mr. MARTIN. Let's see, she said she wrote the letter, and I believe
what it was she told the boy that she wasn't--she wanted to come back
to Russia, to him, she loved him, and the letter was returned, I
believe, for lack of postage, and Oswald got hold of the letter, and he
asked her about it, and I think he asked her either to read it or he
would read it. I believe she read it to him. This caused quite a bit of
difficulty. Now, that is when she was in New Orleans.
Mr. RANKIN. When she was telling you about these people that had lovers
in Russia, you didn't believe these stories? Is that what you are
saying?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, of course, I know nothing about Russian life.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. MARTIN. So I more or less took it with a grain of salt. I didn't
put any credibility to it or any doubt to it. It was just something
that was said and I didn't either accept it or reject it.
Mr. RANKIN. How did she happen to tell you about going to Minsk to get
away from a married man in Leningrad?
Tell us how that came up.
Mr. MARTIN. I think she was just talking about boy friends, I guess.
Mr. RANKIN. Did she tell you she had quite a few boy friends?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Was that in Russia that she had the boy friends?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. How many did she tell you about?
Mr. MARTIN. Oh, boy. Well, she didn't mention any names as such, and
I don't know whether different stories got confused to being two
different people or--I would say 10 or 12.
Mr. RANKIN. Did she include Lee Oswald among those?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, you mean as a boy friend?
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Did she tell you anything about her relations with these
boy friends?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. You say you didn't believe these stories?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, I didn't have any reason to disbelieve or to believe
them. They were just conversation.
Mr. RANKIN. Now, on the Nixon matter, when that came to your attention,
did you tell anyone else about it?
Mr. MARTIN. I discussed it with my wife, and with John Thorne.
Mr. DULLES. Excuse me just a moment.
Mr. Martin, this is Congressman Boggs, a member of the Commission, and
this is Mr. Leech, counsel for Mr. Martin.
Mr. LEECH. I know Mr. Boggs, I met him in New Orleans years ago.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us about the conversation when you related
this to someone else?
Mr. MARTIN. It was on the telephone, and I was quite shocked at first
about it and then thinking it over, it didn't sound logical.
Mr. RANKIN. You believed it at first?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes. I guess I didn't see any reason for it not to be true.
But then I didn't see any reason for it to be a lie, either, and I
supposed it was possible.
Mr. RANKIN. When did you tell Mr. Thorne about it with reference to
when Marina told you?
Mr. MARTIN. The same day. I don't recall the date at all.
Mr. RANKIN. What did you say to Mr. Thorne about it?
Mr. MARTIN. I just related the incident, what she had told me.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say anything to him about telling the Commission
about it?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he say anything about telling the Commission about it?
Mr. MARTIN. No, I don't believe so.
Mr. RANKIN. Was there anything else said in this telephone conversation
with Mr. Thorne except relating what Marina had said?
Mr. MARTIN. I remarked what a big bombshell that would be as far as
publicity was concerned if the newspapers ever got hold of something
like that.
Mr. RANKIN. That it would be helpful in regard to Marina's story, did
you say that?
Mr. MARTIN. No, I did think it would be harmful.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say that to him?
Mr. MARTIN. I believe so.
Mr. DULLES. Why would it be harmful?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, this purportedly took place after the Walker
incident, and she had made a statement that if Oswald repeated anything
of a similar nature as the Walker incident she would turn him over to
the police, and this was a repeat or similar, he actually didn't shoot
at him but threatened to, and she did not report it to the police.
Mr. DULLES. I see.
The Walker incident took place on April 10, 1963, according to our
records.
Senator COOPER. I would like you if you can to repeat everything that
Mrs. Oswald told you about the Nixon incident. What did Lee say to her?