Mrs. OSWALD. My life in the United States was not quite as carefree
as it had been in the Soviet Union. I was occupied all the time with
housework, and I couldn't go anywhere. Lee spent a good deal of time
reading.
Mr. DULLES. Were you together most of the time?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. So that you knew where Lee was. Lee wasn't away on trips
much of the time, except for his trip to Mexico, and when he was absent
in New Orleans?
Mrs. OSWALD. That is correct. We were together.
Mr. DULLES. Do you know what he was reading in those days?
Mrs. OSWALD. He read nonfiction almost entirely and mainly historical
works.
Mr. DULLES. Was he reading Russian books or mostly English books?
Mrs. OSWALD. He could read Russian, but he read only English works.
Mr. DULLES. Was he doing much writing in this period, during the
American stay?
Mrs. OSWALD. When we were living on Elsbeth Street, he wrote something,
and also on Neely Street, I think it was in connection with the Walker,
General Walker incident.
Mr. DULLES. Do you know what happened to that particular writing?
Mrs. OSWALD. I know that he destroyed this after the Walker business.
He had a map of Dallas, and he used to go off by himself and think
about the map, and work on it. I think you have this map in among the
materials of the Commission. He used to work on it, and the least
disturbance used to upset him very much when he was working on this map.
Mr. DULLES. When you say he used to go away, do you mean go away in the
house or outside the house with the map?
Mrs. OSWALD. In the house, in the kitchen, and would tell me not to
come in, not to make any noise at all.
Mr. DULLES. Could you specify as to time and date, as to about when he
acquired this map and began this study of the map?
Mrs. OSWALD. Could I ask the Commission just when we were living on
Elsbeth Street, since I have forgotten?
Mr. REDLICH. November 1962 to March 1963. November 3, 1962 to March 2,
1963.
Mrs. OSWALD. I think it was at the end of January, it was after New
Years. I think he had a map all the time, but he started becoming
particularly occupied with it at the end of January 1963.
Mr. DULLES. 1963?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. Did Oswald, to your knowledge, have friends, associates,
other men whom he saw, in addition to the considerable number whom
you have described as your friends in Dallas and Fort Worth, whom you
have already described? Did he have any business friends or any other
friends you can think of that used to come to the house?
Mrs. OSWALD. No one, except for my friends whom I have already told you
about.
Mr. DULLES. That is all I have, Mr. Chief Justice.
The CHAIRMAN. Congressman, did you have any more?
Mr. DULLES. I was speaking of the United States.
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes; he told me that he was working on this map in
connection with the bus schedules. He had a kind of bus schedule,
and--a paper with bus schedules on it, and he was somehow comparing
them or working on them, or doing something with these two documents.
The CHAIRMAN. Congressman Ford?
Representative FORD. When you left the Soviet Union, Lee borrowed money
from the U.S. Government to pay for your transportation back to the
United States. Did you have any other money of your own at that time?
Mrs. OSWALD. We had--it is permissible to exchange a certain amount of
Soviet rubles into American dollars in such cases, and we did exchange
some Soviet rubles--I think about $180 worth--when we left. But that
wasn't enough to pay the whole trip.
Representative FORD. Lee had borrowed from the Government approximately
$600?
Mr. RANKIN. $450, and then the exchange made a total of $600 and
something.
Representative FORD. This $180 was used with the State Department money
for the transportation and the funds for the trip?
Mrs. OSWALD. I don't know, since my husband took care of that whole
matter. He never talked about money with me.
Representative FORD. Would you describe one of the border crossings?
What did the Government officials do when you went from Poland into
Germany, for example? Tell us what actually happened.
Mrs. OSWALD. The train stopped and people come in and check your
documents.
On the Russian border, of course, people come in and look at your
bags--that is to say, they don't rifle through everything, but they
pick things at random and look at them.
Representative FORD. Did Lee carry all the documents?
Mrs. OSWALD. He carried all the documents, since I had the baby to look
after.
Representative FORD. At the Polish-German border, did they actually
examine the documents?
Mrs. OSWALD. More carefully between Russia and Poland than between
Poland and Germany.
Representative FORD. Did Lee make any acquaintances on the train and
the boat?
Mrs. OSWALD. No.