Part 46

Mrs. FORD. Not learning English, but I mean helping her about anything. I don't know whether he was objecting to that. But we talked with Lee about this, why he wasn't teaching her English and he wasn't speaking to her and he said that he didn't want to forget Russian and he really said, "If she wants," this is what Marina said the other day, that he didn't actually object, but he thought if she could learn Russian just by herself in any way she could, she could, but he is not going to help her. He just didn't want to help her by speaking English.

Mr. LIEBELER. You mean English.

Mrs. FORD. That is right. He is not going to talk English with her, he wanted Russian. He wanted for the little girl to learn Russian and for himself not to forget it.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did he indicate, in other words that he wanted Marina to speak Russian so that he could maintain his own ability in Russian?

Mrs. FORD. That is correct.

Mr. LIEBELER. And he also wanted his children to learn to speak Russian?

Mrs. FORD. That is right.

Mr. LIEBELER. After this party on the 28th of December, what was your next contact with either Lee or Marina Oswald?

Mrs. FORD. After the 28th? I think after the assassination, I only heard once about her, I just heard she went to New Orleans. Again a friend, Lydia Dymitruk, was in the bakery and she said she saw Marina coming in and she told her she thought Marina was pregnant and she told her Marina was going to New Orleans. That is the only time I have heard anything about them after that party. The next contact I had with her was, I don't know the date but it was soon after the assassination when I just felt sorry for Marina, I thought she was, I always felt she was innocent, I thought she was a naive girl in a lot of ways and that is why she got into a lot of problems and troubles.

I just felt if she didn't have anybody there except the FBI and nobody to speak in Russian, she didn't know how everybody felt, I would think she would feel very badly, so I called Mrs. Paine who, I found out after the assassination she was a friend of Marina's and I told her that if she would have a contact with Marina, tell her that we sympathize with her that she is in the position that she is, and to call me or to let me--that I would like to talk with her.

Mr. LIEBELER. Can you tell us approximately when it was that you talked to Mrs. Paine?

Mrs. FORD. I think that was either the first part of December, I think it must have been at least a week after the assassination.

Mr. LIEBELER. In early December?

Mrs. FORD. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. What happened after that?

Mrs. FORD. Right after that, I think the next day Marina called me, and she said the reason she called me was because Mrs. Paine told her that I called, and let her know.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember specifically that Marina told you that she, Marina, had talked to Mrs. Paine?

Mrs. FORD. Well, this, I don't know. I think that is what she did. In fact, I think that Mrs. Paine told me she talked on the telephone with Marina but I couldn't be positive about it. I know she wrote letters, they wrote, I know Mrs. Paine wrote to Marina, and I couldn't exactly say she talked to her on the telephone or how it was, either Marina called Mrs. Paine or I don't know.

Mr. LIEBELER. You say you know Marina wrote Mrs. Paine a letter? Did Marina tell you that she wrote Mrs. Paine during that period?

Mrs. FORD. I don't remember. I know later Mrs. Paine kept calling me and asked if I heard from Marina, because she kept writing to Marina and Marina didn't answer, so she wanted to know if I talked to her, that she was the reason she was calling me.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did Mrs. Paine indicate to you after she called you trying to find out from Marina, did she indicate to you she had or had not heard from Marina since the assassination?

Mrs. FORD. I believe she told me she talked on the telephone with her right soon after, after I did.

Mr. LIEBELER. During this first telephone conversation with Marina, was there anything said about the events of the assassination in any way?

Mrs. FORD. No; not at all, except that Marina was very surprised the way people treated her. She was telling me that if it had happened in Russia, she just would--she just knew she wouldn't be talking to me or anybody else. She knew they would be sent to Siberia or shot right away is what she said.

Mr. LIEBELER. Is that what Marina said?

Mrs. FORD. That is what she said. I told her that was the big difference in Russian Government and the American Government. And then she asked me for advice. Someone contacted her at the time from a western paper and offered her $10,000 or something for the story and she asked me if it was the right thing to do because she felt she didn't want to make money on such a thing, a horrible thing as that, and I advised her to take the money because I thought she would need it for the children.

Mr. LIEBELER. Now, after that first--was there anything else you discussed in that telephone conversation?

Mrs. FORD. No; I think we talked mostly about that book deal, about the offer she had.

Mr. LIEBELER. After that first telephone conversation, what was the next contact you had with Marina?

Mrs. FORD. That was quite a long time after that when it was again Mrs. Paine contacted me, and wanted to know if I could go and translate for them for, we were saying about that yesterday, what is that union.

Mr. LIEBELER. I did talk to you yesterday afternoon.

Mrs. FORD. I have forgotten, I couldn't say because it is important.

Mr. LIEBELER. Was it the American Civil Liberties Union?

Mrs. FORD. That is right, it was the American Civil Liberties Union and I talked to my husband about that and he tried to find out; I told him to find out all he can if it had anything to do with a Communist front or something and if it was I didn't want to do anything about it, to be connected with it, and he couldn't find anything out, but at the same time I told him that I did not want to go with them but I didn't mind translating. So I did translate and they wanted to know if Marina was held incommunicado, and she answered. Mrs. Paine brought me that letter to translate from English to Russian, and the man in charge, I don't know his name, I have forgotten his name, you mentioned it yesterday, if you say it I will remember it.

Mr. LIEBELER. Let's come to that in a moment, let's develop the story first.

How did the question of the American Civil Liberties first come up, did Mrs. Paine bring it up?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; that is right, because she tried to write letters to Marina and she wouldn't answer and she thought she was held in sort of a protective custody and couldn't see anybody. That is what she felt, and she was rather imprisoned is what she thought.

Mr. LIEBELER. So Mrs. Paine came to you with a letter that was written in English, is that correct?

Mrs. FORD. That is right.

Mr. LIEBELER. And she asked you to translate into Russian?

Mrs. FORD. That is right.

Mr. LIEBELER. Was that a letter from Mrs. Paine to Marina or a letter from the Civil Liberties Union?

Mrs. FORD. No; from Civil Liberties Union.

Mr. LIEBELER. And so you translated that into Russian?

Mrs. FORD. That is right, I translated it into Russian.

Mr. LIEBELER. Up to that point was Mrs. Paine the only person who discussed that subject with you.

Mrs. FORD. That is right.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any further discussions with Mrs. Paine or anybody else?

Mrs. FORD. We tried to find out about the Union and my husband called lawyers and friends of his who would know about it and called the Secret Service and FBI and nobody would tell us anything about it. They would send us somewhere else, refer it to someone else to find out, so we don't find out.

So, I just decided on my own not to go, just to translate.

Mr. LIEBELER. Well now, what is this about going with them, what did Mrs. Paine ask you?

Mrs. FORD. She thought that maybe since I knew Marina she would rather confide in me more than just anyone like reporters or someone just from the Union would go there.

Mr. LIEBELER. But you declined to go with them?

Mrs. FORD. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did there come a time when somebody else spoke to you about this subject?

Mrs. FORD. No, not at all. Just during that time I wanted to find out if she was in prison.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did Marina respond to the letter that you translated?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; they received an answer right the next day, and the man from Richardson, who I think is the head of that Union in Dallas, came to my house and asked me if I could translate it back into English.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember that man's name?

Mrs. FORD. No; if you mention it I would know.

Mr. LIEBELER. Would it refresh your recollection if I mentioned the name of Gregg Olds?

Mrs. FORD. That is right; yes, that is his name.

Mr. LIEBELER. What did Mr. Olds say to you when he came to see you?

Mrs. FORD. He just brought the letter and he was rather standing and he wasn't talking very much. He was kind of a quiet person, I think. I took the letter--he thought I could just sit there and do it real fast in front of him, but I had to take it into a room and sort of concentrate in the living room and translated and giving it to him.

He said, "Thank you," and he left.

Mr. LIEBELER. Can you tell us approximately when this was?

Mrs. FORD. No; I cannot say. Let's see. I think it was sometime before Christmas, because after that I sent her a Christmas card.

No, wait a minute, I just can't say if it was before Christmas or afterward, I don't remember.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember if it was before or after Marina testified before this Commission?

Mrs. FORD. That was before the Warren Commission.

Mr. LIEBELER. It was before the Warren Commission?

Mrs. FORD. That is right.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you talk to Marina again on the telephone after this first time?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; I talked to her on the telephone because through my husband's brother who is a professor in one of the universities in California, he had a friend by the name of Isaac Levine who does write, who speaks Russian and writes rather--he wrote a book of on the mind of the assassin, Trotsky's story. He wanted to contact me and to find out if Marina had signed a contract on writing a book. So I told him that I would call the managers, since there was published in the newspaper at that time, and to find out if they did, and I did call. I called her lawyer and I asked if she signed for a book, and I called Levine long distance and told him she did not have a contract signed. Then he told me that he would like--he wanted to know if he could arrange to see Marina, and I told him that I would ask the manager and he told me to contact, for Levine to contact, the attorney and the manager. I saw later on they have somehow gotten together. I think he wrote to them.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did there come a time when Marina came to your house to visit?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; she brought a letter she wanted me to translate. It was after this, after I had a contact about the writer Marina called me, this is the first time, the first time after the assassination that she called me on the telephone and we talked about that and I told her that the man had contacted me and he speaks Russian. I thought it would be a good opportunity for her to write if she wanted to since she could communicate easily with a writer that speaks Russian. I read his book that he sent me, and he makes real sense. I invited her to come out to dinner and, of course, I didn't expect that there would be a whole company with her.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she come out?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; they did, they came out, the Secret Service and the manager were there and everybody so I cooked a Russian dinner.

Mr. LIEBELER. Can you tell us approximately when that was?

Mrs. FORD. It was shortly before the Commission, maybe about 2 weeks before the Commission.

Mr. LIEBELER. Late in January sometime?

Mrs. FORD. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. During that time that Marina was there did you have any discussion with her about the events of the assassination or anything relating to that?

Mrs. FORD. No.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she discuss with you her possible testimony before this Commission?

Mrs. FORD. No, not during that time.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did Marina come back to your house again before she came to testify before the Commission?

Mrs. FORD. Yes, she was once more at my house. During the first time her manager brought a letter that she wanted to bring to the Governor about how she feels about Ruby's being executed. She told me she didn't want, she didn't feel, if she could help she didn't want to have the killing of a dead man on her conscience, on her mind. She wanted me to translate that letter and I did translate it.

And I left it at home and later on they came by, I told Mr. Martin that I would come by his house and bring the letter to her after I translated.

He said, "If you wanted to we can come back to your house like we did before." And they did and they picked up the letter.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any copy of that letter?

Mrs. FORD. I think maybe I have a copy of it, of my translation. But I am not positive. I know I put it in a desk.

Representative FORD. This was a letter from whom to whom?

Mrs. FORD. From Marina to, I will say they did--I think it was advised to her to write it to the Governor, to Governor Connally.

Representative FORD. To Governor Connally?

Mrs. FORD. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. To the present Governor of Texas, that is the Governor of Texas?

Mrs. FORD. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. You said that Marina said to you she did not want to have another death on her conscience?

Mrs. FORD. That is right. She feels like, she told me she feels strongly about it, that people shouldn't kill one another, if there is no war.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she use the words as you remember it, the words "on her conscience"?

Mrs. FORD. No; I don't remember that word really but I just feel this was, she would feel very badly if that would happen.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she seem to feel that she had some responsibility for these things?

Mrs. FORD. What do you mean by that? I mean how, responsibility in what way?

Mr. LIEBELER. That she was in anyway a cause of any of these deaths herself?

Mrs. FORD. No; I wouldn't think she feels this way, no.

Mr. LIEBELER. Tell us about the conversations at the second meeting. Were there any conversations at that time about her testimony before the Commission or about the assassination?

Mrs. FORD. I believe she mentioned she was going to Washington at that time. She knew about going, I believe Martin said that.

Mr. LIEBELER. But she didn't talk about her testimony?

Mrs. FORD. No; she didn't, not at all she didn't.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you talk to anybody else about her testimony before the Commission?

Mrs. FORD. I don't know, I don't think so.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did Mr. Martin say anything about it?

Mrs. FORD. No; I don't remember, I don't know.

Mr. LIEBELER. When was the next time that you saw Marina?

Mrs. FORD. After she came back from Washington.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she come to your house then?

Mrs. FORD. No; she did not. Her lawyer, in fact Mr. Martin, called me and told me she is staying at her brother-in-law's, and that he wanted to break the partnership with her, and he asked me if I could go with her attorney and translate for her the conditions of the break, the breaking of the contract, and I agreed to go with them.

Mr. LIEBELER. To Robert Oswald?

Mrs. FORD. To Robert Oswald's house; yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did there come a time after that when Marina came to live with you in your house?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; when I came there, Marina told me she couldn't stay another day, she thought, in Robert's house. It was such a small house and small children and she just didn't like to stay in there at all, and so I told her, "Well, you could come and stay at my place if you wanted to," and she said she would love to do that.

Mr. LIEBELER. After Marina moved in with you, did you talk to her about her testimony before the Commission, that she gave before the Commission?

Mrs. FORD. No; we never talked about what she did. She told me she had it, written something. She said something maybe that someone mentioned in the Commission that that was rather good for a novel but not for the testimony.

She said, well, she had written the way she remembers her past, those are the words she made.

Mr. LIEBELER. She was referring to a statement she had written.

Mrs. FORD. She had written, yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she show it to you?

Mrs. FORD. No; I have never seen it.

Mr. LIEBELER. During the time that Marina stayed with you or at any other time, did she say anything to you about this incident where Mr. Oswald was allegedly going to attack Mr. Nixon?

Mrs. FORD. No; I hadn't learned about that until later.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you discuss it with Marina?

Mrs. FORD. Somehow she didn't feel, she didn't want to discuss it very much, she felt badly that it came out, I suppose or something. She didn't want it to.

Mr. LIEBELER. But she did talk to you about it?

Mrs. FORD. She talked to me because I had to translate it to her, the discussion with her lawyer, and he, I think, the FBI were at the lawyer's office while they went to talk to her about the subject, and I had to translate what she was telling the lawyer about it.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any conversations with her about this Nixon affair at a time when the FBI was not present?

Mrs. FORD. I think going home, I just maybe, I don't know what I asked her. She said the same thing actually what she said in the office, that she held him in the bathroom and I asked her how was it finished, and she said, "I talked him out of it," and he said, "If you will keep me in the bathroom, just give me something to read." She didn't talk very much about it.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ask her how she could lock Lee in the bathroom?

Mrs. FORD. No; it never occurred to me to ask her and I did not ask her.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you discuss this question with anybody else how she could lock anybody in the bathroom?

Mrs. FORD. Not until yesterday with my husband, how she could do it.

Mr. LIEBELER. Is there anything else that Marina told you about this Nixon affair that you can remember now?

Did she tell you when it happened?

Mrs. FORD. No; she told me only that, that she said she mixed up dates. She thought it was one month and it was, supposedly happened, another month and she said that a lot of times she doesn't remember exactly the month.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she tell you anything about the General Walker affair?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; she told me something about that.

Mr. LIEBELER. What was that?

Mrs. FORD. She said in the first place, people are saying that maybe she knew ahead of time and she said she did not. Lee told her after it had happened, after he had shot, and he told her, "Well, I just tried to shoot Walker." She said she was rather angry and she told him if he ever does that again, she said, "Don't ever do that again," she was rather disgusted--that he shouldn't do such a thing.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she tell you about any note that he had written in connection with the attack on General Walker?

Mrs. FORD. No; she didn't.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she tell you whether the Walker incident occurred before or after the Nixon incident?

Mrs. FORD. I don't know. She never said it to me.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she discuss with you during this period that she had been living in your house any of the details of the assassination?

Mrs. FORD. I, frankly, just didn't feel like asking her questions, I really felt like I just wanted to help her, that is all. She never brought the subject up herself.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did she say anything about what happened on Thursday night when Lee Oswald came back from Irving to Dallas?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; she said that was not long ago, and she somehow found out someone, I think Robert, told her there was some evidence that someone saw a boy running across--a boy saw someone running across the yard or something, and he thought maybe there was some other man involved. And she began to say, "Well, if Lee didn't kill the President why did he come home on Thursday and why did he leave his ring at home and why was the gun taken from the garage." I mean she was putting that together, she was making me believe that Lee was doing it.

Mr. LIEBELER. She was considering at that time the possibility that Lee Oswald was not?

Mrs. FORD. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. Guilty of this?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; Robert, I believe, was telling her that, that there was a possibility that somebody else did the crime and she was talking about that to me, and that is when she said about why would he come back on Thursday when he never did that before, and also that he would leave a ring that was to her it would mean something that he didn't want--he didn't feel like he would return or something.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you discuss with Marina her feeling as to Lee Oswald's guilt or innocence in this matter?

Mrs. FORD. Well, she feels that--no, I don't remember her discussing it. I think she asked him after she saw him after the assassination he told her no, he did not kill anybody. He told her that. But I think her own conclusion is that he did.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any discussions with her as to whether Lee Oswald was angry with President Kennedy for any reason?

Mrs. FORD. No; she told me that he actually never did say anything bad about Kennedy. He didn't like General Walker because he compared him rather with Hitler in some way. He said, he was telling her, she was asking him why would he kill a man like that, I mean that he should not kill anybody. He said, he told her, well, if somebody killed Hitler ahead of time that wouldn't have happened in Germany and he says he felt like it was his duty to get rid of men where he was a Fascist, speaking about General Walker.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did Marina say anything about Lee's attitude toward Governor Connally?

Mrs. FORD. No; she never discussed that.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you talk to Marina about Marina's feelings toward Mrs. Paine?

Mrs. FORD. Lately, I have been talking to her about that, and Mrs. Paine, I know, tried to contact her and asked Marina why she did not want to write to her, because I know that she had written to her often. Somehow she doesn't like Mrs. Paine and then she said she feels that Martin told her that Mrs. Paine was making money on her articles about Marina, and she don't like that.

I got, even lately, Mrs. Paine called me up, and I believe it was only a pretense because she knew that I had a contact with Marina and she wanted to see Marina. She came to my house and told me she wanted for me to read in Russian very slowly that she could follow me for her students. She is teaching Russian to some students in private school and that she could record it and then listen to it, and she said she would pay me for the services, and at the time, the same time.

So, I had Marina that evening, I know she would want to see her, so I invited Marina to my house and at the time Mrs. Paine was coming.

Mr. LIEBELER. You told her Mrs. Paine was coming?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; I told her Mrs. Paine was coming and she only said she didn't want Mrs. Paine for her to know the telephone number or the house she lives in. She said she would come in all the time and she didn't exactly like her. She didn't want to see her at her house, not now anyway, she said.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did Marina and Mrs. Paine meet this evening at your house?

Mrs. FORD. Yes; they did, they talked.

Mr. LIEBELER. What did they say to each other?