Warren Commission (09 of 26): Hearings Vol. IX (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (09 of 26): Hearings Vol. IX (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
When he did speak of, I believe when we were having our conversations
was after--I can't remember when the de-Stalinization was, when they
took Stalin out of the mausoleum, but it happened before Lee came back,
and I asked him about that. That was another thing he seemed to get
quite a laugh out of. He looked at it very skeptically and thought the
Russians should be laughed at for doing things like this, where the
street signs would change overnight and no one would mention Stalin's
name any more, and he thought it was highly comical. I am saying this
to show that, in my opinion, he wasn't--never mind.
Mr. LIEBELER. No; I would like to hear your remarks.
Mr. GREGORY. Well, I don't know how to put it. In other words, he
looked at things critically over there.
He was not one who would say Khrushchev said this, therefore it is
right. He always was more or less critically observant of everything he
saw over there.
Mr. LIEBELER. When you say critically, you mean, as I understand now
your use of the word, he attempted to observe things objectively and
perceptively? He just didn't follow things because somebody handed it
out?
Mr. GREGORY. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. You don't mean to use the words in the sense that he was
just complaining about things, do you?
Mr. GREGORY. I could say you can use it in both senses. My main point
was that if Khrushchev says this, well, any good party man or anyone
who would be a conformist, if Khrushchev says that is fine, he was not
that type. He always expressed a great admiration for Khrushchev. He
seemed to think he was quite a brilliant man. And he said you cannot
read a speech of Khrushchev's without liking the man. He said he was
a very rough man, a very crude man, but he thought of him as a very
brilliant man and very able leader.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you remember anything else that he might have said
about him, Mr. Khrushchev?
Mr. GREGORY. Well, he might have spoken of him several times, but that
was the general idea. And while we were on Khrushchev, whenever he
would speak about Khrushchev, Kennedy would naturally come into mind,
and he expressed admiration of Kennedy.
Both he and Marina would say, "Nice young man." I never heard him say
anything derogatory about Kennedy. He seemed to admire the man, because
I remember they had a copy of Life magazine which was always in their
living room, and it had Kennedy's picture on it, or I believe Kennedy
or someone else, and he always expressed what I would interpret as
admiration for Kennedy.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you recall any specific details concerning his
remarks about Kennedy or the conversation that you had with him
concerning Kennedy?
Mr. GREGORY. No; just that one time, as I can remember in their
apartment that we did look at this picture of Kennedy, and Marina said,
"He looks like a nice young man." And Lee said something, yes, he is a
good leader, or something, as I remember, was a positive remark about
Kennedy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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