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
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Incident. Anyway, one of our friends in Mexico is
the pilot of the president--the personal pilot of the President Mateos
of Mexico. He also took the Russian group, the Russian engineers, with
Mikoyan, on the tour of Mexico, at the same time I was there.
By the way, our proposition of the Texas Eastern was to provide some
financing for Pemex in exchange for this contract--which is the Mexican
Oil Co. And the Russians were offering the same thing to the Mexicans.
Mr. JENNER. So you were then really competing with the Russians?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Competing with the Russians. And through
my contacts with this pilot, and with the Mexican officials, I
knew exactly what the Russians were offering. We did not make any
particularly big fight about it, but we knew what they were offering,
and we knew what we could offer for our contract. It was one of the
most interesting jobs I ever had.
And then one day, Mikoyan was with that group--the rest of them were
technicians. One day Mikoyan was leaving. I remember we had dinner the
night before with this pilot of the president. And he said, "George,
why don't you come with me to meet Mikoyan tomorrow at the airport?"
I said, "By God, that sounds like an interesting idea. I would like to
meet the character."
He had such a publicity of being an excellent businessman, I wanted to
learn something from him.
So I said, "All right, I will go with you."
And my wife said, "George, you better not go, because your people
at Texas Eastern will look at it--they may look at it in a very
peculiar manner, if you appear with Mikoyan"--and the Texas Eastern
people--they are very conservative Texas people--if I appear in public
with Mikoyan, I will not get any jobs from them.
Mr. JENNER. Particularly having in mind your Russian background?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; particularly my Russian background. So she
says, "I better go instead of you."
Mr. JENNER. Your wife?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; so the next morning she went with the
Mexican major, the pilot of the president--he still is a pilot for
the president today, and he is married to an American--he is not a
Communist, believe me. And he and Jeanne went together to the airport.
It was full of security officers--the Russian security officers and the
Mexican officers. And the Mexican pilot let her go through all that
mess.
Here was the Russian plane, and Mikoyan was making a speech. After
that, the pilot took Jeanne, for the hell of it, and said, "I will
introduce you to Mikoyan."
And Jeanne went to him and said in perfect Russian, "How are you,
Comrade Mikoyan? Nice to know you." And he almost collapsed, because
it was such a surprise for him that somebody went through all that
security officers without being detected--because she was right there
in that group. So she said--he asked her where she is from, and she
says, "I am from Texas."
"What do you mean from Texas?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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