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. Yes. That is his main--his makeup--trying to do
something. One conversation I had with him--I asked him "Would you
like to be a commissar in the United States," just teasing him. And he
said--he sort of smiled--you could see that it was a delightful idea.
To me it was a ridiculous question to ask. But he took me seriously. I
laughed with the guy. Sometimes I would laugh, I would tease him. And
it was amusing. But I tried not to offend him, because, after all, he
was a human being. And in addition to that--in my case we had a point
of contact which was the fact that he lived in Minsk, where I lived
when I was a child also, where my father was this marshal of nobility.
And later on in life I lived in Poland, very close to that area. I was
interested in how the peasants were getting along, what does he find
in the forest there, what kind of mushrooms you find, that type of
conversation went on sometimes.
Mr. JENNER. Did he appear to have knowledge and recollection of things
in which you were interested in the community, the countryside?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Very much so. That was a likable characteristic
he had. For instance, he liked animals. My dog was sort of friendly
with him. When he would come, my dog would not bark. He liked walking.
He told me that around Minsk he used to take long walks in the forest
which I thought was very fine. Those are contacts that possibly brought
a certain understanding between us. He spoke very interestingly about
the personalities of fellow workers there at his factory.
Mr. JENNER. I want you to keep ruminating in this fashion, because
these things will come to you. What did he say about his work there?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, he said that the work was all right, not
too hard, not too well paid, that it was very boring. That later, after
the work, he had to be present at all sorts of meetings, political
meetings. He said he got bored to death. Every day he had to stay for
an hour at some kind of a meeting, the factory meeting. And this is a
thing I thought was very intelligent, because that is one of the points
that is really hateful in a Communist country--the meetings after
work. That I noticed through my own experience in Yugoslavia, that the
engineers and the plain workers just hated that--a political meeting
after working 8 hours. And Lee Oswald also resented that in Russia. And
I thought it was a rather intelligent---one of the intelligent remarks
that he made. And he repeated that very often--that is the thing he
hated in Russia; resented, rather than hated.
Well, he described the personalities of some of the people that he knew
there which I do not recall anymore. But some of them nice, and some
of them less nice, and some of them very much interested in the United
States, some of them unfriendly--that sort of vague recollection.
Mr. JENNER. Did you engage him in conversation respecting Communism as
a political ideal and his reactions to that?
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