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. BALLEN. No. During the course of my meeting with him, I started
out being attracted somewhat toward him, and I started out having
a fairly good impression of the individual, and I also started out
feeling very sorry for the chap, knowing some hard times that he had
been through, and of wanting to help him. But as this meeting wore
on, I just gradually came to the feeling that he was too much of a
rugged individualist for me, and that he was too much of a hardheaded
individual, and that I probably would ultimately regret having him
down at my organization. I was, during the course of this meeting,
trying to analyze his training to find a place for him at Electrical
Log Services, where we have a large camera and commercial reproduction
equipment, but the more I talked to him, while I had a certain area
of admiration for him, it still remained that I gradually came to the
conclusion, and did not relay this to him in any way, that he was too
much of a rugged individualist and probably wouldn't fit in with the
team we had down there. So I never did really try to help Oswald. I
think I told George De Mohrenschildt I would search around and see what
I could do.
Mr. LIEBELER. But in point of fact, you never took any steps after this
to try to help him find a job?
Mr. BALLEN. My memory was a bit hazy in one respect. I knew I reached
my conclusion. I didn't know whether I had called up our general
manager down at the Log Services to see what openings, if any, could be
generated, but in checking with the individual, he does not have any
memory of my calling him in that regard.
Mr. LIEBELER. The other individual being the man in charge of
operations at Log Services?
Mr. BALLEN. That's correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did Oswald say to you that led you to this
conclusion that you have just expressed?
Let me ask you a broader question. Let me ask you, if you will now, to
your best recollection, give the substance of the conversation that
you and Oswald had that day?
Mr. BALLEN. We commenced speaking in pleasantries, and I had known from
De Mohrenschildt that he had gone to Russia, that he had married, and
come back. I did not know of any unpleasant association with the Marine
Corps, nor did I know of any attempt on his part to be a defector.
I asked him why he had left and gone to Russia, and he said that this
Russian movement was an intriguing thing and he wanted to find out for
himself and didn't want to depend upon what the newspapers or visitors
had said, and that he had gone there and spent some time there. He
gave me the impression somehow that this was in the southern portion
of Russia. And he said that the place was just boring, that there was
hardly anything of any real curiosity or interest there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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