President's Commission on the Assassination of - The Warren Commission (Complete Edition)

Mr. Rankin. Did he have an apartment?

Mrs. Oswald. Yes. By the way, this was the same apartment where I had dreamed to live. I didn't know about it yet. It had a very beautiful balcony, terrace. I would look at that building sometimes and say it would be good to visit in that building, visit someone there, but I never thought that I would wind up living there.

Mr. Rankin. Can you describe the number of rooms there were in his apartment?

Mrs. Oswald. We had a small room—one room, kitchen, foyer, and bathroom. A large terrace, balcony.

Mr. Rankin. Do you know what he paid for rent?

Mrs. Oswald. For two it was quite sufficient. Seven and a half rubles per month.

Mr. Rankin. Wasn't that pretty cheap for such a nice apartment?

Mrs. Oswald. Yes, it was cheap.

Mr. Rankin. Was this apartment nicer than most in this city?

Mrs. Oswald. No, in that city they have good apartments because the houses are new. That is, on a Russian scale, of course. You cannot compare it to private houses people live in here.

Mr. Rankin. Did he have an automobile?

Mrs. Oswald. Oh, no. In Russia this is a problem. In Russia it is difficult to have an automobile.

Mr. Rankin. Did he have a television set?

Mrs. Oswald. No. Only a radio receiver, a record player.

Mr. Rankin. Did you have a telephone?

Mrs. Oswald. No—I don't like television.

Mr. Rankin. Why?

Mrs. Oswald. The programs are not always interesting, and you can get into a stupor just watching television. It is better to go to the movies.

Mr. Rankin. What was his occupation at this time?

Mrs. Oswald. He worked in a radio plant in Minsk.

Mr. Rankin. Do you know what his work was?

Mrs. Oswald. As an ordinary laborer—metal worker. From that point of view, he was nothing special. I had a greater choice in the sense that many of my friends were engineers and doctors. But that is not the main thing.

Mr. Rankin. Did others with a similar job have similar apartments?

Mrs. Oswald. The house in which we lived belonged to the factory in which Lee worked. But, of course, no one had a separate apartment for only two persons. I think that Lee had been given better living conditions, better than others, because he was an American. If Lee had been Russian, and we would have had two children, we could not have obtained a larger apartment. But since he was an American, we would have obtained the larger one. It seems to me that in Russia they treat foreigners better than they should. It would be better if they treated Russians better. Not all foreigners are better than the Russians.

Mr. Rankin. Did he say whether he liked this job?

Mrs. Oswald. No, he didn't like it.

Mr. Rankin. What did he say about it?

Mrs. Oswald. First of all, he was being ordered around by someone. He didn't like that.

Mr. Rankin. Anything else?

Mrs. Oswald. And the fact that it was comparatively dirty work.

Mr. Rankin. Did he say anything about the Russian system, whether he liked it or not?

Mrs. Oswald. Yes. He didn't like it. Not everything, but some things.

Mr. Rankin. Did he say anything about Communists and whether he liked that?

Mrs. Oswald. He didn't like Russian Communists. He said that they joined the party not because of the ideas, but in order to obtain better living conditions and to get the benefit of them.

Mr. Rankin. Did it appear to you that he had become disenchanted with the Soviet system?

Mrs. Oswald. Yes, he had expected much more when he first arrived.

Mr. Rankin. Did he ever tell you why he came to Russia?

Mrs. Oswald. Yes. He said he had read a great deal about Russia, he was interested in seeing the country, which was the first in the Socialist camp about which much had been said, and he wanted to see it with his own eyes. And, therefore, he wanted to be not merely a tourist, who is being shown only the things that are good, but he wanted to live among the masses and see.

But when he actually did, it turned out to be quite difficult.

The Chairman. I think we better adjourn now for the day.

(Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the President's Commission recessed.)

Table of Contents

The President's Commission met at 10 a.m. on February 6, 1964, at 200 Maryland Avenue NE., Washington, D.C.

Present were Chief Justice Earl Warren, Chairman; Senator John Sherman Cooper, Representative Hale Boggs, Representative Gerald R. Ford, and Allen W. Dulles, members.

Also present were J. Lee Rankin, general counsel; Melvin Aron Eisenberg, assistant counsel; Norman Redlich, assistant counsel; William D. Krimer, and Leon I. Gopadze, interpreters; and John M. Thorne, attorney for Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald.

The Chairman. The Commission will be in order. We will proceed again. Mr. Rankin?

Mr. Rankin. Mrs. Oswald, if I may return a moment with you to the time that you told us about your husband practicing with the rifle at Love Field. As I recall your testimony, you said that he told you that he had taken the rifle and practiced with it there, is that right?

Mrs. Oswald. I knew that he practiced with it there. He told me, later.

Mr. Rankin. And by practicing with it, did you mean that he fired the rifle there, as you understood it?

Mrs. Oswald. I don't know what he did with it there. He probably fired it. But I didn't see him.

Mr. Rankin. And then you said that you had seen him cleaning it after he came back, is that right?

Mrs. Oswald. Yes.

Mr. Rankin. Now, do you recall your husband having any ammunition around the house at any time?

Mrs. Oswald. Yes.

Mr. Rankin. And where do you remember his having it in the places you lived?

Mrs. Oswald. On Neely Street, in Dallas, and New Orleans.

Mr. Rankin. Do you know whether that was rifle ammunition or rifle and pistol ammunition?

Mrs. Oswald. I think it was for the rifle. Perhaps he had some pistol ammunition there, but I would not know the difference.

Mr. Rankin. Did you observe how much ammunition he had at any time?

Mrs. Oswald. He had a box of about the size of this.

Mr. Rankin. Could you give us a little description of how you indicated the box? Was it 2 or 3 inches wide?

Mrs. Oswald. About the size here on the pad.

Mr. Rankin. About 3 inches wide and 6 inches long?

Mrs. Oswald. Probably.

Mr. Rankin. Now, do you recall that you said to your husband at any time that he was just studying Marxism so he could get attention?

Mrs. Oswald. Yes.

Mr. Rankin. In order to cause him not to be so involved in some of these ideas, did you laugh at some of his ideas that he told you about, and make fun of him?

Mrs. Oswald. Of course.

Mr. Rankin. Did he react to that?

Mrs. Oswald. He became very angry.

Mr. Rankin. And did he ask you at one time, or sometimes, not to make fun of his ideas?

Mrs. Oswald. Yes.

Mr. Rankin. Now, returning to the period in Russia, while your husband was courting you, did you talk to him, he talk to you, about his childhood?

Mrs. Oswald. No, not very much. Only in connection with photographs, where he was a boy in New York, in the zoo. Then in the Army—there is a snapshot taken right after he joined the Army.

Mr. Rankin. Did he tell you about anything he resented about his childhood?

Mrs. Oswald. He said it was hard for him during his childhood, when he was a boy, because there was a great age difference between him and Robert, and Robert was in some sort of a private school. He also wanted to have a chance to study, but his mother was working, and he couldn't get into a private school, and he was very sorry about it.

Mr. Rankin. In talking about that, did he indicate a feeling that he had not had as good an opportunity as his brother Robert?