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Warren Commission Hearings: Vol. VIII - Page 359« Previous | Next »

(Testimony of George A. Bouhe)

Mr. Liebeler.
Did Mr. Gregory tell you how he came to meet Lee Oswald?
Mr. Bouhe.
Of course.
Mr. Liebeler.
Has he told you, in effect, that Oswald came to him at the Fort Worth Public Library and asked him for a letter attesting to his competence as a translator or interpreter of the Russian language?
Mr. Bouhe.
Mr. Gregory did tell me, and maybe I am not a hundred percent accurate, that he met him at the Fort Worth Public Library where, if my information is correct, Mr. Gregory teaches, I think, a free class of the Russian language.
Mr. Gregory is a native of Siberia, and I think a graduate of Leland Stanford, an educated man who could teach the Russian language, and he told me that one day Lee Harvey Oswald sort of approached him and they exchanged a few talks.
Then, if I am not mistaken, Lee Harvey Oswald came to Mr. Gregory's office in the Continental Life Building. He came to his office, and if I understood correctly, Mr. Gregory gave Lee Harvey Oswald a test to evaluate the calibre of his knowledge of the Russian language.
Mr. Liebeler.
Did Mr. Gregory tell you that Lee Oswald asked him, Mr. Gregory, to help him, Oswald, write a book on his experiences in the Soviet Union?
Mr. Bouhe.
That I do not recall having heard from Mr. Gregory.
Mr. Liebeler.
Did you hear it from anybody else?
Mr. Bouhe.
No.
Mr. Liebeler.
No other time? Did you subsequently hear it after the assassination?
Mr. Bouhe.
Yes; I heard that from reading the papers, from the testimony of the public stenographer in Fort Worth.
Mrs. Bailey, I think her name is, to whom Oswald came with a $10 bill--and that information is from the press--and started dictating the book.
Mr. Liebeler.
So the only thing you know about Mr. Gregory's supposed help with Oswald's book is from what you read in the newspapers, is that correct? About the fact that Gregory was supposed to help Oswald with his book?
Mr. Bouhe.
If he told me before, I swear I don't remember.
Mr. Liebeler.
Now at the dinner at Gregory's, did you converse with Lee Oswald and his wife, Marina?
Mr. Bouhe.
I did.
Mr. Liebeler.
Would you tell us, to the best of your recollection, what was said at that time?
Mr. Bouhe.
They were both very shy in the beginning, and to break the ice I used the age-old method of starting conversation on the subject in which the other person is interested, and since I was born in St. Petersburg, and according to newspaper reports and what you hear, Marina spent many, many years, or was even brought up in St. Petersburg.
This created in me an extraordinary interest to meet that person, for no particular political reason, but after you are gone from your hometown for 40 some odd years you would like to see if your house is still standing or the church is broken up, or the school is still in existence, or the herring fish market still smells.
Mr. Liebeler.
You discussed those questions with Marina Oswald at that time?
Mr. Bouhe.
Right. And also I had in my possession a rather large album of maps published in Moscow and purchased by me through V. Kamkin Book Store, Washington, D.C., the album being called the "Plans of St. Petersburg" from the creation by Peter The Great in 1710 to our days, and there were dozens of maps made at regular intervals, including the last one made under the Czarist Regime in 1914, which is really what I was interested in.
Mr. Liebeler.
And you discussed those maps?
Mr. Bouhe.
I took the map with me and we sat down on the floor and I asked Marina, if my school here, or that thing there, and just any exchange of pleasantries on that subject.
Mr. Liebeler.
Did Marina tell you that she subsequently left Leningrad and moved to Minsk?
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