(Testimony of Priscilla Mary Post Johnson)
Mr. Mosk.
knew the law, he would have informed himself or thought he was informed about his legal rights. He seemed very stuck on the importance of legality, legalism.
Mr. Slawson.
Miss Johnson, I am going to now back up a bit and ask you some questions about the general atmosphere in Moscow, quite apart from Lee Harvey Oswald. I make reference here to Exhibit No. 5, which we introduced just a minute ago. On the first page of that exhibit, which is your statement to the Department of State, you mention that most of the defectors who came to Moscow while you were a correspondent there came because of personal troubles they were having at home, rather than reasons of ideology.
You also bring up the fact that, rather your belief that, the Russians had wanted one or two defectors from the U.S. exhibition of 1959 to counter the negative propaganda they had been suffering from the frequent defections of East bloc persons to the West. I wonder if you would comment about both those points? First, if you could give us a description of approximately how many American defectors you either knew or had knowledge of at that time?
Miss JOHNSON. Well, I heard about most of those who came through, though I didn't necessarily interview them. There had been one called Webster--Richard Webster, I think--from the fair, and he had had a job in Ohio. He worked at the fair. I don't know what he did. At the end of the fair he asked to stay. That was, say, September or so of 1959. We had defectors on the brain right then in Moscow, all of us, because there had been a great deal of travel. The result was that a lot of tourists were there; there were an unusually large number. That is to say there had been three defectors. And Webster, now, when you did go into it, it developed that he wasn't too happy with his wife and he was interested in a waitress at the Hotel Ukraine. There had been another one named Petrulli--Nicholas Petrulli. I have forgotten the circumstances, but again they were personal, and I think he changed his mind. I think my colleague, Mr. Korengold, supported him, really, while he was thinking it over and deciding not to do it.
That is as far as I can remember. Those were better known cases that I didn't bother with because I couldn't compete with the agencies. And the Oswald case I did see because Mr. McVickar said he was refusing to talk to journalists. So I thought that it might be an exclusive, for one thing, and he was right in my hotel, for another. But then, once I got talking to him, I realized right away that he was different. At least I found him interesting at the time. Afterward I thought he was very interesting.
I don't remember the Petrulli case; it was probably after the Oswald case, and then there were a couple named Block--Morris Block and Mrs. Block. I one day encountered Mrs. Block on the third floor of my hotel, sitting talking with the woman who gave out the keys. She was quite a forthcoming lady who talked far more about herself than she should have, since they couldn't have wanted any publicity right then about themselves. So I knew about the Blocks, too.
Mr. Mosk.
They also came back?
Miss JOHNSON. They did come back this year, lately. But I didn't know too much about the Blocks. There was something else about the Blocks. Maybe they had some connection with the Soviet Union. Maybe he had been there before. There was some reason about the Blocks. Anyway, I couldn't get to interview them. That was the crux of the matter. So that Oswald was the only--and there was something that made me think the Blocks were not pure ideological, that they had some connections-with Russia as such, although I may be quite mistaken.
Mr. Slawson.
You mean possibly some business or personal connection that would give them a tie?
Miss JOHNSON. Right.
Mr. Slawson.
That would be different, quite apart from the ideology of Communist Russia?
Miss JOHNSON. I had the feeling that perhaps Mr. Block had been in the Soviet Union before, perhaps in the service during war or that they were of Russian ancestry, something of that kind, which took away from any ideological features.
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