(Testimony of Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald Resumed)
Mrs. Oswald.
were not satisfied with life in the Soviet Union, and this Argentinian girl told me the same thing. Many of them thought that, they were not satisfied with conditions in the Soviet Union and thought if Castro were to be in power that the conditions in Cuba would become similar to those in the Soviet Union and they were not satisfied with this. They said it wasn't worth while carrying out a revolution just to have the kind of life that these people in the Soviet Union had.
Representative Ford.
Would you have any idea how many Cubans were in school in Minsk?
Mrs. Oswald.
I heard the figure of 300 but I never knew even a single one.
Representative Ford.
Could you be more helpful in the kind of schools they went to, what were the schools?
Mrs. Oswald.
Most of them were in agricultural institutes. Some were in the institute of foreign languages where they spent a year studying Russian in order subsequently to go on into some other institute where they could study some more formal subject or some more formal discipline.
Representative Ford.
About how old were these students?
Mrs. Oswald.
About between 17 and 21.
Mr. Dulles.
Was your husband absent from you during any protracted period after your marriage, and during your stay in Minsk other than the trip I think he took one trip to Moscow without you.
Mrs. Oswald.
Once I went to Kharkov, and he stayed in Minsk. Other than that there were no absences on his part, except, of course, for the trip to Moscow. Do you want to talk about the Argentinian students?
Mr. Dulles.
Yes; if you have more to say about that.
Mrs. Oswald.
These are people who left Poland about 30 years previously for Argentina. Then after the second World War the part of Poland where they had been living became part of the Soviet Union and the father of this family was an engineer and worked in the same factory where Lee worked, his name was Zieger.
They had two daughters born in Argentina, and the wife was very homesick for her native country, so they came back and the Soviet Government gave them Soviet citizenship before they got on the boat to come back. Then she told us what she had been reading in the newspapers was just propaganda and they thought the life was a little better than what they found out what it was when they arrived. Now, they have been there 7 or 8 years and they would prefer to go back to Argentina but they can't.
Mr. Dulles.
In connection with your husband's work in the factory did he have any indoctrination courses as a part of that in Marxism, Leninism, or in anything of that kind in connection with his work in the factory?
Mrs. Oswald.
I think there are such courses in the factory for party members and for people who want to become party members but Lee never went to them. When he was in Russia he didn't like Russian Communists. He thought they were all bureaucrats. I don't actually know what he liked except himself.
Mr. Dulles.
Do you know whether your husband received any special pay or special funds through the Russian Red Cross or through any other channel in addition to his regular pay in the factory?
Mrs. Oswald.
Before we were married he apparently--he told me he was getting some assistance from the Government, but he told me this after we were married, and I don't know from whom or in what way he got it.
Representative Ford.
Did you have any idea how much extra he was getting over his wages?
Mrs. Oswald.
I don't know how much it was but he had quite a lot of money in the beginning. Maybe he wrote about this in his diary.
Representative Ford.
Did you know how much he was earning each week while he was employed?
Mrs. Oswald.
In Russia they don't pay for every week. Eighty rubles a month.
Representative Ford.
Eighty rubles a month?
Mrs. Oswald.
Yes.
Mr. Dulles.
Those are the new rubles?
Mrs. Oswald.
New rubles.
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