economics in the sense of a Marxist versus Capitalist discussion, terms like you used, "primary accumulation," "exploitation," and so on?
Miss JOHNSON. Yes, a little better than exploitation, more in primary accumulation, and comparing the two systems. If I had been good at comparing the two systems and using economic verbiage I guess that what I am saying is that if I had had long words about economics, been able to throw them around with some authority, he would have respected me. He did respect words, long words, language, and if I had seemed to have a key to some occult science that he didn't know about but was interested in, that this would have compelled his respect and might have brought him back. But I had taken a course in Soviet economics at Harvard where they had waived the requirement that you had studied the American economic system, and I had done all right in the course, but that really was where my economic training began and ended, and I just barely sustained my interest through the course.
I regreted very much after that conversation not having ever really studied economics formally, at least not knowing the terms.
I am so uninterested in it that if somebody tells me the words I forget them. It was that bad with me. This was the only real occasion where I was very sorry.

Mr. Slawson.

In Commission Exhibit No. 911, which is John McVickar's memorandum to files about his conversation with you, he quotes you as saying, "Miss Johnson remarked that although he used long words and seemed in some ways well-read, he often used words incorrectly as though he had learned them from a dictionary."
Was that in reference to these economic discussions you had with Oswald?
Miss JOHNSON. Yes. I think really he didn't use long words too much about economics. I felt if I could have, I could have made an impression. Words were important to him. And he was not qualified, mind you, for a technical discussion of economics.
It wasn't that he was qualified for it. If I had been, I felt I would have had a value to him.

Mr. Slawson.

I wish you would elaborate on this: What kind of knowledge you felt Lee Oswald had on economics, and his general ability to engage in abstract argument and discussion.
Miss JOHNSON. He liked to create the pretense, the impression that he was attracted to abstract discussion and was capable of engaging in it, and was drawn to it. But it was like pricking a balloon. I had the feeling that if you really did engage him on this ground, you very quickly would discover that he didn't have the capacity for a logical sustained argument about an abstract point on economics or on noneconomic, political matters or any matter, philosophical. Actually the conversation kept coming back to him, and this was not only my desire for an interview. It was the way he led it. He really talked about himself the whole time.
Whatever he was talking about was really Lee Oswald. He seemed to me to have really zero capacity for a sustained abstract discussion on economics or any other subject, and I didn't think he knew anything about economics.
In fact, if I had been a little smarter I would have Just used the economic words that I could have remembered, compelled his respect and he wouldn't have known that I didn't know anything.

Mr. Slawson.

You said that you did not get into much political discussion with him.
Miss JOHNSON. No, we didn't. Partly I couldn't engage him directly on the Soviet Union because I had a poor status there as a correspondent. I worked for the weakest of the American agencies. I was always in danger of being expelled with my visa expiring. Even then I was only on a i month visa, and at that only because of the spirit of Camp David. I had Just barely gotten back in the country.
I was Just there on sufferance, and I really couldn't show my hand politically, tell him anything I thought politically. He also didn't seem interested in a pointed political discussion about either society. He seemed to be able or willing to discuss in generalizations rather than in direct terms, a comparison of the two societies or anything like this. The point where I felt I could engage him was

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