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Warren Commission Hearings: Vol. XI - Page 459« Previous | Next »

(Testimony of Priscilla Mary Post Johnson)

Mr. Slawson.
was shaky, and maybe he felt so too, and he was afraid if he talked to them they would talk him out of it.
Mr. Slawson.
In one of your exhibits you comment on his reply to one of your questions, that if he was so adamant on. wanting to renounce his American citizenship, he could do so by going back to the Embassy, and that he had been so informed in the letter. His reply to that, according to your exhibits, was that they would simply give him the same runaround again. Do you have anything to add to that?
Miss JOHNSON. Well, it has come up. It is in the notes several times here, and I may not catch it each time. But I think I have already spoken for the record my impression that he was really not consistent about the Embassy, or I might say just putting it a little more strongly and editorially, he was not quite honest, because he claimed he was so mad he wouldn't go back, yet he was so firm in his resolve as a great big man, that he was going to give up his citizenship, you know.
But I pointed out to him that this seemed to me to be pique, boyish pique. Whether I actually said it, you know, I probably didn't quite, but that is what I thought. He was indulging himself. If he was really so resolved to give up his citizenship, then why let a little thing like annoyance over his October the 31st interview stand in the way of doing this, which he felt was an important principle and act? And I did point out to him the discrepancies in a gentler way than I honestly thought. The answers in my notes reflect his response to this, not the way that I put it to him, that he wouldn't go back because of this and that.
He did show me the letter, but my impression is that he wanted to know whether I thought that the letter was proper treatment. Showing it to me was to me an indication of his very legal approach, legalistic approach to things, and it seemed to me of course nothing exceptional about the letter. You see there he knew what he could do, and he was in light of that refusing to go to. the Embassy. That seemed to me very immature, and from the standpoint of his stated principles, very inconsistent.
Mr. Slawson.
I just have one final question here. I would like to bring together--
Miss JOHNSON. Excuse me, could I add something there?
Mr. Slawson.
Yes.
Miss JOHNSON. And that really was one more thing that led me to think that he was less than certain about his attempt to defect. Well, leaving himself this loophole was it seemed to me important, it seemed important at the time, and he knew he was doing it., because I pointed it out to him. He knew he was doing it, and he got out of it by whatever it was he said to me. I can't isolate all the comments in the notes, but they are all there. He got out of it, but he knew he was doing it.
Mr. Slawson.
But you felt that all these comments then were more or less excuses made up in his own mind, either consciously or unconsciously, that he was excuses for not going back to the Embassy to make this final step of dissolving his citizenship?
Miss JOHNSON. And that behind what appeared to me to be boyish pique lay something else. He was leaving himself a way out, and I was fully aware of it at the time.
Mr. Slawson.
We previously have discussed how much he probably was paying for his hotel room at various times, and for his meals. I bring to your attention one of your statements in the exhibits, that he said he had been living-on Intourist vouchers for 10 days, and we have already gone into what 10 days probably meant. Did he make any other comments that would relate to how much money his attempt to defect was costing him?
Miss JOHNSON. Finance was certainly something I talked to him about, and it was something he was notably elusive about, and again he said he was paying the standard rate. "I want to make it clear they are not sponsoring me." Naturally I wanted to know on what money he got there, and it was in response to this that he told me the itinerary by which he came, by which he said he came, that is. from New Orleans to Le Havre, to Helsinki. He gave me his route.
Whether it was the true route I don't know, but he gave me what he said was
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