document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 16, and received in evidence.)
Mr. Rankin. I might call your attention, Mrs. Oswald, to the fact that Exhibit 15, the letter, is dated November 9. Does that help you any?
Mrs. Oswald. Yes. Then this must be 12.
Mr. Rankin. That is the only way you can determine it, is it?
Mrs. Oswald. Yes.
Mr. Rankin. Did you have anything to do with the mailing of this letter, Exhibit 15?
Mrs. Oswald. No.
Mr. Rankin. Yesterday you testified to the fact that your husband told you about his trip to Mexico when he returned, is that right?
Mrs. Oswald. Yes.
Mr. Rankin. Where were you when he told you about it?
Mrs. Oswald. In the home of Mrs. Paine, in my room.
Mr. Rankin. Was there anyone other than yourself and your husband present when he told you about it?
Mrs. Oswald. No.
Mr. Rankin. Will you tell us in as much detail as you can remember just what he said about the trip at that time?
Mrs. Oswald. Everything that I could remember I told you yesterday. I don't remember any more about it.
Mr. Rankin. At that time——
Mrs. Oswald. But I asked him that we not go to Russia, I told him that I did not want to, and he said, "Okay."
Mr. Rankin. That was in this same conversation, after he had told you about the trip to Mexico?
Mrs. Oswald. Yes.
Mr. Rankin. When he asked you not to tell anyone about the trip to Mexico, did he tell you why he asked you to do that?
Mrs. Oswald. No. I knew that he was secretive, and that he loved to make secrets of things.
Mr. Rankin. Did you know the Comrade Kostin that is referred to in this letter of November 8, Exhibit 15?
Mrs. Oswald. I never wrote to him. I don't know. I don't know where he got that name from.
Mr. Rankin. Did your husband say anything about Comrade Kostin and his visit with him at the embassy in Mexico City, when he told you about the trip?
Mrs. Oswald. He did not name him. He didn't tell me his name. But he told me he was a very pleasant, sympathetic person, who greeted him, welcomed him there.
Mr. Rankin. Did your husband say anything to you about what he meant when he said he could not take a chance on requesting a new visa unless he used a real name, so he returned to the United States?
Mrs. Oswald. No, he didn't tell me about it.
Mr. Rankin. Did you understand that he had used any assumed name about going to Mexico?
Mrs. Oswald. No.
Mr. Rankin. He never told you anything of that kind?
Mrs. Oswald. No. After Lee returned from Mexico, I lived in Dallas, and Lee gave me his phone number and then when he changed his apartment—Lee lived in Dallas, and he gave me his phone number. And then when he moved, he left me another phone number.
And once when he did not come to visit during the weekend, I telephoned him and asked for him by name—rather, Ruth telephoned him and it turned out there was no one there by that name. When he telephoned me again on Monday, I told him that we had telephoned him but he was unknown at that number.
Then he said that he had lived there under an assumed name. He asked me to remove the notation of the telephone number in Ruth's phone book, but I didn't want to do that. I asked him then, "Why did you give us a phone number, when we do call we cannot get you by name?"
He was very angry, and he repeated that I should remove the notation of the phone number from the phone book. And, of course, we had a quarrel. I told him that this was another of his foolishness, some more of his foolishness. I told Ruth Paine about this. It was incomprehensible to me why he was so secretive all the time.
Mr. Rankin. Did he give you any explanation of why he was using an assumed name at that time?
Mrs. Oswald. He said that he did not want his landlady to know his real name because she might read in the paper of the fact that he had been in Russia and that he had been questioned.
Mr. Rankin. What did you say about that?
Mrs. Oswald. Nothing. And also he did not want the FBI to know where he lived.
Mr. Rankin. Did he tell you why he did not want the FBI to know where he lived?
Mrs. Oswald. Because their visits were not very pleasant for him and he thought that he loses jobs because the FBI visits the place of his employment.
Mr. Rankin. Now, if he was using an assumed name during the trip in Mexico, you didn't know about it, is that correct?
Mrs. Oswald. I didn't know, that is correct.
Mr. Rankin. Before the trip to Mexico, did your husband tell you that he did not expect to contact the Soviet Embassy there about the visa?
Mrs. Oswald. He said that he was going to visit the Soviet Embassy, but more for the purpose of getting to Cuba, to try to get to Cuba. I think that was more than anything a masking of his purpose. He thought that this would help.
Mr. Rankin. You mean it was a masking of his purpose to visit the Soviet Embassy in Mexico, or to write it in this letter?
Mrs. Oswald. I don't understand the question.
Mr. Rankin. You noticed where he said in this letter "I had not planned to contact the Soviet Embassy in Mexico," did you not?
Mrs. Oswald. Why hadn't he planned that?
Mr. Rankin. That is what I am trying to find out from you.
Did he ever tell you that he didn't plan to visit the Soviet Embassy?
Mrs. Oswald. This is not the truth. He did want to contact the embassy.
Mr. Rankin. And he told you before he went to Mexico that he planned to visit the Soviet Embassy, did he?
Mrs. Oswald. Yes.
Mr. Rankin. Did he ever say to you before he went to Mexico that he planned to communicate with the Soviet Embassy in Havana?
Mrs. Oswald. Yes, he said that if he would be able to get to Cuba, with the intention of living there, he would get in touch with the Soviet Embassy for the purpose of bringing me there. Or for him to go to Russia. Because sometimes he really sincerely wanted to go to Russia and live and sometimes not. He did not know, himself. He was very changeable.
Mr. Rankin. But in Exhibit 15, Mrs. Oswald, he refers to the fact that he hadn't been able to reach the Soviet Embassy in Havana as planned, and then he says, "The Embassy
