Fy ened ae as ~ et » ? ob ~ ~ 2 = , ee s spacious, carpeted, furnished apartment near the DIZTAG Embassy, which served intermittently as a listening post-basehouse for the agency. At the time, LIEMPTY-19 was working as the manager of the bookstore at the University cf the Americas and, at the seme time, studying for.a B,A, in philosophy. Thos:. were harpy times, We ‘received a twoevonth Leave, went to Lurope, the Rome Olympics and . visited LIEMPTY-19's family in Holland. Back in alexico, when the - base was in operation I stayed home a lot (one of the recuirenents), minded the dial and tave recorders and the baby «= an unfortunate reversal of marital reles. After exactly five years the basehouse was closed dewn and we lost rent, LIEMPTY-19's salary and my mother's salary which she had been receiving as part-time basehouse keeper, My mother and youngest sister gave considerable help in taking care of the baby while LILMVTY-19 worked and when we went to Furope and left the baby with them, This was during the first three years at the base until we had our second child, Christopher, 5. We moved to a small apartment in Lomas and, to supplement the lors cf salary aad rent allowance, the Station began paying 1,000 vesoe a month fer the use of a dark room T had built on the roof of the building. We had ar third child, Madeleine, unplanned, two months after settling in the two-bedroom apartment. The apnrtment need not have beg so small hut we had chosen it for its location and style and because it was to be a temporary stop until we could find something better, We missed voing to the Olympics in Tokyo which we had planned to do (1964) and instead began negotiating to buy a home beilding site at Rio Escendido but whea the deal fell thragh, we decided to go on leave to Eurove again, this time with the two older childven, leaving the baby with my sister. We visited with LISMPTY-19's parents in Holland (they had moved back to Holland after having lived in Washirgton, D,C,., since 1943) and the two childrer stayed with them while LIEMPTY~-19 and I made side trips, Traveling is LIEMPTY-19's yvreatest love in life, Upon our return to Mexico (I came back twe weeks earlier), LIEMPTY-19 was so depressed at leaving Kurone and being back in Mexlco she was enotionally and physically inaccessible for about six week», She nad not fully adjusted to living ia Mexico or to settling down and beconiag a housewife, Our cramped quarters, way of livitig, lack of moaey, my job, my irregular hours and habits, my Friday night poker games, the three children, all these got her dewn, 6. In the fall of 1965 after our return from Europe I began terching inglisnh to beginners in the adult education provram at the American School in the evenings. This started as a two-hour a week mconlighting experiment but by carly 1966, through student contacts made at the school, I had brancled out te teaching at the offices of Carnation Milk Co,, Singer Sewing Machine, and Richardson-Merrell Drug Co. fcr a total of about tweuaty hours per week. LIEMPTY-19, meantime, was working fartetime at the Hanilton School in Lomas where the two older children were attending. The family finances impreved and I was able to convince LIEMPTY-19 that [th ite Po on veo oy oe ct tus) pens Seed png i
tf Si ae 7 eased an 3 - LO . 3 a | the best thing to do vas-to invest in land and build a house big enough for our growing, family which by now had a fourth child oa the way. With three friends as partners, [ ontered on a land-buylag deal which turned out to be complicated* as we bought the land in the form of company stock, The company was liquidated and the assets were distributed, as land, to the four partners. I paid for our share with the proceeds fran the sale of a small lot I had been paying for since.1955, LIEMPTY-19 was at first reluctant to tie us down with a house but when we finally got the papers and land deed straightcned out, she threw herself wholehesrtedly into the ; project and the building which began in August 1967, While LIEMPTY-19 fupervised the construction, I worked during Septeriber and October almost fulletime for the Olynpic Organizing Committee and the group from Czechoslovakia which came tv train in the pre-Olympics, My father-in-law deposited money ‘tn sexico to help us with the major part of the financing of the house, We ured $286,500 pesos of his morey and about $60,000 that LIEMPTY-19 and I had saved and got the house tinished enough to move in in March 1968. We were very short on furniture und shortly after moving in bought three bedroom sets, an autonatic washer and even a piano, Naturally, cash was svacce, dirt was plentiful. The yard was a pile of rubble, the carpentry work had just begun, there were no closets, the house was unpainted, Theveasfter, we did things on the ticuse as the money came Ln: centinued with carpentry, finished the driveway, put in grass, nuilt @ fence and front gate, 7. %Six months after moving in came time for the Olympics and Y worked, unolficially tais time, with the water polo team from Australia, LIgsPprye19 werked for the month with the Dutch and Belgian radio aud TV group. LIscMPTY-19 vas, once arain, caught up in the atmesphere of being among Europeans and doins something exe‘tting and out of the routine of home aud chilaren, She fell in love with the Australians as well, and for several months all she ecvld talk of was that we should move to Australia, I gave it some thought but decided that we had neither the money to invest nor the youth and technical training to make it as pioncers "down under" and, on the other hand, family, friends, a house, and job seniority here in Mexicc. & Toward the end of 1968, LIEMPTY-19 decided it was time for me to move out of the master bedroom as she could no loager: face that aspect of our married Life, For several months we tried this but it did not werk out fer me, One night in March 1969 after we returned home from a party, she asked me to help her undress and when she, once again, refused to have antthiug to de with me, I got rough with her, promnpting a decision on her part, which she had “already been pondering, to visit ber parents in Holland as soon as posSible. Her father provided the plane fare and she left in April for the United States to visit hex brother and sister and 4olland, for what she said would be a five week trip. She ‘stayed eeway ten weeks, The four children remained with me, the, maid, and
Pey NA e oy my nother who came to-hvip three days a week, Upon her return, LEMPTY-19 bore an air of resignation rather than of enthusiram and, “again, as on her previous return from Europe, was physically down end sentally unhappy. When asked about her thoughts on Australia she said that if she had wanted to live in Australia, she should have married an Australian, The separation kad nvt improved our intimate relationship, . 9. In Avgust I was to taka fi'e weeks’ leave and fo with tae echildrea to Astro-World in ouston and visit my mother's family in South Cuvolina, When I suggested postponing making meoathly payments on her father's loan antil December when the Christmas Qonus would cover the back debt, in order to make the trip, she vas adamant. saving that if I did not have the cash for going, I should not take leave. I borrowed from my iife insuraace policy and left with the three voungest children, Adriana had a touch of nepatitis and joined us three weeks later. After spending the month in South Carolina, we returned to Mexico to fand that LIMSTY-19 had very much enjoyed her solitude, ‘We had already talked about divorce before her trip to Hollard in the spring. I had told her that I would not corsider parting with the children and she said she would consider leaving them to me if I would settle the debt to her father as well as give her a substantial share of what she considered was her part of the house. The title of the house was in my name and had been Since the buying of the land. LISMPTY-19 mid I could mortgage or Sell the house but that ihe money was what she was mainly interested iu. I told her that the sale of the house vas not financially wise in its unfinished state and that the house and land are very likely to appreciate sharply over the next three or four years considering the housing developments going on in the area, Added to this was ‘the se.tinmenta] attachment to the house and area, A mortgase, on the other hanc, for the amount of her father's ioan plus what she was aSking, was something I could not afford considering the more than 12 percent cost of such a mortgage in Mexico, 10. At the same time, during September 1969, that we were going through the above-meationed discussions, LIEMPTY~19 was taking a course at Japan Airlines to become a tour guide ard group leader for trips to the Orient as early as November 1969 and, certainly, te Expo ’70 in Osaka during the spring and summerd 1970. The received a diploma to that effect. I told her th.t if she wanted out cf the marriage and wanted to be free to travel it was ajl right by me but that the children would stay with me and 1 would continue to repay he» father at the agreed rate ($2500 per month and 5 pereent per year), She then sought legal] adviee frou an old friend, Dutch lawyer Guillermo Floris Margadant who, in turn, steered her to a young woman lawyer, Dra, Berta Martinez, who must have advised LIEMPTY-19 that under the local legal system the only way to try for a sizable cash settlement and considerable support was to hang on to the children because LIEMPTY-19 made a radical "about-face" in her attitude concerning them and she now said that she could not
14-00000 Dios tia) aE eh gre es oa “= Co Be “abandon the children. I refused to visit her lawyer with her ' saying I was not interested in getting divorced, whereas she said that ber :aind was made up and that we would have to split up, \ ll, Things came to a head on the night of 12 Noverber when I got home argund 9 PM and she sugyernted we have a drink and talk things over, I mixed some martinis and she began laying down the terms under which she thought we should get divorced, i.e. I sould move out of the house, mortgage to pay back her father’s money, grant her custody of the children aad support of 2,000 pesos per month per child ($8,000). I said I would not get divorced under these conditions and we discussed and argued in the kitchen for about three hours, killing a bottle of gin in the process. We went upstairs’ and when I tried to make up to her she tried to rouse the children, unsuccessfully, and then tried to leave the house which I would not ict her do. She got hysterical, phoned a neighbor, Uta dv la Hoz, then she vent into the front yard and awakened the next door neighbors, Walter Hurley and his wife, and asked to go to their hcuse. A few minutes later, Uta and her husband Guillermo came and LIEMPTY-19 went with them to their home two blocks away. About a halfehcur later I walked up to Uta's to ask LIEMPTY<-19 to come home but was told that she was busy phoniug her lawyer and would not veturn. 12, The following morning I tvok the children to school as usual and my sister Marcaa (LIEMPTY-4's wife) picked them up ard took them to her house where I joined tnem for lunch, LisNPTy-19 came by in the late afternoon while my Sister was cut, picked up the children saying she was taking them home, failed to do so, then disappeared and was not to be found, 13, It was the subsecuent action taken by LIEMPTY-15 in dropping her lawyers and taxing on the services of Bernabe Jurado, the most notorious penal attorney in Mexico, that led to the potential security hazatds that ensued, oat of ane ‘ at bw