Part 58

Mr. LIEBELER. You say there were just three of them?

Mr. PAINE. I think there were three; yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. Are you a member of the American Civil Liberties Union?

Mr. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. When did you become a member of that organization?

Mr. PAINE. I suppose you become a member as soon as you contribute money, and I may have contributed money a good many years back. I didn't start going to a meeting of the organization until I was--I have only been to about four perhaps, in Dallas, four meetings.

Mr. LIEBELER. Is Dallas the only place you have attended meetings of the ACLU?

Mr. PAINE. To my knowledge.

Mr. LIEBELER. Are you acquainted with an organization known as the Friends Peace Committee?

Mr. PAINE. It is a familiar name. I guess not, though. I don't think I have been to a meeting of theirs.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know if it is connected in any way with the Young Friends Committee of North America.

Mr. PAINE. I take it to be a Friend, you know, a Quaker committee but I believe it is connected.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know a gentleman by the name of Dennis Jamison, who I believe is active in the Friends Peace Committee?

Mr. PAINE. I don't think so.

Mr. LIEBELER. Or George Lakey?

Mr. PAINE. For practical purposes; no. The names seem a little familiar but I can't place them.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any recollection of the connection in which it is familiar to you?

Mr. PAINE. No.

Mr. LIEBELER. Are you familiar with the Committee for Non-Violent Action?

Mr. PAINE. Many of these things sound familiar. I don't--I really am saying no.

Mr. LIEBELER. Are you a member or have you ever attended any meetings of the John Birch Society?

Mr. PAINE. I am not a member. I have been to one or, I guess chiefly one meeting of theirs.

Mr. LIEBELER. Where was that?

Mr. PAINE. That was in Dallas?

Mr. LIEBELER. When?

Mr. PAINE. That was the night Stevenson spoke in Dallas.

The CHAIRMAN. When?

Mr. PAINE. The night Stevenson spoke in Dallas, U.N. Day.

Representative FORD. Was that 1963?

Mr. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. Would you tell us the circumstances of your attendance at that meeting and what happened?

Mr. PAINE. I had been seeking to go to a Birch meeting for some time, and then I was invited on this night so I went. It was an introductory meeting.

Mr. DULLES. On the 9th of November?

Mr. PAINE. It was November something, I don't know what, a Wednesday or Thursday night.

Mr. LIEBELER. For the record I think the record should indicate that Mr. Stevenson was in Dallas on or about October 24, 1963. Who invited you to this meeting?

Mr. PAINE. I had tried once before to go to a meeting which didn't occur. There happens to be a member of our choir, a paid soloist who is a John Birch advocate so I have been applying--so I have been telling her, that I wanted to go. I suppose, I don't remember for certain but I suppose she was the one who told me where and when.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did this meeting have anything to do with the activity that occurred at Mr. Stevenson's meeting in Dallas?

Mr. PAINE. No. You see they were taking place at the same time. It was rather sparsely attended, most of them were down spitting on Stevenson.

Mr. LIEBELER. The Birch meeting which you were down to was sparsely attended?

Mr. PAINE. Yes.

Representative FORD. Was this an evening meeting or afternoon?

Mr. PAINE. This is evening.

Representative FORD. Evening.

Mr. DULLES. May I ask, did you go out of curiosity rather than sympathy or rather how did you happen to go?

Mr. PAINE. I am not in sympathy.

Mr. DULLES. So I gathered.

Mr. PAINE. I have been to a number of rightist meetings and seminars in Texas. I was interested in seeing more communication between the right and the left; there isn't much liberal out there and so I wanted to be able to speak their language and know that their fears--and be familiar with their feelings and attitudes.

Mr. LIEBELER. Was there any discussion at this meeting as far as you can recall of Mr. Stevenson's appearance in Dallas?

Mr. PAINE. No; I don't believe there was any.

Mr. LIEBELER. Was there any discussion of the policy of the Kennedy administration?

Mr. PAINE. There was no discussion at that meeting. It was a 2- or 3-hour lecture on a movie by Welch, and then a young man gave a few more explanations about the organization. It was mostly an introductory meeting. I think for newcomers.

Mr. LIEBELER. Telling them about the John Birch Society itself?

Mr. PAINE. That is right.

Mr. LIEBELER. Mr. Welch was not there, was he?

Mr. PAINE. No; he was not.

Representative FORD. Was this a movie in which he participated?

Mr. PAINE. He was the speaker at a lectern in this movie.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any knowledge of the political attitudes or activities of your father, George Lyman Paine?

Mr. PAINE. I have very little specific knowledge of what he does.

Mr. LIEBELER. Would you tell us what you do know about your father's political activities?

Mr. PAINE. I have seen my father rather rarely. Since I have been in Texas, I have seen him more frequently. I think I have been out there three times now in the last 5 years.

Mr. LIEBELER. When you say out there--you mean Los Angeles?

Mr. PAINE. Yes; I have seen him twice. He was out to Texas. I have been to Los Angeles twice, and he came at least once to Dallas.

Mr. LIEBELER. Please fix the time when you went to Los Angeles?

Mr. PAINE. Last summer, 2 weeks in August or something. I was there for 3 days, the first, the middle of August.

I would guess it was about 2 years before that that I had been there. I could be off by a year both ways. I can't even remember whether he came--I think he probably interspersed his visit between mine.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you recall that he visited Irving on two different occasions, once in Christmas, 1962?

Mr. PAINE. One was a Christmas party, that is right.

Mr. LIEBELER. And once in the summer of 1961.

Mr. PAINE. I don't remember '61. I do remember pictures now, we have pictures showing us outside so that was balmy weather.

Mr. LIEBELER. So that in the period that you have been living in Texas you have gone to Los Angeles on two different occasions and visited your father there and he has been in Irving on two different occasions, is that correct?

Mr. PAINE. That seems, I think, to be right.

Mr. LIEBELER. Would you go on and tell us what you know about your father's political activities?

Mr. PAINE. Yes.

Well, we would have to go back to a little to when I lived in New York as a school student in school, grammar school and high school. There I would see him very infrequently considering our close proximity and the fact that I found him stimulating and I liked him.

He took me to a few, one or possibly two, Communist meetings at my considerable insistence. He didn't urge this upon me. I wanted to go, to get the feeling of the--I asked him what he did or something and I wanted to know all this, my mother said he was on the radical left.

So, I went to a few of those meetings, and didn't--was unfamiliar with the issues and questions they were debating. I got the feeling, I came away with the impression, that these people, there were three Communist groups apparently in New York at the time, and they were most up in arms with each other, or there----

Mr. DULLES. Excuse me, how old were you at this time approximately?

Mr. PAINE. This was somewhere from eighth grade to high school.

Mr. DULLES. Yes.

Representative FORD. What year about, what time span would that be?

Mr. PAINE. Well 1947, I think I got out of high school, so it is 1943 to 1947.

Then I didn't--I got the flavor of those meetings. I found sort of an intense people, people of high intensity. I didn't feel very much at home there, and I guess I didn't go to any more.

Mr. DULLES. Did they try to recruit you at all or to get you to be a member or attend or join meetings?

Mr. PAINE. No; they were glad to meet Lyman's son. That is he would introduce me to friends or people he knew there, and I liked--I had some favorable attitudes to the zeal of the group or the zeal of the assembled people.

They were fully committed to what they believed in. I had my own dreams of how I would like to see society at the time and it wasn't along the same line.

So, I felt happy to have them there and I would go my course and just--I didn't feel opposed to them; neither did I feel drawn to them, although I tried to read some of Das Kapital at that time and Communist manifesto.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever join any of these organizations?

Mr. PAINE. Well, I didn't know of any organization as such.

I went to this meeting in downtown New York. I didn't know--so therefore I knew three groups. Maybe it was the Socialist group and the Stalinist group and I think the group that Lyman was in, I don't know, maybe he was a Socialist.

Mr. LIEBELER. Which was the second group, was it the Stalinist?

Mr. PAINE. I mentioned the Stalinist, Dubinsky, David Dubinsky, was the only name I remember aside from Stalin, was a name I remember there, and I can't now remember whose side who was on.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any clear recollection of what particular group your father was associated with?

Mr. PAINE. No; I never had--never knew what the name of any group he might be associated with.

Now, I suppose it was Trotsky. Trotskyite was a different distinct group at that time. They probably wouldn't be mentioning their own group. They would be mentioning their opponent's group.

Mr. LIEBELER. Subsequent to your attendance at the meetings of these groups at the time you have spoken of did you ever attend any other meetings of similar groups either in New York or any other place?

Mr. PAINE. I can't remember anything of a similar nature.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you know of your father ever using any aliases?

Mr. PAINE. No; I don't.

Mr. LIEBELER. You are not familiar with the name Thomas L. Brown or Lyman Pierce?

Mr. PAINE. No.

Mr. LIEBELER. When was the----

Mr. PAINE. I was aware that my father didn't talk readily about his affairs. When we met we would talk at great length and we always do talk. There is an amazing similarity in our natures. I have almost thought there was one person trying to live in two bodies.

But we have always been completely absorbed in subjects that were closer to my--without going into what he was doing day to day or what he was--I was aware that I didn't know, and I didn't pry or probe as to what he might be doing there.

Mr. LIEBELER. So far as you know, however, he was actively participating in the meetings and activities of this group?

Mr. PAINE. Oh, yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. Am I correct in understanding that your father and mother were divorced when you were about 4 years old?

Mr. PAINE. That is right.

Mr. LIEBELER. You were at that time living in New York City?

Mr. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. Subsequently you and your mother.

Mr. PAINE. She got a divorce in Reno, Nev., she had a house in Virginia City.

The CHAIRMAN. In New York you were living with your father or mother?

Mr. PAINE. They lived together in New York. Then there was a year, a part of a year, we moved to Philadelphia. They may have separated and he tried to come back or something like that, and then we went to Reno, Nev.

Mr. LIEBELER. During the time you lived in Philadelphia, was your father living with the family?

Mr. PAINE. I think he was there part time. I don't remember that for sure. We had two houses there. One I think I remember him slightly and the other one I don't.

Mr. LIEBELER. Your father was not present during the time that you stayed in Nevada?

Mr. PAINE. No; he was not.

Mr. LIEBELER. You and your brother stayed in Nevada with your mother?

Mr. PAINE. And a housekeeper also.

Mr. LIEBELER. After you left Nevada where did you live?

Mr. PAINE. We went over to California. Santa Barbara.

Mr. LIEBELER. Who lived there at that time with you?

Mr. PAINE. A friend of hers, Kathleen, now she was originally Kathleen Schroeder, a sister of my uncle, now Kathleen Forbes, and a distant cousin of my mother's, and I think my grandfather, grandparents, would come out occasionally.

Mr. LIEBELER. Was your father present at that time?

Mr. PAINE. No; he was not.

Mr. LIEBELER. He wasn't there at any time during your stay in Santa Barbara?

Mr. PAINE. I don't remember that. I am not certain of it.

Mr. LIEBELER. How long did you live in Santa Barbara, Calif.?

Mr. PAINE. Each year my grandfather paid our way back across the country to Naushon Island in Massachusetts. We lived there 3 years.

Mr. LIEBELER. Where did you go after that?

Mr. PAINE. Cambridge, Mass.

Mr. LIEBELER. How long were you there?

Mr. PAINE. From the third to the sixth grade.

Mr. LIEBELER. With whom did you live?

Mr. PAINE. With my mother on Fairweather Street.

The CHAIRMAN. Is this of particular importance to the investigation, it is very lengthy, and I don't know particularly what it bears upon. If it is in relation with his father, let's get at that and get it over with, but I don't see what this man's history from the time he was born--I don't see how it bears on it. It just takes altogether too much time for an extraneous purpose, it seems to me. Let's get on with the thing.

Mr. LIEBELER. It bears on the point only on what connection he has with his father.

Mr. PAINE. Let me go to that. I have seen him on a few times, once a year would be a frequent--we felt great affinity in our bent, not in the actual application of the way we would like to do things but in a concern for the value of people. I know very little about what he does, and he has not tried to proselytize me, and he has not volunteered information about what he did.

I think a certain change has come over him since. For many years or years in college or something I thought he was still interested in his revolutionary groups and that was a pity because that wasn't going to happen, and it was to be a dead end, a blind, he would come to the end of his life and his cause had fizzled out.

When I went out to California more recently, the last time we were talking about the civil rights movement and, shall we say, the revolution occurring in this country spearheaded by the Negroes' demand for dignity, that was a subject that completely absorbed the weekend and there were various Negroes who came around the country, who happened to pass through at that time.

You probably might be interested in regard to Cuba. I was surprised sometime in the conversation someone there had spoken favorably of the revolution in Cuba. This was a surprise to me, I didn't realize that this was part of the--was the present thrill, shall we say. I don't know whether that applied to Lyman also or whether--I think he went along with that. We didn't get around to arguing on that point. I only mention that in passing. That was about the full extent of it.

She mentioned Cuba in this favorable way, and it was a subject I didn't----

Mr. DULLES. Who was this she?

Mr. PAINE. It was Grace somebody, I have forgotten.

Mr. DULLES. One of the people present in these conversations?

Mr. PAINE. Yes. So that was my only knowledge that he was, or the people around him were, interested in Cuba, and that is the only thing I can see has any bearing in your interest here.

Mr. LIEBELER. To what extent would you say that your father has influenced your own political views and attitudes?

Mr. PAINE. I would have guessed it was almost negligible. I was aware that sometime in the beginning of college or something I used the language of the masses or I used jargon which I recognized, came to perceive was of quite leftist nature, and I think that at the time I used to get The Nation, that was in high school. I probably picked it up more from the magazines and things of that sort than from him.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever discuss your father with Lee Oswald?

Mr. PAINE. On a phone call shortly after the assassination he called and thought it was outrageous to be pinning Lee Oswald who was a scapegoat, an ideal person to hang the blame on.

Mr. LIEBELER. Your father called you?

Mr. PAINE. Yes; he called me, yes. He didn't suppose it was true, I told him I thought it probably was true. And I told him to keep his shirt on.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember anything else about that conversation?

Mr. PAINE. No. It was chiefly both he and Freddy, his wife, had to be calmed down. They thought it was a steamrollered job of injustice or something. And I didn't think their admonitions were--I think not to say anything, not to join the hubbub or jump on the things I said or I took it to be things I said would be distorted and blown up and added to the hullabaloo to lynch Lee.

Representative FORD. Did they infer or imply that the allegations or accusations against Oswald bore the semblance of a lynching? And I use lynching in the broad sense.

Mr. PAINE. They did not use lynching at all. I added that. They thought he was----

Representative FORD. Being railroaded?

Mr. PAINE. No; he said that no one, no member of the Friends of Cuba would want to assassinate the President. That was a crazy idea.

Representative FORD. You said that was a crazy idea?

Mr. PAINE. No; he said that. Therefore, he concluded, and this was the same, similar to my feeling, that I first didn't think Oswald had done it because I didn't see how it fitted in, how it helped his favorite ideals.

And Lyman then said the same thing. Therefore, including himself, Lyman, that Lee couldn't have done it, and that this must be--Lee was the ideal person to hang it on.

Representative FORD. How soon was this phone call after the assassination?

Mr. PAINE. I think it was--he did not know, I think, that we had Marina staying with us, but he was one of the first to connect, guess that it was us. He called and asked us, "Is this you?"

Representative FORD. "Is this you?" What? I don't quite understand the context here.

Mr. PAINE. He heard it on the news and he heard Mrs. Paine, and Marina had been staying with a Mrs. Paine and he called to ask, "Are you the Paines?"

Mr. LIEBELER. Had you discussed Lee Oswald with your father prior to this time?

Mr. PAINE. No; I don't think I mentioned him.

Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know whether your father knew Lee Oswald?

Mr. PAINE. No; I do not know. Or I gather since he had such a funny idea of him over the phone.

Mr. LIEBELER. To the best of your judgment the only way your father heard of Lee Oswald, connected Lee Oswald to you, was through a news broadcast that he had heard connecting Oswald with somebody named Paine?

Mr. PAINE. Or Marina had stayed with the Paines.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever discuss your father with Lee Oswald?

Mr. PAINE. No; I did not.

Mr. LIEBELER. And Oswald never asked you about your father in any way or did he indicate that he knew of your father?

Mr. PAINE. No; he did not. I think Ruth came closer to revealing that my father had--you will have to ask her about that question. I did not mention my father to Lee.

Mr. LIEBELER. When did you meet Lee Oswald?

Mr. PAINE. I met him sometime in the spring of 1963.

Mr. DULLES. This is Oswald?

Mr. LIEBELER. Yes; Lee Oswald.

Mr. PAINE. We were invited to a party, Ruth and I were invited to a party, given by Everett Glover. I had a cold and wasn't able to go. Ruth went at that time and subsequently went once or twice to see Marina. And she invited Marina and Lee to our house for dinner, and here the date that comes to mind is April 10.

Mr. DULLES. Where was Marina staying at this time?

Mr. PAINE. Berry Street.

Mr. DULLES. Berry Street in Dallas.

Mr. LIEBELER. Berry Street or would it be Neely Street?

Mr. PAINE. Neely Street. So this was the first time I saw them. I had to go over, he didn't drive a car and I had to go over, and pick him up in my car and bring him back to the house. So I went over to Neely Street and saw them. Marina took about half an hour to pack all the things for Junie. Meanwhile I was talking to Lee at their house there.

Mr. LIEBELER. Would you tell us about that conversation?

Mr. PAINE. I asked him what he was doing, his job, and he showed me a picture on the wall, which was a piece of newspaper, I think--that is beside the point. I asked him about Russia, what he liked about----

Mr. DULLES. Could we get that picture?

Mr. PAINE. I think it was beside the point. It was a piece of newspaper showing a fashion ad, I think. I think his job was----

Mr. DULLES. Nothing to do with politics at all, to do with his job. I see.

Mr. PAINE. I asked him what he thought. I wanted to know why he had gone to Russia and why he had then come back. He had told me he had become a Marxist in this country without ever having met a Communist, by reading books and then he got to Russia, and----

Mr. LIEBELER. Did he tell you why he went to Russia?

Mr. PAINE. He said he wanted to go to Russia. He had chosen to go to Russia.

Mr. LIEBELER. He didn't elaborate on it?

Mr. PAINE. No; I gathered he had had an interest in going to Russia for a number of years prior to the time he got there and decided that that was the paradise of the world and through fortunate relations between this country and Russia at the time, I would have to remember history to know whether that was a warm, a friendly time or not, but he indicated both his going and his coming were fortunate times in history or something that made it possible for him to do these.

Mr. DULLES. Fortunate times?

Mr. PAINE. Fortunate times, this was sort of an accident in history. This is what I gathered from his conversation.

Representative FORD. Fortunate that he could leave at the time and fortunate that he could come back.

Mr. PAINE. Fortunate that he could be accepted to emigrate to Russia. He told me that he had--so he went to Russia and he tried to surrender his passport to the Russians but the State Department would not give it to him, or the consul in Moscow, which was--which proved to be fortunate because then a few years later when he wanted to return it would not have been possible, except if they still had his passport. He had not legally surrendered it.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did he indicate that was a fortunate circumstance?

Mr. PAINE. I think he smiled, he indicated to me he genuinely had wanted to become a Russian citizen and to surrender it. He wanted to renounce his American citizenship. He tried to, and the Russians, he told me, had accepted his bona fide intentions and tried to get the passport away from the Americans.

Representative FORD. Was the failure to get his passport a determining factor in their not accepting his desires?

Mr. PAINE. No. He told me that they did accept his desires despite his inability to get the passport and give it to them.

Representative FORD. Despite his inability?

Mr. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. "They" being the Russians?

Mr. PAINE. Yes; they being the Russians and they issued to him, he told me, the standard kind of temporary citizenship paper which is given to all emigres to Russia, and there are some----

Mr. DULLES. Was it citizenship paper he said or something else, citizenship paper?

Mr. PAINE. Now, I suppose there was a regular paper and everybody would know of it.

Mr. DULLES. Domicile paper or something allowing domicile.

Mr. PAINE. I had thought, my impression was, that it was kind of probationary citizenship. It is a kind of paper issued for a year to somebody who is seeking citizenship. That was my impression at the time.

Mr. DULLES. Could it have been a probationary residence permit or something of that sort. He said citizenship, did he?

Mr. PAINE. That was my impression. That it was the commencement of a citizenship paper.

Mr. DULLES. Did he tell you about any difficulties he had in getting permission to stay on in Russia?