Part 73

Mrs. PAINE. This is the rough draft, to which I just referred, written to Marina.

Mr. JENNER. And you thereupon prepared the final draft and sent it?

Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.

Mr. JENNER. This represents, does it not, your best recollection of the contents of the letter, the letter in its final form as you transmitted it to Marina?

Mrs. PAINE. I think this is probably a very accurate representation of the letter in its final form. It was the first time I put on paper an invitation to her to come and stay with me for anything more than a few weeks around the birth of the baby.

Mr. JENNER. Have you supplied the Commission with a translation of your letter?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I have.

Mr. JENNER. And that appears at the bottom of page 7 of your notes which you have supplied to me?

Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.

Mr. JENNER. I direct your attention, if I may, and the attention of the Commission as interpreted by Mrs. Paine, the first sentence reads, "Dear Marina, if Lee doesn't wish to live with you any more and prefers that you go to the Soviet Union, think about the possibility of living with me."

You just said--is that the portion of your letter which you say this is the first invitation you made to Marina to come to live with you generally?

Mrs. PAINE. This was the first written invitation.

Mr. JENNER. I see.

Mrs. PAINE. I had made an informal invitation face to face when she was staying the first week in May, but felt as I made it that she didn't take this seriously.

Mr. JENNER. Now, you go on in your letter and you make reference, for example, to--let's take the second paragraph of your letter appearing at the top of page 8 of your notes, "You know I have long received from my parents, I live dependent a long time. I would be happy to be an aunt to you and I can. We have sufficient money. Michael will be glad. This I know. He just gave me $500 for the vacation or something necessary. With this money it is possible to pay the doctor and hospital in October when the baby is born, believe God. All will be well for you and the children. I confess that I think that the opportunity for me to know you came from God. Perhaps it is not so but I think and believe so."

Had you discussed this matter with your husband?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I had.

Mr. JENNER. And you were still living separate and apart at that time?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes. But I felt so long as I was not yet earning, he would be the one, in fact, who was supporting all of us.

Mr. JENNER. I think the Commission might be interested in that. You were not taking this action, either in the earlier stage in the early spring or in the summer of inviting Marina to live with you without discussing that with your husband even though you and your husband at that time were separated?

Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.

Mr. JENNER. Did you do anything, Mrs. Paine, in this connection with respect to keeping Lee Oswald informed of your invitations and your communications in this area with Marina?

Mrs. PAINE. I wrote into the letter that I hoped--well you might just read the last paragraph.

Mr. JENNER. Would you mind reading it?

Mrs. PAINE. I will read it, the last paragraph in the letter, and I might say that the entire letter I wrote with the possibility in mind that he should see this.

Mr. JENNER. Did you desire that he do see it?

Mrs. PAINE. I wanted him to--her to feel free to show it to him. I didn't want her to come to my house if this offended or injured him, if this was in some way----

(At this point, Senator Cooper entered the hearing room.)

Mr. JENNER. Divisive?

Mrs. PAINE. If he did in fact want to keep his family together, I certainly wanted him to, but if the bulk of his feelings lay on the side of wanting to be away, separated from Marina, then I thought it was legitimate for him to have that alternative, although it was not legitimate for him to simply send her back if she didn't want to go.

Mr. JENNER. Send her back where?

Mrs. PAINE. To the Soviet Union, if she didn't want to go. So in this light I will read the last paragraph of Commission Exhibit 410:

"I don't want to hurt Lee with this invitation to you. Only I think that it would be better that you and he do not live together if you do not receive happiness. I understand how Michael feels. He doesn't love me and wants a chance to look for another life and another wife. He must do this, it seems, and so it is better for us not to live together. I don't know how Lee feels. I would like to know. Surely things are hard for him now, too. I hope that he would be glad to see you with me where he can know that you and the children will receive everything that is necessary and he would not need to worry about it. Thus he could start life again."

Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine, having all this in mind and what you have testified to up to now, would you please tell the gentlemen of the Commission the factors and motivations you had in inviting Marina to come live with you; first to have her baby, next on a more extended scale, all of the factors that motivated you in your offer, in your own words?

Mrs. PAINE. The first invitation, just to come for a few weeks at the time of the birth is a simpler question, I will answer that first.

I felt that she would need someone simply to take care of her older child for the time that she was in the hospital, and that things would be easier for her if she didn't have to immediately take up the full household chores upon returning from the hospital. This was a very simple offer.

Mr. JENNER. That was all that motivated you at that time?

Mrs. PAINE. Now, in asking her to come and stay for a more extended period, I had many feelings. I was living alone with my children, at that time, had been since the previous fall, nearly a year, at the time this letter is written. I had no idea that my husband might move back to the house. I was tired of living alone and lonely, and here was a woman who was alone and in a sense also, if Lee, in fact didn't want to be with her, and further she was a person I liked. I had lived with her 2 weeks in late April and early May. I enjoyed her company.

Further, being able to talk Russian with her added a wider dimension to my rather small and boring life as a young mother. I didn't want to go out and get a job because I wanted to be home with my children, but on the other hand, I saw a way to, and that is part of what studying Russian altogether is for me, a way to make my daily life more interesting. I also felt when I first heard in March that Lee was wanting to send Marina back, that is how it was presented to me, that it just seemed a shame that our country couldn't be a more hospitable thing for her if she wanted so much to stay, that I thought she should have that opportunity.

I was pleased that she liked America, and thought that she should have a chance to stay here and raise her children here as she wished.

I might say also if I had not been living alone I would not have undertaken such an invitation. My house is small and it wouldn't have gone with married life.

Mr. JENNER. I wanted to afford you that opportunity. Now, you have related all the factors that motivated you?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. I offer in evidence as Commission Exhibit No. 410 the document which has been so identified.

Mr. McCLOY. It may be admitted.

(The document referred to, previously marked as Commission Exhibit No. 410 for identification, was received in evidence.)

Mr. McCLOY. We have been going for an hour and a half. If you would like to have a recess you may have it.

Mrs. PAINE. I am all right.

Mr. McCLOY. All right, we will go on then.

Mr. JENNER. You mentioned in the course of your explanation earlier a series of three letters. I hand you a draft of letter dated July 12, 1963, addressed to Dear Marina, consisting of two pages, which we will mark as Commission Exhibit No. 411. And another one-page letter which we will mark as Commission Exhibit No. 412.

In whose handwriting is each of those exhibits?

Mrs. PAINE. Each of these are in my handwriting.

Mr. JENNER. And they are drafts, are they?

Mrs. PAINE. They are.

Mr. JENNER. And you would then, after making those drafts put them in final form?

Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.

Mr. JENNER. Did you transmit the final draft of letter to Marina Oswald?

Mrs. PAINE. I mailed them to her address in New Orleans.

Mr. JENNER. Have you supplied me with your translation of both of those drafts?

Mrs. PAINE. I have.

Mr. JENNER. Each draft is in your handwriting?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And the interpretations appearing at the bottom of page 8 and the bottom of page 9 are the material you supplied me and they consist of your interpretations of those letters or translations, rather?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right. They are dated respectively July 12 and July 14.

Mr. JENNER. I hand you a picture copy rather than a photostatic copy of a two-page letter dated July 14, 1963, and a translation of that letter which we will mark as Commission Exhibits Nos. 413 and 414, respectively.

(The documents referred to were marked Commission Exhibits Nos. 413 and 414 for identification.)

Mr. JENNER. Directing your attention to Exhibit 413, would you tell us what that is?

Mrs. PAINE. This appears to be a photograph of the letter I then wrote from my final draft and sent to Marina, dated the 14th of July.

Mr. JENNER. So that Exhibit No. 413 is the----

Mrs. PAINE. 413, the photograph.

Mr. JENNER. 413 is to the best of your recollection an actual picture of your final draft letter as transmitted to Marina?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Now directing your attention to page 10 of the material that you supplied me, and which you discussed with me last evening, you wished to make a statement to the Commission with respect to this letter, do you?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. All right. Would you please proceed to do so?

Mrs. PAINE. I think it would be easier if I read what is here.

Mr. JENNER. Any way you want to handle it, Mrs. Paine.

Mrs. PAINE. Marina stayed with me 2 weeks in the spring as you know, and I realized then what a proud and capable person she is. She was not accustomed to accept help from others, and I knew that her pride and independence would be a stumbling block to her accepting help even though she needed it.

I respected her for this and somehow I wanted to ease such acceptance for her, and to explain that the situation I proposed would be a situation of mutual help. I hoped--now I should say that in Commission Exhibit----

Mr. JENNER. They are to your right on the table.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; 411 and 412, I mentioned that if she were counted as a dependent on Michael's income tax his yearly payment to the government would be reduced by a certain amount, and that by that amount she--we could very nearly live--her expenses could very nearly come under this, so it would be more a case of breaking even than a case of her accepting so much as she might think from us. But I think that in fact this reference to the tax reduction did not encourage her, as I had hoped.

Mr. JENNER. It wasn't quite correct either, was it, Mrs. Paine?

(Laughter.)

Mrs. PAINE. Did I get a chance to read the second letter as written at 2 a.m. and I was hopeful only more than----

Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine, I think the members of the Commission and also you from our talk last night, are interested in your letters which you have now identified suggesting financial arrangements to Mrs. Oswald, since to one who might read them without knowing the background they might seem crass.

Mrs. PAINE. I felt crass in Russian, particularly.

Mr. JENNER. I was not thinking in terms of your difficulty in communicating with her, but you had no selfish or ulterior financial motive, did you, in this connection?

Mrs. PAINE. Did it appear that?

Mr. JENNER. It might.

Mrs. PAINE. Even with such bad arithmetic.

Mr. JENNER. Your arithmetic was all right. Your interpretation of the law was not as good as it might be.

Mr. DULLES. Am I not correct, I understood you were trying to make her feel she was not going to be a burden to you?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right.

Mr. DULLES. And were using certain subterfuges to accomplish that; that is the impression I got from what you said.

Mrs. PAINE. That is absolutely correct. That I hoped, and further I would say in the letters to her I made reference that this money not paid to the government would be therefore available for spending money for her. I had put myself in her position and thought wouldn't it be terrible to have to ask for a nickel for a package of Lifesavers every time you wanted it, and thought I wouldn't want to be in such a situation if she doesn't have her own, something she can count upon as her own money, it would be unbearable to her.

So I tried to cast about both for a way of making her feel that this would not be a burden to us, and a way of getting her petty cash in the pocket that she would not feel was a handout. So that it would be a legitimate possibility for her to consider.

I judge that my effort in this regard, besides the bad understanding of the tax law and the poor arithmetic, didn't help because of her following letter.

Mr. JENNER. That is what I was coming to. Before we get to that, Mrs. Paine, I direct your attention to Commission Exhibit No. 414.

Mrs. PAINE. 414?

Mr. JENNER. That is a translation of your letter, Commission Exhibit No. 413. Have you read that translation?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Is there anything in the translation to which you might desire to take exception or at least make a comment?

(At this point Chief Justice Warren left the hearing room.)

Mrs. PAINE. One minute. Yes, it accurately reflects some of my bad Russian.

Mr. JENNER. You take no exception to the translation?

Mrs. PAINE. I think no.

Mr. JENNER. Mr. Chairman, if you please, I offer in evidence, Mr. Dulles, may I have those exhibits----

Mr. McCLOY. They may be admitted.

Mr. JENNER. As Commission Exhibits 411, 412, 413 and 414, the documents that had been so marked?

Mr. McCLOY. They will be admitted.

(The documents referred, previously marked Commission Exhibits Nos. 411, 412, 413, and 414, were received in evidence.)

Mr. JENNER. You did receive a response from Marina, did you not, Mrs. Paine?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I did.

Mr. JENNER. And is the response the document now handed to you marked Commission Exhibit No. 415?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; it is.

Mr. JENNER. And you supplied the Commission with your translation of that letter and that translation----

Mrs. PAINE. 415 is that what you said?

Mr. JENNER. 415. It appears on pages 10, 11, and 12 of the material you supplied me.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. You don't have an envelope but you have a letter.

Mrs. PAINE. I don't have an envelope. I don't know what happened to it.

Mr. JENNER. Is the exhibit in Marina Oswald's handwriting?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; it is.

Mr. JENNER. Is there anything on the exhibit other than that in the handwriting of Marina Oswald?

Mrs. PAINE. There are a few underlinings on the page marked four.

Mr. JENNER. Who placed them there?

Mrs. PAINE. Which are my own.

Mr. JENNER. All right. Anything else?

Mrs. PAINE. Except for the underlining "he does not know" at the very bottom.

Mr. JENNER. "He" refers to whom?

Mrs. PAINE. Lee.

Mr. JENNER. You were about to state to the Commission Marina Oswald's reaction to your series of invitations. Is that correct?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Would you proceed then?

Mrs. PAINE. As reflected in this letter. This was the third letter I received from her after a space of over a month, and I had been very concerned about her. I was much relieved to get it. She said she had been to the doctor and her condition was normal. She responded to this series of four letters of which we have three in rough draft, saying--shall I read in some of the things said?

Mr. JENNER. To the extent that you desire to do so. We will not read the whole letter, it is quite long; that which is pertinent to what you have in mind.

Mrs. PAINE. Well, that for a considerable period Lee has been good to her, she writes. He talks a lot about the coming baby.

Mr. JENNER. Perhaps you might pick out--there are only about four sentences.

Mrs. PAINE. "He has become more attentive and we hardly quarrel".

Mr. JENNER. This indicates a change somewhat in relationship and would you please read that portion of the letter?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. DULLES. Could we have the date of this letter once again?

Mrs. PAINE. The date of the letter. We have no date on the letter. It was written somewhere between July 18 and July 21, which is the date of my reply.

Mr. JENNER. That is how you identify it?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Representative FORD. This is 1963?

Mrs. PAINE. Right. Again, "He has become much more attentive and we hardly quarrel. True I have to give in a great deal. It could not be otherwise. But if one wants peace then it is necessary to give in. We went to the doctor, my condition is normal."

And she thanks me for the invitation and thanks Michael also and says:

"I would try to take advantage of it if things really become worse, if Lee becomes coarse with me again and treats me badly."

Mr. JENNER. I direct your attention to the paragraph following that one, Mrs. Paine.

Mrs. PAINE. Now another question:

"If as is possible it becomes necessary for me to come to live with you in order to say that I am a dependent of Michael's surely it would be necessary to have an official divorce, isn't that so? But I think Lee would not agree to a divorce, and to go simply from him to become a burden to you that I don't wish. Surely Michael would need to have a paper showing that I am living at his expense but no one would just take his word for it, right?"

And I realized much later that in the Soviet Union you don't do anything without the proper papers, and just having a person under your roof for anyone to see, having them in fact eating at your table is not, would not be, sufficient proof--would not be sufficient there in Russia.

Representative BOGGS. It might not be here.

Mrs. PAINE. It might not be here. Well, in any case I judged she felt, reading my invitations this was of some importance to me whether Michael counted her as a deduction, and so on, whereas in fact this wasn't the point at all, but that I had hoped to somehow make, if possible, for her to accept such help.

Mr. JENNER. Have you finished your observations?

Representative BOGGS. As a matter of fact, there are certain limitations under our law as to how you can claim a dependent.

Mrs. PAINE. Well, I asked a few people who didn't know much about it before I wrote it.

Representative BOGGS. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. The tenor then of this letter was as I gather from your testimony and as you have related to me last evening whether she would come to live with you in the fall or generally was something which now became subject to reconsideration?

Mrs. PAINE. Pardon?

Mr. JENNER. The matter of her coming to live with you, the possibility of her living with you on a more extended basis than----

Mrs. PAINE. Was an invitation I had made to her.

Mr. JENNER. And that her response was not acceptance but one that she would now defer?

Mrs. PAINE. It was a "thank you" and a refusal basically.

Mr. JENNER. Did you respond to that letter?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I did. My letter is dated July 12.

Mr. JENNER. Mr. Liebeler will mark that Commission Exhibit 416, which consists of how many pages, Mr. Liebeler, three pages. You have that exhibit. Is that exhibit all in your handwriting?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; it is.

Mr. JENNER. Is that the draft of letter to which you have reference being your response to Marina's letter of----

Mrs. PAINE. Undated letter.

Mr. JENNER. Undated letter which would be somewhere just prior to July 21?

Mrs. PAINE. Right.

Mr. JENNER. And is that a draft of letter in the same condition now as it was when you completed it?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Have you supplied the Commission with a translation of that letter?

Mrs. PAINE. I have.

Mr. JENNER. We will mark as Commission Exhibits 417 and 418 two exhibits, the first being a one-page exhibit entitled "Translation from Russian", and the second being a four page photograph of what appears to be a letter dated July 21, 1963. Directing your attention to Exhibit 418.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Do you find it?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Would you please identify that exhibit? It consists of four pages.

Mrs. PAINE. It appears to be a photograph of my letter to her of July 21.

Mr. JENNER. Having observed it and looked at it last night, is it your best recollection at the moment that it is a photograph of the letter that you actually transmitted to Marina?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Directing your attention to the next exhibit which is No. 418----

Mrs. PAINE. 417, you are talking about the translation.

Mr. JENNER. Is that a translation of the letter, of your letter to her?

Mrs. PAINE. That is far from complete.

Representative FORD. It is far from complete?

Mrs. PAINE. Far from complete. It is incomplete.

Mr. JENNER. I would like to have you make then, directing your attention to the translation that has been supplied us.

Mrs. PAINE. It goes as far as two-thirds down on page 2, you must have more somewhere.

Mr. JENNER. No; that is all we have. Would you mark with this red marker pen the point to which Exhibit 417 is a translation?

Mrs. PAINE. Here.

Mr. JENNER. Is the translation accurate up to that point or rather do you have any exceptions to it?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. In relation to what?

Mrs. PAINE. "This would" on the next to the last paragraph "this would offend my father very much." "This hurt my father", no subjunctive to it.

Mr. JENNER. Do it this way. Read what is on it, what the interpreter----

Mrs. PAINE. Wait.

Mr. JENNER. Said.

Mrs. PAINE. I guess that is just the interpreter trying to "offer you an alternative". State the question again. You want to know if I take any exception to the translation I have before me, this portion of my July 21 letter? They are all small.

Mr. JENNER. They are small and none of consequence.

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. So far as you are concerned. Your translation, however, that you supplied the Commission is as far as you are concerned accurate and what you intend to say, at least?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; and I think it is what I said.

Mr. JENNER. All right. I offer in evidence, if the Chairman please, the documents that have been marked--may I have them please, Representative Ford?

Mrs. PAINE. These, too?

Mr. JENNER. Documents marked 415, 416, 417, and 418.

Mr. McCLOY. Do I understand there is not a complete translation?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right.

Mr. McCLOY. Of the letter. It is an incomplete translation?

Mrs. PAINE. There is a page 2 somewhere.

Mr. JENNER. That is correct. During the noon hour I will see if that is not a mistake and if I can be supplied with the balance, if there is a balance.

Mr. McCLOY. They may be admitted in this form and then you can advise us after the recess whether there is anything additional to insert at this point.

(The documents referred to, heretofore marked Commission Exhibits Nos. 415, 416, 417, and 418, were received in evidence.)

Mr. JENNER. Now, there is a matter to which I would like to draw your attention in your letter of July 21, which is Commission Exhibit No. 416, the last portion of it, and I direct your attention, in turn, to your own interpretation appearing at page 3. The last paragraph, when you brought Marina to New Orleans, did you do anything by way of seeking to have people in New Orleans visit her?