Part 16

Mr. JENNER. I have asked you about that, and I have read from the report and you have affirmed that you so reported to the agent. And on the next day, December 29, 1963, you had a telephone conversation, whether you called or whether the agent called, with Kenneth C. Howe.

Mrs. PAINE. What is his name?

Mr. JENNER. Kenneth C. Howe, on this same subject. I have questioned you about that, and I have read from the report, and you have affirmed as to that. Then on January 3, 1964, this apparently was an interview at your home by Agent Odum? Do you recall that?

Mrs. PAINE. Agent Odum has been out a great deal.

Mr. JENNER. In which you say, did you not, that this reporter Hudkins of the Houston Post newspaper in his contact with you on the previous Saturday, December 28 had stated that the FBI was foolish to deny that Agent Joseph Hosty, being a reference to the FBI agent we have been talking about today, had tried to develop Lee Harvey Oswald as an informant. You stated you had made no comment one way or the other to Hudkins regarding this remark, and furthermore that you knew that----

Mrs. PAINE. Would you please repeat that, that I stated?

Mr. JENNER. I will read it all to you then. You advised that Lonny Hudkins, the reporter of the Houston Post in his contact that he had with you on the previous Saturday, December 28, 1963, had stated to you that the FBI was foolish to deny that Agent Hosty had tried to develop Lee Harvey Oswald as an informant. Did you make that statement?

Mrs. PAINE. Not in just those terms.

Mr. JENNER. Did you make the further statement that you made no comment one way or the other to Hudkins regarding this remark of his to you? In order to get this in the proper posture, Mrs. Paine----

Senator COOPER. Do you understand the question?

Mrs. PAINE. I understand what is said, but it doesn't check strictly with my recollection, that is the confusion.

Mr. JENNER. What the agent is reporting is your report of what Lonny Hudkins had said to you, and your report to the agent of your response to what Lonny Hudkins had said to you. Do we have it now in the proper posture?

Mrs. PAINE. This is by no means an accurate description of the conversation or my response.

Mr. JENNER. You don't have to accept this report, of course, Mrs. Paine. Tell us what occurred in that interview?

Mrs. PAINE. All right.

Mr. JENNER. What you said and what Agent Odum said to you.

Mrs. PAINE. Oh, I don't recall that so well. I was going to tell you what I said to Hudkins. I do recall this, and it may be the foundation for what appears in your report there. I made no comment on Mr. Hudkins saying that there was a Joe Hosty, and that this agent had been in contact with Oswald. I observed that Hudkins had inaccurate information.

Mr. JENNER. Didn't you tell the agent what this reporter had said to you that was inaccurate, to wit, that the reporter had stated to you that the FBI was foolish to deny that Agent Hosty had tried to develop Lee Harvey Oswald as an informant?

Mrs. PAINE. What is totally inaccurate is the following, that implies that I made no comment to Hudkins regarding such a remark.

Mr. JENNER. No please, that has not been suggested. I am trying to take this chronologically. Did you first report to the agent that Hudkins had said to you that the FBI was foolish to deny that Agent Joseph Hosty had tried to develop Lee Harvey Oswald as an informant.

Mrs. PAINE. Certainly what Hudkins said was of this nature.

Mr. JENNER. And you so reported to the agent?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Then did you make the further remark, which is what I think you are trying to say, that you made no comment one way or the other to Hudkins when he made that remark, his remark to you?

Mrs. PAINE. I made a great deal of comment and I will say what those comments were.

Mr. JENNER. You did to the reporter.

Mrs. PAINE. To the reporter, yes.

Mr. JENNER. Please say what you said, and did you report this to the FBI, Mr. Odum?

Mrs. PAINE. Inadequately clearly, judging from the----

Mr. JENNER. Why don't you do it this way?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes I reported it.

Mr. JENNER. Let us have first what you said to the FBI agent on the subject?

Mrs. PAINE. I can't recall what I said to the FBI agent. It is much easier for me to recall what I said to Hudkins. But I do recall clearly that I said to the FBI agent "I made no correction of his inaccuracies about Hosty's name." This is where I made no comment.

Mr. JENNER. I am at a loss now.

Mrs. PAINE. Joe is not his name.

Mr. JENNER. I see. His name is James?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Did you indicate to the agent that you had raised an issue with the reporter?

Mrs. PAINE. He also spelled it with an "i", Hudkins.

Mr. JENNER. With respect to the other phase, that is to what the reporter had said to you.

Mrs. PAINE. I would guess that I reported to Mr. Odum other things about----

Mr. JENNER. Present recollections Mrs. Paine.

Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall the particular conversation with Mr. Odum at all. I talked with him a great deal.

Mr. JENNER. Did you deny this state to Mr. Hudkins, the reporter?

Mrs. PAINE. To Mr. Hudkins?

Mr. JENNER. Did you say to him that you did not agree with his statement?

Mrs. PAINE. To Mr. Hudkins I said many things, which I hoped would convince him that he had no story, that his information was very shaky, that Oswald was not in my view a person that would have been hired by the FBI or by Russia. I said to him "You are the other side of the coin from a Mr. Guy Richards of the New York Journal-American who is certain that Oswald was a paid spy for the Soviet Union, and just as inaccurate," and coming to, in my opinion, and of course I made it clear this was my opinion, to conclusions just as wrong.

Mr. JENNER. That is, it was your opinion that Lee Oswald was neither a Russian agent nor an agent of any agency of the United States?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right. I said indeed to Mr. Hudkins, I had said to Mr. Richards that if the so-called great Soviet conspiracy has to rest for its help upon such inadequate people as Lee Oswald, there is no hope of their achieving their aims. I said I simply cannot believe that the FBI would find it necessary to employ such a shaky and inadequate person.

Mr. JENNER. And is that still your view?

Mrs. PAINE. Indeed it is.

Mr. JENNER. Did you also say to Mr. Odum on that occasion that you knew that Agent Hosty had not interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald?

Mrs. PAINE. Probably.

Senator COOPER. Did you read the statements after they had been written?

Mrs. PAINE. What statements?

Senator COOPER. The statements of the FBI.

Mrs. PAINE. Oh, no; I have never.

Senator COOPER. You have never seen them?

Mrs. PAINE. Never seen anything of it. I knew they must write something, but I have never seen any of these statements.

Senator COOPER. You never asked them to show you the statements?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. Did you ever make a statement to anybody that you can recall that Lee Harvey Oswald in your opinion was doing underground work?

Mrs. PAINE. That has never been my opinion. I would be absolutely certain that he never----

Mr. JENNER. Please, did you say it?

Mrs. PAINE. And I would be absolutely certain that I never said such a thing.

Mr. JENNER. To anybody, including when I say anybody, Mrs. Dorothy Gravitis?

Mrs. PAINE. Absolutely certain. Never said to anyone that I thought Lee was doing undercover work.

Senator COOPER. What is that name?

Mr. JENNER. Gravitis, G-r-a-v-i-t-i-s.

Senator COOPER. Do you know this person?

Mrs. PAINE. She is my Russian tutor in Dallas.

Senator COOPER. What?

Mrs. PAINE. Russian tutor and the mother-in-law of the translator that was at the police station.

Mr. JENNER. To conclude this series----

Mrs. PAINE. Would you clarify for me, someone is of the opinion that I thought that Oswald was an undercover agent for whom?

Mr. JENNER. That you said so.

Mrs. PAINE. For whom?

Mr. JENNER. For the Russian government.

Mrs. PAINE. Oh. I have certainly never said anything of the sort.

Mr. JENNER. Did you ever say to anybody including Mrs. Gravitis that you thought Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, it is possible I said that. I thought he considered himself a Communist by ideology, certainly a Marxist. He himself always corrected anyone who called him a Communist and said he was a Marxist.

Mr. JENNER. When you use the term communist do you think of a person as a member of the Communist Party or a native of Russia?

Mrs. PAINE. I seldom use the term at all, but I would confine it to people who were members or considered themselves in support of Communist ideology.

Mr. JENNER. A person in your mind may be a Communist, and yet not a member of the Communist Party, even in Russia?

Mrs. PAINE. I might use the word in that loose way.

Mr. JENNER. The last of these interviews was on, may I suggest, and if not would you correct me, January 27, 1964, by Agent Wiehl, and Agent Hosty. It appears, and would you please correct me if I am wrong, to have been an interview in your home at the very tail end of January 1964?

Mrs. PAINE. I have no specific recollection.

Mr. JENNER. Do you recall an interview in which you reported to the FBI, these two agents, that agent Hosty--no, that you gave Lee Harvey Oswald the name of agent James P. Hosty together with the Dallas FBI telephone number which you had obtained on November 1, 1963, that you did not give him the license number of the automobile driven by agent Hosty, however, and that, as I have asked you before, the license number could have been observed by Marina Oswald on November 1?

Mrs. PAINE. That is my recollection of the occurrence.

Mr. JENNER. And it could have been observed on November 5th?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right.

Senator COOPER. Did you yourself see the license plate?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Senator COOPER. You don't know the numbers or letters that were on the license plate?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine, you testified yesterday and you testified again today, this morning, that you had no recollection of Lee Oswald having gone into the garage of your home on Thursday, November 21. Do you recall that testimony?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, that I did not see him there or see him go through the door to the garage. I was clear in my own mind that it was he who had left the light on, and I tried to describe that.

Mr. JENNER. It may have been a possibility and you were inferring from that that he was in the garage.

Mrs. PAINE. I definitely infer that.

Mr. JENNER. Were you interviewed by the FBI agents Hosty and Abernathy on the 23d of November 1963?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And in the course of that interview, do you recall having stated to these agents that on the evening of November 21, Lee Oswald went out to the garage of your home, where he had many of his personal effects stored, and spent considerable time, apparently rearranging and handling his personal effects.

Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall saying exactly that.

Mr. JENNER. Could you have said that to the agents.

Mrs. PAINE. I could have said as far as spending considerable time.

Mr. JENNER. Now that your recollection is possibly further refreshed, please tell us what you did say to the agents as you now recall?

Mrs. PAINE. You have refreshed nothing. You have got all there was of my recollection in previous testimony.

Mr. JENNER. Based on the fundamentals, the specifics which you have given us yesterday and today, you did report to the FBI on the 23d of November in the interview to which I have called your attention that on the evening of the 21st Oswald went out to the garage where he had many of his personal effects stored, and spent considerable time apparently rearranging and handling his personal effects.

Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall ever saying "apparently rearranging and handling."

Mr. JENNER. Other than the word "apparently" that is a reasonable summary of what you did say to the FBI agents, is it?

Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall. I think my best recollection is as I have given it to you in the testimony, was it this morning, that I certainly was of the opinion that he had been out there. I had been busy for some time with my children, and I could easily, and of course that was the day after, and this several months after, have been of the opinion, been informed as to how long he had been out there, but my recollection now doesn't give me any length of time.

Mr. JENNER. You have heretofore given us yesterday and today your very best recollection after full reflection on all the course of events.

Mrs. PAINE. I certainly have.

Mr. JENNER. I notice that during the course of the interview, and perhaps you will recall, that you did call attention of the FBI, these two agents, to the Mexico City letter about which you have testified, is that correct?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I gave it to them.

Mr. JENNER. Mr. Chairman, that is all I intend to cover with respect to the FBI. Do you have any questions? We will go on to another subject.

Senator COOPER. This would be going back into the subject on which you have already testified, but with reference to this last statement, this letter, where it is reported, you said, Lee Oswald did go into the garage and spend some time, did you make a statement to the FBI after the agents had been in the garage, or the police had been in the garage, and had found the blanket with nothing in it.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes, certainly, this was the next day that Hosty was out with Abernathy.

Senator COOPER. And you did remember of course that you found the light on?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Senator COOPER. You did not expect it to be on in the garage? Do you think it is correct then that at the time you made this statement, recognizing the importance of the garage, that you did say at that time that he had been in the garage on the night before the President was assassinated?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes. I think I said that.

Senator COOPER. You think you made that statement?

Mrs. PAINE. I think I made that statement. This was certainly my impression.

Mr. JENNER. You have already related the arrival of your husband, Michael Paine, at your home in mid-afternoon of the day of the assassination?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Now would you please tell me exactly to the best of your recollection the words of your husband as he walked in the door?

Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall his saying anything.

Mr. JENNER. Now his words if any with respect to why he had come.

Mrs. PAINE. I asked him before he volunteered. I said something to the effect of "how did you know to come?"

Mr. JENNER. And what did he say?

Mrs. PAINE. He said he had heard on the radio at work that Lee Oswald was in custody, and came immediately to the house.

Mr. JENNER. And that is what you recall he said?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right.

Mr. JENNER. Did he say, and I quote: "I heard where the President was shot, and I came right over to see if I could be of any help to you."

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. Did he also say to you that he "Just walked off the job."

Mrs. PAINE. No. He said he had come from work. I might interject here one recollection if you want it.

Mr. JENNER. Please.

Mrs. PAINE. Of Michael having telephoned to me after the assassination. He wanted to know if I had heard.

Mr. JENNER. Did he call you before he arrived at your home?

Mrs. PAINE. He called. He knew about the assassination. He had been told by a waitress at lunchtime. I don't know whether he knew any further details, whether he knew from whence the shots had been fired, but he knew immediately that I would want to know, and called simply to find out if I knew, and of course I did, and we didn't converse about it, but I felt the difference between him and my immediate neighbor to whom I have already referred, Michael was as struck and grieved as I was, and we shared this over the telephone.

Mr. JENNER. And his appearance in mid-afternoon, as you have related, was, according to what he said activated as you have related, that he had heard that Lee Oswald was now involved.

Mrs. PAINE. That is right.

Mr. JENNER. How did you and Marina look at the parade, that is as the motorcade went along were you and Marina----

Mrs. PAINE. This was not shown on television.

Mr. JENNER. Oh, it wasn't?

Mrs. PAINE. To the best of my recollection they had cameras at the convention center, whatever it was, that the President was coming to for dinner, and for his talk.

Mr. JENNER. And was the motorcade being described, broadcast by radio?

Mrs. PAINE. The motorcade was being described.

Mr. JENNER. Were you and Marina listening to that?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, it was coming through the television set, but it wasn't being shown.

Mr. JENNER. Were you listening?

Mrs. PAINE. We were.

Mr. JENNER. Did she show an interest in this?

Mrs. PAINE. Oh, yes.

Mr. JENNER. And it being broadcast in English, I assume you were doing some interpreting for her?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Is that correct?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Most of this has been covered, Senator Cooper, and I am getting through pages fortunately that we don't have to go over again.

Senator COOPER. After you knew that the President was dead, and Marina knew, do you know, from that time on, whether she ever went into her room, left you and went into her room?

Mrs. PAINE. I would think it highly likely that she did. The announcement that the President was actually dead came, oh, I think around 1:30 or close to 2. I already related that my little girl wept and fell asleep on the sofa. This was a time therefore that Marina would have been putting Junie to bed in the bedroom.

Senator COOPER. Between the time that you heard the President had been shot and the news came that he died, did she ever leave you and go into her room, do you remember?

Mrs. PAINE. I don't remember specifically, but you must understand that the little baby was already born. She would have had many occasions, needs to go into the room.

Senator COOPER. Do you know whether she went into the garage?

Mrs. PAINE. I don't know.

Senator COOPER. What?

Mrs. PAINE. I don't know whether she went into the garage.

Mr. JENNER. You have no impressions in that respect?

Mrs. PAINE. None.

Mr. JENNER. Do you recall an incident involving Lee Oswald's wedding ring?

Mrs. PAINE. I do.

Mr. JENNER. Would you relate that, please?

Mrs. PAINE. One or two FBI agents came to my home, I think Odum was one of them, and said that Marina had inquired after and wanted Lee's wedding ring, and he asked me if I had any idea where to look for it. I said I'll look first in the little tea cup that is from her grandmother, and on top of the chest of drawers in the bedroom where she had stayed. I looked and it was there.

Mr. JENNER. Calling on your recollection of this man, was he in the habit of wearing his wedding ring?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Did this strike you as unusual that the wedding ring should be back in this cup on the dresser in their room?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes, quite.

Mr. JENNER. Elaborate as to why it struck you as unusual?

Mrs. PAINE. I do not wear my wedding ring. Marina has on several occasions said to me she considers that bad luck, not a good thing to do.

I would suspect that she would certainly have wanted Lee to wear his wedding ring, and encouraged him to do it.

Mr. JENNER. In face of the fact that he regularly wore his wedding ring, yet on this occasion, that is being home the evening before, you received this call, you went to the bedroom and you found the wedding ring. Did it occur to you that that might have been in the nature of a leave-taking of some kind by Lee Oswald, leaving his wedding ring for Marina?

Mrs. PAINE. It occurred to me that that might have been a form of thinking ahead. I had no way of knowing whether or not Marina had known that he left it. I was not instructed where to look for it.

Mr. JENNER. You were not?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. But Marina did say to you "would you look for Lee's wedding ring?"

Mrs. PAINE. No, Odum did.

Mr. JENNER. Odum did.

Mrs. PAINE. And of course clearly they would know whether he had it.

Mr. JENNER. Yes, I see. It was not Marina. It was one of the FBI agents. And it is your clear recollection that he was in the habit of wearing that wedding ring all the time. Do you ever recall an occasion when he left the wedding ring at home?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. To your knowledge?

Mrs. PAINE. To my knowledge, no.

Mr. JENNER. When you obtained the wedding ring did you examine it?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. I mean did you look inside to see if there was an inscription on it or were you curious about that?

Mrs. PAINE. I gave it to Mr. Odum who was with me in the room.

Mr. JENNER. Mr. Odum accompanied you?

Mrs. PAINE. Went with me to the bedroom. I am pretty sure he was the one.

Senator COOPER. The morning of the day that the President was killed, did Mrs. Oswald, after she got up, say anything to you about any unusual characteristics of Lee Oswald's taking leave of her that morning?

Mrs. PAINE. Absolutely none.

Senator COOPER. Did she talk about him leaving? Did she tell you anything at all about what happened when he did get up?

Mrs. PAINE. I have a recollection that must be from her that she woke enough to feed the baby, to nurse the baby in the morning, when he was getting up to go, but she then went back to sleep after that, and she must have told me that. But that is all I know, that she had been awake, and nursed the baby early in the morning, and then went back to sleep.

Senator COOPER. And Lee Oswald went back to sleep?

Mrs. PAINE. No, no, Marina went back to sleep.

Senator COOPER. Oh, Marina went back to sleep. Was he leaving then?

Mrs. PAINE. I judge so.

Senator COOPER. What?

Mrs. PAINE. I judge so.

Senator COOPER. But I mean did she say anything else about him?

Mrs. PAINE. No; nothing about his leaving at all.

Mr. JENNER. What were his habits with respect to breakfast? For example on the Monday mornings of the weekends which he visited your home, did he prepare his own, and if so, what kind of a breakfast did he prepare?

Mrs. PAINE. I would say his habit was to have a cup of instant coffee only.

Mr. JENNER. And you have a clear recollection that on the morning of the 21st when you went into the kitchen----

Mrs. PAINE. The 22d.

Mr. JENNER. The 22d, I am sorry, the 22d you saw a plastic coffee cup or tea cup, and you looked at it and you could see the remains of somebody having prepared instant coffee?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right.

Mr. JENNER. And that is clear in your mind?

Mrs. PAINE. Perfectly clear. I looked especially for traces of Lee having been up, since I wondered if he might be still sleeping, having overslept.

Mr. JENNER. Was he in the habit on these weekends of making himself a sandwich which he would take with him?

Mrs. PAINE. No; there is no such habit. Perhaps once Marina prepared something for him to take with him, I think more for him to put in his room, partly for lunch, partly for him to have at his room in town and use the refrigerator.

Mr. JENNER. But in any event, on the morning of the 22d you saw no evidence of there having been an attempt by anybody to prepare?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. Sandwiches for lunch or to take anything else in the way of food from your home?

Mrs. PAINE. I saw no evidence, and I saw nothing that was missing.

Mr. JENNER. At any time during all the time you knew the Oswalds, up to and including November 22, was any mention ever made of any attempt on the life of Richard Nixon?

Mrs. PAINE. None.

Mr. JENNER. Just that subject matter, was it ever mentioned?

Mrs. PAINE. Never.

Mr. JENNER. To the best of your recollection did they ever discuss Richard Nixon as a person?

Mrs. PAINE. I can't recall Richard Nixon coming into the conversation at any time.