Part 19

Mrs. PAINE. Well, she did say that she didn't like his having passed out leaflets in New Orleans. This is still different from saying she disagreed, though. But that is the most I can say.

Senator COOPER. Did she ever tell her what her political views were, if any?

Mrs. PAINE. She said she didn't consider herself a person interested in politics. She----

Senator COOPER. Did she ever refer to Lee being a Marxist or a Communist?

Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall such a reference ever.

Senator COOPER. Did she ever tell you whether or not she was a Marxist or a Communist?

Mrs. PAINE. No. I assumed she was not either.

Senator COOPER. What?

Mrs. PAINE. I assumed she was not either. She did at one point poke fun at the Party faithful who attended a Young Communist meeting in Minsk, whom she considered a dull lot and the meetings quite dull.

Senator COOPER. I missed the early part of your testimony so you may have testified to this, but I thought that I recalled that you did answer a question addressed to you by someone, a member of the Commission or counsel, in which you said that you were attracted to the Oswalds when you first met them, one, because you wanted to perfect your own Russian, and did you say, too, that you were interested because of the fact that he had been a defector and had returned and it was an unusual circumstance which interested you?

Mrs. PAINE. It made him an odd person.

Senator COOPER. What?

Mrs. PAINE. It made him an odd person. I was interested in the curious sense of what could have motivated him to do this.

Senator COOPER. Having that interest, didn't you ever talk to him about it, inquire about his experience?

Mrs. PAINE. I guess I wasn't interested enough.

Senator COOPER. What led him to do it?

Mrs. PAINE. And as I have already testified he always wanted to speak Russian to me, which shortens my tongue. I can't say as much or raise as many questions.

Senator COOPER. Well, did you try to search out the reasons for his defection and the reasons for returning?

Mrs. PAINE. No; I didn't.

Senator COOPER. And his political views, his economic views, that kind of thing?

Mrs. PAINE. No; I regret now that I didn't take any interest, but I did not.

Senator COOPER. You said that, in answer to counsel that, you either did tell people or probably told them that you believed Lee Oswald was a Communist.

Mrs. PAINE. It is my impression I spoke of him as he spoke of himself as a Marxist.

Senator COOPER. And you think, you believe, that has some relationship to communism?

Mrs. PAINE. Oh; yes.

Senator COOPER. I think you have stated that you didn't believe it was necessary for a person to actually be a member of the Communist Party to be a Communist in his views?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes. But that I considered it something less than actually accurate to call such a person a Communist that went on being----

Senator COOPER. Other than the persons you have named in your testimony as having come to your house, was there anyone else who ever came to your house, who talked to Lee Oswald or Marina?

Mrs. PAINE. I recall no one other than the people I have mentioned, sir.

Senator COOPER. Knowing that he was as you have described in your own words, a Marxist, were you concerned at all about that or worried about that, as being in your home?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, as I have described in testimony, I asked myself whether or not he might be a spy. I was not at all worried about ideology contrary to my own or with which I disagreed, and it looked to me that he was a person of this ideology or philosophy which he calls Marxism, indeed nearly a religion.

But not that he was in any way dangerous because of these beliefs.

Senator COOPER. Thinking now and then that he might be a spy or in the employ of the Soviet Union, were you concerned about the fact that such person who might be a spy or an agent of the Soviet Union was living in your house?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, if you recall my testimony I concluded that he was not, and also I was pleased that the FBI had come and I felt that they would worry about that, and that I didn't need to worry about any risk to me of public censure for my befriending such a person.

Senator COOPER. You told about the newspapers and periodicals that he received and read.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Senator COOPER. Did he also have any books that he read while he was at your house?

Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall his reading books while he was at my house. He watched television a great deal but I don't recall his reading books.

Senator COOPER. You said that he did not have very ample means, financial means.

Were you struck with the fact that he was able to have these newspapers sent to him from Russia, England, New York?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes, I observed----

Senator COOPER. The Communist Worker comes from New York.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes, nothing from England, I recall, but he certainly considered these valuable. He was willing to spend money on these, I observed that, yes. It was rather unusual or unlike the rest of his behavior in that he did spend money for these periodicals.

Senator COOPER. Did you ever lend any money to either Marina or Lee Oswald?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Senator COOPER. What?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. Did you ever give them any money?

Mrs. PAINE. Cash money; no.

Senator COOPER. What?

Mrs. PAINE. Cash; no.

Of course, I bought groceries but that is not what you are asking.

Senator COOPER. You gave no money in the sense that you turned over physical possession of it?

Mrs. PAINE. I did not.

Senator COOPER. To either Lee or Marina?

Mrs. PAINE. No; not at any time to either one.

Senator COOPER. You did help them in the sense that you provided a home for Marina and on occasion provided food for Lee?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right.

Senator COOPER. I have just one or two more.

You said at one time you came to the conclusion that he wasn't an agent or spy because you didn't think he was intelligent enough.

I believe you said that.

Mrs. PAINE. That and the fact that as far as I could see had no contacts or any means of getting any information that would have been of any interest to the Soviet Union.

Senator COOPER. Yet he was intelligent enough that he had learned to speak Russian.

Mrs. PAINE. His Russian was poor. His vocabulary was large, his grammar never was good.

Senator COOPER. You said that he had, I believe, had the initiative to go to Russia, not as a tourist but as for reasons that he had developed himself, and that he came back when he made up his mind to come and was able to bring his wife.

You knew he moved around rather quickly, didn't you? He was in New Orleans----

Mrs. PAINE. In this country?

Senator COOPER. Yes.

Mrs. PAINE. No, I knew he had been in Fort Worth and had come to Dallas to seek work and then losing work had gone back to New Orleans and then back to Dallas.

Senator COOPER. What made you willing to have this man, you have said, this very curious man, from all you have described about him, to have him in your house?

Mrs. PAINE. He was Marina's husband and I like her, and I, as I have described, was both lonely and interested in learning the Russian language. I would have been happy had he never come out, indeed happier had he not come out on the weekends.

But they were not separated as a married couple nor contemplating such separation, and I didn't feel that this--it was appropriate for him to have to stay away. I did not ask that.

Senator COOPER. Prior to the time that Marina left your home--the day of the assassination, wasn't it?

Mrs. PAINE. She left the next day.

Senator COOPER. The next day.

Had you and Marina ever had any disputes or quarrels between yourselves?

Mrs. PAINE. I have referred to just one time when she in a sense was taking me to task on the matter of whose property their address was, I just mentioned that, that is the only time I recall.

Mr. JENNER. That is the incident in which you----

Mrs. PAINE. Following the November 5th meeting with Mr. Hosty.

Mr. JENNER. Mr. Hosty.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Senator COOPER. You had said that, I believe you said, prior to the assassination you considered Lee Oswald as being violent or dangerous?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, now I have said that the thought crossed my mind once in relation to myself.

Senator COOPER. What caused that?

Mrs. PAINE. That he might be violent, because I thought he might resent my stepping in to do for his wife what he was not doing.

Senator COOPER. What made you think he would be violent about it if he wasn't caring about taking care of her?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, I wanted to satisfy myself, and I did then. The thought crossed my mind before I went to New Orleans for the second time as I have referred to it in a conversation with Mr. Rainey, before I went to New Orleans and then seeing him and changing my opinion some about him, I felt that he would not be violent or angry with me for this offer, and then proceeded with it, and this is the only----

Senator COOPER. I can understand why a person might be angry about something. But what about him led you to believe that he might be violent?

Mrs. PAINE. There was nothing that I could put my finger on. On the contrary my general impression was not of a man who would break out in sudden marked violence. He argued with his wife, and was distinctly unpleasant with her.

Senator COOPER. I believe you said the other day in answer to a question by Congressman Boggs that you held the opinion now that he did fire the rifle at the President.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I believe that is so but I don't know.

Senator COOPER. From this vantage point, is there anything about him now which you think of which seems consistent with the fact that he, that you believe he did shoot the President, President Kennedy?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, what has led me to the conclusion that he did shoot President Kennedy is the massive circumstantial evidence that surrounds his relationship or where he was, what he had at the time of the assassination. Perhaps we should get into the matter of motive.

Senator COOPER. In other words, a person's personality, is there anything you can think of now which would change your mind or change the viewpoint that you held previously that he wasn't violent?

Mrs. PAINE. No; I still can recall no incident that I saw, nothing or thought at the time, with this small exception of the one reference to Mrs. Rainey that--and that was a conjecture in reference to myself. Nothing that violent or indeed that insane.

Senator COOPER. Was it your opinion that Mrs. Oswald was shaken by the assassination and by the fact that her husband was charged with it?

Mrs. PAINE. She was certainly shaken on the afternoon when the policemen were out there, when he was at that time just charged with the shooting of Tippit. I never saw her after he was charged with the shooting of the President.

Senator COOPER. One other question: I think you said when Marguerite Oswald, Lee Oswald's mother, came to your house, and the Life people later appeared, you spoke of that, did you say that both of them, both Marina and Marguerite, seemed to be interested in making some kind of a deal with Life in order to get money?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Senator COOPER. Or were you speaking only of Marguerite Oswald?

Mrs. PAINE. I was speaking only of Marguerite Oswald. I could add here that Marina appeared to me to want to be courteous and polite toward her mother-in-law, and wished to go along with whatever wishes Marguerite had on the subject.

Senator COOPER. Has anyone tried to make any kind of a business transaction for your statement or story?

Mrs. PAINE. At that time or since?

Senator COOPER. Since.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Senator COOPER. What?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes. The Commission has a copy of an article that was written for Look which was not published and will not be.

Senator COOPER. Has that been testified?

Mr. JENNER. Will not be what?

Mrs. PAINE. Published. It is now my property and I don't plan to, I have no plans presently, at least.

Senator COOPER. Just for the record, have you entered into any kind of business transaction by which you would be paid for a story about this assassination?

Mrs. PAINE. I will not be paid for any story I write, and I am certain now I don't want to write any such story. I have, however, worked with Miss Jessamyn West, who is an author for an article which will appear in Time and Red Book magazine, or I expect it will. She is writing that, she talked to me.

Mr. JENNER. She approached you on that article?

Mrs. PAINE. No one approached me in that article. Was already decided before I was asked. But that is----

Mr. JENNER. Who decided it?

Mrs. PAINE. I had implied that I would be willing to do this, but not to anyone I thought was making an offer. This is aside.

Mr. JENNER. This was an offer to help the subject of the interview being interviewed?

Mrs. PAINE. All I really should say in clarification here is that there was bad communication between Red Book, Miss West and myself, and she was under the impression that I had agreed to do this before she had in fact been contacted, but then the fact of Red Book and Miss West thinking that this was something I had agreed to I then did agree to do it.

(Discussion off the record.)

Senator COOPER. Back on the record.

Have you been paid or promised any monetary consideration for any article that you might write or you might assist someone else in writing about your experiences connected with the Oswalds?

Mrs. PAINE. The complete answer to that would be that I received a $300 advance from Look magazine for helping in the writing of that article which will not appear, and that I have been told I will receive $500 from Red Book magazine for helping Miss West in writing that, and if you want, I will tell you what I think about what I want to do with this money but perhaps that is not pertinent.

Senator COOPER. If you want to?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, I plan to give it away.

Mr. JENNER. You mean give it to charity?

Mrs. PAINE. To charity.

Senator COOPER. That is all I have.

Mr. JENNER. You have referred to a Look magazine article in the preparation of which you have assisted. I have marked as Commission Exhibit No. 460 a document which I received from Mr. George Harris, after you had authorized me to call him and ask for it.

Would you glance through that and verify that that is the article in the final form?

You have examined Commission Exhibit 460. Is that the Look article to which you have made reference in your testimony here this afternoon?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And that article, however, is not one to be published?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right.

Mr. JENNER. Did you look over that article in this final form and approve it as to text and statements made in it?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; although I don't think the final draft had been done or final approval given before it was decided that it would not be used.

Mr. JENNER. But as this exhibit stands, Commission Exhibit No. 460, the text and statements that are made in there had your approval?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; they are, of course, not all of my words.

Mr. JENNER. Of course, not. The article was written by?

Mrs. PAINE. By George Harris, who is a senior editor on Look magazine, and he wrote it from typed copy he had directly as he had taken it from my telling.

Mr. JENNER. So it is, to use somewhat of a vernacular, it is ghost written?

Mrs. PAINE. It is ghost written but most of it is my words.

Mr. JENNER. I offer in evidence, as Commission Exhibit No. 460, the document we have just identified.

Senator COOPER. It will be received in evidence.

(The document referred to, heretofore identified as Commission Exhibit No. 460, was received in evidence.)

Mr. JENNER. Do you have an interest in the Russian language as has appeared from your testimony?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

Mrs. PAINE. I am not now and have never been a member of the Communist Party.

Mr. JENNER. Do you now or have you ever had any leanings which we might call Communist Party leanings.

Mrs. PAINE. No; on the contrary.

Mr. JENNER. Are you now or have you ever been a member of any groups which you consciously recognize as being, let us say, Communist front groups?

Mrs. PAINE. No; I have not and I would be quite certain I had not been unconsciously a member of any such groups.

Mr. JENNER. I take it from your response that you have an aversion to communism?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I do.

Mr. JENNER. And would be at pains and have been at pains during your adult life, at least, to avoid any association with or any advancement of communism as we know and abhor it?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; that is right.

If I may say here, I am offended by the portion of the Communist doctrine that thinks violence is necessary to achieve its aims. I am likewise offended by the doctrine that any means to what is considered a good end is legitimate.

I, on the contrary, feel that there is no justification at any time for deception, and the Communists, as I have observed their activity, have no reluctance to deceive, and this offends me seriously.

Mr. JENNER. In that thinking, violence also impels you against the Communist faith?

Mrs. PAINE. It certainly does.

Mr. JENNER. Or political doctrine?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; their espousal of violence repels me.

Mr. JENNER. You have an interest in the Russian language?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I do.

Mr. JENNER. Now, the members of the Commission, all of them are interested in how you came to have your interest in the Russian language, and they would like to have you indicate when it first arose and under what circumstances and what impelled you to have an interest in the Russian language; start from the very beginning of your life in that connection--that episode in your life?

Mrs. PAINE. All right. To be really the very beginning I will start and say I have been interested in other languages before being interested in Russian. I studied French in high school, German in college, and got a tutor to study Yiddish when I was working with a group that spoke that language.

Mr. JENNER. That is the Golden Age group of the Young----

Mrs. PAINE. Men and Young Women----

Mr. JENNER. Hebrew Association in Philadelphia?

Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.

Mr. JENNER. At that time you were employed by?

Mrs. PAINE. That organization.

Mr. JENNER. By that organization. And were you doing work in connection with this plan of Antioch College?

Mrs. PAINE. No; that was after I had completed my work at Antioch.

Mr. JENNER. I see.

Mrs. PAINE. Well, I do believe I did get some credit for that year at Antioch although I had completed my academic work, I was still getting some credit for my job credit, that is.

Mr. JENNER. All right, proceed.

Mrs. PAINE. And then I was working with a group of young Quakers, had been indeed for sometime.

Mr. JENNER. Please fix a little more definite time, please?

Mrs. PAINE. I began my interest in young Quakers in 1947.

Mr. JENNER. In 1947?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. As quite a young girl?

Mrs. PAINE. When my interest also began in the Quaker church.

Mr. JENNER. You were then what, you were 19 years old?

Mrs. PAINE. I was going on 15, as a matter of fact.

Mr. JENNER. Going on 15?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right.

Mr. JENNER. You were going to high school?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Where were you living then?

Mrs. PAINE. I was living in Columbus, Ohio.

Mr. JENNER. And you became interested in the Quaker faith then or at least in the Quaker activity?

Mrs. PAINE. Both.

Mr. JENNER. And were you a member of the Friends Society, young people's society in Columbus at that time?

Mrs. PAINE. I attended the meeting which is the Quaker church in Columbus. They didn't have enough young people to have a society in that particular meeting. But then in college I became active in the national young Friends group.

Mr. JENNER. What is the official name of that?

Mrs. PAINE. The name at that time was the Young Friends Committee of North America. It included Canada young Friends. And in this connection I was, I served, as Chairman or Conference Coordinator for a conference of young friends that was held in 1955.

Mr. JENNER. Where?

Mrs. PAINE. At Quaker Haven, Ind.

Mr. JENNER. Did you attend that?

Mrs. PAINE. I did. It was at this conference, toward the latter part, part of really arising out of a discussion of the need for communication and more of it between the United States and the Soviet Union by no means the bulk of the business of this conference, but a small committee of interested people, was working on this matter.

Mr. JENNER. Are these interested young people?

Mrs. PAINE. These are all young Friends.

Mr. JENNER. And you were then of what age, 1955. 23?

Senator COOPER. 9 years ago?

Mrs. PAINE. 22, going on 23, that is right.

Mr. JENNER. 22 going on 23. Was this in the summer time?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Vacation period?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. I see. By the way, Mrs. Paine, you had been to England, had you not, in some activity of the Friends Society back in 1952?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. That was what meeting did you attend, and as a delegate of what?

Mrs. PAINE. I was selected as a delegate of the Lake Erie Association which is the larger group to which my meeting in Columbus belonged.

Mr. JENNER. Your Quaker meeting?

Mrs. PAINE. My Quaker meeting. To go as a delegate to the Friends world conference held at Oxford, England, in the summer of 1952. I also attended a young Friends conference held in Reading, England, just before the larger conference. Shall I return now to the conference at Quaker Haven in 1955?

Mr. JENNER. Yes.

Mrs. PAINE. I felt a calling in Friends terminology at that conference.

Mr. JENNER. An impulse, a desire, is that what you mean, a pulling?

Mrs. PAINE. More than that, that God asked of me that I study language, and I can't say that it was specifically said what language. This was at the time that plans first began for encouraging an exchange of young people between the Soviet Union and the United States, and I became active with the committee planning that, and from that planning there was an exchange, three Soviet young people came to this country and four young Quakers went to the Soviet Union, and I was very much impressed with the dearth of people in this country who could speak Russian. Here was a need for communication with people we had to live with, although we disagreed with them, certainly disagreed with the government, and the first elements of communication, the language, was not available among most young people, and even among older people in the country. My letter of June 18, 1959, marked Commission Exhibit No. 459-1 contains a statement of my motivation to study Russian. So it was this really that started me upon a course of study in Russian. Then once started, I was more propelled by my interest in the language itself. Shall I describe what training I have had?

Mr. JENNER. Well, please. I want to cover something else before that. I offer Commission Exhibit No. 459-1 in evidence.

The CHAIRMAN. It is received.

Mr. JENNER. Was there a movement also in this connection which you are now describing of a pen pal communication between young people here in America and young people in Russia?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Did you have anything to do with that?

Mrs. PAINE. There was a subcommittee of this Young Friends Committee of North America which was called East-West Contact Committee.

Mr. JENNER. Were you the leader of that committee?

Mrs. PAINE. I was not. But I was chairman of a committee of that committee, which was called Correspondence, and I helped make contact between young people in this country who wished to write to someone in the Soviet Union, and an organization of young people in Moscow which found pen pals for these young Americans.