Part 3

Mrs. PAINE. They are two different questions. I will answer the first one. I heard that he had been in Mexico after the assassination in one of the papers.

Mr. JENNER. Was that the first time?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; that was the first time. Looking back then, with that knowledge, I could see that I might have guessed this from two other things that had happened.

Mr. JENNER. All right, give us them in sequence, please.

Mrs. PAINE. One was, I can describe by an incident that took place at our home, I am not certain which weekend, one of the times that Lee was out. He wanted to drill a hole in a silver coin for Marina so she could wear it around her neck, and presumed to use my husband's drill press, which is one of the many things in the garage, and I complained. But he convinced me that he knew how to operate it and knew just what he was doing.

So I said, all right, and he proceeded to drill a hole in this coin, and then Marina showed it to me later. I didn't look closely at it. It wasn't until--although I could have perfectly well in this situation. I did see that it was a foreign coin.

Mr. JENNER. It was a what?

Mrs. PAINE. It was a foreign coin. It was not a coin I recognized. It was about the size of a silver dollar, but not as thick, as I remember it. And it was not then until perhaps a week or something less after the assassination when an FBI agent asked me was there anything left in the house that would be pertinent, and he and I went together and looked in the drawer in the room where Marina had been staying, and found there this drilled coin, looked at it closely, and it was a peso, the Republic of Mexico. This is the first I had looked at it closely. Also, with this peso was a Spanish-English Dictionary.

My tendency to be very hesitant to look into other people's things was rather put aside at this point, and I was very curious to see what this book was, and I observed that the price of it, or what I took to be the price was in a corner at the front was not in English money, and at the back in his hand or somebody's hand in small scribble was the notation, "Buy tickets for bull fight, get silver bracelet for Marina" and there in the drawer also was a silver bracelet with the name Marina on it, which I took to be associated with this notation.

Mr. JENNER. Was it inscribed on the bracelet?

Mrs. PAINE. It was inscribed, the name Marina. And some picture postcards with no message, just a picture of Mexico City in this dictionary, and these I gave to the----

Mr. JENNER. Had you seen any of these items in your home at anytime prior to this occasion that you have now described?

Mrs. PAINE. None of these items except the peso which I had not noticed to be that, seen it, of course.

Mr. JENNER. Now, that is one incident.

Mrs. PAINE. That is one incident. Another refers to a rough draft of a letter that Lee wrote and left this rough draft on my secretary desk.

Mr. JENNER. Would you describe the incident? In the meantime, I will obtain the rough draft here among my notes.

Mrs. PAINE. All right. This was on the morning of November 9, Saturday. He asked to use my typewriter, and I said he might.

Mr. JENNER. Excuse me. Would you please state to the Commission why you are reasonably firm that it was the morning of November 9? What arrests your attention to that particular date?

Mrs. PAINE. Because I remember the weekend that this note or rough draft remained on my secretary desk. He spent the weekend on it. And the weekend was close and its residence on that desk was stopped also on the evening of Sunday, the 10th, when I moved everything in the living room around; the whole arrangement of the furniture was changed, so that I am very clear in my mind as to what weekend this was.

Mr. JENNER. All right, go ahead.

Mrs. PAINE. He was using the typewriter. I came and put June in her high-chair near him at the table where he was typing, and he moved something over what he was typing from, which aroused my curiosity.

Mr. JENNER. Why did that arouse your curiosity?

Mrs. PAINE. It appeared he didn't want me to see what he was writing or to whom he was writing. I didn't know why he had covered it. If I had peered around him, I could have looked at the typewriter and the page in it, but I didn't.

Mr. JENNER. It did make you curious?

Mrs. PAINE. It did make me curious. Then, later that day, I noticed a scrawling handwriting on a piece of paper on the corner at the top of my secretary desk in the living room. It remained there.

Sunday morning I was the first one up. I took a closer look at this, a folded sheet of paper folded at the middle. The first sentence arrested me because I knew it to be false. And for this reason I then proceeded----

Mr. JENNER. Would you just hold it at that moment. This is for purposes of identification, Mr. Chairman, rather than admission of the document in evidence. I have marked pages 321 and 322 of Commission Document No. 385 generally referred to by the staff as the Gemberling Report. He is an FBI agent. I have now placed that before the witness. You examined that yesterday with me, did you not, Mrs. Paine?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. The document I am now showing you?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Is that a transcript, a literal transcript of the document you saw?

Mrs. PAINE. Of course the document was in English, transcribing of what was said; yes.

Mr. JENNER. By transcript I meant that it has been retyped, that it is literal.

Mrs. PAINE. That is the document; yes.

Mr. JENNER. That is interesting. You noticed that the document was in English.

Mrs. PAINE. Oh, yes.

Mr. JENNER. You saw it. And it was folded at what point, now that you have the transcript of it before you?

Mrs. PAINE. At the top of what I could see of the paper. In other words, it was just below the fold. It said, "The FBI is not now interested in my activities."

Mr. JENNER. Is that what arrested your attention?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. What did you do?

Mrs. PAINE. I then proceeded to read the whole note, wondering, knowing this to be false, wondering why he was saying it. I was irritated to have him writing a falsehood on my typewriter, I may say, too. I felt I had some cause to look at it.

Mr. JENNER. May I have your permission, Mr. Chairman. The document is short. It is relevant to the witness' testimony, and might I read it aloud in the record to draw your attention to it?

Mr. McCLOY. Without objection.

Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine, would you help me by reading it, since you have it there.

Mrs. PAINE. Do you want me to leave out all the crossed out----

Mr. JENNER. No; I wish you would indicate that too.

Mrs. PAINE. "Dear Sirs:

"This is to inform you of events since my interview with comrade Kostine in the Embassy of the Soviet Union, Mexico City, Mexico."

(Discussion off the record.)

Mrs. PAINE. He typed it early in the morning of that day because after he typed it we went to the place where you get the test for drivers. It was that same day.

Mr. JENNER. It was election day and the driver's license place was closed, is that correct?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And that was November 9?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Now you have reached the point where you are reading the letter on the morning of November 10.

Mrs. PAINE. That is right; after I had noticed that it lay on my desk the previous evening.

"I was unable to remain in Mexico City (because I considered useless--)"--because--it is crossed out.

Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. In this transcript wherever there are words stricken out, the transcriber has placed those words in parenthesis and transcribed the words, but then has written the words "crossed out" to indicate in the original the words crossed out.

Proceed, Mrs. Paine.

Mrs. PAINE. "Indefinitely because of my (visa--crossed out) Mexican visa restrictions which was for 15 days only.

"(I had a--crossed out) I could not take a chance on applying for an extension unless I used my real name so I returned to the U.S.

"I and Marina Nicholyeva are now living in Dallas, Texas. (You all ready ha--crossed out).

"The FBI is not now interested in my activities in the progressive organization FPCC of which I was secretary in (New Orleans, La.--crossed out) New Orleans, Louisiana since I (am--crossed out) no longer (connected with--crossed out) live in that state.

"(November the November--crossed out) the FBI has visited us here in Texas on November 1st. Agent of the FBI James P. Hasty warned me that if I attempt to engage in FPCC activities in Texas the FBI will again take an 'interest' in me. The agent also 'suggested' that my wife could 'remain in the U.S. under FBI protection', that is, she could (refuse to return to the--crossed out) defect from the Soviet Union. Of course I and my wife strongly protested these tactics by the notorious FBI.

"(It was unfortun that the Soviet Embassy was unable to aid me in Mexico City but--crossed out) I had not planned to contact the Mexico City Embassy at all so of course they were unprepared for me. Had I been able to reach Havana as planned (I could have contacted--crossed out) the Soviet Embassy there (for the completion of would have been able to help me get the necessary documents I required assist me--crossed out) would have had time to assist me, but of course the stuip Cuban consule was at fault here. I am glad he has since been replaced by another."

Mr. JENNER. Now I would like to ask you a few questions about your reaction to that. You had read that in the quiet of your living room on Sunday morning, the 10th of November.

Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.

Mr. JENNER. And there were a number of things in that that you thought were untrue.

Mrs. PAINE. Several things I knew to be untrue.

Mr. JENNER. You knew to be untrue. Were there things in there that alarmed you?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I would say so.

Mr. JENNER. What were they?

Mrs. PAINE. To me this--well, I read it and decided to make a copy.

Mr. JENNER. Would having the document back before you help you?

Mrs. PAINE. No, no. I was just trying to think what to say first. And decided that I should have such a copy to give to an FBI agent coming again, or to call. I was undecided what to do. Meantime I made a copy.

Mr. JENNER. But you did have the instinct to report this to the FBI?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And you made a copy of the document?

Mrs. PAINE. And I made a copy of the document which should be among your papers, because they have that too. And after having made it, while the shower was running, I am not used to subterfuge in any way, but then I put it back where it had been and it lay the rest of Sunday on my desk top, and of course I observed this too.

Mr. JENNER. That is that Lee didn't put it away, just left it out in the room?

Mrs. PAINE. That he didn't put it away or didn't seem to care or notice or didn't recall that he had a rough draft lying around. I observed it was untrue that the FBI was no longer interested in him. I observed it was untrue that the FBI came----

Mr. JENNER. Why did you observe that that was untrue?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, the FBI came and they asked me, they said----

Mr. JENNER. Had the FBI been making inquiries of you prior to that time?

Mrs. PAINE. They had been twice.

Mr. JENNER. November 1 and----

Mrs. PAINE. November 1, and they told me the 5. I made no record of it whatever.

Mr. JENNER. But it was a few days later?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; a few days later. And the first visit I understood to be a visit to convey to Marina that if any blackmail pressure was being put upon her, because of relatives back home, that she was invited, if she wished, to talk about this to the FBI. This is a far cry from being told she could defect from the Soviet Union, very strong words, and false both.

Mr. JENNER. Did you ever hear anything at all insofar as the FBI is concerned reported to you by Marina or Lee Harvey Oswald during all of your acquaintance with either of them of any suggestion by the FBI or anybody else that Marina defect in that context to the United States?

Mrs. PAINE. No, absolutely not.

Mr. JENNER. Or anything of similar import?

Mrs. PAINE. Nothing of similar import.

Mr. JENNER. I limited it to the FBI. Any agency of the Government of the United States?

Mrs. PAINE. Nothing of that sort.

Mr. JENNER. And did you see or observe anything during all of that period of your acquaintance, which stimulated you to think at all or have any notion that any agency of the Government of the United States was seeking to induce her to defect?

Mrs. PAINE. To the United States?

Mr. JENNER. To the United States.

Mrs. PAINE. No, and her terminology in view of it was so completely different from such stereotyped and loaded words that I was seeing as I read this. What I was most struck with was what kind of man is this.

Mr. JENNER. Is who?

Mrs. PAINE. Why is Lee Oswald writing this? What kind of man? Here is a false statement that she was invited to defect, false statement that the FBI is no longer interested, false statement that he was present, "they visited I and my wife."

Mr. JENNER. Was he present?

Mrs. PAINE. He was not present. False statement that "I and my wife protested vigorously." Having not been present he could not protest.

Mr. JENNER. He was not present when the FBI interviewed you on November 1. Was Marina present then?

Mrs. PAINE. She was present.

Mr. JENNER. And was Marina present when the FBI came later on November 5?

Mrs. PAINE. She came into the room just after basically the very short visit was concluded.

Mr. JENNER. The second interview was a rather short one?

Mrs. PAINE. The second interview was conducted standing up. He simply asked me did I know the address. My memory had been refreshed by him since.

Mr. JENNER. The first interview, however, was a rather lengthly one?

Mrs. PAINE. But it was not strictly speaking an interview.

Mr. JENNER. What was it?

Mrs. PAINE. It was, as Mr. Hosty has described to me later, and I think this was my impression too of it at the time, an informal opening for confidence. He presented himself. He talked. We conversed about the weather, about Texas, about the end of the last World War and changes in Germany at the time.

He mentioned that the FBI is very careful in their investigations not to bring anyone they suspect in public light until they have evidence to convict him in a proper court of law, that they did not convict by hearsay or public accusation.

He asked me, and here I am answering why I thought it was false to say the FBI is no longer interested in Lee Oswald; he asked first of all if I knew did Lee live there, and I said "No." Did I know where he lived? No, I didn't, but that it was in Dallas.

Did I know where he worked? Yes, I did.

And I said I thought Lee was very worried about losing this job, and the agent said that well, it wasn't their custom to approach the employer directly. I said that Lee would be there on the weekend, so far as I knew, that he could be seen then, if he was interested in talking to Lee.

I want to return now to the fact that I had seen these gross falsehoods and strong words, concluding with "notorious FBI" in this letter, and gone to say I wondered whether any of it was true, including the reference to going to Mexico, including the reference to using a false name, and I still wonder if that was true or false that he used an assumed name, though I no longer wonder whether he had actually gone.

Mr. JENNER. There was a subsequent incident in which you did learn that he used an assumed name, was there not?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes, a week later.

Mr. JENNER. We will get to that in a moment. But was this----

Mrs. PAINE. But this was the first indication I had that this man was a good deal queerer than I thought, and it didn't tell me, perhaps it should have but it didn't tell me just what sort of a queer he was. He addressed it "Dear Sirs." It looked to me like someone trying to make an impression, and choosing the words he thought were best to make that impression, even including assumed name as a possible attempt to make an impression on someone who was able to do espionage, but not to my mind necessarily a picture of someone who was doing espionage, though I left that open as a possibility, and thought I'd give it to the FBI and let them conclude or add it to what they knew.

I regret, and I would like to put this on the record, particularly two things in my own actions prior to the time of the assassination.

One, that I didn't make the connection between this phone number that I had of where he lived and that of course this would produce for the FBI agent who was asking the address of where he lived.

Mr. JENNER. I will get to that, Mrs. Paine.

Mrs. PAINE. Well, that is regret 1.

Mr. JENNER. I don't want to cover too many subjects at the moment.

Mrs. PAINE. But then of course you see in light of the events that followed it is a pity that I didn't go directly instead of waiting for the next visit, because the next visit was the 23d of November.

Mr. JENNER. Now I am going to get to that. What did you do with your copy of the letter?

Mrs. PAINE. I put my copy of the letter away in an envelope in my desk. I then, Sunday evening, also took the original. I decided to do that Sunday evening.

Mr. JENNER. He had left?

Mrs. PAINE. No, he had not left.

Mr. JENNER. He had not left?

Mrs. PAINE. I asked the gentlemen present, it included Michael, to come in and help me move the furniture around. I walked in and saw the letter was still there and plunked it into my desk. We then moved all the furniture. I then took it out of the desk and placed it.

Mr. JENNER. When did you take it out of the desk?

Mrs. PAINE. I don't think he knew that I took it. Oh, that evening or the next morning, I don't recall.

Mr. JENNER. And this was the 10th of November?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Did you ever have any conversation with him about that?

Mrs. PAINE. No. I came close to it. I was disturbed about it. I didn't go to sleep right away. He was sitting up watching the late spy story, if you will, on the TV, and I got up and sat there on the sofa with him saying, "I can't speak," wanting to confront him with this and say, "What is this?" But on the other hand I was somewhat fearful, and I didn't know what to do.

Representative FORD. Fearful in what way?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, if he was an agent, I would rather just give it to the FBI, not to say "Look, I am watching you" by saying "What is this I find on my desk."

Mr. JENNER. Were you fearful of any physical harm?

Mrs. PAINE. No; I was not.

Representative FORD. That is what I was concerned about.

Mrs. PAINE. No; I was not, though I don't think I defined my fears. I sat down and said I couldn't sleep and he said, "I guess you are real upset about going to the lawyer tomorrow."

He knew I had an appointment with my lawyer to discuss the possibility of a divorce the next day, and that didn't happen to be what was keeping me up that night, but I was indeed upset about the idea, and it was thoughtful for him to think of it. But I let it rest there, and we watched the story which he was interested in watching. And then I excused myself and went to bed.

Mr. JENNER. What did you do ultimately with your draft of the letter and the original?

Mrs. PAINE. The first appearance of an FBI person on the 23d of November, I gave the original to them. The next day it probably was I said I also had a copy and gave them that. I wanted to be shut of it.

Mr. JENNER. So I take it, Mrs. Paine, you did not deliver either the original or the copy or call attention to the original or the copy with respect to the FBI.

Mrs. PAINE. Prior.

Mr. JENNER. Prior to the 23d did you say?

Mrs. PAINE. That is right.

Mr. JENNER. And what led you to hold onto this rather provocative document?

Mrs. PAINE. It is a rather provocative document. It provoked my doubts about this fellow's normalcy more than it provoked thoughts that this was the talk of an agent reporting in. But I wasn't sure.

I of course made no--I didn't know him to be a violent person, had no thought that he had this trait, possibility in him, absolutely no connection with the President's coming. If I had, hindsight is so much better, I would certainly have called the FBI's attention to it. Supposing that I had?

Mr. JENNER. If the FBI had returned, Mrs. Paine, as you indicated during the course of your meeting with the FBI November 1, would you have disclosed this document to the FBI?

Mrs. PAINE. Oh, I certainly think so. This was not something I was at all comfortable in having even.

Mr. JENNER. Were you expecting the FBI to return?

Mrs. PAINE. I did expect them to come back. As I say, I had said that Lee was here on weekends and so forth. It might have been a good time to give them this document. But as far as I knew, and I know now certainly, they had not seen him and they were still interested in seeing him.

Representative FORD. How did you copy the note?

Mrs. PAINE. Handwritten.

Representative FORD. Handwritten?

Mrs. PAINE. I perhaps should put in here that Lee told me, and I only reconstructed this a few weeks ago, that he went, after I gave him--from the first visit of the FBI agent I took down the agent's name and the number that is in the telephone book to call the FBI, and I gave this to Lee the weekend he came.

Mr. JENNER. You gave it to Lee?

Mrs. PAINE. I gave it to Lee.

Mr. JENNER. What weekend was that?

Mrs. PAINE. I am told that came out on the 1st of November, so that would have been the weekend of the 2d, the next day.

Mr. JENNER. You have your calendar there. The 1st of November is what day of the week?

Mrs. PAINE. It is a Friday. Then he told me, it must have been the following weekend, that same weekend of the 9th.

Mr. JENNER. Did he say anything when you gave him Agent Hosty's name on the telephone?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. Nothing at all?

Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall anything Lee said. I will go on as to the recollections that came later. He told me that he had stopped at the downtown office of the FBI and tried to see the agents and left a note. And my impression of it is that this notice irritated.

Mr. JENNER. Irritating?

Mrs. PAINE. Irritated, that he left the note saying what he thought. This is reconstructing my impression of the fellows bothering him and his family, and this is my impression then. I couldn't say this was specifically said to him later.

Mr. JENNER. You mean he was irritated?

Mrs. PAINE. He was irritated and he said, "They are trying to inhibit my activities," and I said, "You passed your pamphlets," and could well have gone on to say what I thought, but I don't believe I did go on to say, that he could and should expect the FBI to be interested in him.

He had gone to the Soviet Union, intended to become a citizen there, and come back. He had just better adjust himself to being of interest to them for years to come.

Mr. JENNER. What did he say to that?

Mrs. PAINE. Now as I say, this I didn't go on to say. This was my feeling.

I didn't actually go on to say this. I did say, "Don't be inhibited, do what you think you should." But I was thinking in terms of passing pamphlets or expressing a belief in Fidel Castro, if that is why he had, I defend his right to express such a belief. I felt the FBI would too and that he had no reason to be irritated. But then that was my interpretation.

Mr. JENNER. Have you given all of what he said and what you said, however, on that occasion?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes. I will just go on to say that I learned only a few weeks ago that he never did go into the FBI office. Of course knowing, thinking that he had gone in, I thought that was sensible on his part. But it appears to have been another lie.

Mr. JENNER. I will return to that FBI visit in a moment. I want to cover that as a separate subject.