And I was glad to hear him say that he didn't at all want it to appear
or to feel of himself that he had abandoned her.
Mr. JENNER. Did he say anything as to what representations you might
make to Parkland Hospital and other State authorities in that respect?
Mrs. PAINE. No; I don't recall.
Mr. JENNER. On the trip back to--may I defer the packing until
Representative Ford returns--on the trip back to Irving, Tex., did you
and Marina discuss the subject matter of Dee's going to Houston, Tex.,
or to Philadelphia to look for a job?
Mrs. PAINE. No; we didn't.
Mr. JENNER. At any time during the weekend you were in New Orleans or
driving from New Orleans to Irving, Tex., was the friend identified,
the supposed friend?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. In Houston, identified?
Mrs. PAINE. No; I remember wondering if there was one.
Mr. JENNER. You wondered at the time?
Mrs. PAINE. I wondered to myself if there was one.
Mr. JENNER. What made you wonder?
Mrs. PAINE. I may say, also, I wondered, as I have already indicated
for the Commission, I had wondered, from time to time, whether this
was a man who was working as a spy or in any way a threat to the
Nation, and I thought, "This is the first I have heard anything about a
contact. I am interested to know if this is a real thing or something
unreal." And waited to see really whether I would learn any more about
it. But this thought crossed my mind.
Mr. JENNER. It did? Now, many of my questions are directed towards
trying to find out what this man did with his time. When he went job
hunting, according to some of the records here, he appeared to return
home rather promptly. That is, he would leave in the morning but he
would be home before noontime.
Mrs. PAINE. Oh?
Mr. JENNER. Did you notice anything of that nature?
Mrs. PAINE. I never saw him when he was job hunting. The times in
New Orleans, of course, I wasn't there. The times in April he was
job hunting from a base of 214 Neely Street, and in October he was
operating from the base of the room on Beckley Street. So I never saw
him.
Mr. JENNER. So that as far as--this I would like to bring out, Mr.
Chairman--as far as your contact with Lee Harvey Oswald as such, Mrs.
Paine, your opportunities for knowing what he did with his time were
limited, were they not?
Mrs. PAINE. They were limited.
Mr. JENNER. That is in the spring, there was this New Orleans period
when he was absent in New Orleans altogether during the 2 weeks that
Marina was with you?
Mrs. PAINE. Right.
Mr. JENNER. It is the period preceding the trip to New Orleans that
they lived a little distance from you, and that was in a period of your
really becoming more acquainted with them. Were you aware of what Mr.
Oswald was doing during the daytime, or evening along in that period of
time?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. In the fall when you saw him then for 2 days and 3 nights
in the early fall of 1963, he was out of work. He was at the home
substantially all of that time?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You returned to Irving, then, and you didn't see him until
he appeared as you testified this morning, on October 4, 1963?
Mrs. PAINE. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Now, he was in your home from October 4, 1963, until what
was it--the 15th of October? Is that correct?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. He was not?
Mrs. PAINE. Not at all. He was in the home for the weekend of October
4. I then took him to the bus around noon on the 7th, that is a Monday,
to the Intercity Bus between Irving and Dallas. You can't walk to it
from my house. There is no way to get anywhere from my house unless you
use a car.
Mr. JENNER. We are interested in that, also, Mrs. Paine, about
his ability to get to your home from whatever means of public
transportation there was. Would you be good enough to describe the
problems in that connection?
Mrs. PAINE. He called on the afternoon of the 4th.
Mr. JENNER. Would you give us the problems first, the physical
problems? Where was the bus located? What was the bus terminal? How far
was it from your home?
Mrs. PAINE. The bus terminal in Irving where you could get a bus going
to Dallas was several miles away, 2 to 3 miles away from my home, a 10
minute car ride.
Mr. JENNER. And what means of transportation was there from the bus
terminal to your home?
Mrs. PAINE. Walking?
Mr. JENNER. Any public transportation.
Mrs. PAINE. There was nothing public.
Mr. JENNER. You would have to hitchhike or walk or be driven?
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. I take it, then, there were occasions when you would have
to go and pick him up at the bus terminal?
Mrs. PAINE. I recall at least one such occasion, and that was on the
12th of October, a Saturday, which was the next time he came out.
Mr. JENNER. That was the next time following the October 4 weekend?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. When was the first time that you heard, or had any notice
of the fact that this man had been in Mexico, or possibly may have been
in Mexico?
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.