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.