Mr. JENNER. Do you recall an incident in which you reported to an FBI
agent that you had just talked with a reporter from the Houston Post?
Mrs. PAINE. Right.
Mr. JENNER. You recall that?
Mrs. PAINE. I do.
Mr. JENNER. Now during the course of that interview, you made reference
to a newspaper reporter, did you not?
Mrs. PAINE. I did. His name is Lonny Hudkins.
Mr. JENNER. Did you say that the reporter whom you have now identified
had advised you that Lee Harvey Oswald's mother had been working for a
party in Forth Worth during September and October 1962 as a practical
nurse, and according to the reporter, Mrs. Oswald, mother of Lee Harvey
Oswald, advised this party during her employment that her son was doing
important anti-subversive work?
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Would you please relate that incident so we will have the
facts insofar as you participated in them stated of record?
Mrs. PAINE. I will. I would not have recalled the date, but I knew it
to be toward the end of 1963. I was called on the telephone by Lonny
Hudkins, whom I had never met, announced himself as from the Houston
Post, said there was a matter of some importance that he wanted to
talk with me about, could he come out to the house? And he then
indicated the nature of what he wanted to talk about to the extent very
accurately reported in what you have just read. I called the FBI really
to see if they could advise me in dealing with this man. It struck me
as a very unresponsible thing to print, and I wanted to be able to
convince Hudkins of that fact. I was hopeful that they might be willing
to make a flat denial to him, or in some way prevent the confusion that
would have been caused by his printing this.
Now shall I go on to tell about the encounter which followed with Mr.
Hudkins, and something of that content?
Mr. JENNER. I am a little at a loss. Why don't you start because I
can't anticipate.
Mrs. PAINE. Whether it is important?
Mr. JENNER. You haven't related this to me. Are these statements you
made to the FBI that you are about to relate?
Mrs. PAINE. If they asked. I don't recall specifically. I certainly
recall that the content of the telephone conversation reported there is
accurate and is in sum the conversation that then followed with Lonny
Hudkins too, except that it doesn't say what I said in the situation.
Mr. JENNER. Did you report to the FBI that Mr. Hudkins had said to
you that the primary purpose of seeing you was an effort to get some
confirmation if possible of the possibility Oswald was actually working
on behalf of the United States Government prior to the assassination?
Mrs. PAINE. I was aware that was his purpose.
Mr. JENNER. That you knew of no such situation, and ventured the
opinion to the reporter that the story was wholly unlikely, that you
could not imagine anyone having that much confidence in Oswald?
Mrs. PAINE. That is accurate. I went on to say that Mrs. Oswald,
senior, Mrs. Marguerite Oswald, could well have said to this
matron a full year back and more that her son was doing important
anti-subversive work for the government. This was 1962 he was talking
about, but that this was her opinion or what she may have wished to
have true. And I did not consider it terribly creditable, and said to
him "You don't think you have a story here, do you?"