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.
We particularly wanted to go through an official organization so as to
be certain we were not endangering or putting suspicion upon anyone,
any young person in the Soviet Union to whom we were writing. We felt
if they picked their own people that would lessen the suspicion of the
Soviet person.
Mr. JENNER. Were you active in that group?
Mrs. PAINE. I was chairman of that for sometime.
Mr. JENNER. Did you take part in the pen pal correspondence yourself?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I did.
Mr. JENNER. And do you recall now the names of the Russian young
people or Russian young person with whom you communicate, or sought
communication?
Mrs. PAINE. I recall I wrote a few letters to a person named Ella,
I have forgotten her last name, and I don't believe I have the
correspondence still. If I did, I don't any more.
Mr. JENNER. If you once had it?
Mrs. PAINE. If I once had it, I don't have it now in my possession, and
then that stopped because she stopped writing. I wrote and got another
correspondent whose name is Nina Aparina, with whom I corresponded up
to last spring, I would say, and I haven't--yes; and I haven't heard
anything from her for about a year.
Mr. JENNER. What was the nature of the correspondence, particularly
with respect to subject matter?
Mrs. PAINE. We discussed?
Mr. JENNER. In this letter period?
Mrs. PAINE. We discussed our mutual interest in language. She was a
teacher of the English language. She married an engineer during the
time of our correspondence.
Mr. JENNER. Russian?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; of course.
Mr. JENNER. Russian citizen?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes. We exchanged a magnetic tape recording one time. I
sent her one and she sent one with music and readings, hers were music
and readings in Russian, and mine was similar in English as part of
language study aid.
My last communication said she was expecting a baby last June but I
haven't heard anything from her since that communication, as I say,
probably a year ago that came.
Mr. JENNER. Now all of your activity, this activity, of correspondence
between you and any citizen in Russia, was part of it, originated in
the Young Friends group, an activity to supply here a meeting with,
communication by, Americans with citizens in Russia, and then latterly
in your communication with the lady you have last mentioned, a mutual
exchange between the two of you here to improve her English and you to
improve your Russian?
Mrs. PAINE. That is right. The committee was formed much the same
time that our State Department made arrangements with the Soviets
for cultural exchange, and I think our purposes were similar but, of
course, outside the government.
Mr. JENNER. Now the three Russian students who came over here, did you
have any contact with them?
Mrs. PAINE. I met them once at an open meeting in North Philadelphia.
Mr. JENNER. Were a number of other people present?
Mrs. PAINE. Oh, yes.
Mr. JENNER. And that is the only contact you had with them?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Proceed.
Mrs. PAINE. Except that I read a book that was written by one of these
students nearly a year after he had gone back to the Soviet Union
which I found most disillusioning, I must say, in which it was pure
propaganda.
Mr. JENNER. He sought to report what his experiences here were in
America?
Mrs. PAINE. He sought to report on this trip that he had taken, that we
had worked to achieve.
Mr. JENNER. Did you regard him as fair or accurate, that is, what you
read?
Mrs. PAINE. What I read of the book he wrote was extremely inaccurate
and unfair.
Mr. JENNER. Did it misrepresent America as you knew it?
Mrs. PAINE. Misrepresented America, certainly.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mrs. PAINE. Shall I go on now to what I have studied?
Mr. JENNER. Yes. Have you had any formal education in the study of the
Russian language?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I have. I attended a concentrated summer course at
the University of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1957 where, during the
course of 6 weeks, we completed a first year college Russian text.
Mr. JENNER. What year did you say that was?
Mrs. PAINE. I believe that was 1957.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mrs. PAINE. And then I had difficulty keeping that up, keeping Russian
up over the next year, but the following year I was no longer teaching
and took a course at Berlitz School of Languages in Philadelphia in
Russian, and improved my ability to converse, and it helped me to
recall what I had gone through rather too fast in this accelerated
course.
I then applied for the summer course at the Middlebury College summer
language school in Middlebury, Vt., in the summer of 1959 and attended
that 7-week course. At Middlebury they required that you speak nothing
but the language you are studying the entire time, both in class and
out. This was very valuable though very difficult.
Mr. JENNER. Who was your instructor?
Mrs. PAINE. There?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mrs. PAINE. I took three courses. Natalie Yershov.
Mr. JENNER. You were relating, Mrs. Paine, you recalled one of your
instructors at Middlebury?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall the name of any other?
Mrs. PAINE. Offhand I can't recall. I recall certainly the director of
the school but he was not an instructor of mine.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have a roommate?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I did.
Mr. JENNER. What was your roommate's name?
Mrs. PAINE. Her name was Helen Mamikonian.
Mr. JENNER. Is that correct?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Do you still have contact with her?
Mrs. PAINE. It has been a long time since I have written but we have
exchanged Christmas cards.
Mr. JENNER. Christmas cards and an occasional letter?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Where does she live?
Mrs. PAINE. She lives and works in Boston where she is a teacher of
Russian language at Simmons College, as I recall.
Mr. JENNER. Did she at one time live in New York City?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; her home is New York. She spent her high school years
there after having immigrated from France, and I believe her mother
still lives there, is a tutor for the Berlitz School in Russian in New
York.
Mr. JENNER. Her mother is?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Now we have your study at Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania, and
your study at the Berlitz School in Philadelphia, was it?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And your study at Middlebury College. What additional
formal or at least let us say semiformal instruction or education have
you had in the Russian language?
Mrs. PAINE. I then moved to the Dallas area to the place where I
presently live in Irving, and then I would guess it was early in 1960
I took up some study again at the Berlitz School in Dallas, completed
a course which I had paid for in Philadelphia, and then went on after
that with private lessons with Mrs. Gravitis, who has already been
mentioned.
Mr. JENNER. Is Mrs. Gravitis also an instructor in the Berlitz School
in Dallas?
Mrs. PAINE. I met her because she was an instructor for a short time
there and I think is yet on call to them as an instructor.
Mr. JENNER. Does that cover your formal education in the Russian
language?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; it does.
Mr. JENNER. Now, are you a teacher of Russian?
Mrs. PAINE. I have one student whom I teach beginning Russian.
Mr. JENNER. Is that a connection with an established institution?
Mrs. PAINE. It began in connection with an established institution
during the summer of 1963, at the Saint Marks School of Texas in
Dallas, Tex.
Mr. JENNER. And you were the teacher of Russian in the Saint Marks
School during that quarter or summer term?
Mrs. PAINE. Summer term.
Mr. JENNER. And arising out of that has been your engagement as a
tutor, is that correct?
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Who is your student?
Mrs. PAINE. My student's name is Bill H-U-T-K-I-N-S.
Mr. JENNER. Is he, what is he, a young man?
Mrs. PAINE. I am sorry, it is H-O-O-T-K-I-N-S.
Mr. JENNER. How old is he?
Mrs. PAINE. He turned 15 in the summer.
Mr. JENNER. Is he a native American so far as you know?
Mrs. PAINE. As far as I know, yes.
Mr. JENNER. Is it your--has it been also your desired objective on your
part to teach Russian as a regular instructor or teacher in the public
or private schools?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I would like to do that.
Mr. JENNER. That is still your hope and desire?
Mrs. PAINE. It interests me very much.
Mr. JENNER. And it has been for sometime an objective of yours, has it?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. I will ask you a couple of general questions. First, I will
probably repeat this when I examine you in your deposition also, Mrs.
Paine, but I desire to have it on this record before the Commission,
is there anything that has come to your mind that you would like to
relate to the Commission which you think might be helpful to it in its
deliberations in consideration of the serious problems and events into
which they are inquiring?
Mrs. PAINE. There are a few small items I hope we will get into
tomorrow.
Mr. JENNER. Would you please state them as to subject matter, at least.
Would they take very long for you to state?
Mrs. PAINE. I will make an attempt to be brief here. I recall that Lee
once used my typewriter to type something else beside this note, is
that what you want?
Mr. JENNER. Yes; would you turn and direct your remarks to the
Chairman, to Senator Cooper, so we can all hear you and you might speak
up a little bit, your voice has been dropping.
Mrs. PAINE. I am tired.
I recall that Lee once asked to borrow my typewriter and used it to
type something I judged was a letter at sometime prior to this day
November 9, when he typed a letter which we have a rough draft. This is
probably no use to you.
Mr. JENNER. That is what I call the Mexico letter?
Mrs. PAINE. That is what you call it, all right.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Give the exhibit.
Mrs. PAINE. It is Exhibit No. 103.
Mr. JENNER. Thank you.
Mrs. PAINE. I want to know whether you want to inquire of me my account
of Secret Service agents having come and asked me, having come out
to the house after the assassination to ask me if I had ever seen a
particular note which they had. And I have later assumed that this is
what has been referred to in the press as the note written by Oswald at
the time of the attempt on Walker and if you want I will make it clear
all I know in relation to that.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; I recall that incident and I wish you would, please.
Mrs. PAINE. And then the other thing is simply to invite the members
of the Commission, but if it is a deposition I can't do that then, to
feel free to ask me any questions that are not settled in their mind
or clear regarding the separation which existed between myself and my
husband, if that is troublesome in any way or if there is anything in
which----
Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine, if that doesn't embarrass you, members of the
Commission have voiced to me some interest in that, that is an interest
only to the extent they are seeking to resolve in their mind who Ruth
Paine is and if I may use the vernacular, what makes her tick, so would
you relate that now on the Commission record, please?
Mrs. PAINE. All right. I might say that I think it is important and
relevant here because if I had not been separated from my husband I
would have not as I think I have already testified, made an invitation
to anyone to join the family circle, especially in such a small house.
Really, I might ask if you have questions it might be easier for me to
answer them.
Mr. JENNER. Perhaps we can bring it along in this fashion. What was the
cause of the separation between your husband and yourself, in your view?
Mrs. PAINE. In my view, of course, yes. He expressed himself as not
really interested in remaining married to me. We never quarreled. We
never indeed have had any serious difference of opinion except I want
to live with him and he is not that interested in being with me, would
be our single difference of opinion.
And in the spring of 1962 I felt that something more definite should
be done, and asked Michael why he continued to live with me if he felt
that way about it, and he said that it was easier and cost less, and I
said that wasn't a good enough reason for a marriage, and asked him to
be out of the house in the fall when I returned from summer vacation
that year.
Mr. JENNER. That was 1962?
Mrs. PAINE. 1962, yes. I would say our marriage is marked both by
mutual honesty, that is exceptional, and by a lack of overt or
interior strife except that it hasn't quite come together as a mutual
partnership.
My mother recently said to me that "If you would just look only at what
Michael does there is nothing wrong with your marriage at all. It is
just what he says", and I concur with her opinion on that, that he is
so scrupulously honest with his own feelings that, and really too hard
on himself in a sense, that he states verbally this is not feeling that
he loves me or loves me enough, but in fact his actions toward me are
totally acceptable to me.
Mr. JENNER. Is he gracious and kind and attentive to you?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Has he always been?
Mrs. PAINE. Insufficiently attentive, I would say, but he is always
kind and thoughtful.
Mr. JENNER. Have you had any financial differences of opinion?
Mrs. PAINE. We have not.
Mr. JENNER. He even during this period of time when you were separated,
he voluntarily supported the household and you lived in a manner and
style that suited you or to which you had become accustomed?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes, that is right.
Mr. JENNER. You had no arguments about matters of that nature?
Mrs. PAINE. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Your husband has returned to your home?
Mrs. PAINE. He is living there now.
Mr. JENNER. How long has that been?
Mrs. PAINE. He has been staying there since the night of November 22.
He didn't move his belongings in until the middle of the following week.
Mr. JENNER. Would you say this is a reconciliation?
Mrs. PAINE. I can't say that.
Mr. JENNER. You cannot.
Do you wish to say any more in the statement of yours?
Mrs. PAINE. Not unless you have questions. I think it is an accurate
statement of the marriage.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
What brought this forth was my asking you if you had anything you would
like to bring before the Commission.
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Are there any others?
Mrs. PAINE. I can think of nothing else.
Mr. JENNER. To the best of your present recollection are the statements
and the testimony you gave, you have given so far, before the
Commission consistent with statements you have given to the FBI, to
Secret Service, to magazine reporters, editors, to anyone?
Mrs. PAINE. The statements I have given here are fully consistent with
anything I have said before except that the statement here has been
much fuller than any single previous statement.
Mr. JENNER. And you have testified to matters and things before the
Commission about which, which you did not relate or even had occasion
to relate in your mind, at least, to FBI agents, to Secret Service
agents and to the others that you have identified in general terms?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine, you and I had the opportunity, you afforded me
the privilege of speaking with you before your testimony commenced,
before the Commission. And also I think the first day of your testimony
you were gracious enough to return here to the Commission room and we
spent several hours talking?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. As a matter of fact, we left around 12:30, a quarter of one
in the morning, did we not?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes, that is right, we did.
Mr. JENNER. Now, recalling back to those periods of conferences
with me, do you have any feeling or notion whatsoever that any of
your testimony before the Commission was in any degree whatsoever,
inconsistent with anything you related to me?
Mrs. PAINE. Oh, no; I don't think so, not in any way.
Mr. JENNER. Not in any way. Do you have any feeling whatsoever that
during the course of my conferences with you, outside this Commission,
that I influenced or sought to shape your testimony in any respect?
Mrs. PAINE. No. Clearly I felt no influence from you.
Mr. JENNER. All of the statements that you related to me were free and
voluntary on your part, and not given under any coercion, light or
heavy, as the case might be, on my part.
Mrs. PAINE. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Chairman, there are some additional matters we wish
to examine the witness about and Representative Ford has given me a
rather long list of questions he asked me to cover. He regretted that
was necessary because of his enforced absence, and Mrs. Paine has
agreed that she would be available in the morning, and I may examine
her by way of deposition before a reporter under oath, and with that
understanding of the Commission, of you, Mr. Chairman, I would at this
moment as far as the staff is concerned, close the formal testimony
of Mrs. Paine before the Commission, with advice to you, sir, that
tomorrow morning I will cover additional matters by way of deposition.
Senator COOPER. As I understand the matters you will go into by
deposition will not be any new evidence in the sense of substance but
more to----
Mr. JENNER. I can tell you what they are, it will be her background,
some of which she has now given in regard to her study of the Russian
language.
More formal proof of her calendar, and her address book. Also her
general background which I have already mentioned. Some correspondence
between herself and her mother, and the items that Mrs. Paine has now
mentioned she would like to relate herself.
Mrs. PAINE. One of which we took care of already.
Mr. JENNER. One of which we took care of. We will cover those and I
was going to ask her questions tomorrow, some of which we have already
covered of Lee Harvey Oswald's personality and habits and actions.
I am going to ask here about Mrs. Shirley Martin, who has appeared on
the scene since the assassination, and appears to be a self-appointed
investigator, and to the extent that there has been any contact between
Mrs. Paine and Mrs. Shirley Martin, and then inquire, I may not even do
this because we have covered a very great deal of the conversations and
discussions between Marina and Mrs. Paine on various possible subjects,
and I can see from my list we have covered many of them already.
Senator COOPER. Let it be ordered that evidence will be taken this way,
with this reservation, of course, if the Commission determines after
studying the deposition that it would be necessary for her to be called
again, you would be willing to come again before the Commission to
testify.
Mrs. PAINE. I would certainly be willing if there is any need for my
coming.
Mr. JENNER. In addition to this, Mr. Chairman, as I think already
appears of record, I will come to Mrs. Paine's home in Irving,
Tex., sometime on Monday or Monday evening or if she finds it more
convenient, on Tuesday of next week to inquire of her with a court
reporter present relative to the curtain rod package, and I also will
make a tour of her home and as we move about her home the reporter will
record the conversation between us, questions and answers.
Senator COOPER. Are there any further questions?
Mr. JENNER. That is all. Thank you, sir.
Senator COOPER. All right, then we will stand in recess subject to the
call of the Chairman of the Commission.
(Translations of letters introduced in evidence in the course of Mrs.
Paine's testimony are reproduced in the exhibit volumes.)
_Tuesday, March 24, 1964_
TESTIMONY OF HOWARD LESLIE BRENNAN, BONNIE RAY WILLIAMS, HAROLD NORMAN,
JAMES JARMAN, JR., AND ROY SANSOM TRULY
The President's Commission met at 9 a.m., on March 24, 1964, at 200
Maryland Avenue NE., Washington, D.C.
Present were Chief Justice Earl Warren, Chairman; Representative Gerald
R. Ford, John J. McCloy, and Allen W. Dulles, members.
Also present were J. Lee Rankin, general counsel; Joseph A. Ball,
assistant counsel; David W. Belin, assistant counsel; Norman Redlich,
assistant counsel; and Charles Murray, observer.