The testimony of Michael Ralph Paine was taken at 12:05 p.m., on July
23, 1964, in the office of the U.S. Attorney, 301 Post Office Building,
Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Mr. Wesley J. Liebeler,
assistant counsel of the President's Commission.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you raise your right hand and take the oath,
please? Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give
will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help
you God?
Mr. PAINE. Yes; I do.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you state your name for the record?
Mr. PAINE. Michael Ralph Paine.
Mr. LIEBELER. You are familiar with the Commission's procedure and you
have testified before the Commission as I have heretofore indicated,
isn't that correct?
Mr. PAINE. I have testified before--yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. You testified previously that when you first met Lee
Oswald in April 1963, that you discussed to some extent Gen. Edwin A.
Walker?
Mr. PAINE. Yes; I think we did discuss him in passing.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Oswald ever indicate to you in any way that he had
been involved in the attempt on General Walker's life?
Mr. PAINE. Not that I remember at all--nothing whatsoever. I think the
only thing he did--the only thing that I can remember now, was that he
seemed to have a smile in regard to that person. It was inscrutable--I
didn't know what he was smiling about--I just thought perhaps it
was--the guy assumed it was rapport for a person who was an extreme
proponent of a certain kind of patriotism or something.
Mr. LIEBELER. General Walker was?
Mr. PAINE. General Walker was--yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now, when you first met Oswald, as I recall, on April 2,
I believe it was, of 1963?
Mr. PAINE. You have been keeping up with this--I haven't been thinking
about Oswald for a year.
Mr. LIEBELER. You don't have any recollection as to the date at this
point?
Mr. PAINE. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. In any event, you did meet Oswald sometime in April,
for the first time; do you recall whether it was before or after that
Walker had been attacked?
Mr. PAINE. I don't recall now; and as I remember--back in the fall--I
wasn't aware then whether it was before or after. It isn't just a lapse
of memory now.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember discussing with Oswald the fact that
someone had shot at General Walker?
Mr. PAINE. No--I don't. That would have led me to think it was prior to
his being shot at.
Mr. LIEBELER. You are referring to this specific date. Now, my question
means to comprehend any time--do you remember discussing at any time
with Oswald the fact that General Walker had been attacked?
Mr. PAINE. No; I did not. I didn't see him--I saw him that one evening,
you see, and then I didn't see him for a space of some time.
Mr. LIEBELER. You didn't see him after that one time in April until
after he had returned from New Orleans?
Mr. PAINE. I guess that's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. So, that would have been in October 1963?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. On June 11, 1964, Marina Oswald testified before the
Commission at which time the following colloquy occurred, as indicated
on page 7368 of the Commission's transcript:
Mr. McKENZIE. Mrs. Oswald, you say, or you said a few minutes
ago, that Mr. Paine knew or knows more about your husband's
attitude about the United States than you do. Why did you say
that?
Mrs. OSWALD. Because my husband's favorite topic of discussion
was politics and whoever he was with, he talked to them
politics and Mr. Paine was with him a fair amount and I am not
sure they talked about politics.
Apparently it should have been "I am quite sure they talked about
politics." But, at any rate, the transcript does read, "I am not sure
they talked about politics."
They went to meetings of some kind together. I don't know what
kind of meetings.
Mr. McKENZIE. Do you know where the meetings were?
Mrs. OSWALD. In Dallas. After they came back from some meeting,
my husband said to me something about Walker being at this
meeting.
Do you remember going at any meeting with Lee Oswald at which Mr.
Walker was present?
Mr. PAINE. No--the only meeting I went to was the ACLU meeting, that I
recall.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you recall going to any meeting yourself in October
1963, with or without Oswald, at which General Walker was present?
Mr. PAINE. General Walker was present at the--Oswald mentioned the
U.N.-U.S. Day meeting held by the rightists, which occurred a day or
two or two nights before the ACLU meeting. He had been to that by
himself. I had gone that same evening to a John Birch meeting. We were
not together, but they were two things that occurred simultaneously,
and that's where Lee, by his report at the ACLU meeting said he was and
Walker was there. Maybe that's what Marina had in mind.
Mr. LIEBELER. But you, yourself, don't have any recollection of your
ever being at a meeting when he was there?
Mr. PAINE. No; I have never seen General Walker that I can recall.
Mr. LIEBELER. You have never seen Walker?
Mr. PAINE. Unless he was--in a year previous to that I had been to the
Indignation Committee meeting--no--that is the answer to your previous
question.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do--to the best of your recollection, you don't ever
remember seeing General Walker present?
Mr. PAINE. That's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Or having been at a meeting at which you subsequently
learned that he was present, although you didn't see him?
Mr. PAINE. That's right--I can't remember about the previous year, but
I don't think that has relevancy.
Mr. LIEBELER. Well, since the time you met Oswald--you were at no
meetings at which General Walker was present, to your knowledge?
Mr. PAINE. That's true.
Mr. LIEBELER. Marina Oswald goes on to testify and I will recapitulate
part of it, "After they came back from some meeting, my husband said
to me something about Walker being at this meeting and he said, 'Paine
knows that I shot him.'"
Do you have any reason to believe that--the first question, of course,
is and I have already asked you that and you testified you did not know
Oswald shot Walker prior to the assassination of President Kennedy; is
that correct?
Mr. PAINE. That's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now, do you have any reason to believe that Oswald might
have thought that you knew that he, Oswald, had shot at General Walker?
Mr. PAINE. I can't see how he would have thought I knew that. I just
don't see--he might have said something that revealed that and I didn't
catch his meaning, so it never sunk in to me at all, that is, to assume
that he wasn't lying and that is the only way I can explain it.
Mr. LIEBELER. So that you think that this testimony that Marina has
given is either the result of a misapprehension, or a lie on Oswald's
part or on Marina's part?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you don't have any doubt about that whatsoever?
Mr. PAINE. I am perfectly certain that I didn't know he shot at Walker.
Mr. LIEBELER. Marina herself goes on to say:
I don't know whether this was the truth or not, I don't know
whether it was true or not, but this is what they told me.
And I presume she means that's what Lee had told her.
Mr. PAINE. Now, wait--this is--it would be well to check for that
"they"--this is testimony in June, you said, and that "they" could
possibly be Martin and Thorne. I don't know much about Martin and
Thorne either, but I had the impression that they were telling her
stories.
Mr. LIEBELER. Well, of course, this is what the translator said Marina
had said. Marina is going to be here tomorrow and I will ask her about
this then and see if she can clarify the record, but the point we want
to bring out now at this time is that your testimony is quite clear
that you did not know before the assassination that Oswald had shot at
General Walker?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. You testified before that Oswald had shown you one of
those newspapers of his one day and said you could tell what they
wanted you to do by doing some reading between the lines; is that
correct?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. And my recollection is that he was specifically referring
to a copy of The Worker that he showed you at that time?
Mr. PAINE. It was.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever see Oswald reading The Militant?
Mr. PAINE. I do not now remember which are the things that I have come
to realize later and which I knew at the time. I was not particularly
aware of The Militant, as I recall. I really have to remember what my
feelings were back in the fall when I was questioned on the matter and
that, as I recall, the name and quality or the name and nature of The
Militant wasn't really very familiar to me.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever have any discussion with Oswald about the
U.S. policies toward Cuba?
Mr. PAINE. Well, I don't think we did discuss that except in the
very brief talk in the car when he was reciting someone else's
approval--apparent approval of Castro and citing that he was a
Communist.
Mr. LIEBELER. I remember you testified about that before--that it was
on the way back home after an ACLU meeting.
Mr. PAINE. That's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you told him, or thought if that was what he had
to go on to identify anyone as a Communist, that he apparently was
reaching quite far?
Mr. PAINE. I thought so, yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you recall that in the fall of 1963 there was a
climate of what might be called, and what was in fact called, detente
between the United States and the Soviet Union that apparently led
people in some quarters to believe that the Soviet Union would withdraw
its support from the Castro regime or at least modify its attitude?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever have any discussion with Oswald about that?
Mr. PAINE. No, we did not.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Oswald ever indicate in any way that he was aware of
such a thing?
Mr. PAINE. We very seldom spoke about it. Most of our discussions
were to the more specific elements, since there was such a wide area
of disagreement it didn't seem best to talk about smaller points, so
we didn't talk about Soviet-American relations as I recall it in that
regard.
Mr. LIEBELER. I show you a photograph which depicts the same individual
as is depicted in Commission Exhibit No. 237 and ask you to examine it
and tell me if you recognize the individual?
Mr. PAINE. I remember the same face on a picture that I saw earlier,
but I had not at that time, and do not now, recognize the person, but
he could work at Bell.
Mr. LIEBELER. In our discussions in Washington, we had some
conversations about what you thought Oswald's possible motive might
have been for the assassination--I don't think you have really ever set
them forth for us on the record, and if you care to give us your views
on that, I would appreciate having them.
Mr. PAINE. I was more eager to speak about it then--I was thinking
about it then. Since that time I haven't thought about it at all.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you reconstruct the thoughts that you had at the time
you were in Washington?
Mr. PAINE. I think my thoughts then were brief and they certainly are
now. I thought it was a very spur of the moment idea that came into his
head when he realized that he would have the opportunity with sort of a
duck blind there, an opportunity to change the course of history, even
though he couldn't predict from that action what course history would
take, that in my opinion would not have deterred him from doing it. I
thought that he was of the mind that something small or evolutionary
changes were never going to be of any effect. It had to be, though he
never revealed to me what kind of actions or policies he would have
advocated or did advocate or did want to see--I had frequently had the
impression that it was--it had to be of a rather drastic nature, where
kindness or good feelings should not stand in the way of those actions.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he ever discuss with you his notion of how society
ought to be structured?
Mr. PAINE. Yes--he did discuss them but not in a way---did he ever
describe anything that could be real. It was more a way that society
should not be structured, that he talked about. Now, I shouldn't really
say that--it was a negative description of how society should not be,
and I never did get a description of what he would like or what one of
a more positive nature would be like.
Mr. LIEBELER. You had the feeling that whatever it was, if in fact he
had a notion about it, would have required a drastic and sudden change?
Mr. PAINE. Well, I don't know about the suddenness but he assumed that
the society was all tied together, the church and the power structure
and our education was all the same vile system and therefore there
would have to be an overthrow of the whole thing. Just how he was going
to overthrow it or what he was going to overthrow toward--it was not
clear to me, especially, because it was also apparent that he didn't
particularly admire Russia, so I didn't--I never did get it clear in my
mind what program he was going to inaugurate with his new world.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he ever tell you he had written about this subject?
Mr. PAINE. No; he didn't.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you never read any of the things he wrote?
Mr. PAINE. No; I didn't.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you know he had written about anything?
Mr. PAINE. No; if I had thought he had written about something, I would
certainly have been eager to have read it.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever have any opinion that this man was
psychologically disturbed, suffering from personality disturbances and
neurosis or psychosis--you pick it.
Mr. PAINE. No; truthfully, I should say that did not appear to be a
good description. It seemed simpler and more to the point to say he
was extremely bitter and couldn't believe there was much good will in
people. There was mostly evil, conniving, or else stupidity--was the
description--that was his opinion or would be his description of most
people. That's my description, and the best description I can give
of him--to call him other psychological names--names of paranoia or
paranoid or something like that.
Mr. LIEBELER. What made you pick that particular name?
Mr. PAINE. Well, that kind of suspicion of people--expecting them to be
consciously perpetrating evil or ill toward him or toward the oppressed
people--workers--is perhaps a trait of paranoia.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you think that he exhibited this trait?
Mr. PAINE. Yes; he did, but it didn't seem to be uncontrollable. He
didn't generally take it--I would say he was paranoid if he always
took it personally, but he always seemed to transfer it to, or put
himself in the class of people who were oppressed, so that's the
distinction why I wouldn't call him sick or wouldn't have then called
him sick--before the assassination.
Mr. LIEBELER. Because he seemed to describe this feeling of his in
institutional terms?
Mr. PAINE. That's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. And in terms of the social structure and the impact the
world had on classes and groups of people?
Mr. PAINE. He was in the exploited class.
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes; there was no doubt about that--I mean, as far as his
own mind was concerned--that's what he thought?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. So, that he would describe these terrible misfortunes
that were being perpetrated on a class of people, but he would make it
clear that he did regard himself as being included in that class of
people.
Mr. PAINE. That's correct. Now, I think he was a little--I can't
remember now where I got the impression that he was allergic to the
FBI, which is another case of him mentioning being sensitive to a
person--a sense of persecution, but the only thing that I do remember
that he did mention that surprised me a little bit was his sense of
personal exploitation by his employer at the photoengraving company.
Mr. LIEBELER. And when you say you cannot remember where you got the
idea that he was allergic to the FBI, you mean you don't remember
whether you were aware of that before the assassination?
Mr. PAINE. That's correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. Were you aware of it before the assassination or can't
you remember?
Mr. PAINE. I think I learned that from Ruth's statement of things that
he had said and I don't remember whether that was before or after.
Mr. LIEBELER. For instance, if you were told that he in fact did have
quite an allergy to the FBI, whether you were aware of it or not at
that time, I suppose that that would provide an example of one or
two things--either an accurate description of what was going on or a
slightly exaggerated or greatly exaggerated notion of what was going on
and to that extent a manifestation of this feeling of persecution, as
he put it.
Mr. PAINE. Yes; it was greatly exaggerated--it had, of course, some
grounds, so you wouldn't be too inclined to call it paranoia and
the fact that he also perhaps wanted to continue doing the things
that would have to have the legitimate fear of the surveillance by
the FBI because he would want to be attempting to do something that
wasn't legal or proper. In other words, that would agitate him with
grounds--for other reasons than paranoia.
Mr. LIEBELER. One of the witnesses who knew him in the Marine Corps
testified that he thought that Oswald had a persecution complex which
he strove to maintain--had you ever thought of it in that way?
Mr. PAINE. Well, he was certainly--I wanted to give him some sense of
letting him participate in some sense of being effective to change the
world and to let him be a little more generous in his thinking toward
his enemies--his employers by suggesting that they weren't so fully
in control of the social situation as he made out, and he certainly
resisted all efforts on my part to think in a more generous and active
way toward people toward whom he felt bitter. In other words, he had
no inclination or tendency to try to get out of that mood--I don't
remember now any illogical way he would have maintained that attitude.
I suppose, though, he just had to fight so hard, or fighting is about
the only way he would or could get it out. He perhaps never had any
experience of relieving the feeling of hate or bitterness through being
kind to someone, so you just wouldn't imagine he would think that that
was just pious or just talking to suggest that that was a way out of
that feeling.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever have the feeling that he had a considerable
degree of hostility toward the society in general, toward our
particular society?
Mr. PAINE. Yes; he had unreasonable and unrealistic and pervasive
feelings.
Mr. LIEBELER. In that it affected his attitude toward almost everything?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he ever discuss with you his personal relations with
his wife?
Mr. PAINE. No; he did not--he never spoke of girls at all. I thought he
was very proper.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was that?
Mr. PAINE. Well, this is the way I supposed he was. I knew that he
didn't smoke or drink and it seemed inconsistent with a libertine
attitude toward women or even a sensual enjoyment of women would be a
form of life that would be contradictory to his ethics.
Mr. LIEBELER. You had no idea that he had been engaged in the Fair Play
for Cuba activities while he was in New Orleans?
Mr. PAINE. No; I did not.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever talk to Ruth about Oswald's employment
situation in New Orleans?
Mr. PAINE. Not that I can recall--no. I think I asked her what kind of
a job he had found, and that was the extent of it.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did she tell you he had found?
Mr. PAINE. She said he had found the same kind of work he left
here--the engraving business--or something like that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember Ruth ever mentioning that Oswald had said
that he had gotten fired from his job in New Orleans because of his
activities in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee?
Mr. PAINE. No; I don't remember her mentioning that.
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't think I have any more questions. Thank you very
much for coming.
Mr. PAINE. All right.