Mr. JENNER. Go ahead.
Mrs. PAINE. I recall that I was driving and Lee went into this main
post office.
Mr. JENNER. Where? In Dallas?
Mrs. PAINE. In Dallas, and the only time I can think it could have been
was that day.
Mr. JENNER. Did he come out with any mail?
Mrs. PAINE. Magazines, I think.
Mr. JENNER. Were you able to observe what those magazines were?
Mrs. PAINE. No; I don't recall.
Mr. JENNER. Did he ever speak of his life as a youth and a young man?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. Or his experiences in the service?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. Did you know or were you aware that he had been in the
service?
Mrs. PAINE. His two large duffels which I saw a number of times said
Marine Corps on them.
Mr. JENNER. Was there any discussion of the fact that he had been in
the Marines?
Mrs. PAINE. I think it had been mentioned. I don't specifically recall.
Mr. JENNER. But just in passing, not in the sense of his relating any
of his experiences in the Marines?
Mrs. PAINE. No; I do recall one occasion in late October or early
November when Marina said to me in the morning that the two of them had
had a long and very pleasant conversation. Lee related things about his
past life, for instance his having been in Japan.
Mr. JENNER. Did she elaborate?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. Just talked in terms of conclusion, that is, that he had
related these events to her and they had talked about it for some time?
Mrs. PAINE. The point of her telling me of this was that this was
unusual. He didn't usually reminisce and converse in this way.
Mr. JENNER. Have you had a contact with or she with you, a Mrs. Shirley
Martin?
Mrs. PAINE. Mrs. Shirley Martin came to visit me at my home,
accompanied by her four children, and dog, some time in
January-February, I don't know just when.
Mr. JENNER. Late January or early February?
Mrs. PAINE. I would guess so.
Mr. JENNER. Of this year?
Mrs. PAINE. Of 1964; yes.
Mr. JENNER. Would you please relate that incident to us?
Mrs. PAINE. She telephoned to ask if she could come out.
Mr. JENNER. Had you known her?
Mrs. PAINE. I had not known her. I had heard her name from the New York
Times correspondent in Dallas, who said he had received a letter from
her.
Mr. JENNER. All right; proceed.
Mrs. PAINE. She came out, told me that she had been in Dallas going
over the route which Lee Oswald is supposed to have taken from the
School Book Depository to his rooming house, and thence to the place
where he was arrested, and she was in a hurry at that point to get back
to suburban Tulsa, Okla., but wanted to ask me a few questions, and I
answered whatever she wanted to know.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall what her questions were?
Mrs. PAINE. I don't specifically recall; no.
Mr. JENNER. Have you had any correspondence with Mrs. Martin?
Mrs. PAINE. I have answered one of her letters by writing in the margin
the answers to the questions that letter posed, and sending the whole
thing back to her.
Mr. JENNER. So that you do not have a copy of any correspondence with
Mrs. Martin?
Mrs. PAINE. She has sent more than one letter. I said I had answered
one and sent it back on that letter. I have perhaps four--no; perhaps
as many as eight letters from her now that, some are directly typed and
some are just carbons of something she has said to a large group of
people. We have also had some communication by telephone.
Mr. JENNER. May I see those letters when I am in Dallas Monday and
Tuesday?
Mrs. PAINE. You can certainly see them.
Mr. JENNER. Would you summarize generally what the inquiries of
Mrs. Martin have been and the subject matter and the nature of your
responses? Telephone, or otherwise?
Mrs. PAINE. I do recall in the initial visit when she was in my home
I asked her if she thought Lee Oswald was not guilty of the crime he
is alleged to have committed and she said, well, that she couldn't say
that, that it would be foolish at this point in the inquiry to say
that, but that she was not satisfied with the evidence that led to a
public conclusion that he was guilty.
Mr. JENNER. Did you express any opinion on your part?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. On that subject?
Mrs. PAINE. I said that I thought he was guilty of the act.
Mr. JENNER. You did not know Mrs. Martin prior to the time she came to
your door?
Mrs. PAINE. No; I did not.
Mr. JENNER. And your acquaintance with her in the interim has been
limited to what you have testified?
Mrs. PAINE. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. And you are not working with Mrs. Martin in her campaign or
crusade or whatever it may be?
Mrs. PAINE. No; I answer any questions she has just as I do answer
questions of newsmen or other people who wish to inquire about what I
know.
Mr. JENNER. Would you please give me your impression of Lee Oswald's
personality, what you think made him tick, any foibles of his, your
overall impression now as you have it sitting there of Lee Harvey
Oswald?
Mrs. PAINE. My overall impression progressed through several stages.
Mr. JENNER. Why don't you give those. I think it would be helpful to us
if you would. Start at the beginning.
Mrs. PAINE. In the spring what I knew of him was that he wanted to
send his wife away back to the Soviet Union, which she didn't want
to do, that he would not permit her to learn English or certainly
didn't encourage it. I knew that he had lost his job and looked
unsuccessfully. I formed an initial negative opinion about him, on
really very little personal contact. I saw him very briefly the evening
of the 22d of February, the evening of the second of April, and the
afternoon of the 20th of April, and again on the 24th of April and so
as far as I remember that is virtually all of the contact I had had
directly with him.
And this impression stayed with me throughout the summer and throughout
my visits to various friends and family on my trip of August and
September 1963, and I undoubtedly conveyed to the people I talked to
during that time that impression, which I carried at that time.
When I saw him again in New Orleans, beginning the 20th of September, I
was impressed quite differently.
He seemed friendly. He seemed grateful, as reported in this letter to
my mother, even grateful that I was offering to have his wife in my
home and help her make arrangements at Parkland Hospital to have the
baby there, at a fee adjusted to their income. He appeared to me to be
happy, called cheerily to Marina and June as he came in the house with
a bag full of groceries. He, as I described, washed the dishes that
evening that Marina and I went down to Bourbon Street. And particularly
in parting on the morning of September 23 I felt he was really sorry to
see them go. He kissed them both at the house as we first took off and
then again when we left from the gas station where I had bought a tire.
And I felt, as expressed in this letter that you just showed me to my
mother that he hoped to have his family together again as soon as he
could.
Then, of course, the impression enlarged as I saw him in my home on
the weekends beginning October 4, and I have read into the record one
letter I wrote to my mother during that period, which shows that he
tried to be helpful around the house, that he played with my children,
that he, it appeared to me, was becoming more relaxed and less fearful
of being rejected, and I had sensed in him this fear earlier. It was
because I had sensed in him in the spring this insecurity and feelings
of inadequacies that the thought once crossed my mind as expressed to
Mrs. Rainy that he could be guilty of a crime of passion if he thought
someone was taking away from him his wife, something valuable to him.
Clearly he valued Marina. She was his only human contact, really, and I
think while----
Mr. JENNER. His only human contact?
Mrs. PAINE. Really, so far as I could see, the only friend he had, and
while he did quarrel and was petty with her on many times that I saw,
he, I felt, valued her, and, of course, it is also true, as I have
reported, that I never saw him physically violent to her or cruel, so
that my impression of him, which I carried with me throughout my trip
during the summer, changed, and my impression of him up to the time----
Mr. JENNER. Of the assassination?
Mrs. PAINE. Of the assassination, was of a struggling young man who
wanted to support his family, who was having difficulty, who wanted to
achieve something more in life than just the support of his family and
raising children, who was very lonely, but yet could meet socially with
people and be congenial when he made efforts to be.
Mr. JENNER. Was that effort confined largely to his immediate family?