Talking about my contact with Mr. Martin and Mr. Thorne is really
best done in connection with the letters I wrote to Marina, and these
are--since the assassination, and these are in Irving. It might be
better to do the whole thing as part of the deposition there.
Mr. JENNER. When I come to Irving this coming week?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. What feeling do you have as to the reason why, if you have
any at all, there appears to have been this sudden, if it is sudden, at
least lack of contact between you and Marina commencing with the last
time you saw her some 10 days or 2 weeks ago? When was that?
Mrs. PAINE. The morning of the 23d of November.
Mr. JENNER. And you have had no contact with or from her from the 23d
to some 10 days or 2 weeks ago, is that correct?
Mrs. PAINE. You recall I said that I had talked with her by phone the
evening of the 23d and then again around noon of the 24th.
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mrs. PAINE. Then there was one call from her to me, telephone call
from the motel where she was staying for a couple of weeks after the
assassination. It was brief, but she expressed her gratitude to me.
Mr. JENNER. Her gratitude for what?
Mrs. PAINE. For things that I had done, for having had her at my home.
I said, either said or she asked that Michael was staying at my home
now, and she said, "Well, maybe something good can come of even this
terrible thing." I said that I was writing an article with a fellow for
Look Magazine.
Mr. JENNER. And that is the article we put in evidence yesterday?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; and she expressed her feeling that that was a good
thing, really her feeling that she hoped I might get some financial
remuneration from it. I think she always felt terribly indebted to me
in a way she couldn't resolve. I said I had talked by telephone with
Mrs. Ford the previous day. This telephone call between myself and Mrs.
Ford was the first time she and I had talked.
Mr. JENNER. The first time you and Mrs. Ford had talked?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; and Mrs. Ford called me. And I had taken Mrs. Ford's
number that day, and gave this number to Marina over the phone. Mrs.
Ford and I had talked about whether Marina should be encouraged herself
to write something just from the aspect of her financial need, and that
this might ease the finances, and I was hopeful that Mrs. Ford, more
fluent in Russian than I, would help Marina in a decision relative to
this matter. Marina said to me, "They don't know that I'm telephoning
you."
Mr. JENNER. They don't know?
Mrs. PAINE. That is all she said, and I didn't know to whom the "they"
referred. But, because of that, I did not mention to the press or to
friends that she had called, with the exception of Michael, feeling
that in time she would certainly contact me again.
Mr. JENNER. Has she?
Mrs. PAINE. Well, she wrote me a Christmas card with a few sentences on
it.
Mr. JENNER. We have that in evidence, have we?
Mrs. PAINE. Oh, no; that is part of the postcorrespondence I didn't
suppose you cared about. You can pick that up in Irving.
Mr. JENNER. May I see it?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes, you certainly may see it, and I'll translate it for
you.
The card conveys greetings to me and my family for Christmas, thanked
me again for all my generosity. I felt overthanked because I didn't
feel I had done very much. And said she was sorry that our friendship
had ended so badly.
Mr. JENNER. She said this in the note? The answer is yes?
Mrs. PAINE. The answer is yes. And I was surprised and a little hurt
at the implication of its being over. I have already said that I went
out to Robert Oswald's home in an effort to inquire of him and his wife
what my best role might be as a friend towards Marina, or trying to
express friendship to Marina at this time. I felt that possibly she was
being advised not to contact me or that it was more difficult for the
Secret Service to keep her location unknown if I had any contact with
her or that they thought so at least. In fact, of course, I knew where
she was anyway. And I also recalled something I will put in here that
occurred as we were watching the television set after it was announced
that the President was shot. I said, "and it happened in our city. I am
going to move back east." And she knew, of course, not only because of
this statement but because of the many things I have done which I have
reported at that time that I was terribly grieved at Kennedy's death.
And I wondered if she wouldn't possibly feel that I couldn't forgive
her for simply being the wife of the accused assassin. So that I wanted
to somehow convey to her that I didn't hold her guilty or carry any
animosity toward her. And in the situation I just didn't know how to
convey this. What I did was to write her letters talking about normal
things, but requesting a reply, and I didn't get a reply.
Mr. JENNER. You did not?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have a feeling that left uninfluenced and free to
do as she might wish to do, that Marina is still friendly with you and
regards you well and would be in contact with you?
Mrs. PAINE. I have a feeling that left uninfluenced, she would
have certainly remained friendly to me. If she suddenly now became
uninfluenced, and perhaps she has become uninfluenced, it doesn't
erase a period of influence that may have affected and may continue
to affect her feelings toward me. I don't know what she has said or
what was suggested about me to her, and we didn't get into anything
of this nature at the one brief meeting on March 9. I didn't feel it
appropriate. But a lot has passed. She was, after all--it has already
been longer that I have not seen her, had no contact with her during a
very trying and significant period in her life. That period was longer
than the whole period she stayed with me. So much has happened, and I
just don't know.
Mr. JENNER. When you visited her on March 9, was it at her present home
in Richardson, Tex.?
Mrs. PAINE. No. I had asked Mrs. Ford if I could come and make a tape
recording at her house with her reading a Russian beginning reader text
onto the tape so that I could use this to improve my pronunciation and
to use it with my one Russian student, and she said she would be glad
to help me with that recording, glad to help any time when someone
wanted to learn Russian. We neither one could do it that week, but she
called me back a week later and said that she thought it would be nice
if Marina made the recording, since Marina----
Mr. JENNER. This was volunteered on the part of Mrs. Ford?
Mrs. PAINE. This was volunteered on the part of Mrs. Ford and she
suggested that I come to her house on March the 9th and we would go
from her house to Marina's house and make a recording and, of course,
I was pleased with the opportunity to see Marina whether or not it
involved making a recording that night.
Mr. JENNER. Yes. This was at night?
Mrs. PAINE. It was in the evening; yes. As it turned out, we stayed at
Mrs. Ford's. We did not go to Marina's house. Marina said to me----
Mr. JENNER. Marina was at Mrs. Ford's when you arrived?
Mrs. PAINE. Was at Mrs. Ford's when I arrived and we stayed there the
entire time during the visit. Marina explained she didn't have her
furniture yet in her house and she would like to wait and invite me
when she had her own home as she wanted it, and this, I think, is quite
accurate. She likes things to look nice. I think she was pleased to
have a home of her own.
Mr. JENNER. Did you girls have a general conversation apart from your
immediate objective of having a recording?
Mrs. PAINE. We had primarily a nice visit. We did then do a recording,
also. As it turned out, Mrs. Ford did the reading, because Marina
really needed to take care of June, who was there, also.
Mr. JENNER. Was your impression of Marina at that time that she was
friendly or at least that she was not averse?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes. She was friendly. She said she was fearful that I
might be angry with her for her not having answered my letters, and by
making reference to the content of several of the letters I answered my
own unspoken question as to whether she had received them. She had.
Mr. JENNER. She has?
Mrs. PAINE. She recognized each of those things to which I referred.
Mr. JENNER. Things she mentioned during the course of this meeting?
Mrs. PAINE. Indicated that she had received my letters.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; indicated to you that she had received them.
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; and she said she was fearful that I would be angry
with her for not having answered. But she said that Mr. Martin had
advised her not to write to me or reply, and that she hoped I had
understood that something of this nature was affecting her, and that
this was why she was not writing. I asked about the change from having
Thorne as a lawyer and Martin as a business advisor, to Mr. McKenzie
as a lawyer, and she thought that was a good and necessary change, was
relieved that this was being done. I said that I had talked with Mr.
Thorne.
Mr. JENNER. When was that?
Mrs. PAINE. It was the first Friday or Saturday in January.
Mr. JENNER. Of this year?
Mrs. PAINE. Of 1964, and I asked him whether she, whether Marina, had
delegated power of attorney to anyone, and Mr. Thorne told me no.
Mr. JENNER. Why did you make that inquiry?
Mrs. PAINE. Why did I make that inquiry?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mrs. PAINE. At that time? I was concerned. I had no idea what sort of
men these were or what arrangements they had made, and it seemed to
me I had heard that Thorne had told me himself that he conducted all
his business with Marina in English, and I thought this cannot be very
detailed, because I knew her English to be quite poor.
Mr. JENNER. Were you troubled about her understanding of what was being
done?
Mrs. PAINE. I was troubled about her understanding of what she had
signed, and I wanted to know what powers she had delegated to someone
else. Therefore, I asked specifically about power of attorney, and he
told me, no, she had not delegated that.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have a sense of responsibility in this area?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I did.
Mr. JENNER. But this was not mere curiosity or meddling on your part?
Mrs. PAINE. I felt that it was possible that she was being protected
from her friends, and that had no one----
Mr. JENNER. You mean isolated from her friends?
Mrs. PAINE. All right; yes.
Mr. JENNER. Do you really mean that, isolated rather than protected
from?
Mrs. PAINE. Well, that someone may have thought she should not talk to
me.
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mrs. PAINE. And, further, I learned that she hadn't spoken at an
earlier time, at that time, to Mrs. Ford. I did not know of anyone who
spoke Russian except for official translators for Secret Service or
the FBI who had been to see her, and this seemed to me wrong. So I was
concerned. And when I reported this conversation with Mr. Thorne to
Marina, she said, "Well, that is a lie" and I said----