Mrs. PAINE. Just English.
Mr. JENNER. Was that your dictionary or was it his?
Mrs. PAINE. It was not mine.
Mr. JENNER. Do you know of any reason why--I will restate the question.
Do you have any inward feeling or any hunch or anything along those
lines that Robert Oswald might have taken a dislike to you or to your
husband?
Mrs. PAINE. I have no feeling of that sort.
Mr. JENNER. Nothing has occurred to lead you to have that feeling?
Mrs. PAINE. Except your question.
Mr. JENNER. Pardon?
Mrs. PAINE. Except your question.
Mr. JENNER. Yes, other than my question. That is the trouble with
leading questions.
Do you recall whether at any time in your home Lee Oswald had viewed
any movies of the assassination of--fictional assassination of a
President or anyone holding high public office?
Mrs. PAINE. I do not recall.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall at any time during the period he was in your
home that you saw such a movie on television?
Mrs. PAINE. I know I did not.
Mr. JENNER. You mentioned yesterday, I believe it was, you recalled his
looking at--late one evening--at a spy movie on television.
Mrs. PAINE. Yes. I think German World War II variety.
Mr. JENNER. It is your recollection that you did not ask Mrs. Randle to
call the Texas School Book Depository?
Mrs. PAINE. That is my clear recollection.
Mr. JENNER. There was no refusal on the part of Mrs. Randle to do so. I
am afraid it follows if you did not ask her, there was no refusal.
Mrs. PAINE. It certainly does.
Mr. JENNER. I am trying to awaken again your recollection of that
incident.
Mrs. PAINE. Well, there is no recollection whatever.
Mr. JENNER. Of that sort of thing having occurred in the course of that
discussion.
Mrs. PAINE. Of that sort of thing.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall whether or not Mrs. Randle, as a friendly
gesture--her suggestions were friendly, were they not, in connection
with his securing employment?
Mrs. PAINE. Oh, yes.
Mr. JENNER. Did she mention the Manner Bakery?
Mrs. PAINE. Possibly; yes. I do recall saying that Lee doesn't drive,
making the point that this was a hampering thing for him. And, of
course, therefore it made it impossible for him to drive a truck for
the Manner Bakery.
Mr. JENNER. And in that connection, had she mentioned the Texas Gypsum
Co.?
Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall that.
Mr. JENNER. At least you do recall that it was impractical to consider
possible positions which would require him to operate an automobile.
Mrs. PAINE. Yes. I believe I do recall a reference now to driving a
truck, delivery truck.
Mr. JENNER. Harkening back to the meeting at Mr. Glover's apartment or
home on the 22d of February 1963, do you recall whether Lee Oswald said
anything about whether he was a Communist?
Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall him saying anything of that nature.
Mr. JENNER. Did he say anything about any attempt on his part to join
the Communist Party while he was in Russia?
Mrs. PAINE. No; he did not. I did not listen to everything he said that
evening.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall an incident in which there was a telephone
call by Col. J. D. Wilmeth to your home, in which he spoke with Marina?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I do.
Mr. JENNER. Would you tell us about that?
Mrs. PAINE. I would say this was a week or less before the
assassination. He called and asked--he called from Arlington, Tex.,
which is between Fort Worth and Dallas, and asked if he could come over
some time to----
Mr. JENNER. Would that be a nontoll call?
Mrs. PAINE. That was a toll call.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mrs. PAINE. To talk with Marina, that he had heard she was living at my
house, and was interested in speaking with somebody who spoke natively.
Mr. JENNER. Did he speak with you on that occasion?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You are recounting, then, your conversation with him, and
in turn his conversation with her, as she might have reported it?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Have you completed all you wish to say about that incident?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes. Are you going to ask me if he came?
Mr. JENNER. I put the question as to what you wished to say. Have you
completed your full recollection of the incident?
Mrs. PAINE. That is my recollection of the phone call. He then did
come.
Mr. JENNER. And when did he come?
Mrs. PAINE. My recollection is that he asked to come--that he worked at
Arlington State College on Tuesdays and Thursdays; that he called us on
Tuesday and asked to come Thursday, and we said Thursday was not the
best time, and he--and we agreed upon the following Tuesday.
My best judgment is that he actually came then on the 19th of November.
Mr. JENNER. All right. And how long did he stay?
Mrs. PAINE. Oh, perhaps an hour. And I cannot even recall exactly what
time, except I think it was right in the middle of when we should have
been making dinner.
Mr. JENNER. Did he visit with both you and Marina?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; he did.
Mr. JENNER. And were arrangements made for his return on another
occasion?
Mrs. PAINE. I cannot recall that we made a specific date, but we
certainly planned to get together again.
Mr. JENNER. And was this strictly a social call?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; it was. An interest in the language motivated his
coming. He is a teacher of Russian at Arlington State College.
Mr. JENNER. Let's see. Lee Oswald was not home on that occasion.
Mrs. PAINE. No; he was not.
Mr. JENNER. I mean he was not in Irving on that occasion.
Mrs. PAINE. No; he was not.
Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine, I have only one more question.
Do you wish to add anything, or has anything occurred to you which you
have not up to this moment testified to with respect to the Oswald
incident and this great tragedy which my questions and the questions of
the members of the Commission have not heretofore elicited, and which
you think might be helpful to the Commission in its work?
Mrs. PAINE. Well, you have not yet asked me if I had seen anything
of a note purported to be written by Lee at the time of the attempt
on Walker. And I might just recount for you that, if it is of any
importance.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; I wish you would--how that occurred. Tell me all you
know about it--all you knew about it up to and including November 22.
Mrs. PAINE. I knew absolutely nothing about it up to and including
November 22.
Mr. JENNER. Is there any explanation or anything that you feel you
ought to say or wish to say about that incident?
Mrs. PAINE. Well, just that I was shown a portion of a note by two
Secret Service men.
Mr. JENNER. This was after November 22?
Mrs. PAINE. It certainly was. Perhaps a week later. I had sent Marina
one of these small collections of letters, such as I have described,
that includes notes to her and donations, and left such with the
Irving police. And on one occasion left also a couple of books which
were hers. I referred to the fact that she read to me from a child
care book. One of these was a book from which she had been recently
reading to me, and she used it much as I had used Benjamin Spock's
"Baby and Child Care" when my babies were small--that is constant daily
reference. And I thought she would want to have it with her.
I believe it was probably the next day I got a call from the Secret
Service saying something important had come up in this case, could they
come out and see me. I said yes, of course. They arrived. Mr. Gopadze,
of the Secret Service, who was acting as translator, and I think the
other man's name was Patterson, and he spoke English only--Mr. Gopadze
showed me a piece of paper with writing on it, a small piece of paper
such as might come from a telephone note pad. He asked me not to read
it through carefully, but simply to look at it enough to tell whether I
could identify the handwriting and whether I had ever seen it before.
I said I could not identify the handwriting. I observed that it was
written in Russian, that the second word was a transliteration from the
English word--that it said "This key"--using the word "key" rather than
the Russian word--and went on to say it was for a post office box. And
that is as far as I read. And Mr. Gopadze indicated that it was his
impression that I had sent this note to Marina. And this surprised me.
And I said----
Mr. JENNER. That is a masterpiece of understatement, isn't it?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; it certainly is. It astounded me. I said that--I
repeated that I had not seen it and did not know how I might possibly
have sent this to Marina Oswald. I asked if he thought the note was
current, and he did not say.
We went on for some time with Mr. Gopadze--this in Russian--saying
that "Mrs. Paine, it would be well for you to be absolutely frank and
tell us exactly what happened" and my saying in turn to Mr. Gopadze,
"I am. What more can I do than what I have said." And finally we went
over to English and included Mr. Patterson in the conversation, and he
volunteered this note had been in a book. Then I realized what must
have happened is that I did send Marina Oswald a book, and described my
having sent this to the Irving police and the Secret Service. And that
seemed to clear up the mystery for all of us. And they left.
Then I don't recall whether this first reference to General Walker
having been shot at was before or after this incident, but I am certain
I made no connection between the two. It was not until it was reported
by the Houston Chronicle that there was a note written by Lee Oswald at
the time of the attempt on Walker's life, and they also reported some
of the content of that note and included a reference to a post office
box, that I made a connection to the note that had been shown me by Mr.
Gopadze.
I bring this up because I was irritated by Mr. John Thorne's statement
to me that he thought that I was probably the one to have given the
Houston Chronicle information about this note. I was sufficiently
irritated that I called the Houston Chronicle and spoke to the
executive editor, asked if he could tell me who had given them this
information. He said no, he could not. I said that I was curious,
because someone had thought that I had. He said, "We can certainly tell
anyone that you did not." But I don't think Mr. Thorne was interested
enough to have made such a call himself.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall doing some shopping on the morning of the 9th
after you had gone to the driver's license bureau and found it closed?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes, we shopped at a dime store immediately adjacent, or in
the same shopping center as the driver's license bureau.
Mr. JENNER. And some few small articles were purchased?
Mrs. PAINE. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. And you arrived home when--about noon?
Mrs. PAINE. For a late lunch, I would say. I might say Lee was as gay
as I have ever seen him in the car riding back to the house. He sang,
he joked, he made puns, or he made up songs mutilating the Russian
language, which tickled and pained Marina, both at once.
Mr. JENNER. What did he do that afternoon, if you recall?
Mrs. PAINE. I don't recall.
Mr. JENNER. Did he look at television?
Mrs. PAINE. My guess is that he certainly looked at television.
Mr. JENNER. Did you leave your home late that afternoon?
Mrs. PAINE. I went to vote. This would be a trip of perhaps 20 minutes.
Mr. JENNER. And he was at home when you left? And was he at home when
you returned?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Now, at any time during that morning drive did you by any
chance stop by a car dealers?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. Either going to or from the driver's license bureau?
Mrs. PAINE. No, we did not stop at a car dealers.
Mr. JENNER. What is your opinion as to whether Lee Oswald could have
been at the Lincoln-Mercury dealership in downtown Dallas on that day?
Mrs. PAINE. I think he could not have been.
Mr. JENNER. Was he out of your sight other than the period of time it
took you to go to the polls to vote that day?
Mrs. PAINE. It is entirely possible that I made a short trip to the
grocery store in the afternoon. But I would say he was not out of my
sight for any length of time.
Mr. JENNER. In any event, you were conscious of his being in your home
or within your general presence all day.
Mrs. PAINE. The entire day. Shall I give what recollections I have for
activities of the 10th?
Mr. JENNER. Yes, please.
Mrs. PAINE. It is my best recollection that this lesson in parking to
which I have referred occurred on the 10th, late in the afternoon.
Mr. JENNER. That is Sunday afternoon?
Mrs. PAINE. On Sunday afternoon. I would guess that he had watched
pro football on the television in the afternoon. It was early evening
after supper, and my recollection is that Michael Paine was also at
the home. I cannot recall whether he had had supper with us, but I
would guess so. Then I asked the two men, Lee and Michael, to help me
in rearranging the furniture in the living room. And as I have already
said, in reference to my testimony regarding the note, Commission
Exhibit 103, the note referring to Mexico City--I will add to that
testimony here--I remembered suddenly that this note was still on the
top of my secretary desk in the living room, preceded the two men into
the room, and put it into my desk. This is the folding front, you know.
I just opened it, put it in and closed it. And then we moved all the
furniture in the room around.
Mr. JENNER. The two men were Lee Oswald and your husband?
Mrs. PAINE. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. And on that occasion, you took the note, which is
Commission Exhibit 103, which I call the Mexico note, and you put it
inside the secretary.
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.