Mr. LIEBELER. And you worked for him immediately prior to your going to
Bell Helicopter?
Mr. PAINE. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. Prior to working for Mr. Young, did you have any other
employment?
Mr. PAINE. I think I came from the Army. Before that I worked at Bartol
Research Foundation in Swarthmore.
Mr. LIEBELER. You were going to tell us what that was.
Mr. PAINE. That was mostly a job of setting up a laboratory to--was
nuclear research laboratory, Van Der Graaf generators it had there.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was the nature of your work with Bartol?
Mr. PAINE. Mostly all the work in making those machines, setting those
machines so they would run; making counters, coincidence counters,
instrumentation to operate the machine.
Mr. LIEBELER. How long did you work for Bartol?
Mr. PAINE. That was just about a year, I believe.
Mr. LIEBELER. Prior to that did you have any other employment?
Mr. PAINE. No, that was Swarthmore.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever work for the Griswold Manufacturing Co.
Mr. PAINE. Oh, I did; yes. That was after--well, after the Army. I
think it was only a few months, I don't remember when it fitted in.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was the nature of your work with that company?
Mr. PAINE. That was very boring. It was engraving precision scales.
Mr. LIEBELER. You worked in the actual engraving of the scales?
Mr. PAINE. That is correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. What is the nature of your work with Bell Helicopter at
the present time?
Mr. PAINE. I am called a research engineer. I work in a lab and design
and build and test models of new concepts of helicopter configurations.
Mr. LIEBELER. Have you been engaged in that type of work for Bell
throughout the entire time you have been employed by them?
Mr. PAINE. I have been in the research laboratory research group that
long. It has all been problems----
Mr. DULLES. Are you a helicopter pilot by any chance yourself?
Mr. PAINE. I am an airplane pilot.
Mr. LIEBELER. But your work basically for Bell has been in the research
of design and operation of helicopters?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you tell us the circumstances under which you met
your wife and subsequently married her?
Mr. PAINE. I met her at a folk dance party, folk dance meeting, and I
had known her for about 2 years before we married.
Mr. LIEBELER. When did you meet her approximately?
Mr. PAINE. We were married, I think, in 1958, it was the end of the
year so maybe it was 1957. What was the question again?
Mr. LIEBELER. Approximately when you met her.
Mr. PAINE. Two years before that would be, 1957.
Mr. LIEBELER. 1956 or 1957.
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
(At this point, Representative Ford entered the hearing room.)
Mr. LIEBELER. We understand that you are a Quaker, Mr. Paine, is that
correct?
Mr. PAINE. That is not quite correct.
When I was in Philadelphia, I sang in various churches, and Ruth being
a Quaker, started going to Quaker meetings. Had I remained there I
would have become a Quaker. Moving to Texas there was a very small
Quaker community, and I joined the Unitarian Church after a while.
Mr. LIEBELER. When did you first become interested in the Quaker
religion; was it about the time you met your wife or was it before that.
Mr. PAINE. No; I think she was instrumental in bringing me into that
circle.
Mr. LIEBELER. Give us a brief description of the outside interests that
you and your wife and that your wife had during the time subsequent to
your meeting and until the time you left Philadelphia. Was she active
in church activities?
Mr. PAINE. No; I wouldn't say so. She was active in the Young Friends
Committee of North America which was making an effort to bring a group
of Russians on tour of this country. It was in the first flush or
enthusiasm of East-West contacts, and after a couple of years they did
succeed in bringing those Russians on tour. That was the beginning of
her interest in Russian, learning the Russian language. I think that
was her only activity that I am aware of or remember right now.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know whether your wife engaged in a writing
campaign or a pen pal campaign between people in the United States and
people in the Soviet Union?
Mr. PAINE. That was another part of this East-West contacts committee's
duties or tasks they took upon themselves and I think she was chairman,
accepted the chairmanship of that committee.
For a while, it was almost moribund, very inactive.
Mr. DULLES. Which committee was that, the committee to stimulate
letters between Russia and the United States?
Mr. PAINE. Yes; to find names and addresses on each side to connect
people together.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you yourself ever take part in any activity of that
group?
Mr. PAINE. No; I didn't.
Mr. LIEBELER. You spoke of the East-West contacts committee as being
active in trying to bring a group of Russians to the United States. Did
they engage in any activities other than this attempt to bring Russians
to the United States that you know of?
Mr. PAINE. That is the only one I know of, yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did they succeed in bringing some Russians to the United
States?
Mr. PAINE. Yes; they did. They brought three Russians, and then the
Russians reciprocated by taking a group of Quakers who knew Russian on
a tour of Russia.
Mr. LIEBELER. Were you married to Ruth Hyde Paine at the time these
Russian people came to the United States under the auspices of the
East-West contacts committee?
Mr. PAINE. I might have been; I don't know.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know whether she actively participated in the
program to bring the Russians to the United States?
Mr. PAINE. Well, she participated insofar as going to the meetings. I
don't believe she did most of the writing to the State Department and
what-not to try to arrange clearances and itineraries and things like
that, but she was at the meetings at which those things were discussed.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did she ever discuss them with you in any detail?
Mr. PAINE. We, I would often--I went to several of those meetings
myself.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know the names of any of the Russians who came to
the United States in connection with this program?
Mr. PAINE. I might recognize them if I saw them again, but right now
the names have escaped me.
Mr. LIEBELER. You say there were just three of them?
Mr. PAINE. I think there were three; yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Are you a member of the American Civil Liberties Union?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. When did you become a member of that organization?
Mr. PAINE. I suppose you become a member as soon as you contribute
money, and I may have contributed money a good many years back. I
didn't start going to a meeting of the organization until I was--I have
only been to about four perhaps, in Dallas, four meetings.
Mr. LIEBELER. Is Dallas the only place you have attended meetings of
the ACLU?
Mr. PAINE. To my knowledge.
Mr. LIEBELER. Are you acquainted with an organization known as the
Friends Peace Committee?
Mr. PAINE. It is a familiar name. I guess not, though. I don't think I
have been to a meeting of theirs.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know if it is connected in any way with the Young
Friends Committee of North America.
Mr. PAINE. I take it to be a Friend, you know, a Quaker committee but I
believe it is connected.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know a gentleman by the name of Dennis Jamison,
who I believe is active in the Friends Peace Committee?
Mr. PAINE. I don't think so.
Mr. LIEBELER. Or George Lakey?
Mr. PAINE. For practical purposes; no. The names seem a little familiar
but I can't place them.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any recollection of the connection in which
it is familiar to you?
Mr. PAINE. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. Are you familiar with the Committee for Non-Violent
Action?
Mr. PAINE. Many of these things sound familiar. I don't--I really am
saying no.
Mr. LIEBELER. Are you a member or have you ever attended any meetings
of the John Birch Society?
Mr. PAINE. I am not a member. I have been to one or, I guess chiefly
one meeting of theirs.
Mr. LIEBELER. Where was that?
Mr. PAINE. That was in Dallas?
Mr. LIEBELER. When?
Mr. PAINE. That was the night Stevenson spoke in Dallas.
The CHAIRMAN. When?
Mr. PAINE. The night Stevenson spoke in Dallas, U.N. Day.
Representative FORD. Was that 1963?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you tell us the circumstances of your attendance at
that meeting and what happened?
Mr. PAINE. I had been seeking to go to a Birch meeting for some time,
and then I was invited on this night so I went. It was an introductory
meeting.
Mr. DULLES. On the 9th of November?
Mr. PAINE. It was November something, I don't know what, a Wednesday or
Thursday night.
Mr. LIEBELER. For the record I think the record should indicate that
Mr. Stevenson was in Dallas on or about October 24, 1963. Who invited
you to this meeting?
Mr. PAINE. I had tried once before to go to a meeting which didn't
occur. There happens to be a member of our choir, a paid soloist who is
a John Birch advocate so I have been applying--so I have been telling
her, that I wanted to go. I suppose, I don't remember for certain but I
suppose she was the one who told me where and when.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did this meeting have anything to do with the activity
that occurred at Mr. Stevenson's meeting in Dallas?
Mr. PAINE. No. You see they were taking place at the same time. It was
rather sparsely attended, most of them were down spitting on Stevenson.
Mr. LIEBELER. The Birch meeting which you were down to was sparsely
attended?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Representative FORD. Was this an evening meeting or afternoon?
Mr. PAINE. This is evening.
Representative FORD. Evening.
Mr. DULLES. May I ask, did you go out of curiosity rather than sympathy
or rather how did you happen to go?
Mr. PAINE. I am not in sympathy.
Mr. DULLES. So I gathered.
Mr. PAINE. I have been to a number of rightist meetings and seminars in
Texas. I was interested in seeing more communication between the right
and the left; there isn't much liberal out there and so I wanted to be
able to speak their language and know that their fears--and be familiar
with their feelings and attitudes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was there any discussion at this meeting as far as you
can recall of Mr. Stevenson's appearance in Dallas?
Mr. PAINE. No; I don't believe there was any.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was there any discussion of the policy of the Kennedy
administration?
Mr. PAINE. There was no discussion at that meeting. It was a 2- or
3-hour lecture on a movie by Welch, and then a young man gave a few
more explanations about the organization. It was mostly an introductory
meeting. I think for newcomers.
Mr. LIEBELER. Telling them about the John Birch Society itself?
Mr. PAINE. That is right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Mr. Welch was not there, was he?
Mr. PAINE. No; he was not.
Representative FORD. Was this a movie in which he participated?
Mr. PAINE. He was the speaker at a lectern in this movie.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any knowledge of the political attitudes or
activities of your father, George Lyman Paine?
Mr. PAINE. I have very little specific knowledge of what he does.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you tell us what you do know about your father's
political activities?
Mr. PAINE. I have seen my father rather rarely. Since I have been in
Texas, I have seen him more frequently. I think I have been out there
three times now in the last 5 years.
Mr. LIEBELER. When you say out there--you mean Los Angeles?
Mr. PAINE. Yes; I have seen him twice. He was out to Texas. I have been
to Los Angeles twice, and he came at least once to Dallas.
Mr. LIEBELER. Please fix the time when you went to Los Angeles?
Mr. PAINE. Last summer, 2 weeks in August or something. I was there for
3 days, the first, the middle of August.
I would guess it was about 2 years before that that I had been there.
I could be off by a year both ways. I can't even remember whether he
came--I think he probably interspersed his visit between mine.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you recall that he visited Irving on two different
occasions, once in Christmas, 1962?
Mr. PAINE. One was a Christmas party, that is right.
Mr. LIEBELER. And once in the summer of 1961.
Mr. PAINE. I don't remember '61. I do remember pictures now, we have
pictures showing us outside so that was balmy weather.
Mr. LIEBELER. So that in the period that you have been living in Texas
you have gone to Los Angeles on two different occasions and visited
your father there and he has been in Irving on two different occasions,
is that correct?
Mr. PAINE. That seems, I think, to be right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you go on and tell us what you know about your
father's political activities?
Mr. PAINE. Yes.
Well, we would have to go back to a little to when I lived in New York
as a school student in school, grammar school and high school. There I
would see him very infrequently considering our close proximity and the
fact that I found him stimulating and I liked him.
He took me to a few, one or possibly two, Communist meetings at my
considerable insistence. He didn't urge this upon me. I wanted to go,
to get the feeling of the--I asked him what he did or something and I
wanted to know all this, my mother said he was on the radical left.
So, I went to a few of those meetings, and didn't--was unfamiliar
with the issues and questions they were debating. I got the feeling,
I came away with the impression, that these people, there were three
Communist groups apparently in New York at the time, and they were most
up in arms with each other, or there----
Mr. DULLES. Excuse me, how old were you at this time approximately?
Mr. PAINE. This was somewhere from eighth grade to high school.
Mr. DULLES. Yes.
Representative FORD. What year about, what time span would that be?
Mr. PAINE. Well 1947, I think I got out of high school, so it is 1943
to 1947.
Then I didn't--I got the flavor of those meetings. I found sort of an
intense people, people of high intensity. I didn't feel very much at
home there, and I guess I didn't go to any more.
Mr. DULLES. Did they try to recruit you at all or to get you to be a
member or attend or join meetings?
Mr. PAINE. No; they were glad to meet Lyman's son. That is he would
introduce me to friends or people he knew there, and I liked--I had
some favorable attitudes to the zeal of the group or the zeal of the
assembled people.
They were fully committed to what they believed in. I had my own dreams
of how I would like to see society at the time and it wasn't along the
same line.
So, I felt happy to have them there and I would go my course and
just--I didn't feel opposed to them; neither did I feel drawn to them,
although I tried to read some of Das Kapital at that time and Communist
manifesto.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever join any of these organizations?
Mr. PAINE. Well, I didn't know of any organization as such.
I went to this meeting in downtown New York. I didn't know--so
therefore I knew three groups. Maybe it was the Socialist group and the
Stalinist group and I think the group that Lyman was in, I don't know,
maybe he was a Socialist.
Mr. LIEBELER. Which was the second group, was it the Stalinist?
Mr. PAINE. I mentioned the Stalinist, Dubinsky, David Dubinsky, was the
only name I remember aside from Stalin, was a name I remember there,
and I can't now remember whose side who was on.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any clear recollection of what particular
group your father was associated with?
Mr. PAINE. No; I never had--never knew what the name of any group he
might be associated with.
Now, I suppose it was Trotsky. Trotskyite was a different distinct
group at that time. They probably wouldn't be mentioning their own
group. They would be mentioning their opponent's group.
Mr. LIEBELER. Subsequent to your attendance at the meetings of these
groups at the time you have spoken of did you ever attend any other
meetings of similar groups either in New York or any other place?
Mr. PAINE. I can't remember anything of a similar nature.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you know of your father ever using any aliases?
Mr. PAINE. No; I don't.
Mr. LIEBELER. You are not familiar with the name Thomas L. Brown or
Lyman Pierce?
Mr. PAINE. No.