Mr. PAINE. No; just bottles, diapers, clothing, something.
Mr. DULLES. For a weekend?
Mr. PAINE. Just for the evening.
Mr. DULLES. Just for an evening?
Mr. PAINE. I don't know why it took so long but it did. I guess they
weren't quite ready when I arrived.
Mr. LIEBELER. What else did you and Oswald speak about during this
evening, do you remember?
Mr. PAINE. After supper the conversation was translated into Russian,
and I wanted to gather Marina's or get Marina's corroboration of
certain things he said about Russia and there we found when she had
differing opinions from him that he would not let her, he would slap
her down verbally, and not let her express them or say--Ruth told me
later, he was calling her a fool, "You don't know anything."
When I encountered this, I actually trusted Marina to know--the
questions I was asking, it seemed to me could be better answered by
Marina, so I wasn't paying very close attention to what he had said
about that.
Mr. DULLES. Could you indicate on what points they seemed to differ or
what points that he raised that irritated her or vice versa in their
discussion about Russia? You said he slapped her down. I was wondering
on what kind of points he slapped her down.
Mr. PAINE. I have unfortunately tried to remember those points myself
wishing, wondering whether hypnosis would bring it out of me as a tape
recorder, or something. I was interested to know whether the Russians
were happy with their system, whether they felt the presence of the
Secret Police, these are questions, I don't remember asking them, these
are questions that I would have been interested in.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember any response either from Marina or from
Oswald on these points?
Mr. PAINE. And I don't remember anything specific here. I just remember
that I encountered too many points, where they apparently differed and,
therefore, I had in mind I will just wait until she can learn English
and we will get it from the horse's mouth.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you speak with Oswald during this first meeting of
the circumstances under which he met Marina and married her in Russia?
Mr. PAINE. I don't remember when I learned that. I think I learned it
from Ruth, who had spoken to Marina on this subject.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did you learn?
Mr. PAINE. It may have been--I don't remember when it occurred, it may
have been after the assassination, I may have read it in the paper or
something.
Mr. LIEBELER. You don't remember any specific conversations with Oswald
on that subject?
Mr. PAINE. No; I don't.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Lee Oswald ever speak to you about his experience in
the United States Marine Corps?
Mr. PAINE. He mentioned that his brother went in the Marine Corps and
apparently enjoyed it and he had then, I think he said he had left
school early to join it and I gathered, I thought to myself, he is
expecting to find the joy his brother found there and he did not find
it. He did not like the Marine Corps.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he tell you anything--pardon me.
Mr. PAINE. He did not mention that I can recall his exit from the
Marine Corps.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he ever mention the name of Governor Connally in
connection with his experiences in the Marines?
Mr. PAINE. Not that I remember.
Mr. DULLES. Did he ever mention the President in this or any other
conversations?
Mr. PAINE. He mentioned the President only once that I can remember
specifically; at the ACLU meeting I think.
Mr. DULLES. At the which?
Mr. PAINE. At the ACLU meeting I took him to. He had mentioned, he
thought President Kennedy was doing quite a good job in civil rights,
which was high praise coming from Lee.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any discussion during this first meeting
other than the discussion you have already mentioned concerning
Oswald's political beliefs?
Mr. PAINE. There, of course, I was interested in that subject, found we
differed, and then in order to not wrestle with concepts or arguments
that were unmanageably large, I tried to bring it down to more specific
instances of how he would like to see the world be.
Mr. LIEBELER. How did you become aware of the fact that you differed,
do you remember?
Mr. PAINE. I don't remember him making any bones about it the very
first meeting. He told me he had become a Marxist, in his own apartment
there, that he had become a Marxist by reading books and never having
met a Communist in this country.
And he also then told me with a certain sadness or regret that he
couldn't speak about political and economic subjects with his people,
and fellows at work.
(At this point Senator Cooper entered the hearing room.)
Mr. LIEBELER. You were going to mention specific areas of political
discussion that you had with him.
Mr. PAINE. One other thing happened in this first half hour, the
most fruitful half hour I had ever had with him. He had mentioned
his employer. I probably asked him why did he leave this country to
go to the Soviet Union, and his supreme theme in this regard is the
exploitation of man by man, by which he means one man making a profit
out of another man's labor, which is the normal employment situation in
this country and to which he found--took, felt great resentment.
He was aware that his employer made--he made more money for his
employer than he was paid and specifically he mentioned how his
employer of the engraving company goods and chattels that he had,
that Oswald didn't have, and with some specific resentment toward
this employer, and I thought privately to myself that this resentment
must show through if he ever meets his employer, it must sort of show
through and that his employer wouldn't find that man very attractive.
So this was his guiding theme.
The reason it appears that this country, the system in this country had
to go, had to be changed, was because of this supreme immoral way of
managing affairs here, the exploitation of man by man which occurs in
this country.
We discussed about it occurring in the Soviet Union, the taxation of a
man's labor, it occurs there also, and it appeared that only, he seemed
to agree or sometimes I had to feed him, this conversation now is a
later one, when we were talking about the specifics of exploitation of
man by man, he agreed that the only difference was that in the Soviet
Union it is a choice which is impersonal.
The person who decides the man's wages and labor does not stand to gain
by it whereas in this country the man who decides stands to gain by it.
Mr. DULLES. The man who decides what, to employ the other man?
Mr. PAINE. No; what wage to pay him.
Mr. DULLES. What wage to pay him?
Mr. PAINE. Or what his return shall be. So that was the only--the most
important, by far economic and political almost, let's call it economic
doctrine he held.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he translate that economic doctrine to specific
policies that he thought should be adopted or specific changes that
should be made in the structure of this country?
Mr. PAINE. I had never, to my satisfaction, uncovered an area of
progressive change that he would advocate. I asked him how did he think
this change was going to come about, and he never answered that.
And it seemed to me he was critical of almost everything that occurs
in this country. So that he did not--I did not come to--did not know
of anything in which he could see a progressive evolutionary change or
policies that could be pushed in order to promote his ideals.
Representative FORD. Did he react academically, intellectually,
violently or in what way did he express these views?
Mr. PAINE. Well, he was quite dogmatic. First he wanted to put me in a
category. In one of the later talks--when we first met he talked very
freely and then I think as we made, in later conversations, I had to do
more and more of it--make more and more effort to draw something out of
him.
In his later conversations, Ruth found him so bothersome.
Mr. DULLES. What was that word?
Mr. PAINE. Bothersome, that she couldn't join the conversations. He
would get too angry or too----
Representative FORD. He resented the probing or the questioning?
Mr. PAINE. No; he did not really resent the probing. For instance, take
this issue of the exploitation of man by man. When we had boiled it
down to this rather fine difference or technical difference that one
was done by an impersonal body and one was done personal.
Mr. DULLES. The Soviet being the first and the American being the
second?
Mr. PAINE. That is correct. That being then the crux of the matter and
the reason this is the matter to be changed, if we were to follow the
logic of the discussion, many arguments seemed to approach at that kind
of a point where it is just logic or reason just didn't seem to work
or hold water in this case, and we were left then with the starkness of
his statement that this was an unforgivable moral sin, and he called
it a moral sin or I questioned him to that effect, and so he thought
it was a moral sin and he thought he was moral by adhering to that
doctrine.
Representative FORD. Did he appear to enjoy these give and takes
between you and himself or did he resent them as you proceeded in your
discussions?
Mr. PAINE. I don't think he resented them. I noticed at times he got
quite hot under the collar and I noticed that he was holding his,
staying on a steady keel even better than I was, as though he had had
considerable practice in sticking to, controlling himself, holding his
position and not getting ruffled.
Representative FORD. But in this process over a period of time during
these four discussions he never deviated from his basic thesis?
Mr. PAINE. Yes. Of course, as I said to the others, I don't believe
whether you were here, we only had about four talks altogether,
and I later came to realize that if he were to have abandoned any
one of these or have abandoned that one in particular, that would
have undermined his whole philosophy, would humanly itself quite
unreasonable to expect a fundamental exchange within an evening, just
because of a logical compulsion or logical argument or something.
Mr. DULLES. Did you get the impression that he felt both systems, the
American system and the Soviet system involved the exploitation of man
by man except it was a different exploiter?
Mr. PAINE. I gathered--I was irked because it seemed to me the
difference that he accepted as a sufficient difference, the one in
the Soviet Union was impersonal, that he was not, in other words--he
admitted in the Soviet Union that the tax rate which was a general term
then for the amount of money or reward that is not returned of what a
man makes, was higher in the Soviet Union. He agreed that that could
be true, and didn't seem to be dismayed at that. So I did not find
criticism of the Soviet Union on that score.
And in fact he didn't--I didn't discover in what ways he would like to
try to change the Soviet Union except he didn't like the restrictions
on his freedom there. Neither did he see there was any connection
between the restrictions on freedom there and the freedom we have here
without control of how the relationship between men would be governed.
Mr. DULLES. Did he ever go into the question of the relative position
of labor in the United States from the point of view of its freedom of
bargaining and the control of labor in the Soviet Union? Did that ever
come up?
Mr. PAINE. No. I think, I can't remember whether it was a conversation
I had directly with him or immediately after, I was following this
idea that here we feel we have quite a different attitude about
exploitation. Somebody--he felt exploited and he thought all the
working class was exploited, and he also thought they were brainwashed,
and he also thought that churches were all alike, all the religious
sects were the same and they were all apparatus of the power structure
to maintain itself in power.
When I pointed out that our church was financed by people like myself,
when I contribute so many dollars to the church, he just shrugged his
shoulders. It didn't--his views still stood and it also permitted him,
I think, gave him the moral ground to dismiss my arguments because I
was here just a product of my environment and I didn't know better and
he had the word from the enlightenment, that he knew the truth and
therefore I was just spouting the line that was fed to me by the power
structure.
Mr. LIEBELER. I think you mentioned before that he had wanted to put
you in a category, categorize you. Did he indicate to you during that
first conversation that he had concluded what category?
Mr. PAINE. No; it was over several conversations, I suppose it was the
last conversation we had, he couldn't put me in a category and he named
about seven or eight categories.
Mr. LIEBELER. What were they?
Mr. PAINE. I wasn't a Bircher, I wasn't a liberal, a Communist, a
Socialist, probably something to do with religion, something like that,
atheist.
Mr. DULLES. He didn't say whether you were a Republican or Democrat?
Mr. PAINE. I don't believe he was concerned about that.
(Laughter.)
Mr. PAINE. No; I am sure he would see no distinction between the two
parties.
Mr. LIEBELER. So he concluded that he was unable to categorize you?
Mr. PAINE. Yes. And I also felt as soon as he had realized that that he
could then dismiss me as not something that functions in this world,
not one of the forces or the opposing camps he has to contend with.
Mr. LIEBELER. You mentioned that your wife became bothered or Oswald
proved bothersome to your wife. Could you tell us in what way Oswald
was bothersome to Mrs. Paine?
Mr. PAINE. Well, I think one of the most outstanding was in this
discussion of religions and I was trying to suggest that religions
did embody many of the values of many people and so the conversation
was trying to talk about those values quite apart from--I think the
Russian, I think Marina's view of religion is quite primitive--never
mind Marina. Ruth was bothered by his logic or argument being of no
avail. She would be content, you know if he had followed the laws of
debate or something, you present evidence and he presents opposite
evidence and you try to answer, let one answer the other. But when he
couldn't answer he would just state his belief and there he followed
the Communist line.
He talked something about feudalism, or the church being more powerful
in feudalism than it was today and he tried to explain why that was.
I had then suggested that maybe science was instrumental as an
alternative explanation to his explanation but instead of supporting
further his view, which just didn't make sense to me, he just restated
it. Well, this kind of thing.
Mr. LIEBELER. Upset your wife?
Mr. PAINE. Yes; you just couldn't enter the conversation deeper.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember any other conversation, you and Oswald
had during this first evening that you met?
The CHAIRMAN. From the first day, are you going back to?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. PAINE. I think we probably spoke, I was trying still to find common
ground with him, and I think we probably spoke critically of the far
right. It even seems to me we may have mentioned Walker.
I had been bothered at the time that Walker had--I guess it doesn't do
any good to enter into the matter because I don't remember his response.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you mention Walker's name during the first meeting?
Mr. PAINE. My memory is very foggy. But I would take it as--this was an
impression.
Mr. LIEBELER. Give us your best recollection, and I want to ask you
again this was in early April 1963, that you had this conversation, is
that correct?
Mr. PAINE. It was that first meeting when we had them over to dinner
and Ruth can give you the date of that.
Mr. LIEBELER. For the benefit of the Commission the record indicates
it was about April 2, 1963, that that occurred. Tell us to the best of
your recollection what the conversation about General Walker was at
that time?
Mr. PAINE. I think he had mentioned, a friend of ours had a German wife
and she just achieved her citizenship papers, and this had been done at
the ceremony and General Walker had been invited to lead the singing,
conducted by June Davis who is somewhat old and slipped into error
of calling him Judge Walker every once in a while, and it somewhat
offended this friend of ours who was aware of why she liked this
country, freedoms, and liberties and values that are expressed here.
And she was rather sorry that Walker should take it upon himself to
define, to these stupid foreigners or these ignorant foreigners, what
this country stands for. So I think I mentioned this episode to him.
Representative FORD. Him being Oswald?
Mr. PAINE. Oswald, and I think he smiled and nodded his assent. I don't
think he said any--I don't think he made any important remarks about
Walker.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember anything that he said about Walker at all?
Mr. PAINE. I think that is the only time, probably the only time we
mentioned Walker.