Mrs. PAINE. Thirty-five to forty minutes.
Mr. JENNER. To the Neely Street address of the Oswalds?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. I take it--or was Mr. Oswald home?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. Just Marina? And that visit--tell us about that visit,
please.
Mrs. PAINE. I fear my recollection may meld one or two visits that
occurred in March.
Mr. JENNER. It might be a good idea, then,--go ahead and tell us about
them in a melded form.
Mrs. PAINE. All right. I recall we walked out to a nearby park.
Mr. DULLES. In both cases?
Mrs. PAINE. I am not sure.
Mr. DULLES. You think so?
Mrs. PAINE. Anyway, I recall walking to the park, and I think this was
the first visit, and we sat and talked. It was warm weather, March, in
Dallas. And the children played on the park equipment, and we talked,
and she told me that she was expecting a baby, and asked me not to talk
about it among the Russian community.
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me. Had anything been said on that subject when you
first met Marina Oswald the night of February 22?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. Nothing? This was your first notice of that?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And she told you not--would you repeat that, please?
Mrs. PAINE. She told me that she was expecting a child.
Mr. JENNER. She told you not to do what?
Mrs. PAINE. Not to tell members of the Russian-speaking community in
Dallas. She preferred for it not to be publicly known, so to speak.
Mr. JENNER. Were you in contact with the Russian-speaking community in
Dallas?
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. Did you say that to her on that occasion?
Mrs. PAINE. Well, it is a contact I could have had. It was reasonable
for her to assume I might be.
Mr. JENNER. But you said nothing in response to that. Did you reassure
her?
Mrs. PAINE. I just said I wouldn't talk about it, that it was up to her
to make such an announcement when she felt like it.
Mr. McCLOY. May I ask a question at this point?
You said Lee Oswald was not there. A little earlier in your testimony
you said you hoped he would not be there.
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.
Mr. McCLOY. Why did you say that? Was it because you took any dislike
to his being there or was it merely because you wanted exclusive
contact with Marina, or both?
Mrs. PAINE. I certainly wanted to make the contact with Marina. She
had not appeared as a person at all at the party. I couldn't tell what
sort of person she was, and I felt meeting alone with her would make
an opportunity both to speak the language and to find out what sort of
person she was.
Mr. McCLOY. Go on. Did you have any further motivation for that wish?
Did you take any dislike to him?
Mrs. PAINE. Not an active dislike, but I didn't like him. I think we
can say that.
Mr. JENNER. And you gathered that impression the evening of February 22?
Mrs. PAINE. It is very hard to know whether I gathered it then or in
terms of things she told me then after we met, and I will outline them.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; we will get into those.
Mrs. PAINE. I would say it was more formed later.
Mr. JENNER. And in your responding to Mr. McCloy's question you were
attempting to transport yourself back to that particular occasion and
not be affected by the course of events that had taken place in the
meantime, am I correct about that?
Mrs. PAINE. I tried to.
Mr. JENNER. To the best of your ability. Tell us a little more, then,
to the extent you have a recollection what occurred and what was said
in the park on that occasion.
Mrs. PAINE. Well, I recall that we talked, and, as I said, it may be
the first visit or it may have been the first and the second melded
in my mind. She said that she was expecting a baby. She said that Lee
didn't want her to learn English. He was not encouraging her to learn
English or helping her with it, that he spoke only Russian to her and
to their baby June. And she told me--now, let me say that my calendar
does show a notation on the 20th of March, it says, "Marina" and I
judge I went again to see her at her home on that day, or brought her
to my house, I am not certain which. But I judge, also, that this was
the second visit.
Mr. JENNER. I suggest that you might have melded these a moment ago.
Now I wish you would keep these apart for the moment.
Mrs. PAINE. So far as I can.
Mr. JENNER. And stick with the occasion in the park first and exhaust
your recollection.
Mrs. PAINE. Well, I was impressed, talking with her in the park, with
what I felt to be her need to have a friend. This was virtually our
first meeting, but she confided to me something that she didn't want
generally known among the Russian segment.
Mr. JENNER. That was her pregnancy?
Mrs. PAINE. Of Dallas. She inquired of me, a young woman, about birth
control methods, and she said that she felt--well, clearly this
pregnancy had surprised her, but she said that she didn't believe in
abortion, and didn't want to consider such a course.
Mr. JENNER. Have you exhausted your recollection?
Mrs. PAINE. That is all I recall; yes.
I do not recall whether it was this time or the next time, it may well
have been the next time, that she told me that----
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, please.
Mrs. PAINE. All right, sir.
Mr. JENNER. I would like to stick with this. When Mrs. Oswald, this is
your first visit, she related to you and said that her husband did not
wish her to acquire any command of the English language, what did you
say? Did you express yourself in some fashion as to why? Didn't that
seem curious to you?