Mrs. PAINE. Oh, a terrible embarrassment.
Mr. JENNER. You did?
Mrs. PAINE. It is a terrible impediment to talking and to friendship.
Mr. JENNER. I wish you would elaborate on that because I am sure the
members of the Commission would like to have your mental reaction to
what you thought was your limited command of the Russian language and
whether it interfered with communication between you.
Mrs. PAINE. It interfered very markedly.
Mr. JENNER. Would you elaborate?
Mrs. PAINE. I could think of many more things to say than I could think
of the words to use in order to say it in Russian. I want to keep
jumping ahead to illustrate this. But just it was very difficult for me
to communicate.
I understand much more readily than I speak, so that I could understand
what she was saying to me easily, especially as she took care to see
that she used small words and made herself understood.
But it was very difficult for me just to speak. I could not possibly
have reacted to her as I would to someone else in English, as I would
if she had been speaking English.
Mr. DULLES. At this time you felt that she could not gain very much if
you talked to her in English?
Mrs. PAINE. I was certain of that, yes.
Mr. DULLES. But later she had improved, apparently?
Mrs. PAINE. After the assassination, to my knowledge.
Mr. DULLES. That was after the assassination?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes. I never knew her to speak English at all.
Mr. DULLES. Or to understand?