Mr. JENNER. I take it when you first read that notation on the back of
the third page of the letter you had not noticed the sentence, "Very
likely I will have to go to Russia after all. A pity."
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Would you proceed with your comment?
Mrs. PAINE. This was early July when I read this letter more carefully
and I was shocked that I hadn't noticed this. That my poor Russian made
a scanning of the letter not adequate to picking that up, and I wrote
her immediately apologizing for my bad understanding, and I don't have
that letter, but I have three which followed it, and----
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me. Do you have a draft, have you produced for the
Commission your immediate preceding draft of that letter?
Mrs. PAINE. I have no rough draft of my first letter explaining my
shock and my worry at this statement of hers.
Mr. JENNER. I see.
Mrs. PAINE. But I have rough drafts of three letters I wrote
subsequently.
Mr. JENNER. Have you ever seen at any time a copy or the original of
the letter that you wrote, a draft of which you do not have?
Mrs. PAINE. No; I haven't.
Mr. JENNER. Would you please relate to the Commission your present
recollection of the substance and content of that letter?
Mrs. PAINE. Much what I have said. That I apologized that my poor
Russian didn't see this immediately and I inquired after her what she
was doing, and asked to hear from her.
Mr. JENNER. You say, that sentence when you finally did read it rather
shocked you. Would you rather--would you elaborate on that statement to
the Commission? Why did that shock you?
Mrs. PAINE. It seemed more final than anything else that had preceded.
She had told me in March that he had asked her to go back, that she had
written to the embassy but she didn't reply to the embassy when the
embassy inquired why. It looked as though she was able to just say no
by not doing anything about it. But this, on the other hand, looked as
if she was resigned to the necessity to go back.
Mr. JENNER. Were you aware at this time, Mrs. Paine, that Lee had
applied to the State Department for a passport and had obtained one?
Mrs. PAINE. No; I was not aware of that.
Mr. JENNER. When did you first become aware of that, if you ever did?
Mrs. PAINE. It was considerably after the assassination, and I read it
in a paper. I still don't remember what time or day it was.
Mr. JENNER. Now, did you write Marina on or about the 11th of July?
Mrs. PAINE. I have a rough draft of that date.
Mr. JENNER. I hand you a document of two pages which has been
identified as Commission Exhibit No. 410.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 410 for
identification.)
Would you please tell us what that document is?
Mrs. PAINE. This is the rough draft, to which I just referred, written
to Marina.
Mr. JENNER. And you thereupon prepared the final draft and sent it?
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. This represents, does it not, your best recollection of the
contents of the letter, the letter in its final form as you transmitted
it to Marina?
Mrs. PAINE. I think this is probably a very accurate representation of
the letter in its final form. It was the first time I put on paper an
invitation to her to come and stay with me for anything more than a few
weeks around the birth of the baby.
Mr. JENNER. Have you supplied the Commission with a translation of your
letter?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I have.
Mr. JENNER. And that appears at the bottom of page 7 of your notes
which you have supplied to me?
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. I direct your attention, if I may, and the attention of
the Commission as interpreted by Mrs. Paine, the first sentence reads,
"Dear Marina, if Lee doesn't wish to live with you any more and prefers
that you go to the Soviet Union, think about the possibility of living
with me."
You just said--is that the portion of your letter which you say this
is the first invitation you made to Marina to come to live with you
generally?
Mrs. PAINE. This was the first written invitation.
Mr. JENNER. I see.
Mrs. PAINE. I had made an informal invitation face to face when she was
staying the first week in May, but felt as I made it that she didn't
take this seriously.
Mr. JENNER. Now, you go on in your letter and you make reference, for
example, to--let's take the second paragraph of your letter appearing
at the top of page 8 of your notes, "You know I have long received
from my parents, I live dependent a long time. I would be happy
to be an aunt to you and I can. We have sufficient money. Michael
will be glad. This I know. He just gave me $500 for the vacation or
something necessary. With this money it is possible to pay the doctor
and hospital in October when the baby is born, believe God. All will
be well for you and the children. I confess that I think that the
opportunity for me to know you came from God. Perhaps it is not so but
I think and believe so."
Had you discussed this matter with your husband?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I had.
Mr. JENNER. And you were still living separate and apart at that time?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes. But I felt so long as I was not yet earning, he would
be the one, in fact, who was supporting all of us.
Mr. JENNER. I think the Commission might be interested in that. You
were not taking this action, either in the earlier stage in the early
spring or in the summer of inviting Marina to live with you without
discussing that with your husband even though you and your husband at
that time were separated?
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Did you do anything, Mrs. Paine, in this connection with
respect to keeping Lee Oswald informed of your invitations and your
communications in this area with Marina?
Mrs. PAINE. I wrote into the letter that I hoped--well you might just
read the last paragraph.
Mr. JENNER. Would you mind reading it?
Mrs. PAINE. I will read it, the last paragraph in the letter, and I
might say that the entire letter I wrote with the possibility in mind
that he should see this.
Mr. JENNER. Did you desire that he do see it?
Mrs. PAINE. I wanted him to--her to feel free to show it to him. I
didn't want her to come to my house if this offended or injured him, if
this was in some way----
(At this point, Senator Cooper entered the hearing room.)
Mr. JENNER. Divisive?
Mrs. PAINE. If he did in fact want to keep his family together, I
certainly wanted him to, but if the bulk of his feelings lay on the
side of wanting to be away, separated from Marina, then I thought it
was legitimate for him to have that alternative, although it was not
legitimate for him to simply send her back if she didn't want to go.
Mr. JENNER. Send her back where?
Mrs. PAINE. To the Soviet Union, if she didn't want to go. So in this
light I will read the last paragraph of Commission Exhibit 410:
"I don't want to hurt Lee with this invitation to you. Only I think
that it would be better that you and he do not live together if you
do not receive happiness. I understand how Michael feels. He doesn't
love me and wants a chance to look for another life and another wife.
He must do this, it seems, and so it is better for us not to live
together. I don't know how Lee feels. I would like to know. Surely
things are hard for him now, too. I hope that he would be glad to see
you with me where he can know that you and the children will receive
everything that is necessary and he would not need to worry about it.
Thus he could start life again."
Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine, having all this in mind and what you have
testified to up to now, would you please tell the gentlemen of the
Commission the factors and motivations you had in inviting Marina to
come live with you; first to have her baby, next on a more extended
scale, all of the factors that motivated you in your offer, in your own
words?
Mrs. PAINE. The first invitation, just to come for a few weeks at the
time of the birth is a simpler question, I will answer that first.
I felt that she would need someone simply to take care of her older
child for the time that she was in the hospital, and that things would
be easier for her if she didn't have to immediately take up the full
household chores upon returning from the hospital. This was a very
simple offer.
Mr. JENNER. That was all that motivated you at that time?
Mrs. PAINE. Now, in asking her to come and stay for a more extended
period, I had many feelings. I was living alone with my children, at
that time, had been since the previous fall, nearly a year, at the time
this letter is written. I had no idea that my husband might move back
to the house. I was tired of living alone and lonely, and here was a
woman who was alone and in a sense also, if Lee, in fact didn't want to
be with her, and further she was a person I liked. I had lived with her
2 weeks in late April and early May. I enjoyed her company.
Further, being able to talk Russian with her added a wider dimension
to my rather small and boring life as a young mother. I didn't want
to go out and get a job because I wanted to be home with my children,
but on the other hand, I saw a way to, and that is part of what
studying Russian altogether is for me, a way to make my daily life
more interesting. I also felt when I first heard in March that Lee was
wanting to send Marina back, that is how it was presented to me, that
it just seemed a shame that our country couldn't be a more hospitable
thing for her if she wanted so much to stay, that I thought she should
have that opportunity.
I was pleased that she liked America, and thought that she should have
a chance to stay here and raise her children here as she wished.
I might say also if I had not been living alone I would not have
undertaken such an invitation. My house is small and it wouldn't have
gone with married life.
Mr. JENNER. I wanted to afford you that opportunity. Now, you have
related all the factors that motivated you?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. I offer in evidence as Commission Exhibit No. 410 the
document which has been so identified.
Mr. McCLOY. It may be admitted.
(The document referred to, previously marked as Commission Exhibit No.
410 for identification, was received in evidence.)
Mr. McCLOY. We have been going for an hour and a half. If you would
like to have a recess you may have it.
Mrs. PAINE. I am all right.
Mr. McCLOY. All right, we will go on then.
Mr. JENNER. You mentioned in the course of your explanation earlier a
series of three letters. I hand you a draft of letter dated July 12,
1963, addressed to Dear Marina, consisting of two pages, which we will
mark as Commission Exhibit No. 411. And another one-page letter which
we will mark as Commission Exhibit No. 412.
In whose handwriting is each of those exhibits?
Mrs. PAINE. Each of these are in my handwriting.
Mr. JENNER. And they are drafts, are they?
Mrs. PAINE. They are.
Mr. JENNER. And you would then, after making those drafts put them in
final form?
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Did you transmit the final draft of letter to Marina Oswald?
Mrs. PAINE. I mailed them to her address in New Orleans.
Mr. JENNER. Have you supplied me with your translation of both of those
drafts?
Mrs. PAINE. I have.
Mr. JENNER. Each draft is in your handwriting?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And the interpretations appearing at the bottom of page
8 and the bottom of page 9 are the material you supplied me and they
consist of your interpretations of those letters or translations,
rather?
Mrs. PAINE. That is right. They are dated respectively July 12 and July
14.
Mr. JENNER. I hand you a picture copy rather than a photostatic copy
of a two-page letter dated July 14, 1963, and a translation of that
letter which we will mark as Commission Exhibits Nos. 413 and 414,
respectively.
(The documents referred to were marked Commission Exhibits Nos. 413 and
414 for identification.)
Mr. JENNER. Directing your attention to Exhibit 413, would you tell us
what that is?
Mrs. PAINE. This appears to be a photograph of the letter I then wrote
from my final draft and sent to Marina, dated the 14th of July.