Mrs. PAINE. Wait.
Mr. JENNER. Said.
Mrs. PAINE. I guess that is just the interpreter trying to "offer you
an alternative". State the question again. You want to know if I take
any exception to the translation I have before me, this portion of my
July 21 letter? They are all small.
Mr. JENNER. They are small and none of consequence.
Mrs. PAINE. No.
Mr. JENNER. So far as you are concerned. Your translation, however,
that you supplied the Commission is as far as you are concerned
accurate and what you intend to say, at least?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; and I think it is what I said.
Mr. JENNER. All right. I offer in evidence, if the Chairman please, the
documents that have been marked--may I have them please, Representative
Ford?
Mrs. PAINE. These, too?
Mr. JENNER. Documents marked 415, 416, 417, and 418.
Mr. McCLOY. Do I understand there is not a complete translation?
Mrs. PAINE. That is right.
Mr. McCLOY. Of the letter. It is an incomplete translation?
Mrs. PAINE. There is a page 2 somewhere.
Mr. JENNER. That is correct. During the noon hour I will see if that is
not a mistake and if I can be supplied with the balance, if there is a
balance.
Mr. McCLOY. They may be admitted in this form and then you can advise
us after the recess whether there is anything additional to insert at
this point.
(The documents referred to, heretofore marked Commission Exhibits Nos.
415, 416, 417, and 418, were received in evidence.)
Mr. JENNER. Now, there is a matter to which I would like to draw your
attention in your letter of July 21, which is Commission Exhibit No.
416, the last portion of it, and I direct your attention, in turn,
to your own interpretation appearing at page 3. The last paragraph,
when you brought Marina to New Orleans, did you do anything by way of
seeking to have people in New Orleans visit her?
Mrs. PAINE. No. I have already testified that after an initial warm
greeting with Lee, they quarreled, and I was uncomfortable there, and
wanted to get back home. I had thought of making contact for Marina
with someone in the Russian speaking community in New Orleans, and
later when I didn't hear from her after this note that looks like "I
will have to go back to Russia after all," I much regretted that I had
not made some contact for her, someone she could talk to, herself.
And anxious, not having heard from her a month from the time of this
appendage to my corrected letter, I telephoned Ruth Kloepfer who is the
clerk of the Quaker Meeting in New Orleans.
Mr. JENNER. Would you spell her name, please?
Mrs. PAINE. She is not someone I know. That is spelled K-L-O-E-P-F-E-R,
and I asked her if she knew any Russians in New Orleans. She did not. I
then wrote to Mrs. Paul Blanchard.
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, when you use the pronoun "she" there you asked
Marina?
Mrs. PAINE. I asked Mrs. Kloepfer if she knew any Russian-speaking
people and described why I was interested in knowing. I must have given
her the address of Marina, probably asked that she go and see her. In
any case, I have a letter which followed that telephone call, which I
wrote to Mrs. Paul Blanchard.
Mr. McCLOY. Pardon me, did you say you telephoned to Mrs. Blanchard or
you wrote to Mrs. Blanchard?
Mrs. PAINE. I wrote to Mrs. Blanchard, I had originally telephoned to
Mrs. Kloepfer.
Mr. JENNER. Did you make the telephone call when you were in New
Orleans?
Mrs. PAINE. No; this was when I was concerned. I had not heard from
Marina for a month. I did not know whether she was in good health or
had gone back to the Soviet Union.
Mr. JENNER. So you called Mrs. Kloepfer in New Orleans?
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct. After having tried to call the Murrets. I
had not had their name accurately.
Representative BOGGS. How did you happen to write to Mrs. Blanchard?
Mrs. PAINE. She is the secretary of the Unitarian Church in New Orleans
and I called the Quaker Church in Dallas to find out who was in New
Orleans of the Quakers, and then I called the Unitarian Church which my
husband belongs to in Dallas to find out who the secretary of the New
Orleans Unitarian Church was.
Representative BOGGS. You do not know Mrs. Blanchard?
Mrs. PAINE. I did not know her, and I did not know Mrs. Kloepfer
either, and appended to this that I am leaving with the Commission is
my carbon of a letter to Mrs. Blanchard of the Unitarian Church, which
I sent in carbon to Mrs. Kloepfer so each would know what the other was
doing in an effort to find a Russian-speaking person who could be a
contact for Marina.
(At this point Representative Ford left the hearing room.)
Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine, you have now mentioned a letter that you wrote
to Mrs. Blanchard; have you supplied the Commission with a carbon copy
of that letter?
Mrs. PAINE. I have.
Mr. JENNER. And it is a two-page document, Mr. Chairman, dated July 18,
1963, now marked as Commission Exhibit 419. That exhibit has now been
handed to you, Mrs. Paine. Is that the carbon copy of your letter to
Mrs. Blanchard?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; it is.
Mr. JENNER. You did not know Mrs. Blanchard, had never heard of her
prior to the time you wrote the letter?
Mrs. PAINE. That is correct. It begins saying, "Mrs. Philip Harper, the
secretary of the Dallas Unitarian Church, suggested I write to you when
I told her of the following problem."
Mr. JENNER. Is the document in the same condition now as it was when
you prepared the original of which that is a carbon copy?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. I offer in evidence as Commission Exhibit No. 419 the
document which has been so identified.
Mr. McCLOY. It may be so admitted.
(The document referred to was marked for identification as Commission
Exhibit No. 419 and received in evidence.)
Mrs. PAINE. Will there be any difficulty that it starts with typing and
then it goes carbon?
Mr. JENNER. Explain that.
Mrs. PAINE. I wrote two carbon paragraphs and then I thought I should
write a carbon of this to Mrs. Blanchard and put in a carbon and then
in my own copy put in typing.
Mr. JENNER. So that which appears to be a copy is an original and that
which follows, what appears to be original, is an actual carbon copy of
the letter you actually sent to Mrs. Blanchard?
Mrs. PAINE. With copy stated here to Mrs. Kloepfer.
Mr. JENNER. Did you hear from Marina on that subject at any time?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes. In her succeeding and last letter that I got from her.
Mr. JENNER. Her succeeding letter is dated what?
Mrs. PAINE. It has no date inside. It is postmarked August 11 from New
Orleans and sent to me while I was on vacation.
Mr. JENNER. We have marked as Commission Exhibit No. 420 the envelope
and attached to 420 is what purports to be a four-page letter in
Russian longhand--may we have this as a group exhibit consisting of the
envelope and the four-page letter?
Mr. McCLOY. If it is properly attached I guess you can.
Mrs. PAINE. There is no date on the letter, if they separate you don't
know what it is.
Mr. JENNER. We have marked the four-page letter as Commission Exhibit
421 in order to avoid any difficulty.
Directing your attention to Exhibit 421, do you recognize the
handwriting on that exhibit?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; that is Marina Oswald's handwriting.
Mr. JENNER. That is a letter to you, is it not?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; it is.
Mr. JENNER. And you supplied the Commission with your translation of
that letter?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I have.
Mr. JENNER. That appears at pages 13 and 14 of the materials you
furnished me?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Is that letter in the same condition now as it was when you
received it?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; with the exception of an addition in my handwriting on
the bottom of unmarked page 3.
Mr. JENNER. Would you read that?
Mrs. PAINE. Which is a translation of one word.
Mr. JENNER. What word is that?
Mrs. PAINE. A word means to grow downcast.
Mr. DULLES. I didn't catch that.
Mrs. PAINE. To grow downcast, to lose courage.
Mr. JENNER. Directing your attention to the envelope which is marked
Commission Exhibit 420.
Mrs. PAINE. I want to make one other comment. I underlined the word on
the second page that I have translated as "winsome."
Mr. JENNER. W-i-n-s-o-m-e?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes. The other underlinings in her letter are her own.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Directing your attention to the pink envelope
which is Commission Exhibit No. 420, was Exhibit 421 enclosed in
Exhibit 420?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; it was.
Mr. JENNER. That also is in English, that is the address?
Mrs. PAINE. The address is in English, addressed to me while on
vacation.
Mr. JENNER. And you received those documents in due course?
Mrs. PAINE. Which documents?
Mr. JENNER. You received the documents in due course?
Mrs. PAINE. It was not forwarded. It was addressed to me where I was.
Mr. JENNER. But you received them is all I am asking?
Mrs. PAINE. Oh, yes.
Mr. JENNER. I offer in evidence as Commission Exhibits 420 and 421, the
documents which have been so marked.
Mr. McCLOY. They may be so admitted.
(The documents referred to were marked Commission Exhibits Nos. 420 and
421 for identification and received in evidence.)
Mr. JENNER. There is one item in Exhibit 421 to which I wish to direct
your attention. On the last page about the third paragraph from the
bottom appears the second sentence, "Lee doesn't have work now already
three weeks." Do you find that?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Had you had any information prior to the receipt of this
letter that Lee Oswald no longer was employed in New Orleans?
Mrs. PAINE. I had no such information.
Mr. JENNER. This was your first information?
Mrs. PAINE. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Did you respond to that letter?
Mrs. PAINE. I did.
Mr. JENNER. I have a five-page document Mr. Liebeler is identifying as
Commission Exhibit No. 422.
Mrs. PAINE. This is not what you want. You want my reply, don't you
next?
Mr. JENNER. That is right.
Mrs. PAINE. This is not it. You have my reply but I had had no copy of
that.
Mr. JENNER. We will keep that exhibit number. There has been identified
as Commission Exhibit 423 an exhibit consisting of four pages, the
first three of which are a photograph of a letter, and the last page of
which is a photograph of an envelope. Handing you Commission Exhibit
No. 423, is that a picture of your letter to Marina Oswald in response
to her letter of August 11?
Mrs. PAINE. August 11. Yes; it is dated August 24, 1963.
Mr. JENNER. And you do recognize that as being a picture copy of letter
you had written?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And you supplied the Commission with a translation of that
letter?
Mrs. PAINE. No; I did not. I did not have this in rough draft. I had no
copy of this. You may have a translation but I do not.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mrs. PAINE. I supplied you only on this summary that you have with a
brief recollection of what it contained.
Mr. JENNER. I now hand you a document, Commission Exhibit No. 424
consisting of two pages which purports to be a translation of Exhibit
423. Did you review that translation with me last evening?
Mrs. PAINE. Briefly.
Mr. JENNER. To the best of your recollection at the moment of what you
said last night that the translation is of Exhibit 423?
Mrs. PAINE. It is approximately what I recall writing. I didn't look at
the Russian in your pictures.
Mr. JENNER. During the noon recess would you wish to look at that and
if you have any exception you wish to take to the translation would you
please state it to the Commission?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. McCLOY. May I intervene at this point about Exhibit 422, has that
been properly identified?
Mrs. PAINE. No; not yet.
Mr. JENNER. Could we return it to the witness? Exhibit 422 is in whose
handwriting?
Mrs. PAINE. It is in my handwriting.
Mr. JENNER. Is that a draft of a letter?
Mrs. PAINE. That is a letter which I wrote but never sent.
Mr. JENNER. You testified about that letter yesterday?
Mrs. PAINE. I did.
Mr. JENNER. Did you not?
Mrs. PAINE. It is dated April 7.
Mr. JENNER. Have you supplied the Commission with a translation, your
translation of that letter?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes; I have with appropriate paragraph before it saying
that it was not sent, that I wrote it not necessarily to send or give
to her but simply to have, I think as I testified yesterday, the words
at my command ready in case it seemed appropriate to make such an
invitation.
Mr. JENNER. And this was prepared on or about April 7, 1963?
Mrs. PAINE. I would judge on the 7th.
Mr. JENNER. Is that letter in the same condition now as it was when you
completed writing it?
Mrs. PAINE. I have added since completing writing, I have added in
pencil at the top, "not sent" in English. It is otherwise the same.
Mr. JENNER. I won't go into that further, Mr. Chairman, because the
witness did testify about it yesterday other than to offer the document
in evidence.
Mr. McCLOY. I simply thought it needed a little elaboration.
Mr. JENNER. You were quite right, sir.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 422 for
identification and received in evidence.)
Mr. JENNER. Where were you in the summer of 1963?
Mrs. PAINE. May I interrupt.
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mrs. PAINE. Did you want to make any reference to the reference to
Lee's driving in Exhibit 424?
Mr. JENNER. Thank you very much, Mrs. Paine, and I do want to go into
it.
Mrs. PAINE. I have it underlined.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Dulles, would you be good enough to let me have it?
This translation which appears as Commission Exhibit 424, the fourth
paragraph reads "Lee told me that he learned a little from his Uncle
how to drive a car. It would be very useful for him to know how to
drive but it is hard to find time for this when he works every day."
Mrs. PAINE. I might make a comment about that.
Mr. JENNER. This is your comment, is it not?
Mrs. PAINE. I might make a comment about that.
Mr. JENNER. This is your comment, is it not?
Mrs. PAINE. I wrote that.
Mr. JENNER. Now, the Commission is very interested in the subject
matter of Mr. Oswald, of Lee Oswald being able to drive a car and
I think it might be well if we covered the whole subject from the
beginning to the end.
Would you give the Commission your full, most accurate recollection of
this whole subject? Start at the very beginning.