TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL R. PAINE (continued 2)

Ruth cited the letter to me as an example of how he could lie. She hadn't been aware of his lying before. She thought his trip to Mexico, which he mentioned his trip to Mexico in his letter hadn't been true and it was a fabrication, but it was, we talked, therefore, a little bit about his—also, I think——

Mr. Liebeler. His feeling about the FBI?

Mr. Paine. We talked a little bit about his abuse of the FBI there. And also I think it was mentioned that, Ruth mentioned to me that, the FBI had been out once or twice or had reported this to me, and that Lee seemed to resent that.

Mr. Liebeler. Let's go back to this letter, when did Ruth first show you this letter, and I take it you are referring to a draft of a letter from Oswald to the Russian Embassy?

Mr. Paine. I didn't know who it was written to.

Mr. Liebeler. But the letter referred to the notorious FBI?

Mr. Paine. Yes; I don't think it was the Russian Embassy. I thought it was a friend to whom he was speaking in a rather braggart way of what he had done. He had gone down to the Cuban Consulate in Mexico, and they had, I think this is the letter, I could be mixed up, and that they had not given him a visa—actually, I had made a mistake in the heading because I thought—it said, "Dear Sirs," but I though it said, "Dear Lisa." Ruth told me it had said, "Dear Sirs."

Mr. Liebeler. This was in Russian or in English?

Mr. Paine. She must have shown me the letter in his hand, therefore, yes. I thought it was "Dear Lisa," English.

Mr. Liebeler. When did she show you this letter?

Mr. Paine. This is a confusing matter, because I was reading some other magazine at the time, and she intruded this thing on my attention, and I didn't really shift attention too well.

Mr. Liebeler. Was it before the assassination or afterwards?

Mr. Paine. It was before, yes. No; afterwards, I would have paid close attention to it. Since recently, I have, Ruth has, figured out that it must have been, he must have started writing on Friday or something and she cleaned up or removed the desk, it was that time when we moved the furniture. It had been written just prior to that, and we did that on a Sunday night. Maybe she preserved his original draft, I don't remember what happened, because I would have guessed that in order to misread the "Dear Sirs" for "Dear Lisa," I would have seen it, I would have read it correctly in her hand.

Mr. Liebeler. Recapitulate for me, if you can, the number of times and the dates on which you saw Oswald after he returned from New Orleans up until the time of the assassination. You said you saw him, I believe shortly after he returned from wherever he had been.

Mr. Paine. Yes.

Mr. Liebeler. And that was around October 4, was it not?

Mr. Paine. Yes.

Mr. Liebeler. The first part of October. When was the next time you saw him?

Mr. Paine. I think I probably saw him on each weekend except the one preceding the assassination. There were at least one or two, I think there were two before he had a job and then he had a job and a birthday party.

Mr. Liebeler. That would have been October 18, would it not, approximately, when he had a birthday party or represented to you that his birthday was October 18?

Mr. Paine. Yes; he may have celebrated the next day but——

Mr. Liebeler. And your recollection is that you saw him each weekend after that except for the weekend immediately prior to the assassination?

Mr. Paine. Yes.

Mr. Liebeler. The weekend of November 8, 9, and 10 was a long weekend, was it not?

Mr. Paine. He was there then. I remember we didn't have a long weekend, Bell didn't. He had another day to sit in front of the TV.

Mr. Liebeler. Was that the last weekend that you saw him then?

Mr. Paine. If that is the one prior, two weekends, yes.

Mr. Liebeler. Now, starting at November 8, 9, and 10, which was the last time you saw him, consider when your wife showed you the draft of the letter that we spoke of just before. Would it have been that weekend or after that?

Mr. Paine. Well, I suppose it would be after that. They weren't in the house when she showed it to me or at least he wasn't. I don't remember when he wrote that letter or when we moved the furniture.

Mr. Liebeler. You don't remember whether you saw Oswald after you read the letter or not?

Mr. Paine. That is a good question, I can see some point to it now. One would surmise that, and I would think it reasonable that I would have looked at him with somewhat different point of view after having read the letter, and I don't remember looking at him with that different point of view, so quite possibly I didn't see him again.

Mr. Liebeler. So we would—the conclusion would be suggested that she showed you the letter sometime after November 8 or 9, 1963?

Mr. Paine. Yes; yes, I would guess that she, as I say, I would come to a dinner when he was not there on either of the Tuesday or the Wednesday and that would have been a reasonable time that she would have shown me the letter.

Mr. Liebeler. Did you have a discussion with her about this subject of his having gone to Mexico which was discussed in the letter, was it not?

Mr. Paine. She thought it was a fabrication, a complete fabrication. And she did not discuss, she gave me the letter, and as I say I was reading some other magazine and I read the letter and went back to my magazine. How dense people can be. But anyway——

Mr. Liebeler. Did she——

Mr. Paine. So we did not talk about it until later, then she took the letter back and put it in an envelope or something, she didn't want me to see it. She was sort of irked that I didn't.

Mr. Liebeler. Look at it when she wanted you to look at it?

Mr. Paine. Pay more attention to this thing, yes. But she didn't want me to see it again. "If you didn't see anything in it never mind looking at it."

Mr. Liebeler. Did she tell you about any discussions she had with Marina Oswald about Oswald's having been in Mexico?

Mr. Paine. I was under the impression that Ruth didn't know he had been in Mexico until after the assassination and, therefore, and I think Ruth later said, was dismayed also that Marina had been apparently, had apparently known and deceived her in this matter.

Mr. Liebeler. Well, did Ruth mention the fact that Marina had a little charm made out of Mexican peso.

Mr. Paine. Yes; but we didn't put that two and two together there until the FBI came and we looked on our drill press to see if they had used the tools in the shop to mount the sights on the gun and we found these little metal filings and then Ruth remembered that he had drilled out a coin to give to Marina and she never—I can't remember whether she realized then that it was a peso or Ruth hadn't thought that much about it until afterward.

Mr. Liebeler. And you didn't discuss that subject prior to the assassination, with your wife?

Mr. Paine. I didn't know about this whole thing, this medallion.

Mr. Liebeler. Did your wife mention the fact that Marina Oswald had a record of Mexican music?

Mr. Paine. No; I didn't know that until now. I don't recall it.

Mr. Liebeler. Did your wife tell you anything about the nature of her relationship with Marina Oswald during this period from the first of October up to the assassination?

Mr. Paine. It all seemed perfectly reasonable to me. When Ruth had met Marina back in the spring, I had seen that Marina Oswald—when I met them in their apartment, Oswald had spoken very loudly and harshly to Marina, and I thought to myself, isn't it amazing to see a little fellow who insists on wearing the pants, strongly. And then later on in discussions which followed the discussion which followed, that evening at the house, our house, he would not let her have a contrary opinion, and I also saw she was allergic to gibes, and he would gibe frequently.

Mr. Liebeler. She was allergic to them?

Mr. Paine. It seemed to me so.

Mr. Liebeler. They affected her greatly?

Mr. Paine. Yes. This all went on in Russian, and I don't know what he was saying. But I could see the object about which the statement was made, and later Ruth also told me some of the things that he had said.

But I felt that he was keeping her a vassal, and since I was more eager to hear her opinions of Russia than his opinions of Russia, I was eager that she should learn English, and when—Ruth told me that Marina thought she must have to go back to the Soviet Union, and I thought out of largesse of this country it should be possible for her to stay here if she wanted to stay here and she quite apparently did, she struck me as a somewhat apolitical person and yet true, just, and conscientious, so it was agreeable to me to look forward to financing her stay until she could make her own way here.

It added—Ruth also wanted to learn Russian, this was a cheap way for her to learn Russian, than to pay tutoring. And, as it happened, it was costing me less. She didn't go out shopping so much.

Mr. Liebeler. When she was home learning Russian from Marina?

Mr. Paine. When Marina was there to keep her company. She would go mad with boredom, I would think. So that it—we were somewhat saddened, or I think Ruth was, I think we shared—Ruth, of course, didn't want to stand in the way of Marina and Lee if they were happy together, but would have been glad to see Marina break away and make her own way. And she was a nice companion for Ruth.

Mr. Liebeler. Did you have any impression of how Marina and Ruth got along together, what they did with their time during the day, that sort of thing?

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. Liebeler. Mr. Paine, you mentioned before these curtain rods that were in your garage. Can you tell us approximately how many curtain rods there were in the garage when you last saw them and tell us when you last saw them?

Mr. Paine. I saw them quite recently, 2 weeks ago.

Mr. Liebeler. How many curtain rods were there then?

Mr. Paine. There might be as many as four.

Mr. Liebeler. Were there ever any more than that?

Mr. Paine. I don't believe so. These were normally up on the shelf above the bench, and for some reason, they recently, I had to take them down, or something like that.

Mr. Liebeler. Do you remember seeing them shortly before November 22 at any time?

Mr. Paine. They never particularly impressed themselves on my recollection.

Mr. Liebeler. Those are all the questions I have.