Marina Oswald lived with Ruth Paine through the birth of her second daughter on October 20, 1963, and until the assassination of President Kennedy.[C6-365] During this period, Oswald obtained a room in Dallas and found employment in Dallas, but spent weekends with his family at the Paine home.[C6-366] On November 1 and 5, Ruth Paine was interviewed by agents of the FBI who were investigating Oswald’s activities since his return from the Soviet Union, as set forth in greater detail in chapter VIII. She did not then know Oswald’s address in Dallas.[C6-367] She was not asked for, nor did she volunteer, Oswald’s telephone number in Dallas, which she did know.[C6-368] She advised the Bureau agent to whom she spoke of Oswald’s periodic weekend visits, and she informed him that Oswald was employed at the Texas School Book Depository Building.[C6-369]
On November 10, Ruth Paine discovered a draft of Oswald’s letter written the day before to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, in which he indicated that he had journeyed to Mexico City and conferred with a “comrade Kostine in the Embassy of the Soviet Union, Mexico City, Mexico.”[C6-370] (This letter is discussed later in this chapter.) Mr. and Mrs. Paine testified that although they initially assumed the letter was a figment of Oswald’s imagination, the letter gave Mrs. Paine considerable misgivings.[C6-371] She determined that if the FBI agents returned she would deliver to them the copy of a draft of the letter which, unknown to Oswald, she had made.[C6-372] However, the agents did not return before the assassination.[C6-373] On November 19, Mrs. Paine learned that Oswald was living in his Dallas rooming-house under an assumed name.[C6-374] She did not report this to the FBI because, as she testified, she “had no occasion to see them, and * * * did not think it important enough to call them after that until the 23d of November.”[C6-375]
The Commission has thoroughly investigated the background of both Paines. Mrs. Paine was born Ruth Hyde in New York City on September 3, 1932. Her parents moved to Columbus, Ohio, in the late 1930’s.[C6-376] They were divorced in 1961.[C6-377] Ruth Paine graduated from Antioch College in 1955.[C6-378] While in high school she first became interested in Quaker activities; she and her brother became Quakers in 1951.[C6-379] In 1952, following completion of her sophomore year at Antioch College, she was a delegate to two Friends conferences in England.[C6-380]
At the time the Paines met in 1955, Mrs. Paine was active in the work of the Young Friends Committee of North America, which, with the cooperation of the Department of State, was making an effort to lessen the tensions between Soviet Russia and the United States by means of the stimulation of contacts and exchange of cultures between citizens of the two nations through “pen-pal” correspondence and exchanges of young Russians and Americans.[C6-381] It was during this period that Mrs. Paine became interested in the Russian language.[C6-382] Mrs. Paine participated in a Russian-American student exchange program sponsored by the Young Friends Committee of North America, and has participated in the “pen-pal” phase of the activities of the Young Friends Committee.[C6-383] She has corresponded until recently with a schoolteacher in Russia.[C6-384] Although her active interest in the Friends’ program for the lessening of East-West tensions ceased upon her marriage in December 1957, she has continued to hold to the tenets of the Quaker faith.[C6-385]
Michael Paine is the son of George Lyman Paine and Ruth Forbes Paine, now Ruth Forbes Young, wife of Arthur Young of Philadelphia, Pa.[C6-386] His parents were divorced when he was 4 years of age. His father, George Lyman Paine, is an architect and resides in California.[C6-387] Michael Paine testified that during his late grammar and early high school days his father participated actively in the Trotskyite faction of the Communist movement in the United States and that he attended some of those meetings.[C6-388] He stated that his father, with whom he has had little contact throughout most of his life, has not influenced his political thinking. He said that he has visited his father four or five times in California since 1959, but their discussions did not include the subject of communism.[C6-389] Since moving to Irving, Tex., in 1959, he has been a research engineer for Bell Helicopter Co. in Fort Worth.[C6-390] Mr. Paine has security clearance for his work.[C6-391] He has been a long-time member of the American Civil Liberties Union.[C6-392] Though not in sympathy with rightist political aims, he has attended a few meetings of far-right organizations in Dallas for the purpose, he testified, of learning something about those organizations and because he “was interested in seeing more communication between the right and the left.”[C6-393]
The Commission has conducted a thorough investigation of the Paines’ finances and is satisfied that their income has been from legitimate and traceable sources, and that their expenditures were consistent with their income and for normal purposes. Although in the course of their relationship with the Oswalds, the Paines assumed expenses for such matters as food and transportation, with a value of approximately $500, they made no direct payments to, and received no moneys or valuables from, the Oswalds.[C6-394]
Although prior to November 22, Mrs. Paine had information relating to Oswald’s use of an alias in Dallas, his telephone number, and his correspondence with the Soviet Embassy, which she did not pass on to the FBI,[C6-395] her failure to have come forward with this information must be viewed within the context of the information available to her at that time. There is no evidence to contradict her testimony that she did not then know about Oswald’s attack on General Walker, the presence of the rifle on the floor of her garage, Oswald’s ownership of a pistol, or the photographs of Oswald displaying the firearms.[C6-396] She thus assumed that Oswald, though a difficult and disturbing personality, was not potentially violent, and that the FBI was cognizant of his past history and current activities.[C6-397]
Moreover, it is from Mrs. Paine herself that the Commission has learned that she possessed the information which she did have. Mrs. Paine was forthright with the agent of the FBI with whom she spoke in early November 1963, providing him with sufficient information to have located Oswald at his job if he had deemed it necessary to do so,[C6-398] and her failure to have taken immediate steps to notify the Bureau of the additional information does not under the circumstances appear unusual. Throughout the Commission’s investigation, Ruth Paine has been completely cooperative, voluntarily producing all correspondence, memoranda, and other written communications in her possession that had passed between her and Marina Oswald both before and after November 22, 1963.[C6-399] The Commission has had the benefit of Mrs. Paine’s 1963 date book and calendar and her address book and telephone notation book, in both of which appear many entries relating to her activities with the Oswalds.[C6-400] Other material of a purely personal nature was also voluntarily made available.[C6-401] The Commission has found nothing in the Paines’ background, activities, or finances which suggests disloyalty to the United States,[C6-402] and it has concluded that Ruth and Michael Paine were not involved in any way with the assassination of President Kennedy.
A fuller narrative of the social contacts between the Oswalds and the various persons of the Dallas-Fort Worth community is incorporated in chapter VII and appendix XIII, and the testimony of all members of the group who testified before the Commission is included in the printed record which accompanies the report. The evidence establishes that the Oswalds’ contacts with these people were originated and maintained under normal and understandable circumstances. The files maintained by the FBI contain no information indicating that any of the persons in the Dallas-Fort Worth community with whom Oswald associated were affiliated with any Communist, Fascist, or other subversive organization.[C6-403] During the course of this investigation, the Commission has found nothing which suggests the involvement of any member of the Russian-speaking community in Oswald’s preparations to assassinate President Kennedy.