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.