Chapter XXXVII: Part 37

Representative BOGGS. Did he ever discuss President Kennedy with you?

Mrs. PAINE. He never mentioned Kennedy at all.

Representative BOGGS. Did you see the rifle that he had in the room in your home?

Mrs. PAINE. In the garage, no.

Representative BOGGS. In the garage, you never saw one?

Mrs. PAINE. I never saw that rifle at all until the police showed it to me in the station on the 22d of November.

Representative BOGGS. Were you at home when the FBI interviewed Marina and Lee?

Mrs. PAINE. The FBI never interviewed Marina and me; I was waiting to hear your question.

Representative BOGGS. At your home?

Mrs. PAINE. The FBI never interviewed Marina and Lee at my home. The FBI was there one afternoon and talked to Marina through me; they never saw Lee Oswald in my home. I told them he would be there on a weekend.

Representative BOGGS. Did you ever discuss politics with Marina?

Mrs. PAINE. As close as we would come, I would say, would be what I have mentioned about Madam Nhu; she was interested in what the family would do. She also said to me that she thought Khrushchev was a rather coarse, country person. She said that she admired Mrs. Kennedy a great deal, and liked, this is all before, liked President Kennedy very much.

Mr. JENNER. This was all before November 22?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Representative BOGGS. Were you aware of the fact that Lee returned to your home the night before the assassination?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Representative BOGGS. Were you curious about that in view of the fact that he seldom came except on weekends?

Mrs. PAINE. It was the first time he had come without asking permission to come. He came after he and his wife had quarreled, and Marina and I said to one another, we took this to be as close as he could come to an apology, and an effort to make up.

Representative BOGGS. That was the reason you thought he had come?

Mrs. PAINE. But I didn't inquire of him.

Representative BOGGS. You did not know that the next morning when he left he had a rifle?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Representative BOGGS. Did you see him when he left that morning?

Mrs. PAINE. No, I didn't.

Representative BOGGS. Have you been active in politics yourself?

Mrs. PAINE. No; I vote. And I am a member of the League of Women Voters, that is the extent of my activity.

Representative BOGGS. Do you belong to any other political organizations?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. Have you ever belonged?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Representative BOGGS. Are you, I don't know quite how to state this question, are you a practicing Quaker?

Mrs. PAINE. I am. I am also a pacifist.

Representative BOGGS. You are a pacifist?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Representative BOGGS. You are not a Marxist?

Mrs. PAINE. No; they don't go together, in fact. You can't believe violent overthrow and be a pacifist.

Mr. DULLES. Did you know Norman Thomas quite well?

Mrs. PAINE. When I was 8 I went to a rally of Norman Thomas in New York City. That was my only contact.

Representative BOGGS. Is your feeling towards Marina, shall I say in the Quaker spirit of friendship and hospitality, was that the main objective, plus the intellectual?

Mrs. PAINE. I was interested in the language.

Representative BOGGS. Intellectual stimulation of the language.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes. I found that while living with her, I could say that this day, at least added something to what I knew, what I--I learned a few more words.

Representative BOGGS. You never formed any opinion about Lee Oswald as a person?

Mrs. PAINE. I formed many, and I would like to make that a special area.

Representative BOGGS. Would you just tell me just in a sentence or two, I know you could go into it in greater detail, but was your opinion favorable? Was it unfavorable, or what?

Mrs. PAINE. I disliked him actively in the spring when I thought he just wanted to get rid of his wife and wasn't caring about her, wasn't concerned whether she would go to the doctor. I then found him much nicer, I thought, when I saw him next in New Orleans in late September, and this would be a perfectly good time to admit the rest of the pertinent part of this letter to my mother written October 14, because it shows something that I think should be part of the public record, and I am one of the few people who can give it, that presents Lee Oswald as a human person, a person really rather ordinary, not an ogre that was out to leave his wife, and be harsh and hostile to all that he knew.

But in this brief period during the times that he came out on weekends, I saw him as a person who cared for his wife and his child, tried to make himself helpful in my home, tried to make himself welcome although he really preferred to stay to himself.

He wasn't much to take up a conversation. This says, "Dear Mom," this is from Commission Exhibit No. 425, "Lee Oswald is looking for work in Dallas. Did my last letter say so? Probably not. He arrived a week and a half ago and has been looking for work since. It is a very depressing business for him, I am sure. He spent last weekend and the one before with us here and was a happy addition to our expanded family. He played with Chris"--my 3-year-old, then 2--"watched football on the TV, planed down the doors that wouldn't close, they had shifted and generally added a needed masculine flavor"----

Mr. JENNER. Wait a second.

Mrs. PAINE. "And generally added a needed masculine flavor. From a poor first impression I have come to like him. We saw the doctor at Parkland Hospital last Friday and all seems very healthy" and this refers to Marina. "It appears that charges will be geared to their ability to pay."

Representative BOGGS. Were you----

Mrs. PAINE. May I go on?

Representative BOGGS. Yes; surely. Finish.

Mrs. PAINE. This was an intervening section where he was the most human that I saw him, and, of course, it has been followed by my anger with him, and all the feeling that most of us have about his act. But it seems to me important, very important, to the record that we face the fact that this man was not only human but a rather ordinary one in many respects, and who appeared ordinary.

If we think that this was a man such as we might never meet, a great aberration from the normal, someone who would stand out in a crowd as unusual, then we don't know this man, we have no means of recognizing such a person again in advance of a crime such as he committed.

The important thing, I feel, and the only protection we have is to realize how human he was though he added to it this sudden and great violence beyond----

Representative BOGGS. You have no doubt about the fact that he assassinated President Kennedy?

Mrs. PAINE. I have no present doubt.

Representative BOGGS. Do you have any reason to believe he was associated with anyone else in this act or it was part of a conspiracy?

Mrs. PAINE. I have no reason to believe he was associated with anyone.

Representative BOGGS. Did you ever see him talking with anyone else, in conversation with anybody else or get mail at your home?

Mrs. PAINE. I never saw him talking with anyone else. He received all his mail from home, third class for the most part perhaps one letter from Russia.

Representative BOGGS. Did he have telephone calls at your home of a mysterious nature?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, did he ever have a telephone call at your home mysterious or otherwise?

Mrs. PAINE. No; never.

Representative BOGGS. You then would be surprised if he were part of any group?

Mrs. PAINE. I would be very surprised. For one thing, I judged, I had to wonder whether this man was a spy or someone dangerous to our Nation. He had been to the Soviet Union and he had come back and he didn't go as a tourist. He went by his own admission intending to become a Soviet citizen and then came back.

Representative BOGGS. What about Marina--go ahead and finish.

Mrs. PAINE. Then the FBI came, as I thought they well might, interested in this man who had been to the Soviet Union, and I felt that if he had associations this would be very easy for them to know. I didn't see any, but would tend to point to the possibility of his being a spy or subversive. But I didn't see any such and I felt happy that they were charged with the responsibility of knowing about it.

Representative BOGGS. Did you see any indication of any connection of Marina with any group that might be considered unusual?

Mrs. PAINE. No; no one called her.

Representative BOGGS. Did she have any letters?

Mrs. PAINE. She received a letter from a friend in the Soviet Union which she showed to me and mentioned to me.

Representative BOGGS. Was this just a normal letter?

Mrs. PAINE. Girl friend.

Representative BOGGS. What is your present relationship with Marina?

Mrs. PAINE. I have seen her once since the assassination. That was a week ago Monday. It was the first time since the morning of the 23d when she left my house, both of us expecting she would come back to it that evening. In the intervening period I wrote her a collection of letters trying to determine what her feelings were and whether it was suitable for me to write and see her.

I am presently confused, as I was then, as to how to best be a friend to her. I don't know what is appropriate in this situation.

By that I mean during the time I was writing the letters to her and not getting an answer when she was with Mr. Martin.

Representative BOGGS. Was your conversation last Monday friendly?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Representative BOGGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Mrs. Paine.

Mr. McCLOY. Might I ask one question?

You said that Lee had mentioned General Walker and indicated that he didn't like General Walker. Can you elaborate on that a little bit, to what extent, how violent was he in his expression?

Mrs. PAINE. No; it wasn't violent at all. It was more of, oh, well, more not giving him much credit even, but it was done briefly, this was in passing, so my recollection is hazy. But certainly there was no strong expression.

Mr. McCLOY. No vehemence about it?

Mrs. PAINE. Absolutely not, I would have remembered that. And I recall that Marina said nothing.

Mr. McCLOY. Yes.

Mr. DULLES. You mentioned that Lee did not receive any calls at your house. Did he make any telephone calls?

Mrs. PAINE. I heard him call what he said was the "Time." You know, he dialed, listened and hung up, and then he told us what time it was. That is all his social contact.

Mr. McCLOY. This is only on one occasion that he spoke of General Walker?

Mrs. PAINE. Just that one in my hearing, apropos of a discussion that was already begun.

Mr. McCLOY. We have rather interrupted the sequence of your questioning.

Mr. JENNER. That is all right.

Representative BOGGS. There is one item I might bring out along the line you were inquiring about.

You gave some consideration, did you not, Mrs. Paine, during this period, as to whether Mr. Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald, could or might have been a Russian agent.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. And we discussed this yesterday, as I recall?

Mrs. PAINE. Briefly.

Mr. JENNER. And what conclusions did you come to on that score and why?

Mrs. PAINE. I thought that he was not very intelligent. I saw as far as I could see he had no particular contacts. He was not a person I would have hired for a job of any sort, no more than I would have let him borrow my car.

Mr. JENNER. Did you give consideration in that connection? Did his level of intelligence affect your judgment as to whether the Russian Government would have hired him?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. How did it affect you?

Mrs. PAINE. I doubted they would have hired him. I kept my mind open on it to wonder.

Mr. JENNER. And you had doubt why?

Mrs. PAINE. Simply because he had gone to the Soviet Union and announced that he wanted to stay, and then came back, and I wasn't convinced that he liked America.

Mr. JENNER. Did your judgment of him, and as to his level of intelligence, affect your decision ultimately that the Russian Government might not or would not have hired him because he was not a man of capacity to serve in such a way for the Russian Government?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes; that affected my judgment.

Mr. DULLES. Have you any idea as to his motivation in the act, in light of what you have said in the assassination?

Mrs. PAINE. It is conjecture, of course, but I feel he always felt himself to be a small person; and he was right. That he wanted to be greater, or noticed, and Marina had said of him he thinks he is so big and fine, and he should take a more realistic view of himself and not be so conceited.

(At this point, Representative Ford entered the hearing room.)

Mrs. PAINE. And I feel that he acted much more from the emotional pushings within him than from any rational set of ideas, and----

Mr. DULLES. Emotional pushings toward aggrandizement you have in mind is what you said?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. McCLOY. When you testified earlier this morning, Mrs. Paine, about the dry sighting of the rifle, you know what dry sighting is, don't you?

Mrs. PAINE. I found out last night.

Mr. McCLOY. You found that out last night?

Senator COOPER. Tell her to describe it then.

Mrs. PAINE. Shall I try to describe it? See if I know? It involves holding the rifle and as if to fire and pulling the trigger, but without any ammunition in it. Going through the motions and, therefore, wiggling it and having to resight it.

Representative FORD. Going through the motions?

Mrs. PAINE. Of ejecting something.

Senator COOPER. A dry run.

Mr. JENNER. Is that sufficient, Senator?

Mrs. PAINE. Do I understand it?

Mr. McCLOY. That is a pretty good description, it is just as well as I can give.

Representative FORD. You actually saw him doing this?

Mrs. PAINE. No, he showed me last night how it was done.

Mr. McCLOY. We had testimony this morning whether he had an opportunity to dry sight the rifle in his New Orleans house.

Mrs. PAINE. I was just discussing what would be visible in the front of his house.

Mr. JENNER. We were having some testimony, Representative Ford, of Lee Harvey Oswald's dry sighting of the rifle when he was in New Orleans.

Representative FORD. Marina so testified when she was here.

Mr. McCLOY. You don't purport to say it was impossible for him to do it without observation but it was difficult.

Mrs. PAINE. It was difficult.

My then 2-year-old boy found a number of boys with trucks to play with right on that immediate driveway or alley as it is marked on the paper and small boys would have been very interested and they went right by there and Marina complained that Junie couldn't get her nap because there were so many children.

Mr. McCLOY. He could have done it very early in the morning without observation?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. DULLES. Have you any idea generally how Lee Oswald used his time, I mean when you weren't observing him when he wasn't at your house? Did he talk, tell you how he used his time? Did he use it on television? What I am trying to get at is--is there a great deal of time he had available to him that there is no way of knowing what he did. But did he talk about that, did he give you an idea of what he was, how he occupied himself, reading, television?

Mrs. PAINE. Talking just about the time after October 4 when he was----

Mr. DULLES. Yes; let's take it in that period.

Mrs. PAINE. I knew he was occupied with looking for a job.

Mr. DULLES. Yes.

Mrs. PAINE. How much of the day this occupied him, of course, I didn't know. I didn't see him. Then he got the job, and I judge that occupied him more fully. He spoke of one evening meeting he went to, this National Indignation Committee meeting.

Mr. DULLES. What about other evenings? Do you know anything about other evenings when he wasn't with you?

Mrs. PAINE. Except for the one in which he accompanied my husband to a Civil Liberties Union meeting.

Mr. DULLES. All right.

Mr. McCLOY. Did you, at any stage of your life while you were, whether living with your husband or apart from him, did you ever contemplate inviting anyone to come and live with you in anything like the manner in which you did invite Marina?

Mrs. PAINE. My mother completed her studies at Oberlin College in February, and we talked----

Mr. JENNER. February 1963?

Mrs. PAINE. No; just now, February of 1964 and we talked about the possibility as long ago as last summer of 1963, we talked about the possibility of her coming and staying for several months. I said I was tired of living alone. This is not exactly comparable, but it also is a search for a roommate.

Mr. McCLOY. But apart from your mother, there was no one similarly situated to Marina, whom you thought of inviting to live with you?

Mrs. PAINE. No one situated similarly that I knew either.

Mr. McCLOY. No; you didn't invite anyone?

Mrs. PAINE. Didn't make any other such invitation.

Mr. McCLOY. Anyone to live with you.

Mr. JENNER. Before returning to the automobile and somewhat along the tail end at least of Representative Boggs' inquiries of you, did you ever give any consideration, Mrs. Paine, to the possibility that Lee Harvey Oswald might have been employed by some agency of the Government of the United States?

Mrs. PAINE. I never gave that any consideration.

Mr. JENNER. None whatsoever?

Mrs. PAINE. None whatsoever.

Mr. JENNER. It never occurred to you at any time?

Mrs. PAINE. It never occurred to me at any time.

Mr. JENNER. That is all on that.

Was the absence of its occurring to you based on your overall judgment of Lee Harvey Oswald and his lack, as you say, of, not a highly intelligent man?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. There was some reason why you gave it no thought, is that correct?

Mrs. PAINE. That, and he was not in a position to know anything of use to either Government. I am questioning myself.

Mr. JENNER. Would you please elaborate?

Mrs. PAINE. As regards he might be a Soviet agent, what does this man know that would be of interest to anybody or what could you find out, and you judge he didn't know anything that the Soviets might be interested in, and, as I say, I never gave it any thought of the possibility of his being employed by this Government.

Mr. JENNER. Now, Representative Ford, Mrs. Paine had been relating to us her experiences with Lee Harvey Oswald with respect to his ability to operate an automobile, and she has up to this moment revealed some things to us which we had not known of and it is something that is causing the staff considerable concern. This is his ability to drive which is a proper connection with his visit to Mexico in some one or two instances and also his escape or his attempted escape and other elements.

We interrupted the chronology to have Mrs. Paine state fully everything she knows on this particular subject.

Representative FORD. It is important.

Mr. JENNER. If we can recall just about where you were because I would like to have you pick it up just exactly where you were in this chronology.

Mrs. PAINE. I had about completed the full statement of what I saw of his driving.

I will pick up by repeating when he turned a right angle corner he would turn too far and have to correct. I will complete now by describing my teaching him to park.

Mr. JENNER. Was this on that same Sunday afternoon?

Mrs. PAINE. There were, I think, three altogether, but I am not certain. This is the only particular reference.

Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, but I think, Mr. Chairman, Representative Ford, Mrs. Paine has related to us something we had not known, that this Sunday afternoon----

Mrs. PAINE. October 13.

Mr. JENNER. October 13, when she sought to instruct Lee Harvey Oswald on the local parking lot--was it by a shopping center?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. That he had gotten into the car, in the driveway, with the key, and had turned on the motor of the car, had backed it up into the street.

Mrs. PAINE. And then proceeded to drive to the shopping center.

Mr. JENNER. With Mrs. Paine.

Mrs. PAINE. While I complained.

Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Paine complaining because she was concerned; she is the daughter of an insurance actuary.

Mrs. PAINE. In my complaint I simply said that I would drive back, and that I didn't want him to drive on the street, but I didn't insist that he stop at that moment.

Mr. JENNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mrs. PAINE. I recall one other afternoon when he practiced just parking directly in front of our house, and when, as I say, after he had done this he wanted me to drive the car into the driveway, that being a little harder to do.

Mr. JENNER. Where did you keep your car ordinarily, in the driveway?

Mrs. PAINE. Always in the driveway in front of our house; the garage itself is too full of many other things.

Mr. JENNER. Did you leave the key in the car?

Mrs. PAINE. I never leave the key in the car; I always lock it.

Mr. JENNER. That was your habit with respect to the ignition key?

Mrs. PAINE. I always lock the car and leave the ignition key in my purse.

Mr. JENNER. You never leave the ignition key around your home?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, my purse was in the home.

Mr. JENNER. So it was not in the open?

Mrs. PAINE. He had to go in the purse, never. Just how he got the car started, I recall my shock that he had. But I must have laid out the key or something because I did not intend for him to start it.

Mr. JENNER. You didn't give him the key on that occasion to go out and start the motor?

Mrs. PAINE. Absolutely not.

Mr. JENNER. But when you came out of the house he had already started the motor and backed the car into the street?

Mrs. PAINE. No, no; I let him back it out.

Mr. JENNER. You did?

Mrs. PAINE. I was deciding what I was going to do.

Mr. DULLES. You were in the car at that time?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes, I had gotten in the car at that time.

Representative FORD. And he was in the driver's seat?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Representative FORD. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. Was he in the driver's seat when you came out of the house?

Mrs. PAINE. That is my recollection. Then, referring now to the practice of his parking.

Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, Representative Ford, the witness had also related to us, which we had not known, when she came to New Orleans in the spring to bring Marina from Irving to New Orleans, that Lee Harvey Oswald told her that he had driven his uncle's car, one of the Murrets, in New Orleans on the street.

Go ahead.

Representative FORD. Perhaps I should say that I have been absent for a half hour or so attending a very important committee meeting, so I didn't get this story from the outset and I appreciate being brought up to date on it.

Mrs. PAINE. There were two occasions when we practiced parking, one in the larger parking lot just backing into, pretending there were cars there to back between, as in parallel parking, and another occasion directly in front of my house. On this second occasion directly in front of my house he finally learned how to do it. He had had a bad time, getting his wheels too cramped and not getting in, and getting his wheels straightened out, a beginner's mistakes.

Finally, I got into the car and told him when to start reversing the twist on his wheel and cramp, and he said, so soon. It was a surprise. It didn't feel to him it was time already to start coming out of the turn.

And then he saw that it was when he then got into the parking place correctly, and quite soon got the feel of it but this was clearly his first experience doing it right, and then he practiced doing it right several times, and he learned quite well, I thought.

(At this point, Chief Justice Warren entered the hearing room.)

Representative FORD. On these subsequent occasions did he ask you to help him or did he take the keys and do it on his own initiative?

Mrs. PAINE. No, he never took the keys. I offered to give him--give Lee lessons on Sunday afternoons and we managed to do it a few Sunday afternoons, I think three altogether and there were a couple of weekends when we didn't get the lesson in, something intervened.

Representative FORD. This was in October of 1963?

Mrs. PAINE. October and November. I think the last lesson was November 10, being the last Sunday.

Mr. DULLES. What progress did he make over that period?

Mrs. PAINE. Considerable.

Mr. DULLES. Reasonable progress?

Mrs. PAINE. Very reasonable progress. I thought he learned well, as I have said, both backing and to make a right-angle turn, and really began to understand the feeling of parking.

Representative FORD. Did he indicate to you when he might apply for a driver's license?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes. Oh, yes. Thank you. It is a whole new section.

Mr. JENNER. I was about to go into that.

Mr. DULLES. There was some testimony on that point, I believe.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Representative FORD. Mr. Frazier testified that Oswald mentioned to him that he was going to or had, I am not sure which, and I was wondering whether he mentioned it to you?

Mr. DULLES. Got in line.

Mrs. PAINE. Yes, on November 9, which was election day, Saturday, in Texas.

Mr. JENNER. This was the weekend he was home?

Mrs. PAINE. This was the weekend that he was home, which was the last weekend he was home, don't call it home though.

Mr. JENNER. I am sorry. It was the last weekend that he was at your home?

Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.

Mr. JENNER. And he arrived the previous day, evening or late afternoon?

Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.

Mr. JENNER. Now starting with that Friday afternoon, please relate the course of events?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, I will say that we went Saturday morning to a station in Dallas where you can take the written test and eye test that permits you to get a learner's permit, but when we got there--that is all of us, children, Lee, Marina and myself, driving in my car to Oak Cliff--when we got there it was closed, being election day. I hadn't thought, realized that this would mean it would be closed. So we returned.

The next weekend----

Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, before you reach that.

Mrs. PAINE. Right.

Mr. JENNER. Are you reasonably certain that he came home or came to Irving the previous afternoon?

Mrs. PAINE. Certainly.

Mr. JENNER. Perhaps to refresh your recollection, do you remember a weekend in which Lee Harvey Oswald called from Dallas and said to Marina that he would not be in that Friday afternoon because he was going to do some job hunting the next morning, and that he would come the next day? Could it be that this was that weekend?

Mrs. PAINE. Well, he had already had a job that weekend, didn't he? So he wouldn't have been job hunting. I recall he was there in the morning, Saturday morning.

Mr. JENNER. Looking for another job?

Mrs. PAINE. Oh, well, no.

Mr. JENNER. You don't recall any discussion of his being dissatisfied with the job at the Texas School Book Depository?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. And was undertaking to look for another job?

Mrs. PAINE. No.

Mr. JENNER. There is no discussion?

Mrs. PAINE. There is one Saturday that he came out later but that was still in October. It was the second weekend that he came out, altogether he came out on the weekend of the 4th, so he would have come out on October 12, Saturday. It doesn't check with my recollection.

Mr. JENNER. So just to make sure, it is your present recollection that you can recall no occasion when you were advised by Marina or directly that Lee Harvey Oswald called and said he would not be in on that particular Friday but would come the next day?

Mrs. PAINE. I would be quite certain it was not that weekend. It is possible that this happened, I don't recall any discussion, nor did I have any idea that there had been any occasion when he had to look for a different job.

Mr. JENNER. Never any discussion on that subject?

Mrs. PAINE. Never.

Just to complete the discussion of automobile driving, I will go on to the next weekend then when he did not come out to my house, but I----

Representative FORD. That would be the weekend of the 18th?

Mrs. PAINE. Just prior to the assassination. The 16th I was having a birthday party for my little girl and said I couldn't possibly take him again to this place so he could take a test. But that he didn't need a car. This was news to him. He thought he needed a car for his initial test, learner's permit. I said he could go himself from Dallas.

Mr. JENNER. This was a conversation between you and Lee Oswald?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. How did it take place?

Mrs. PAINE. It must have been by phone.

Mr. JENNER. Did he call you or did you call him?

Mrs. PAINE. He called to the house nearly every night around 5:30 to talk to Marina. And Marina suggested to him that he wouldn't, shouldn't come out that weekend because I was having a birthday party and it had been a long weekend, the prior weekend. She didn't want him to wear out his welcome, and then I said to him he could still try to get----

Mr. JENNER. You did talk with him on the telephone?

Mrs. PAINE. That is my recollection. I am certain that I talked with him, that he was surprised that he didn't need a car. I had to tell him that he didn't need a car to take with him to take his test.

Mr. JENNER. Take his initial test?

Mrs. PAINE. Take his test, and suggested that he go from Dallas himself to take this test. Then he called us Saturday afternoon of the 16th to say he had been and tried to get his driver's permit but that he had arrived before closing time but still too late to get in because there was a long line ahead of him, the place having been closed both the previous Saturday for election day and the following Monday, the 11th, Veterans Day. There were a lot of people who wanted to get permits and he was advised that it wouldn't pay him to wait in line. He didn't have time to be tested.

Mr. JENNER. Could you help us fix, can you recall as closely as possible the day of the week, this is the weekend of the assassination, was it not?

Mrs. PAINE. The weekend before.

Mr. JENNER. The weekend before, and this conversation you are now relating that you had with him in which he said that he had gone to the driver's license station, when did that conversation with you take place?

Mrs. PAINE. That conversation was with Marina, and she told me about it.

Mr. JENNER. When did she tell you about it?

Mrs. PAINE. He called her, it must have been Saturday afternoon, soon after he had been, he went Saturday morning and they closed at noon.

Mr. JENNER. I see. This was the weekend he did not come out to Irving?

Mrs. PAINE. This was the weekend he did not come out.

Mr. JENNER. The weekend in which you had your birthday party for your son was it?

Mrs. PAINE. It was either that same afternoon or it was possibly Sunday, I don't recall. It is important though. I wish I could recall when his call to her was. Since it relates to the problem of when I dialed his number.

Mr. JENNER. Mr. Chairman, I have marked as Commission Exhibit No. 426 a form or document which purports to be a driver's permit or driver's license permit application by Lee Harvey Oswald. It is a one-page form document on heavy board, or at least heavy paper.

Are you familiar sufficiently with the handwriting or handprinting of Lee Harvey Oswald to be able to tell us whether the writing and handprinting on that document is or is not Lee Harvey Oswald's?

Mrs. PAINE. I am not sufficiently familiar. I can simply compare it with the only other thing I have seen in his printing which is what he wrote down in my diary.

Mr. JENNER. Refreshing your recollection in that respect and looking at the exhibit, if you are able to do so, would you give us your opinion as to whether the exhibit is in the handwriting or handprinting of Lee Harvey Oswald?

Mrs. PAINE. I think it very likely is.

Mr. JENNER. In your short talk with Lee Harvey Oswald on the subject of his having gone to the license application department in Dallas, was anything said about his actually having filled out a driver's license or a learner's permit application?

Mrs. PAINE. No; nothing.

Mr. DULLES. Could we have the date of this document?

Mr. JENNER. If it is dated. My recollection is it is not.

Mrs. PAINE. His birthday is on it only. Picked up at his room on the date of the assassination. I guess it was picked up, I don't know.

Mr. JENNER. Could I review this with you a little bit? Did Lee Harvey Oswald on this occasion tell you in the course of what limited telephone conversation you had with him, that he had gone to the driver's license application bureau?

Mrs. PAINE. No; he told Marina.

Mr. JENNER. And did--he told Marina and then Marina in turn told you?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. How near the time of the telephone conversation?

Mrs. PAINE. She told me immediately.

Mr. JENNER. Did Marina tell you?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes.

Mr. JENNER. She just turned from the phone and told you at once?

Mrs. PAINE. That is correct.

Mr. JENNER. This was spontaneous?

Mrs. PAINE. Yes. It may have been while she was still on the phone, I don't recall, but it certainly was immediate.

Mr. JENNER. Mr. Dulles, to answer your question the document is not dated.

Representative FORD. I was just noticing in the upper right-hand corner on the one side he lists his occupation as photographer.

Mr. JENNER. Yes; this is so.

Mrs. PAINE. This is what he wanted to do, not what he was doing.

Mr. JENNER. Would you please relate to the Commission what your impression of what his occupation was or occupation had been during the period of time that you had known him?

Mrs. PAINE. When I first met him he was working at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. And had expressed himself as liking his work. I gathered that it was a kind of copying or making up of advertising layout, develop a photographic process.

When we arrived at New Orleans he pointed to a building where he was working. I saw no writing on the outside of the building. He said--no, first on the phone when he first called to say he had a job, he said he was doing work similar to what he had been doing, photographic type of work.

Representative FORD. Work in Dallas?

Mrs. PAINE. He called to us in Dallas from New Orleans to say he was doing such work.

Mr. JENNER. In New Orleans?

Mrs. PAINE. Subsequently, I have heard it is not so, but this is what he told Marina and she told me over the phone. He said, and she told me immediately over the phone, that he was getting $1.50 an hour instead of $1.25 he had been getting, and then in New Orleans he pointed to a building where he was working, somewhere along the river, near the French Quarter, but a big large brick building with no particular designation on it. I don't know what sort of building it was, but he said it was the photo outfit where he was working then.

When he was looking for a job he said, now, in October, early October, he came back to the Dallas area and he was looking for a job, he said he was hopeful of getting similar work again, photographic layout, whatever it was. But that he was pleased to get any job that would produce an income.

Mr. DULLES. For the Commission's information, Mr. Jenner, is this not, that is Exhibit No. 426, a form which Lee Oswald apparently took home, or filled out somewhere, either his home or at the office, but it was never sworn to and is not signed.

Mr. JENNER. That is correct.

Mr. DULLES. It is not a completed document. It has no date on it.

Mr. JENNER. It is my information and there will be testimony and that is why I didn't go into the document, that it was found in his, among his effects in his room on Beckley Street. With permission, I might describe the document possibly a little more in detail in view of the interest and the question. At the top of the document under name there is hand printing on this form, first the form is entitled "Application for Texas Driver's License."

Mrs. PAINE. May I interrupt?

(Whereupon, at 12:45 o'clock the President's Commission recessed.)

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Misspellings in quoted evidence not changed; misspellings that could be due to mispronunciations were not changed.

Some simple typographical errors were corrected.

Inconsistent hyphenation of compound words retained.

Ambiguous end-of-line hyphens retained.

Occasional uses of "Mr." for "Mrs." and of "Mrs." for "Mr." corrected.

Dubious repeated words, (e.g., "What took place by way of of conversation?") retained.

Several unbalanced quotation marks not remedied.

Occasional periods that should be question marks not changed.

Occasional periods that should be commas, and commas that should be periods, were changed only when they clearly had been misprinted (at the end of a paragraph or following a speaker's name in small-caps at the beginning of a line). Some commas and semi-colons were printed so faintly that they appear to be periods or colons: some were found and corrected, but some almost certainly remain.

The Index and illustrated Exhibits volumes of this series may not be available at Project Gutenberg.

Page 2: Missing opening quotation mark: the fund for the Russian-born widow had reached $76,000."

Page 3: "No, I have no recollection of anything that she said?" likely should end with a period. Punctuation errors like this occur elsewhere and have not been changed.

Page 152: "RYW" may be a misprint for "RWY".

Page 224: "Mr. Ball. It is west of of your house?" repeats "of".

Page 229: 'Mr. Ball. That is about where you were, a "Z" when he entered the door' should be 'at "Z"'.

Page 262: "The Chairman. Mr. Whaley, will you wait outside...." was printed as "Mr. Chairman...." and has been changed here for consistency, to make searches more reliable.

Page 286: Added missing period between "m" and "?": and that is p.m.?

Page 320: "you have to go the meetings" may be missing "to" after "go".

Page 320: "She said the thought" probably should be "She said they thought".

Page 341: "in the early party of September" probably should be "part".

Page 363: "a bruise or contusion or ecchymosis" was misprinted as "eccmymosis"; spelled correctly earlier on the same page.

Page 364 and elsewhere: "Mr. Specter" misprinted five times as "Mr. Spector"; corrected here.

Page 375: "its jacket appears to me to be intact" misprinted as "in tact"; corrected here.

Page 383: "exit would labeled B, Exhibit 388" probably should be "exit wound".

Page 388: "Mr. Paine. That was in Dallas?" should end with a period, not with a question mark.

Page 481: "Does your interpretation" misprinted as "Does you interpretation"; corrected here.