Ruth Paine is central to the story of Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly killing President John F. Kennedy. As noted in the last episode, Ruth was the driving force in getting Lee the job at the Schoolbook Depository building in October, which put him working on the president’s motorcade route on November 22nd.
Ruth always said that her relationship with Marina was a simple act of altruism and that she wanted to help Marina, while improving her own Russian by speaking with a native speaker who had just returned from the Soviet Union. But given the central role that Ruth, and to some extent, her husband, Michael, played in providing evidence to incriminate Lee Harvey Oswald, Warren Report critics have raised the possibility that the Paines’ motive was not altruism. Instead, they argue that Ruth, and possibly Michael Paine, were intelligence assets used to frame Oswald as a patsy.
In this episode, we first look at a mysterious package sent to Oswald at the Paine home. Then, we turn to the actions of Ruth and Michael Paine after the assassination of President Kennedy, before summarizing the evidence provided by the Paines to incriminate Lee Harvey Oswald. Was Ruth Paine a misunderstood good Samaritan, or was she a key participant in the cover up of the crime of the 21st century?
The Brown Wrapping Paper
Two days before the assassination, on Wednesday, November 20th, a package was mailed from the post office in Irving to Ruth Paine’s house. It was addressed to Lee Oswald. This package was never delivered to the Paine home because no postage had been paid. (12 cents was still due). When the Dallas police searched Paine’s home for a second time on November 23rd, they found a postage due notice with instructions for Lee Oswald to pick up and sign for the parcel that had been sent.[1]
So, what was in this mysterious package? Dallas Postal Inspector Roy Armstrong told the FBI that the package had either a newspaper or a magazine inside of it,[2] which is also the same thing that Ruth Paine told the postal inspector.[3] But, given that the package never actually arrived at the home since postage was still due, there is no way that Ruth Paine could have possibly known what was in the parcel.
This package was finally discovered on December 4th by Irving Postmaster CG Twilley in the nixie section of the post office where they put parcels with unknown addresses.[4] It makes sense that the package was found there because it was sent to Lee Oswald at an address that did not exist: 601 W. Nassau St., Dallas, Texas.[5]
So, a postage due notice was found at Ruth Paine’s house for Lee Oswald, but the Post Office had no actual package associated with Paine’s address. The only package the post office had for Lee Oswald was the one sent to him at the non-existent 601 W. Nassau St. address. Of course, none of this makes any sense. How could Paine have received a postage due notice at her house if the parcel was supposed to be mailed to this 601 W. Nassau St. address?
This enigmatic package was finally opened by Dallas postal inspector and FBI informant, Harry Holmes – the same guy who had been reading Oswald’s mail and who was present for his interrogation at the police station. Holmes said that the package contained “a long brown bag opened at both ends.” This paper was very similar to the paper bag that Oswald was said to have used to bring a rifle to the Schoolbook Depository. But, there was nothing else inside of the package – just an 18 inch long open brown paper bag.[6] The FBI checked this paper bag for fingerprints, but they weren’t able to find any.[7]
Some Warren Report critics allege that this parcel may have been sent without postage to have Oswald so that he would come and pick it up at the post office, which would result in Oswald’s fingerprints being on the brown paper used to carry the rifle.[8]
When we look at the FBI’s photo of this parcel we can see that a mailing label for 601 W. Nassau St. was applied over a handwritten address that said “Irving, Texas,” which was still plainly visible under the mailing label.[9] No one ever pulled the label back to see where exactly the package was being sent in Irving.[10] If the address under the mailing label wasn’t for Ruth Paine, then why was the parcel in the Irving post office and not in the Dallas post office, which is where the mailing label said it was supposed to be sent?
The Incriminating Phone Call
While Ruth Paine’s role in the paper bag parcel story was limited to speculating that the parcel was a magazine, on the day of the assassination, Paine and her husband, Michael were accused of something far more nefarious.
On November 26th, Captain Paul Barger advised the FBI that QUOTE “he had received information that a male voice was overheard in a conversation which took place between [the Paine residence] and [Michael Paine’s employer, Bell Helicopter]….Informant advised that the male voice was heard to comment that he felt sure Lee Harvey Oswald had killed the president, but did not feel Oswald was responsible, and further stated QUOTE ‘We both know who is responsible.’”[11]
The FBI report says the exact time of the call was not known and that this call happened on Saturday, November 23rd.[12] But, subsequent phone records demonstrated that the call between the Paine Residence and Bell Helicopter was actually on the Friday of the assassination.[13] While both Ruth and Michael Paine vehemently denied having foreknowledge of the assassination, they did both confirm multiple times to the Warren Commission that they spoke to one another on the telephone on the day of the assassination (with Michael calling the Paine residence from his job at Bell Helicopter).[14]
This allegation is absolutely explosive. But, like everything else in the JFK Assassination, it is intensely disputed and there is another side to the story. On January 17th, almost 2 months after Captain Barger first told the FBI about the call, FBI Agent James Hosty followed up with Barger to get more information about how he found out about this phone call. Barger said that he had been assigned to QUOTE “obtain a list of telephone tickets, or other helpful information” from the Southwestern States Telephone Company” and that “he felt sure the information he [previously furnished the FBI] had come from some telephone company sources, but he was still unable to identify the individual who related it to him ... ”[15]
But in his January 17th interview with Agent Hosty, Captain Barger gave a different story about the content of the phone call between the Paines. He had originally said that Ruth and Michael Paine both agreed that someone else was responsible. But in Barger’s retelling of the story 2 months later, he said that the male voice said QUOTE “Oswald would not have had any reason to do it, but when you get right down to it, the only guilty person is that bastard himself.”[16]
Keep in mind, this phone call, for which there is a phone record, was at 1pm on the day of the assassination – just 25 minutes after the shots were fired. At that time, no one knew who Lee Harvey Oswald was, and there was no way that the Paines could have known that Oswald was the one who shot Kennedy, unless they just assumed that Oswald did it since he worked at the Depository. But, that is a big assumption to make.
In a 1976 Dallas Times Herald article, Captain Barger told reporter Hugh Aynesworth that the source of the information about the call was a telephone repairman who was working on the line and incidentally heard the conversation.[17]
Warren Report critics note that there are at least two reasons why the phone call from Michael to Ruth Paine that day could have been recorded. First, Paine’s home line could have been tapped because Marina lived there and the CIA had at least 29 reasons to think she was a KGB agent per an internal CIA report.[18]Second, Michael worked at Bell Helicopter, a major military contractor, a business that very likely could have had its phones tapped given the sensitive nature of the industry it was in.
We’ve Been Expecting You
On the day of the assassination, shortly after Oswald was taken into custody, Detective Gus Rose was sent to the Paine home in Irving. As soon as the police arrived, they walked up to the porch, and Ruth Paine said QUOTE “I’ve been expecting you all. Come right in….As soon as I heard where the shooting happened, I knew there would be someone out.”[19] Buddy Walthers also confirmed that Ruth Paine said the same thing. Commission Counsel Wesley Liebeler found Paine’s statement strange and asked Walthers QUOTE “How do you account for the fact that Mrs. Paine said ‘Come on in. We’ve been expecting you?” and Walthers responded QUOTE “I don’t know. To this day, I don’t know.”[20]
Within minutes of the police being on site, Michael Paine showed up at the house and told Detective Rose, QUOTE “I came to help you. Just as soon as I heard where it happened, I knew you would need some help.”[21]Ruth Paine confirmed in her Warren Commission testimony that she had not heard on television that Oswald had been arrested at the time when the police arrived.[22] Paine knew that Lee worked at the Schoolbook Depository Building and that shots had come from there. But, she had no other reason to suspect Oswald. Neither did Michael Paine. So, why would Ruth tell the police she had been expecting them? And why would Michael tell the police that he knew they would need some help?
The Filing Cabinets
One of the most significant findings at the Paine home was a set of filing cabinets found by Sheriff Buddy Walthers. Walthers told the Warren Commission QUOTE “Then we found some little metal file cabinets…they would carry an 8 by 10 folder, all right, but with a single handle on top of it and the handle moves.”[23]
Regarding these filing cabinets, commission Counsel Liebeler asked Walthers, QUOTE “I have been advised that some story has developed that at some point when you went out there you found seven file cabinets full of cards that had the names of pro-Castro sympathizers, or something of that kind, but you don’t remember seeing any of them?” To which Walthers replied “Well, that could have been one, but I didn’t see it….I picked up all these file cabinets and what all of them contained, I don’t know myself to this day.”[24]
This story about the pro-Castro sympathizer cards in the metal filing cabinet didn’t just originate from thin air. It came from Walthers written statement on the day of the assassination that he provided to Sheriff Bill Decker. In that document, Walthers said QUOTE “Also found was a set of metal file cabinets containing records that appeared to be names and activities of Cuban sympathizers.”[25]
We previously discussed how Michael Paine and Oswald would often go to meetings of left wing groups and right wing groups. For Oswald, it’s always assumed that he is an enthusiastic leftist, which explains why he would go to left wing meetings, and also why he would go to right wing meetings (because he supposedly hated right wingers and wanted to learn about them). But, we can’t forget that Michael Paine also regularly attended all sorts of different political meetings. Paine’s reason for attending those meetings is generally thought to be mere curiosity. But, is it possible that Paine was gathering intelligence on these outlier political groups?
According to a FBI report, a man named Ed Buck and his friend Bettye Man had a notable interaction with a stranger at Luby’s Restaurant in April or May of 1963. The stranger struck up a conversation with Buck and Man while they were in line. He began talking about how the US was being too hard on Cuba. The stranger then asked Buck if he had ever met an ex-Marine who lived in Russia and married a Russian girl. (Hey, that sound like Oswald.) But Buck said he had not.[26]
The stranger then sat with Buck and Man while they ate. He said that he worked at Bell Helicopter and that he lived in Fort Worth, but he came to Luby’s near the Southern Methodist University campus regularly to engage in interesting conversations with students. After the assassination, Buck was shown photos of several people by the FBI to see if he could identify this talkative stranger. Buck said that he was certain that the photo of Michael Paine was identical to the man he met at Luby’s.[27]
This FBI report about Ed Buck and Bettye Man’s interaction with Michael Paine, combined with the meetings Paine attended with Oswald, and the metal file folders full of names and activities of Cuban sympathizers found by Sheriff Buddy Walthers strongly suggests that Michael Paine may have been collecting intelligence.
Summary of Other Evidence Provided by Paines
It makes sense that the Paines would come up in the investigation into Lee Harvey Oswald. His wife and children were living with Ruth Paine, and many of Oswald’s belongings were in the Paine garage. The question we all must answer is what level of involvement from the Paines, Ruth in particular, is explainable and innocent – and how much involvement is unreasonable to the point of being suspicious.
There were many key pieces of evidence against Oswald that were found at the Paine home. These include:
· the blanket in the Paine’s garage that police said had the imprint of a rifle in it,
· the backyard photograph of Oswald with the rifle and the pistol,
· the photos of General Walker’s house,
· the imperial reflex camera allegedly used to take the backyard photos and the pictures of Walker’s house,
· the incriminating note Oswald allegedly wrote to Marina after the General Walker shooting (which was found in a book that Ruth gave to the Secret Service),
· a piece of luggage that no one else saw Oswald with, which had markings from the bus Oswald was allegedly on in Mexico City, and
· the incendiary letter that Oswald supposedly wrote to the Soviet Embassy that seems to confirm his Mexico City trip and imply that he is working for the Soviets (incidentally, the FBI confirmed that the letter came from Ruth Paine’s typewriter, and that it was the only letter the FBI could find that was ever written from that typewriter).[28]
That is a lot of evidence to come from the Paine home. But, as a practical matter, much of that evidence came from Oswald’s bag in the garage, which is where it would be if he really was guilty. So, while it does seem like Ruth Paine just keeps showing up with new evidence to incriminate Oswald, in my view, the evidence that she produced alone is not enough to view her with suspicion. However, when we combine what we know about the evidence she provided with other actions she took, things get more interesting.
There’s the way that Ruth Paine met the Oswalds – at a party where the main event was to watch George de Mohrenschildt’s travel films through Latin America. The party itself is not suspicious, primarily because Everett Glover, the party’s host, says that he met Ruth through singing at the church. But, then again, if the claims from Joseph Dryer that we discussed in episode 41 are true, Ruth Paine’s father was acquainted with George de Mohrenschildt, which would make her meeting the Oswalds at this party with de Mohrenschildt a major coincidence.[29]
After their first meeting, Ruth pursues a relationship with Marina, and begins asking Marina to move in with her. Ruth then shows up unannounced, right as the Oswalds were headed to the bus station to leave for New Orleans, and convinces Marina to stay with her for a few days while Lee looked for work. Then, Ruth gave Marina and June a ride to New Orleans.[30]
Ruth and Marina wrote letters to each other while the Oswalds were living in the Big Easy. Then, Ruth comes to pick up Marina and June and takes almost all of the family’s belongings, including a bag that, according to the Warren Report, contained Oswald’s rifle - even though no one remembers seeing the rifle at the time the car was packed. From this point until the assassination, Marina and her children would live at the Paine home and most of Oswald’s possessions would be stored in their garage.
As noted last episode, it also appears that Ruth guided Oswald to get the job at the Texas Schoolbook Depository Building. Several potential employers for Oswald were discussed by the concerned mothers trying to brainstorm where he could work. But, Ruth focuses in on the Depository Building and even calls to get Oswald an interview. And when Oswald had a better paying, permanent job opportunity at Trans Texas Airlines, it appears that Ruth never told him about it.
But, aside from Paine pursuing Marina to live with her, getting Oswald the job at the Depository, and providing a lot of incriminating evidence, there are other reasons to question her claims that she was an innocent bystander to history.
As we discussed in episode 42, Ruth and Michael Paine have an uncanny amount of connections to intelligence agencies. Michael’s mom’s close friend, Mary Bancroft, was Allen Dulles’ mistress. The father of a character witness for the Paines, Frederick Osborn, Jr., was Dulles’ close friend at Princeton. And Michael Paine’s step dad was an inventor at Bell Helicopter, where Micheal worked and had a high level security clearance. Ruth’s father tried to work for the CIA, and ended up being a higher up for US AID, a CIA cutout at the time he worked there. And Ruth’s sister was an employee of the CIA. The Paines were not just regular people. They had connections. Whether those connections mean anything is up for you to judge.
It’s also true that Ruth and Michael Paine were Quakers – a religion that regularly worked with intelligence agencies after World War 1. In fact, the practice of Quakers working with intelligence was so common that by 1960, all Quaker and Unitarian welfare agencies were placed under suspicion by the KGB.[31]
In addition to these connections, Michael Paine is the first person who publicly connected Oswald with the General Walker shooting in the Houston Post on November 23rd. There are markings in Ruth Paine’s pocket calendar for the March 20th date when Oswald allegedly ordered the rifle. Paine said that she wrote this information down on November 23rd, even though the notation in the calendar says October 23rd.[32]
Finally, Jim Garrison claims that he subpoenaed the federal tax returns of Ruth and Michael Paine and was told that he could not access them due to national security. And during the Garrison trial, Marina said that she was told by Secret Service agents not to hang out with Ruth Paine because Paine was affiliated with the CIA.[33]
Nicaragua
One thing that could potentially shed light on Paine’s motives is looking at what she did with the rest of her life after the JFK Assassination. Ruth became the principal of a Quaker school in Pennsylvania, before moving to Florida, where she worked the rest of her career as a school psychologist.[34]
In the late 1980s, after she was retired, Ruth began to work with Pro-Nica, a Quaker affiliated organization dedicated to helping the people of Nicaragua recover from the years of fighting between the Sandinista’s and the CIA backed Contras.[35] Eventually, Paine became the director of the organization.[36]
Sue Wheaton was an American volunteer for a religious group in Nicaragua that worked with the Sandinistas (the group that the CIA backed Contras had fought against). Wheaton met Ruth in Nicaragua in 1991. Wheaton quickly began to suspect that Ruth was some sort of intelligence agent or informant.[37]
Most of the members of Wheaton’s group were stridently anti-war and were concerned about the military actions being threatened in the Middle East at the time. Ruth played down how severe war in Iraq would be by questioning how many civilians would really be hurt in a war. She also once hinted that she knew someone at the Embassy but was not open with the group about who she knew or how she knew them. Ruth had a photographer with her in Nicaragua, Sean Miller, who was frequently taking pictures. Ruth said that he was a student at Antioch College, who was taking pictures for the Nicaragua Network. But, the photographer, Miller, said he lived in Washington, D.C. And when Wheaton asked the Nicaragua Network about Miller’s photos, they said they had not commissioned him to take any photos. Paine also took copious notes in all meetings, including writing down the names on the membership list.
But, there are some counterpoints to Wheaton’s reasons to suspect Ruth Paine was CIA. First, Ruth always took notes. It was part of her personality. And, according to Warren Report defenders, the Sue Wheaton story about Ruth Paine is really a self-fulfilling prophecy because many of the people in Wheaton’s group were believers in a JFK Assassination conspiracy and were aware of Paine’s role in the assassination. So, they didn’t like her from the beginning.
Ultimately, for most people, the Nicaragua story reinforces everything they already believe about Ruth Paine: She’s either somehow involved in framing Lee Harvey Oswald or she is an innocent woman who was the victim of a series of coincidences that makes it appear that she was involved in framing Oswald.
Micheal Paine passed away in 2018. Ruth is still alive today. She lives in Santa Rosa, California and continues to vehemently deny any involvement with intelligence agencies or framing Lee Harvey Oswald.
NEXT TIME ON SOLVING JFK: We look at instances of alleged foreknowledge of the JFK Assassination. Then, we turn our attention to more impersonations of Lee Harvey Oswald leading up to the assassination of President Kennedy.
[1] Stovall Exhibit B, WC Vol 21., at 593; see also https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338297/m1/1/.
[2] FBI Interview of Roy Armstrong by SA Arthur Carter, 2/25/64.
[3] FBI Series 62-109090, WC HQ File, Section 28, at 2-3; see DiEugenio at 206.
[4] Affidavit of Harold W. Reed, 12/2/63.
[5] Armstrong at 783.
[6] James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, at 206.
[7] FBI Memorandum of 12/16/63 by Agent Sebastian Latona.
[8] See DiEugenio at 204-208. https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth339520/m1/11/?q=property%20clerk at 11; https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/pdf/WH3_RuthPaine_2nd.pdf, at 114 (One last point on this postal form and random brown paper bag: On the receipt from the Dallas Police property clerk for a November 23rd search of Ruth Paine’s home, it says QUOTE “Postal form label bearing name George A. Bouhe, 4740 Home Street; Postal form bearing name Lee Oswald dated 11/20”.[8]You may remember George Bouhe as the leader of the White Russian community who took Oswald under his wing before he became acquainted with George de Mohrenschildt. The Oswald postal form and the Bouhe postal form were inventoried together by the property clerk. It isn’t exactly clear what the meaning of this notation is from the property clerk. But, given that Ruth Paine told the Warren Commission that she did not know and had never heard of George Bouhe,[8] there is not a good reason why a parcel form addressed to him would be at her house. The fact that the Bouhe postal form is inventoried with the mysterious brown paper bag package only raises more questions.)
[9] Armstrong CD-Rom at Folder Nov 1-21, File 29.
[10] FBI Airtel of 12/13/63.
[11] FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 67, p. 51; see also https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/a-new-look-at-the-enigma-of-the-backyard-photographs-part-5#_n1
[12] Id.
[13] FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 83, p. 127.
[14] https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/a-new-look-at-the-enigma-of-the-backyard-photographs-part-5#_n1
[15] CD 329, p. 91.
[16] Id.
[17] FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ File, Section A28, p. 71-72.
[18] Indications of Intelligence Involvement by Marina, Oswald 201 File, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95568#relPageId=79&search=%22indications_of%20intelligence%20involvement%20by%20marina%22.
[26] https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11603#relPageId=3&search=arrb_luby's%20restaurant
[27] Id.
[28] Armstrong at 761.
[30] See Solving JFK Podcast, Episode 42. https://www.solvingjfkpodcast.com/post/ep-42-oswald-back-in-dallas-part-4
[31] https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/evica-george-michael-a-certain-arrogance
[32] https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pdf/WH17_CE_401.pdf; see http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2013/04/dvp-vs-dieugenio-part-87.html.
[33] https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKpaineM.htm; Probe Vol. 7 No. 3, p. 3
[37] http://jfkpage.com/Paine/Occurrence_in_Nicaragua.pdf; see also http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2015/10/steve-jones-confessions-of-ruth-paine.html (According to researcher Steve Jones, he claims that he spoke at length with one of Ruth Paine’s friends from Nicaragua, whose identity he agreed to not disclose. Jones says that Paine told her anonymous friend that her father worked for the CIA and that her 40 year old daughter would not speak to her until she came to grips with the evil she had done in her life. Paine didn’t clarify what “the evil” referred to.)
Comments