The Enigma of Ruth and Michael Paine
by John Kelin
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Researcher Nancy Wertz began her presentation on Ruth and Michael
Paine by mentioning a program that aired on Public Television called
Connections. This program, she said, explored the premise that
"seemingly random and innocuous or irrelevant information sometimes
does form a pattern. It simply becomes a case of the sum of the whole
equaling much more than individual components."
A case in point, she said, was what she called the "high seas antics"
of eighteenth and nineteenth century pirates leading to the creation
of international law, leading to shorthand as a universal language,
and the evolution of phonetics as a learning tool. Fascinating as such
a seemingly random connections of data might be, Wertz said, "I
believe that we in the research communty were onto grouping and
analyzing casual and coincidental events long before they conceived
the idea for this PBS series."
Wertz said that Dallas in 1963 was a sort of cornucopia of seemingly
random connections. "After meandering through the miles of
do***entation in this case, I've finally come to two main
conclusions." She explained these with a straight face, but I'm not
certain she was entirely serious. "First, in 1963, I believe there
were only eight employers in the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area: the
Dallas Police Department, Bell Helicopter, the Carousel Club,
organized crime, the Texas School Book Depository, the petroleum
industry, and Federal government agencies."
To illustrate some connections here, she went on: "Harry Olsen worked
for the Dallas Police Department ... Kay Coleman dated Olsen, and
worked at the Carousel Club, and therefore knew Jack Ruby. Jack Ruby
shot Lee Harvey Oswald, who worked at the Texas School Book
Depository, Lee Harvey Oswald spent some weekend at the home of Ruth
and Michael Paine, and we all know that Michael Paine worked for Bell
Helicopter. That only took four to make connections, and we could
probably make six of the places if we assume Ruby's gun running
connections, and Bell Helicopter's need for secret security clearance
levels."
Her second main conclusion, she said, is that there were only three
places to live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1963. "Ruby's
apartment building area on Ewing --- it's just a hotbed of activity,
all the way down to the public telephone on the street. Ruth Paine's
Fifth Street area in Irving is also a central location. The other is
anywhere Lee Harvey Oswald happened to live. As David Lifton said ...
he moved ten times within an eighteen month period."
Two members of a jazz combo who played at the Carousel Club, she said,
lived across the street from Ruth Paine in Irving. But Wertz pointed
out that connections, or presumed ones, don't always mean something.
"In 1963 Ruth Paine lived on Fifth Street in Irving. Today, she lives
on Fifth Street in Tampa, and I don't think this neessarily means
anything." This got a pretty good chuckle going through the room.
The Paines are "two very unusual and multi-dimensional personalities,
and mired in many facets of assassiantion research," Wertz said. As
she wrote in a blurb appearing in the Conference program:
Michael and Ruth Paine have long fascinated researchers and
investigators alike since they were first thrust into international
prominence on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. While Marina Oswald
quickly distanced herself from the couple who had provided room, board
and a safe haven from her husband, attention continued to focus on the
Paines behind the scenes. As Ruth Paine struggled to deal with her
seemingly unique place in history, her actions and words continued to
diffuse and intensify the situation simultaneously.
Ruth Paine swiftly became the Warren Commission's darling witness,
second only to Marina Oswald in providing the necessary incriminating
evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole gunman. The Warren
Commission utilized Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole gunman. The Warren
Commission utilized the FBI to conduct excruciatingly detailed
investigation into the Paines' backgrounds, families, politics,
finances and personal associations. Internal FBI memoranda illustrate
the urgency of the scrutiny they avidly pursued. Amazingly, the HSCA
investigation allowed her to completely slip through their collective
fingers in the late 1970s.
"In recent years, some intensive examination of their backgrounds and
behavior have begun," Wertz said. "Many dichotemies exist in their
lives. They have not all been resolved, even three decades later."
Religion and Intelligence sometimes intertwine in their family
activities, Wertz said, adding that they don't always seem to have
lived up to principles they seemed to espouse:
Michael Paine was an avowed pacifist, yet he worked for Bell
Helicopter --- "One of the largest suppliers of military aircraft in
the Vietnam War."
Both Paines professed belief in the rights of privacy and the
individual, yet they were instrumental in helping all investigative
agencies in the denial of those rights to Lee Harvey Oswald.
"There is much more to learn and know" about Ruth and Michael Paine,
Wertz said.
Both Paines were raised in families "immune to monetary hard****ps, yet
were instilled with a strong sense of social responsibility to their
beliefs." But a key question, Wertz continued, is What were those
beliefs?
The FBI wondered the same thing, for two basic reasons: 1) The Paines
were the closest friends of the Oswalds in Dallas, and 2) Michael
Paine's father was on the "security index subject list" for political
activities. The FBI called their investigation of the Paines a "high
priority" of their overall casework, according to Wertz. Moreover, the
Warren Commission considered, early on, conducting their own probe of
the Paines --- meaning one apart from the FBI's. Apparently this never
happened.
FBI Headquarters struggled to maintain control of the Paine
investigation over its Field Offices and the Warren Commission. All
told, some 3,500 pages of do***entation were compiled on the Paines.
What did it all accomplish?
Wertz believes the FBI's findings fall into eight main categories.
"One was their friends --- tracing the social contacts they made in
both their hometowns and the Dallas-Irving area ...number two, their
educational background --- they reviewed nearly every class they ever
took. Can you imagine nearly all your grades going into a public
record, for generations to see?" Wertz said with an amiable laugh.
"Number three, their religious affiliations and activities ... number
four, their family histories ... number five, they investigated their
finances. Michael was the beneficiary of several trust funds, and
secured a monthly income from them ... number six, Ruth's summer 1963
trip across the United States to visit family and friends, attend
Civil Rights activities in Wa****ngton, DC, and seek moral sup****t for
her marital difficulties, and approval of her association with the
Oswalds and her planned rescue of Marina. A seventh area was Noshen
[?] Island, which was the summer home of the Youngs, which was
analyzed in excruciating detail. The eighth and final area, I feel, is
the alleged pro-Communist statements made by the Youngs in 1950 at a
social gathering.
"Nearly every do***ent in the Archives associated with them falls into
one of these categories. But the majority of the interviews and
investigations conducted by the Field Offices searched out school and
religious associations of Ruth Paine." These were mostly people in her
past, and not those associated with the Oswalds, Wertz said.
The image of Ruth Paine these people provided was that of a thoroughly
nice person, idealistic, charitable, generous, sensitive --- "I mean,
you start to feel like you're reading about Mother Theresa here,"
Wertz said. Yet Ruth Paine was not a typical early 60s suburban
housewife, according to the researcher. She was physically impressive,
intellectually above average, intensely interested in the Russian
language, and an independent woman who could handle finances.
Robert Oswald immediately distrusted her when he met her on the
evening of the assassinaton. He encouraged Marina, successfully, to
sever all ties with Ruth Paine.
"People have questioned the role she played in the investigation, and
rightly so," said Wertz. "If Lee Harvey Oswald was influenced by [the
TV show] 'I Led Three Lives,' I have wondered if Ruth Paine might have
been influenced somewhat by Nancy Drew," a fictional teenage sleuth
popular in a string of novels aimed at adolescents. She annoyed J.
Edgar Hoover with her frankness and attention to detail, Wertz said,
and flirted with the press after being thrust into the national
spotlight. After certain comments she made to the press complaining
about leaks of her Warren Commission testimony, Hoover fired off a
memo to the Dallas Field Office urging them to reprimand her
immediately. "The language that's in that memo sounds so much like the
reprimands to the Field Offices for an FBI employee," Wertz observed,
"that it makes me start to wonder what her real connection was." This,
she said, is an area needing further exploration.
Most of those who knew Ruth Paine expressed no surprise in her
altrusism toward the Oswald family. To the casual student, she seemed
sincerely interested in helping those less fortunate. Few seemed
touestion the extraordinary effort Ruth Paine made to keep in touch
with Marina --- and thus Lee --- from February through November, 1963.
Most evidence does suggest they all met at the home of Everett Glover.
However, one close friend, Wilbur Stratton, somehow got the idea she
had placed a newspaper ad seeking someone with whom she could converse
in Russian. "There was no followup on that ****tion of the FBI
interview."
From the time they met, Ruth Paine was the only consistent presence in
Marina's life outside of Lee. Oswald himself was willing to have Ruth
take care of Marina when he was ready to move on. But with Ruth so
willing to be at the Oswald's beck and call, Wertz wondered, "It's
hard to distinguish when Lee was using Ruth, and potentially vice-
versa." Ruth showed more concern for Marina's pregnancy than Lee did,
according to Wertz, giving blood at Parkland, filling out forms, and
driving Marina to the hospital when she was ready to give birth. She
sat up with Marina, and later awaited the call that Marina had
delivered a healthy baby girl.
Ruth Paine was cut off from Marina within twenty-four hours of the
assassination. With years of hindsight, Ruth has speculated there were
two reasons for this: Marina felt guilty for having lied about Lee's
rifle kept in the Paine garage, and Ruth was a reminder of a very dark
period of Marina's life.
To begin to understand the Paines, it is necessary to reconstruct the
initial investigation on them, their interaction with the FBI and
other government investigative agencies. Ruth's lengthy Warren
Commission testimony and subsequent correspondence with Rankin about
changes she wanted made illustrate her attention to detail in
attempting to explain her version of consequential events. Ruth was
further questioned when appearing at the Garrison trial yet her key
witness status was completely abandoned by the HSCA a decade later.
Later, Ruth was involved in the mock TV trial in the mid 1980s, worked
in the Pro-Nica organization and surprisingly slipped again into the
shadows. Exploration of her background continues with the release of
do***ents in the great paper chase that perseveres to this day. Along
the way, some interesting twists of cir***stances will be shared.
"In later years," Wertz said, "Ruth has denied reading assassination
research literature, yet she seems to know the latest investigative
trends."
The Paine marriage, Wertz told the audience at the Lancer conference,
was over by 1971. Ruth went back to Philadelphia, and taught at a
Quaker school there. She went back to school herself, and in June of
1981 received a Master's degree in school psychology from the
University of Southern Florida at Tampa.
http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/14th_Issue/leads_paine.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkelinJ.htm
Gen. Walter Dornberger, Michael and Ruth Paine
When George de Mohrenschildt was busy introducing Lee and Marina to
the Dallas-Ft. Worth White Russian displaced Czarists, he managed to
keep the social level equal with his American contacts. One casual
dinner in the company of Michael and Ruth Paine, and that was enough
meeting to set the Oswald's course. George and Jeane didn't have to
meet with them again.
Ruth Paine would provide housing for Marina while Lee went to New
Orleans. A few weeks later, she drove Marina to join Lee. After summer
vacation at Wood's Hole, Mass., Ruth returned and brought Marina to
her home in Irving, Texas, while Lee was on the bus to Mexico with
Albert Osborne/John Bowen, and four other Solidarists from the Russian
network. After Kennedy was murdered, the Dallas police rushed to the
Paine's home. From that garage and elsewhere, via the Paines, came
most of the incriminating evidence against Oswald. The alleged murder
weapon never could be proven by the Warren Commission as ever having
come from their garage.
http://www.ctrl.org/essay2/NCTJFKA.html
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