The Real Ruth and Michael Paine

[Sandy Larsen]

1 minute ago, Pat Speer said:

This goes back to an earlier post. How do you know it was the "right place"?

 

Here is how it worked:

The CIA plotters chose a spot -- the TSBD -- for the shooting and for the patsy to take the blame. (Of course, some of the shots came from other locations around the TSBD.)

The CIA instructed Oswald to apply for a job at the TSBD. The CIA instructed someone at the TSBD -- very likely a CIA front -- to hire Oswald.

Then the assassination took place and Oswald was blamed.

 

1 minute ago, Pat Speer said:

There may have been dozens of other locations as suited or more suited than the TSBD for the planners' needs. 

 

Sure, there may have been other places. But obviously none of those were chosen by the CIA plotters. The TSBD was chosen.

 

[Pat Speer]

10 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Here is how it worked:

The CIA plotters chose a spot -- the TSBD -- for the shooting and for the patsy to take the blame. (Of course, some of the shots came from other locations around the TSBD.)

The CIA instructed Oswald to apply for a job at the TSBD. The CIA instructed someone at the TSBD -- very likely a CIA front -- to hire Oswald.

Then the assassination took place and Oswald was blamed.

 

 

Sure, there may have been other places. But obviously none of those were chosen by the CIA plotters. The TSBD was chosen.

 

I've read a lot about assassinations, and had a good friend in the military who planned out Ops, and I think you have it backwards.

IF there was a plot to frame Oswald (which I suspect there was) the plotters would assess Oswald's situation--where he worked, where he lived, how he got to work, etc--and base their plan around the facts of his life. I seriously doubt the location came first, and Oswald's employment at that location came second. 

I mean, this idea that a book distributor in the heart of Texas was a CIA front--and that the agents working there would work there for years before and years afterwards--is seriously scrambled, IMO. When one reads about the lives of agents  one realizes that these people move around a lot, and if they don't it's because they've infiltrated an important organization (like the mafia, a union or a bank). The TSBD had no strategic value. Having trusted agents work there for years before and years after an op makes no sense, no sense at all. 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 5/5/2022 at 6:07 PM, Pat Speer said:

I've read a lot about assassinations, and had a good friend in the military who planned out Ops, and I think you have it backwards.

 

I don't think so Pat.

 

On 5/5/2022 at 6:07 PM, Pat Speer said:

IF there was a plot to frame Oswald (which I suspect there was) the plotters would assess Oswald's situation--where he worked, where he lived, how he got to work, etc--and base their plan around the facts of his life.

 

Why would the CIA do that when all they had to do was instruct Oswald to take a job at the place of their choosing??

Had the CIA left it up to Oswald to get a job, he most likely would NOT have gotten a job along the presidential parade route. That's a statistical fact.

 

On 5/5/2022 at 6:07 PM, Pat Speer said:

I mean, this idea that a book distributor in the heart of Texas was a CIA front--and that the agents working there would work there for years before and years afterwards--is seriously scrambled, IMO.

 

Front companies are typically real companies that conduct legitimate business. Many employees have no security clearances and have no idea they are working for a CIA front. Some of the employees work full time for the CIA, have security clearances, and can work there for decades if they choose to and if the CIA can use them there. The income generated by the business is often used to pay their CIA employees.

 

On 5/5/2022 at 6:07 PM, Pat Speer said:

When one reads about the lives of agents  one realizes that these people move around a lot, and if they don't it's because they've infiltrated an important organization (like the mafia, a union or a bank).

 

I believe that only a tiny percentage of CIA employees play a James Bond kind of role.

I once had a TS clearance with the CIA and most the CIA employees I knew had jobs like analyst, research scientist, and engineer. I personally knew only one CIA agent like the one you describe. (I recall that I once was reprimanded for asking him, outside the SCIF, how the weather was "down south." Apparently that narrowed down the location of his travel too much LOL. On another occasion he called my boss, and my boss said he could hear Big Ben chiming in the background. LOL (The point being that he accidentally gave away his location. Well, we thought it was funny! 😋))

 

On 5/5/2022 at 6:07 PM, Pat Speer said:

The TSBD had no strategic value. Having trusted agents work there for years before and years after an op makes no sense, no sense at all. 

 

A front company isn't typically created to be in business for the life of a single covert operation.

 

Edited May 7, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I don't think so Pat.

 

 

Why would the CIA do that when all they had to do was instruct Oswald to take a job at the place of their choosing??

Had the CIA left it up to Oswald to get a job, he most likely would NOT have gotten a job along the presidential parade route. That's a statistical fact.

 

 

Front companies are typically real companies that conduct legitimate business. Many employees have no security clearances and have no idea they are working for a CIA front. Some of the employees work full time for the CIA, have security clearances, and can work there for decades if they choose to and if the CIA can use them there. The income generated by the business is often used to pay their CIA employees.

 

 

I believe that only a tiny percentage of CIA employees play a James Bond kind of role.

I once had a TS clearance with the CIA and most the CIA employees I knew had jobs like analyst, research scientist, and engineer. I personally knew only one CIA agent like the one you describe. (I recall that I once was reprimanded for asking him, outside the SCIF, how the whether was "down south." Apparently that narrowed down the location of his travel too much LOL. On another occasion he called my boss, and my boss said he could hear Big Ben chiming in the background. LOL (The point being that he accidentally gave away his location. Well, we thought it was funny! 😋))

 

 

A front company isn't typically created to be in business for the life of a single covert operation.

 

It sounds like we are in agreement that the spies who work for a front company either engage in lots of travel, or don't actually do the work they are purported to do (a la Maxwell Smart at his greeting card company). Bill Shelley and Roy Truly were hands-on guys working at a book warehouse. I've worked at warehouses. It makes no sense to me that the TSBD would be a CIA front (a fact for which you have no evidence, btw) when the nature of their work would restrict their travel and give them little or no access to subjects of interest to the CIA. 

Now, as I said, I worked at a warehouse. There were rumors, to which I was privy, that the owner of this warehouse sometimes used it as a cover to ship drugs. I came to believe these rumors were true. So I'm open-minded to the possibility the TSBD--which shipped orders all over the country--was used to ship drugs or guns across state lines etc. If so, well, then, Truly and Shelley would be in on it. Crazier things have happened.

But the thought these warehousemen were really top secret agents is just silly, IMO. And unnecessary.

I mean, if one is to assume they were somehow "in on it" then one need only assume they were compromised in some way. Paid-off. Blackmailed. That is how the world works. Putting CIA agents into cover companies that do work without access to foreign governments? And then keep them there for decades? That's not how it works.

 

[Denny Zartman]

Maybe we should clarify the difference between an agent and an asset?

[Sandy Larsen]

5 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

But the thought these warehousemen were really top secret agents is just silly, IMO. And unnecessary.

 

I agree. Rather, I think they had secret level clearances. And they may have been only "as needed" assets.

BTW, there IS circumstantial evidence that Truly and Shelley were CIA assets. And that the TSBD was a front for them.

 

5 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I mean, if one is to assume they were somehow "in on it" then one need only assume they were compromised in some way. Paid-off. Blackmailed. That is how the world works.

 

Huh? No, I think the CIA paid them for their work. And they weren't in on anything. They only did what they were told to do.

 

5 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Putting CIA agents into cover companies that do work without access to foreign governments? And then keep them there for decades? That's not how it works.

 

If you read this book...

The Almost Classified Guide to CIA Front Companies, Proprietaries & Contractors
By Wayne Madsen

...you will see that there were/are a lot of CIA front companies in the United States. And this book probably includes only a small percentage of the total number. (I looked up Signal Science in Santa Clara, where I worked in the 1980s, and it isn't listed. However, our competitor, E-Systems, IS listed. Maybe because E-Systems was a much bigger company.)

[David Lifton]

On 12/31/2015 at 6:45 AM, Gene Kelly said:

Jim:

I appreciate the renewed interest in the Paines. I do think they are "clear beacons leading to the killers" as Vincent Salandria stated. I also strongly sense the hand of Allen Dulles... I think he used them in the same fashion that he used Noel Field. I find this quote by Marguerite Oswald to be telling:

"The proud and perfect Quaker ... I keep saying she is a fraud and xxxx; she is evil, and selfish and the cause of it all. I would wipe up the floor with her."

 

Gene

Hi Gene:  What is the source of this Marguerite quote?  I don't recall this being in her WC testimony; but perhaps I am mistaken.  Thanks.  DSL (5/8/22 - 3:50 PM PDT)

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, David Lifton said:

Hi Gene:  What is the source of this Marguerite quote?  I don't recall this being in her WC testimony; but perhaps I am mistaken.  Thanks.  DSL (5/8/22 - 3:50 PM PDT)

 

Hi David,

I have the answer to your question. Since Gene isn't here I can give it to you.

Marguerite had a copy of the WC transcripts. She wrote comments in the margins of the pages with Ruth's testimony. Marguerite's papers are now at Texas Christian University. Thomas Mallon found the comments and recorded some of them in his book Mrs. Paine's Garage.

You can read more about it here.

 

[Paul Brancato]

Is thomas Mallon related to Neil Mallon?

 

[Gene Kelly]

David

I logged-in and saw your note.  Sandy correctly references the Mallon article, which contains the following quote:

Marguerite Oswald, who speculated that the assassination had been a government-sponsored "mercy killing," and who thought that her son, like J.F.K., deserved a burial at Arlington National Cemetery, showed up one day in 1964 at 2515 West Fifth Street and asked to take photographs "for the historical record." Ruth obliged, even if Mrs. Oswald "was not friendly, I would say." Marguerite left the house within minutes. Among the annotations to Ruth's testimony in Marguerite's copy of the Warren Commission transcripts — preserved at Texas Christian University with a ragbag of her other papers — one finds the following reflections: "The proud and perfect Quaker . . . I keep saying she is a fraud and xxxx.  She is evil, and selfish and the cause of it all.  I would wipe up the floor with her." Even Ruth, so devoid of mockery, now has trouble taking Marguerite Oswald, who died in 1981, with complete seriousness: "She was a trip."

Gene

 

[David Andrews]

On 5/7/2022 at 10:57 PM, Paul Brancato said:

Is thomas Mallon related to Neil Mallon?

 

I can't be sure.  TM is a middling historical novelist who's written Washington-themed novels on Watergate, the Reagan years, and DC characters of the 19th century.  I read one of his novels, Henry and Clara, because no one else has touched that particularly bizarre aspect of the Lincoln assassination.  Verdict?  Gore Vidal was sharper at DC novels, though I appreciated Mallon's effort.  Wish he'd address the tale of Henry and Clover Adams.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/authorpage/thomas-mallon.html

Edited May 10, 2022 by David Andrews

[David Lifton]

On 5/7/2022 at 3:52 PM, David Lifton said:

Hi Gene:  What is the source of this Marguerite quote?  I don't recall this being in her WC testimony; but perhaps I am mistaken.  Thanks.  DSL (5/8/22 - 3:50 PM PDT)

Thanks!  (I would never have known about this, were it not for the London Education Forum).

Edited May 13, 2022 by David Lifton

[Pete Mellor]

On 5/10/2022 at 3:35 PM, Gene Kelly said:

Marguerite Oswald, who speculated that the assassination had been a government-sponsored "mercy killing," and who thought that her son, like J.F.K., deserved a burial at Arlington National Cemetery,

I think this first appeared in 1965 in Jean Stafford's 'A Woman in History' where Marguerite rambles about JFK's life threatening illnesses leading to the government mercy killing.

Stafford also writes that Marguerite "had petitioned to have Lee Harvey buried in Arlington Cemetery".  Although no mention is made as to who and when Mrs Oswald made the petition.