Chris Newton

Yes. I think the story was necessary to cover up how the draft came to be in her possession. The story was "good enough" for the commission despite sounding a little "fishy". The commission may not have even been aware that the furniture had not been moved or that Alan Grant had captured it in a different contradictory configuration. I think that if they had been aware of what the Alan Grant photo showed, the story would have changed. Scroll down to the highlighted parts for Ruth's explanation: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=43&relPageId=420&search=paine_and made and copy

Yes. Alan Grants photo, taken the evening of 11/22/63, depicts the furniture arranged just as Ruth's describes it before she asked Michael and Lee to move it on the evening of 11/10/63. She also stated during her testimony that all the furniture remained in that arrangement (post- move) through the date of her testimony. Another words, the two pieces of furniture, the desk secretary and the sofa/couch swapped places on 11/10 and remained that way through the early part of 1964. I think the furniture was moved into that configuration to support her story sometime after 11/23/63. The furniture "moving" incident with Michael and Lee didn't happen, it's fiction.

Two more good questions. I should have touched on this. The only reason to add the "re-arranging" of the furniture was to provide an impetus. It was this event that triggers Ruth's need to steal the note in her story. She says she called Michael and Lee into the living room to help move these two pieces of furniture and just before they came into the room she opened the part of the desk secretary that flips down and slipped the Oswald draft inside. Could she have simply hidden the draft without asking Michael and Lee to move the furniture? Yes. She "decided" to re-arrange the furniture per her testimony, no reason given. <insert standard sexist comment here.> I believe that the furniture was probably first moved around by TV crews setting up the best shot and lighting in which to interview her and Michael at the Paine residence. There is a good modern example of this common practice below. The couch has been moved into the middle of the room in this example:

So SD22, the last one on the playlist is pretty recent? I will check it out soon. full disclosure: I think Larry Hancock and I got a shout out from Stan in SD21. Maybe I'll come back to that story soon.

You can find many videos of the surviving crewmen on youtube. They also have a site on the ship. The Capt. was the only living MOH awardee not to have a medal ceremony at the WH in the 20th century, or beyond. The crew have been pretty vocal but forces bigger than they are at work here. It is one of the most shameful episodes in our history.

Thanks Jim and that is a really good question. I think the WC was working as hard as it could to frame LHO to the exclusion of all other suspects. If we look at the Paine testimony taken that evening at the Paine residence, WC Counsel Jenner and SS Agent Howlett reference the couch issue in very pointed questions. I don't know how anyone could conclude that they were not referring to the Detective testimonies and attempting to discredit them. starting here and continuing to the next page: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=43#relPageId=420&tab=page MR. Jenner. May the record show, and I will ask Mr. Howlett if he agrees, that under those circumstances, with officers approaching from the west, that the ladies sitting on the sofa or couch could not have seen them as they approached from the west? Mt. Howlett. No. (the "circumstances" being that the couch was on the north wall, the door was closed, the drapes were drawn open, and the officers had parked their cars to the west ) I'd be curious to know who prepared the floorplan because it has some serious flaws unrelated to the "measuring". There's no way that is simply a mistake.

If only there was an Arab horse transport ship we could substitute for GTR-5...

Hey Jim, I've believed for a long time that the USS Liberty debacle deserves a big screen presence but the chances of that, with it's potential anti-Israeli theme if the truth were told, are virtually nil.

Just to be clear, again. I was interested in the provenance of the last letter Oswald allegedly typed because many researchers, with greater minds than mine, had questioned it's authenticity. Ruth Paine's testimony was utterly confusing to me so I decided to examine it in detail. Part of that analysis I did was to try to identify the objects that were germane to the story and at first, one of the most confusing aspects was that there were two "desk secretaries". Once it became clear that the big desk secretary was in the dining area and that another was in the living room, I set out to find the "little desk secretary" in a photograph. The Alan Grant photo is the only photo I could find and while examining that photo I stumbled on it's significance.

Having established that none of the items, 9-13, are true, we are left with some major questions, some of which I touched on in recent posts in this thread. Here are a few more: Oswald had sent several handwritten letters to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., did it benefit Oswald to type this letter, at this time, tying him to Mexico and Comrade Kostin or did it benefit someone or something else? I saw no analysis by the FBI to match the actual paper stock of the typed Oswald Embassy letter with stock available in the Paine household, why not? Since the story we were told about the acquisition of the Oswald draft is untrue, is there any other part we should trust? Was the Warren Commission witting and complicit, along with the FBI, in pushing this falsehood? Did they do so to "coverup" or further frame Oswald as the lone gunman? What does this tell us about the Paine and Hosty relationship? I think everything needs to be re-scrutinized and examined under this new light. Could the typed letter have an earlier, maybe late October, origin? Certainly. The typed letter was intercepted under HTLINGUAL. That means the envelope was secretly opened and the letter was taken out. And read. And copied. And re-inserted in the envelope and re-introduced to the postal system so that it could reach it's destination. There are a lot of opportunities in that process for a whole range of letter hanky-panky. It's easier to forge a signature than an entire handwritten letter.

Paul, I've noticed that you've been reading a lot of PJM lately. Please stop. Inserting these fictional accounts around uncomfortable truths doesn't persuade us here. Typewriter............. used at dining table in kitchen/dining room Oswald draft.........found where? Ruth suggests the living room, Hosty suggests Marina's bedroom, I suggested the garage. No one but you thinks the draft was left "by the typewriter". There's more fiction in your statement above but it's unrelated to this thread so I'm not going to address it here. I have no problems with you defending Ruth, I expect you will always do so but when you make stuff up, like you frequently do, I am going to call you out.

That's the million dollar question, why was there a false story about the way Ruth acquired the draft? Was Ruth snooping through Oswald's stuff in the garage the four days a week he wasn't there? Was someone else? Were things added to Oswald's stuff in the garage? If Sandy Larsen had a bunch of his bags in my garage and the FBI came around to my house asking about Sandy Larsen... I think Sandy and I would have to be pretty good friends for the FBI to leave and not know about those bags.

Hey Vanessa thank you.

The problem with the floorplan not lining up correctly, as seen in image above, has more to do with giving Marinja (the Marina Ninja) an opportunity to "slip" out. The actual front door, living room/kitchen doorway and backdoor all line up. With no actual door between the kitchen/dining area, no one could open the backdoor and exit unobserved from the front door. Move both the front door and the living room doorway over 3ft. and viola, the backdoor could now be opened unobserved.

The little desk secretary was never on the west wall. It would have been an obstacle to travel between the front door and the kitchen. Ruth's testimony is that the little desk secretary and the sofa exchanged locations, the sofa was moved to the north wall and the desk secretary was moved to the east wall. This would be their approximate positions in the museum today. There's a double door at the front with a classic half-screen that could have been closed and the main door could still have been open. Ruth testified that the door was closed without being specific. I think a story was concocted about how the note was "discovered" and "acquired" and this false story had an unintentional consequence of contradicting observances made by experienced Detectives. I was looking for pictures of the little desk secretary when I first noticed the problems exposed by the Alan Grant photo. I literally tripped over that. I think the photo is the key piece of evidence and I don't know where it leads at the moment.

Sorry Sandy, for not making it clearer. Ruth is sticking to her story here. That if someone walked up the driveway and came around the corner of her garage; they could not see anyone sitting on a sofa on the north wall of the living room. I agree, If the sofa was on the north wall. If you're persuaded otherwise by the Alan Photo, Det. Rose's testimony and my analysis, the couch is on the east wall right next to the window and anyone sitting on it could easily have been seen from the corner of the garage. Rose testimony: "We walked up to the house... ...and I could hear the TV was playing, and I could see the door was standing open... ...and I could see two people inside sitting on the couch, and just as soon as we walked up on the porch, Ruth Paine came to the door."

In this cropped photograph (see note) we see Ruth, Marguerite, Marina with baby and Michael's legs. This picture was taken on the evening of 11/22/63 after the Paines and Oswalds had returned from the DPD by Life Photographer Alan Grant. Over Ruth's right shoulder we can see the little desk secretary. Ironically, it seems to have a note "residing" on it. Between Ruth and Maguerite we see a closed door and the lamp on the side table. The sofa is on the east wall of the living room. How do we know this? The closed door is the biggest clue. There are three exits from the living room. Two of those exits have a door, the front door and the doorway to the east bedroom hallway. The hallway door opens inward and to the left against the living room north wall (see photo below). There is no door for the exit to the dining/kitchen area and there never has been one. The moldings around the door are original and without scars from mounting hardware. Here is the hallway door, open, in another picture taken by Ruth Paine at Christmas in 1964. So... the furniture was not in the configuration that Ruth claims on 11/22, DPD Detective Rose who stated that he could see people sitting on the couch from the corner of the garage before stepping on the porch was being truthful and observant and the story about how Ruth ended the "residence" of the note on the little desk secretary was perjury. note: I have an uncropped "thumbnail" of the Alan Grant photo taken from the original negative strip along with four other unpublished thumbnails. They are of poor quality but they reveal much more than the version we are used to seeing. I will be revealing these for the first time in an upcoming piece.

Mr. Jenner. Is the desk secretary in the position now as it was on that Sunday morning? Mrs. Paine. No; it is not. Mr. Jenner. Will you locate in your living room where that desk secretary was, if it is not here? Mrs. Paine. It was on the middle of the space between the --the middle of the north wall of the living room. --------------------------------------------- Mrs. Paine That sofa has exchanged places with the small desk secretary. Mr. Jenner. And the desk secretary is now on the east wall of your living room : is that correct? Mr. Paine. That is correct. So let's be clear. Sunday morning the sofa was on the east wall of the living room and the small desk secretary was in the middle of the north wall. Sunday evening, per Ruth's story, she asked Michael and Lee to re-arrange the furniture and these two pieces of furniture swapped locations. Just prior to the re-arranging, Ruth slipped the "Oswald draft" inside the small desk secretary. Note: there is a large desk secretary in the dining room just to the right of the garage door. It can be found in the extant FBI photos.

Mr. Jenner. Anyone entering your home from the outside walking up your driveway and looking in the windows, would they see anybody sitting on the sofa you have described? Mrs. Paine. No. ----------------------------------- Mr. Rose. ....and I could see two people sitting inside the living room on the couch, ---------------------------------- This is the first "crack" in Mrs. Paine's "Oswald's draft story". The first time I read this section of testimony, back in the early 1990's, I could not comprehend why this particular piece of testimony was even germane to the investigation. It seems silly to testify about what someone could see from the driveway as opposed to the sidewalk. Who cares? Back then I was just a systems analyst, I had not begun my secondary career in litigation support and I didn't have the tools needed to read a transcript with a critical eye. What I know, now, is this -- There is very little testimony that is superfluous. In this case, the testimony of the Detectives that were the first to arrive at the Paine residence on the afternoon of 11/22/63 conflict with Ruth Paine's story surrounding her "acquisition" of the "Oswald draft". In this particular section, Jenner is indirectly referencing the observations made in written statements by DPD Detective Guy Rose and Buddy Walthers. Both these Detectives were called as WC witnesses and both would contradict Ruth Paine in testimony.

"On the 22nd, the sofa was where it is now, as is true of all the other furniture in the room." "now" was March 23rd, 1964. The image below is a capture from CE 430. It still has marks placed by Ruth Paine during her testimony. There is a large "X" in the middle of the north wall, there are two marks that may have been "XX", (and now are barely discernible), along the opposite wall (south wall), there are also two tick marks along the south wall east of the "XX". "I just want you to put an "X" as to where the sofa is, and put a double "X" as to where the television set is" I just want to make it clear that there was no confusion. Ruth Paine says the sofa was in the middle of the north wall of her living room on 11/22/63 and remained there until at least 3/23/64.

There was a "researcher" or "interested party" that went down to Werbel's place and knocked on his door hoping to get a story. The way I heard it was that he was fished out of a nearby lake or pond on Werbel's property a week later. He had told a family member, (maybe his sister?), where he was going and never came back. Apparently he had "fallen" in and drowned. Some leads you should not follow.

I want to discuss and beat around all the possibilities. Let me digest your theory and I'll respond soon. One quick comment, Hosty didn't offer a time period for when the draft may have been discovered in Marina's bedroom but I think that would have occurred long before the DPD search. During one of the searches, I think on 11/23, Ruth left local Detectives alone in her house while she went "grocery shopping". Could she have taken the document(s) out in her purse at that time? It's curious to note that Life Photographer Alan Grant tells that when he found the Paine home the evening of 11/22 (after dark), Michael was unloading grocery bags from the trunk of his car at the curb out in front of the house.

Tommy supplied me with this great link I use when I think someone has snuck a fish in my glove box: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/ Consortium News : high marks overall Centre for Global Research : Not so much (mixed reviews)

"Marquette" and "CIA" has shown up in the same sentence before: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00494r001100710132-2

4. Sometime after everyone, Ruth, Marina, Lee and their children, returned home from shopping on Saturday Nov. 9th, Ruth noticed a paper folded in half resting on the corner of her desk secretary in the living room. 5. The paper remained there untouched until Sunday morning Nov. 10th when Ruth awoke before the rest of the household and read the paper. 6. The first line she knew to be untrue. 7. At some point she made a copy of the paper. 8. She left the paper where it "resided" on her little desk secretary all day Sunday. All of the above assertions are in Ruth's testimony and I have citations in my previous thread "where's Ruth's Couch?". My main issues with the above portion of her story are: a). Ruth has admitted that she never saw the draft or the letter that was being typed. But... she immediately "knows" that the paper, that is folded in half, that appeared on top of her living room desk secretary is the draft of the letter that was typed that morning. Despite protests about this fact from other so-called-researchers, that it was obvious that this paper found in another part of the house was the same paper that was typed, no one has provided a logical explanation, nor was Ruth asked in any of her testimony how she "knew" this. b). Oswald spent a great deal of time in that little living room. Ruth complained about how much time he spent watching TV. He also spent some time playing with Ruth's child on the floor in the living room, something that Marina pointedly remarked that Michael Paine was loathe to do. David Lifton has suggested to me that Oswald left the draft as a "provocation" towards Ruth but if that was the case, please explain the purpose of provoking the woman that provided Lee and his family shelter and provided a place to store Lee's belongings ( and weapon?). c). Marina. Marina Oswald helped Ruth with the housework, the laundry and child care in addition to her Russian language assistance. Marina Oswald was shown Oswald's draft of his letter and told the FBI that she had never seen it before. Marina told the FBI, as noted in the 302 describing this interview, that she recognized Lee's handwriting and expressed shock that Ruth had been in possession of Lee's draft. (note to Ruth: this is probably the moment when your "friendship" with Marina went south, when the FBI revealed to Marina that you were a thief). No explanation is offered by Ruth as to how this draft goes unnoticed by Lee or Marina for a day and a half. I've listened to Ruth tell her story in many of the video clips that are available online. She has even given talks to groups about her experience in fairly recent times. It's telling, to me, that she generally skips over this part of her story. Here is the moment that she transformed from a simple housewife to an intelligence operative, she has surreptitiously acquired Lee's draft which reveals some kind of collusion with the Russians, lies about his dealings in Mexico and his distaste for the "notorious" FBI. According to her, she does nothing with this information, she doesn't even do what seems obvious, pick up the phone and call the number Hosty left and ask if this would help the FBI. Think about this for a minute... She is focused on what Oswald was typing. She is upset that Oswald wouldn't share what he wrote with her. The draft appears like magic in her living room. She reads it before anyone wakes up on Sunday. She concocts an elaborate scheme to steal the draft. She makes her own copy of it. She hides both copies really well. She does nothing with the information she possesses until after the assassination. She has saved this "intel" for the FBI and withheld it from local Dallas law enforcement.