Joe Bauer

If Markham's questioners had helped Markham by sorting out and better explaining each of their questions maybe her answers wouldn't have sounded so laughably confused and self-contradictory? I actually burst out laughing the first time I read the testimony exchange between Ball and Markham because it reminded me so much of the Abbot and Costello "Who's On First" routine. Costello: That's what I want to find out. Abbott: I say Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know's on third. Costello: Are you the manager? Abbott: Yes. Costello: You gonna be the coach too? Abbott: Yes. Costello: And you don't know the fellows' names? Abbott: Well I should. Costello: Well then who's on first? Abbott: Yes. Costello: I mean the fellow's name. Abbott: Who. Costello: The guy on first. Abbott: Who. Costello: The first baseman. Abbott: Who. Costello: The guy playing... Abbott: Who is on first! Costello: I'm asking YOU who's on first. Abbott: That's the man's name. Costello: That's who's name? Abbott: Yes. Costello: Well go ahead and tell me. Abbott: That's it. Costello: That's who? Abbott: Yes.

Have never read of this story. What happened there? My brother was an air policeman stationed at an Air Force Base in Morocco around 1960 and forward. The same base? By the way...not to veer off the LBJ subject at all but this Morocco base is where my brother and his fellow AP's on guard duty one sight saw several circular red objects hovering over the base. With one dropping down and slowly flying over ground parked bombers. Then...shooting off into the sky at such a fast rate you had to be staring at it directly to notice it doing so versus thinking it just blinked off. My brother told me that when his security detail called in their sighting to their superior officer that there was a long pause and then this command: "We have nothing on radar. Therefore, you saw nothing. And don't write home about it."

So, the answer is yes?

I agree.

One thing no one disputes: Ruth Paine disliked Lee H. Oswald. I believe much more deeply than she has ever admitted in public. Probably even despised him. Ruth Paine was 110% in when it came to looking out for Marina. Definitely protectively but also I believe even possessively so. She felt Oswald abused Marina. And that he was also a no-count yet arrogant little loser and a xxxx to boot! Good riddance! I don't think RP had any feelings of sorrow or sympathy when Lee was picked up and killed just two days later. I believe RP looked at this situation as a release for Marina more than any other. A release from the chaos and abuse RP felt Marina endured with Lee. I think RP may have also thought she now had Marina all to herself. She could take care of and be close to her indefinitely. "I love you Marina. I want to live with you."

Didn't it even cross Ruth Paine's intelligent mind that anything with Lee Harvey Oswald's name on it was super important evidence that every police agency involved would have raced over to pick up? Ruth Paine mentioned many times over the years how "deeply offended" and overtly angry she was at Oswald for using her typewriter without her permission. How dare he! How then did she feel when for weeks these Russia commie newspapers and who knows what other commie organization literature items were being delivered right to her house? To be seen by the mail carriers and probably reported to the FBI by the postmaster? If Ruth Paine was that worked up over Oswald's unapproved use of her typewriter...one would think she would have really blown her stack at Oswald turning her home into a commie literature repository...and in so doing probably attracting the suspicious attention of the FBI and other agencies and perhaps putting even herself under their suspicion? What other things of Lee Harvey Oswald did Ruth Paine simply throw away right after 11,22,1963?

There are so many testimonials as to LBJ's devious, demented and even sadistic psychopathy and his unbridled lust for power, money and sexual indulgence ( on levels that are way, way beyond the sanitized academic history books) that it is sadly negligent that we allow such a perversity of truth to still be propagated and even promoted decades after LBJ's life doings. Is it an axiom of secondary level history class instruction that our young men and women not be told the real truth about LBJ? That they could not handle the truth of his corruption? That instead they can only handle a Pollyannish version of LBJ? LBJ...the benevolent father of the "Great Society" programs that lifted black Americans into an equal opportunity standing regards education, jobs, voting rights and other areas of the American dream? Powerfully corrupt men throughout history have given away much material gain to others. Brutal dictators can kill thousands and yet at the same time share some of their wealth to those under their rule to gain their tacit support.

Sometimes in considering the integrity of books about the JFKA I have to always ask myself...why did this person write this book? Many times you can easily see that the main ( and only ) reason was to make money. Modern era JFKA writers like Bill O'Reilly, Roger Stone and others made "a lot" of money from their JFK tomes. Have to believe earlier writers like Vincent Bugliosi and Gerald Posner did as well. Norman Mailer? However, most of the JFKA theory books made their writers very little money. Some hardly anything. With Barr McClellan I am curious if his JFKA book made him anything more than expense money? If BM didn't write his book for money only...why would he do so? What would be the reward and gain? Fame? It seems to me that BM exposed the true level of power, influence and corruption in the highest rungs of Texas government and specifically Ed Clark more thoroughly than any writer before by far. And how that power was implemented through and protected by his law firm. To me BM's book is important in revealing the true level of power and corruption in the state of Texas during LBJ's entire political career. How such corruption and power remained in place in those highest levels for decades. The more we learn about the true level of corruption in Texas all during that time, the more rational it seems to not dismiss "anything" that is suggested about what those extremely corrupt men were capable of doing...and did. The murder of Henry Marshall is one of the most brutally graphic and exposing keystones of that corruption. The suspension of a jury reached conviction of "murder with malice" regards LBJ protege Mac Wallace is another. I think the huge majority of those who have seriously studied the Marshall "suicide" believe it was Wallace who did the deed. Who could owe LBJ more than convicted murderer Mac Wallace? LBJ made him a free man! Unbelievable corruption of justice there. So, like LBJ told Walter Cronkite in a 1969 interview...I don't think anyone can be absolutely sure others were not involved with Oswald ( not the exact quote but close ) I don't think anyone can be "absolutely sure" that the kings of Texas corruption at that time had nothing to do with at least some aspect of the JFKA. Barr McClellan's expose of the true level of Texas corruption and power and the closeness of it's head ( Ed Clark ) and LBJ has been verified in credible accountings yes? Just in that context alone I value the book's importance more than others who seem to just trash it. McClellan was right there in Clark's enabling law firm. I found much of his observations about the inner workings there intriguingly interesting. It gives one an insight how such unbridled corruption can be acquired and maintain it's hold on some of our highest levels of government institutions. IMO anyways.

RB, could you please list the most scathing things this rancher said about LBJ? Did he say anything about LBJ that would suggest he thought LBJ was capable of ordering murders?

UFO YouTube Movies & TV Drama • 2018

If Castro or even the Russians were behind the JFKA and our top military leaders, intelligence agencies and certain elected officials knew they were ... Do you really think they wouldn't have carried out an equally brutal retaliation upon them? If it was Castro and we knew it...he wouldn't have had a good night's sleep the rest of his long life. Can't imagine leaving the Russians relatively unpunished as well, if we knew it was them.

A few observations and speculations about this thread topic and Ruth Paine. Ruth was very intelligent, well educated ( masters in child psychology? ) well read and quite well spoken ... agreed? She was social causes engaged ( civil rights) even before the Oswalds. She had done quite a bit of traveling in her life. Much of this related to her social cause missions. I find her driving all around a good size part of the U.S. on her Summer of 1963 vacation "alone" with her two young children ( thousands of miles of driving ) quite confident even courageous. On her way back from her months long Summer of 1963 driving adventure she even swung all the way down to New Orleans to pick up the pregnant Marina and her baby June to go back and live with her in Irving. Ruth Paine quote " I love you Marina and want to live with you." My point is that Ruth was obviously a smart, quick minded, multiple interests curious person. Verbally inclined. Easy to talk to per FBI agent James Hosty's reports. She liked to engage with others as did her husband Michael. In the Trial Of Lee Harvey Oswald documentary piece Gerry Spence questioned Ruth Paine about many things including her sister and her sister's occupation in Virginia or wherever. Ruth had a very good memory about Oswald related subjects including her personal engagements with him. She quoted him even though there wasn't much discussion on his part. She remembered many details about such things as Oswald using her typewriter without asking. Spence really got under RP's skin. She was rattled and lost her composure at times. He got Ruth to admit she didn't like Lee Oswald. An understatement. Lee "deeply offended" Ruth. So obvious she could not stand the guy. And when it came time to ask Ruth about these same questions on this thread regards her sister Silvia in Virginia and her possible ties to who knows who, Ruth came up with the same vague answers to his questions. Ruth didn't know hardy anything about her sister's possible secret agency position and duties. IMO I just don't see Ruth not asking her sister anything about her work and position. Ruth was an inquisitive person. A talkative person. Not a shy demurring person. Actually kind of aggressively so especially in her humanitarian work efforts. I don't buy her " I just never asked her about it" answers to questions regarding her sister. And she seemed purposely hesitant, vague and even uncomfortable in dealing with these questions. If I am visiting a sibling I am close to and see only every few years, and staying with them for days, I am going to ask a lot of questions about their life including their jobs. It's just what people do. I could see RP's sister telling Ruth..."I can't talk about it." And leave it at that. Which Ruth would have known would have ramped up even more suspicion about her sister's line of work if she repeated that to her questioners. So, just keep it vague. Play the "I'm not sure" and "I don't remember game" if you will. Ruth's sister clearly did something in her work that begged more curiosity than being a waitress at a Denny's restaurant.

There have been hundreds ( if not thousands ) of opinions and theories proposed considering Lee Harvey Oswald's psychological makeup. I am curious about the part of that makeup that deals with Oswald's extreme difficulty in learning to drive a car. I imagine Oswald was too poor to buy a car before he joined the Marines at 17 ? And Lee was probably used to taking busses everywhere from a very young age. People rode busses more in his time than they have in the last 5 decades. And once in the Marines do you even need a car? Then LHO travels to Russia and lives in Minsk for what...3 years? I guess owning a car was not the norm there and in most of Russia at that time? Too expensive for their communist collective low wages? Sounds like most everyone there also took busses. So Lee then brings Marina and baby June back here to the states. What a poor situation Lee immediately found himself in upon arriving here and trying to provide just the simple basic needs for his young family. He has no decent chunk of money saved up to get his family into a place to stay on their own. Lee's family ( Robert and his mother ) have no means of providing that amount of funds although brother Robert helps in the very beginning with sharing his home and food costs until Lee can find a job and get at least a couple of paychecks saved to move out on his own. Oswald's jobs are almost always low pay and manual labor ones. He doesn't stay too long on them before quitting ( or being fired ) for various reasons. After leaving Robert's home he and Marina do the best they can. Living in a succession of lowest rent apartments. Soon enough, through some social engagements with the White Russian community ( and Ruth Paine ) certain people in that group see how poor Lee and Marina are and start offering needed items to help them. Clothing, baby furniture, etc. They offer rides to needed destinations like stores. Ruth Paine and even the De Mohrenschildts help them move from place to place. Marina's situation with Lee becomes more strained and Marina actually finds shelter in a couple of White Russian member's homes when things get real bad. Eventually Ruth comes all the way to New Orleans to get Marina and baby June and their belongings ( including Lee's ) out of their cockroach infested apartment and drives them back to Irving to live with her. They leave Lee to fend for himself in New Orleans. Lee collects miniscule unemployment checks during his time there before eventually taking a bus back to Dallas, with a vacation side trip to Mexico City. I state this background story to set up the importance of the following questions: Having a car in American towns of any decent size back in the early 1960's was an absolute necessity to providing one's young family with the most basic needs fulfillment. Lee's young family really suffered by not having a car, by Lee's inability to even drive one and had to endure the humiliation of having to rely on the efforts of others to help them in their transportation needs even if it wasn't an everyday thing. Lee and Marina and baby June walked to and fro for so many needed provisions and even outings and had to take busses as well. Lee H. O. was intelligent. He was in air traffic control in his Atsugi assignment service time. He learned Russian in his spare time. He must have learned some mechanical skills working in a radio factory in Minsk. He worked for Jagger-Chiles-Stovall graphic arts company for a while. He even learned the skill of cleaning coffee machines at Reilly Coffee company in New Orleans! What mental block, what emotional fear insecurity blocked Oswald from even trying to learn how to drive a car until the very end of his 24 year long life? Is fear of driving a car a real psychological condition and one that is more common than we all know? If LHO had learned this skill, if he had a car...clearly his life with Marina here in the states would have had a better chance at succeeding. Lee tries to kill General Walker using a bus for transportation to and from his kill shot place. He takes busses to and from his TXSBD job with a once-a- week reprieve via Wesley Frazier's generosity. He supposedly defeats an army of presidential security in doing JFK...and once again simply catches a bus to get away? What emotional/psychological affliction prevented LHO from learning to drive a car?

The audience in this Occidental College debate favored Lane. One would assume the audience was made up of mostly college age young people? This was a real "Rock Em - Sock Em" debate. A 12 round slugfest. Helen Markham lied so much when questioned she had to be the worst witness of them all. The woman seemed highly traumatized to me. Lot of exaggerated fears. No hesitation in changing her story regardless of the consequences. My guess is that she had a very abusive childhood and/or was abused in some other way, such as an assault or abusive husband?

Speaking of Ruth Paine actually giving Lee Oswald driving lessons, did she do this? Did I once read erroneously or correctly that according to Ruth, Lee didn't do too well? That he loved hitting curbs and bushes while over or under turning the wheel? That even in open parking lot areas she clung on for dear life as Lee drove like he was on one of those "bumper cars" amusement park rides? "Okay Lee, give it a little gas, no-no not that much! HIT THE BRAKES ( both her and Lee violently thrown forward ) ... but not THAT hard! Okay...now, slowly get going again ... but go easy this time...now turn the wheel left ... no, no, don't over-turn...watch out for that bush! OMG you just missed hitting that parked car! Stop the car...STOP THE CAR! Just, just get out...I'm taking over." No wonder she would never knowingly let Lee take her car out on his own. There were three things Ruth was ferociously possessive and protective of in her home regards Lee Oswald ever touching them without her permission...her typewriter, her car and her record player. Ruth testified under oath she was deeply offended and upset when she discovered Lee had used her typewriter without her permission.

Why are so many people who have lived a life of privilege and wealth obsessed with saving a nickel even if it means cheating the legal system? Almost a billionaire Martha Stewart risked going to jail ( and did!) by cheating the Wall Street rules system to save a measly $250,000? D.J. Trump has a new watch sent out of state and then back to him to avoid paying sales tax on it? Michael Paine is a piece of work it appears. Trust fund spoiled, arrogant about his academic background to the point of making fun of Lee Oswald as an uneducated loser who wasn't even aware of his true level of ignorance. Why did the Paine's divorce after only 5 years together? I read that it was Ruth who wanted to end the marriage. Was Michael Paine cheating on her? Ruth would rather live with young Marina Oswald than Michael? "I love you Marina and I want to live with you."

WOW!

And where are those two bullet fragments? Were they documented and put into the official evidentiary record?

Mind blowing!

Is this memo for real? If so, isn't this a probable "smoking gun" bomb shell piece of documentation evidence? The FBI knew about Landis ( or at least some other SS agent ) and his bullet discovery from the limo...the very day of the assassination?

I've held this same view for my entire adult life. And I consider myself one of the most respectful, defending and hugely promoting fans of JFK/Jackie and their legacy image of classiness, sophistication, physical attractiveness, moral decency, populist virtue, and on and on and on. My wife happened to catch this odd article mention of the Jackie incident. If true, it was something so incongruous to the over-all romantic JFK/Jackie historical story I felt a nagging curiosity to verify it's provenance. I'm going to edit my post mentioning the incident out of respect for the forum's integrity, but I'm at a point in my life where I can handle and maybe even discuss the "full truth" of people's lives ( who I have considered heroic in their over-all lifetime achievements) without fearing it is blasphemous for me to do so. JFK and Jackie were just people like the rest of us in their private lives. Of course they had their own struggles and stresses. I can handle reading about and maybe even mentioning a few of them once in a great while, without feeling guilty about it. I do see the point however that discussion of such stories ( which many consider gossip/dirt ) are probably best relegated to venues like the National Enquirer? My apologies to the forum.

Around every 11,22 JFK date it's "Melancholy Baby" all over again. Ernie Burnett, who is credited with composing the music, was wounded fighting in the First World War, from which he lost his memory and his identity dog tags. While recuperating in hospital, a pianist entertained the patients with popular tunes including "Melancholy Baby". Burnett rose from his sickbed and exclaimed, "That's my song!" He had regained his memory.[3] A potential contender for the songwriting credit of "My Melancholy Baby" is the American pianist Ben Light. He claimed to have composed the song in 1908 as a teenager, although he did not pursue copyright protection for his work.[4][5]

In one letter, Marina wrote to Paine: “I kiss and hug you and the children.” “I love you Marina and want to live with you,” Paine said in a particularly effusive reply. "I love you Marina." ? And " I want to live with you?" That's about as "deepest affection" direct as one can be imo. "I care about you" would seem a more appropriate affection statement. If I got a letter telling me " I love you" and the sender wasn't my mother or daughter I would be deeply stirred or even stimulated in a way different than direct family. Not to go off on a Ruth Paine sexual orientation path but ... If Ruth was truly that physically and even mentally drawn to Marina, it's not a totally illogical point to consider her looking at Lee Oswald as an impediment to her relationship with Marina. Which if true could suggest Ruth P. maybe trying to manipulate certain information to get him out of their lives and even to incriminate him? Just speculating. Did RP ever try to start and maintain any kind of intimate relationship with "any" man after her separation from Michael Paine? 60 years is a long time to do without some one-on-one physical human contact intimacy imo.

I've heard about the letters Ruth sent to Marina. I have not read them. Are they even available to see? For those who have read the letters, what parts of them give them the feeling that Ruth was physically attracted to Marina and to a point of expressing this to her even subtly? And if so, what is the point of this speculation? If Ruth's sexual orientation was possibly more inclusive than strict heterosexuality, what would be the importance of such in the larger scope of her relationship with Marina and possible motives in helping her? I'm not asking these questions for titillation reasons. I'm really curious as to how a Ruth Paine physical attraction to Marina scenario might suggest something more such as Ruth's true feelings about Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruth feeling competitive toward Oswald for Marina's affections? Ruth maybe setting up Lee in providing a little too much incriminating information to the FBI regards him for instance? Ruth hated Lee. That we know. Was she also in love with Marina? If those two hypotheticals are true to any significant degree it does beg some contemplations about such things. I think Ruth actually felt Lee's whacking by Jack Ruby was a life opportunity opening relief for Marina more than any feelings of sadness at his brutal demise.