Michael Clark

6 minutes ago, Paul Trejo said:

James,

The reason that I cite Thomas Mallon with some confidence in the context of the JFK assassination is because Ruth Paine herself recommended the book.  She reviewed it carefully before it went to press.

Now -- it is quite true that Thomas Mallon is a great novelist and not a historian.  This was one of the few excursions into US History for the talented Mr. Mallon.

Nevertheless, just because Mallon is famous for writing fiction is no reason to discount his ability to write US History.   IMHO, he does a splendid job in Mrs. Paine's Garage (2001).

In fact, I would say the book is brilliant.  I had neglected it until 2012 when I interviewed Ruth Paine over the telephone.  Here are my memoirs of that long interview, which involved many phone calls over a full month.

First, she interviewed me strictly, to test whether I was going to adopt a belligerent attitude from the start.  What did I think about the US Embassy Letter that she discovered inside one of Marina Oswald's personal books?

I expected this question, because she asked this same question of a previous interviewer at a Starbucks (IIRC) who reported his experience on a British website on JFK (IIRC).  Lucky for him, he had no problem with the USSR Embassy Letter, otherwise, Ruth was ready to walk at the outset.  In that report he broadcast to the world Ruth Paine's location in California.  That's how I got started.

So, I expected that question.  Lucky for me, I also have no problem with the USSR Letter.  I'd examined it closely for many weeks, and I'm convinced that it's authentic.  First base.

Then, Ruth Paine quizzed me.  Had I read every single page of her Warren Commission testimony, without exception?  There are four different interviews, and she was the single most interviewed WC witness -- by far -- with over 5,000 interview questions.   I had to admit that I had not read them all.

"Well, call me again when you've finished," she said, and that was the end of the first call.

So, I not only read all of her WC testimony immediately, but I made extensive notes, classified the notes, and made a Timeline of all of Ruth Paine's interactions with both Marina Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald from February 22, 1963 through December 31, 1963.

So I called Ruth Paine again.  Her next question was whether I had read all her Jim Garrison testimony.   Yes I had.  OK, so, had I read all her FBI testimony?   Yes I had.  OK.  Had I seen all her online interviews on YouTube?  No, not all of them, I admitted.  "OK, call me again when you've finished," she said, and that was the end of the second call.

By our third call, she accepted me as an interviewer.  My very first question was about the Wiretapped Phone Call from 11/22/1963.  "What did you and Michael mean when you said, 'We both know who did it?'" I demanded.  It was the entire substance of my third call with Ruth Paine.

She admitted it occurred.  She admitted that Michael Paine said those words, exactly like that.  She also told me that she demanded to learn from the Warren Commission the source of that wire tap.  Who ordered the wire tap?  The FBI?  The local police?  The State Department?  Who?  They refused to divulge that secret.

"But what did you mean," I insisted?  Ruth Paine calmly explained that she and Michael were both impressed by the blatant appearance of the poster, WANTED FOR TREASON: JFK, all around Dallas public places.  (Before JFK was killed, Ruth Paine left Marina Oswald at home with the TV on as she went out for errands.)  

All over town -- at the doctor's office -- at checkout stands -- people were talking about the JFK parade in Dallas, but also about the WANTED FOR TREASON: JFK posters, as well as about the full page ad in the Dallas Morning News -- with a thick black-border, screaming, WELCOME, MR. KENNEDY, TO DALLAS -- WHY DO YOU HELP THE COMMUNISTS?

How blatant can a group of people be?  It was like announcing to Dallas that JFK deserved to die right there in Dallas.  It seemed that everybody was talking about it.

Anyway, said Ruth Paine, that is precisely what Michael Paine meant when he said, "We both know who did it."  He meant is the group in Dallas who was behind these scurrilous, public announcements.

"Are you sure," I pressed her.   The question is too important to allow a superficial glance.  "Yes, I'm sure," was Ruth's reply.  "But what I really want to know," she continued, is exactly WHO ordered that wire tap?  That answer would shed considerable light on lots of issues," she said.

I noted to Ruth Paine that in her WC testimony she often sounded like she was defending Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO).  Yes, she admitted, she was unconvinced that LHO was the only one involved in the JFK assassination.  She and Michael agreed on this point for many months.   The WC attorneys had to work long and hard to guide them toward the LN conclusion.  

Ruth told me that she's read a lot about the JFK assassination, and she has never yet read any CT that was satisfactory to her.  So she sticks with the LN theory.  Ruth  asked I'd read Bugliosi's book.  Yes, I said, and I'm not impressed with his logic.

"Who do you recommend," she asked me?   I asked if she'd read David Lifton's, Best Evidence (1980), and she admitted she had not.  I told her that this was, IMHO, the very best CT book in print.  Second IMHO would be the supporting documents by the ARRB, namely, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board (2009) by Douglas Horne.

Ruth wrote those titles down, and said she would look into them sometime.  

Note that I did not develop a personal relationship with Ruth, so that I can just call her up anytime I feel like it.  No Xmas cards, or anything like that.  My interview with Ruth Paine was, as I told her, a task within a US History course with well-known historian, H.W. Brands for a Spring, 2013 paper.  That's where we left it.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

59 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

............

The “we know who is responsible” phone call happened at 1 PM on Nov 22/63, confirmed by the Paines and phone records. 

The information about the content of the call came from an Irving police officer who had been assigned to the phone company’s offices. Therefore the “tap” appears to have been located at the phone company.

Attributing the date of the phone call to November 23 (rather than 22) first appears in FBI documents from December 1963. 

On 6/19/2006 at 10:28 AM, Alfred C. Baldwin said:

Pat - never spoke with anyone named Robert Jackson. He was not the reporter from the Los Angeles Times.

I figured I would quote Mr. Baldwin in hopes that he may still be receiving notifications when replies are mad to his posts. I have a couple questions for him if he responds.

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Tracy,

I won't waste my time trying to convince people who have no interest in upsetting the status quo, or who are afraid of having their image or career tarnished, or who are the type who dismiss things without bothering to study the evidence.

I have purchased the domain name JFKAssassinationFacts.com and plan to build a website designed to bring to the public's attention simple indisputable facts the rip apart the lies that are widely reported, taught, and believed about the assassination and Oswald. On the home page it will have something like a Top Ten List of facts making my point, each backed up by official government documents that the reader can evaluate for themselves.

"JFK assassination facts" is a widely searched phrase. So I expect to get a lot of traffic from people who are curious about the assassination or who are writing a class paper on it.

 

 

That's very cool Sandy...

15 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Wasn't she also deposed in Dallas?

It might be then that all her testimony would be in one place.

It looks like Dallas and Washington to me.

--------------------------------------

Mr. JENNER - Now, I have, which I will mark only for identification, three file cases of correspondence of your themes or writings in college. You might be better able to describe what is in these boxes than I in the way of general summary. Would you do so?

Mrs. PAINE - It also includes information helpful to me in recreation leadership, games, something of songs. It includes a list of the people to whom I sent birth announcements, things of that nature.

Mr. JENNER - It covers a span of years going back to your college days? 

I would also assume that security groups at Bell Helicopter, folks like I. B. Hale, would have the capability to listen-in on and record their employees conversations.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/wit.htm

38 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

There you go Mike.

Don't you read that incontinent fighter for truth in the JFK case, the novelist Thomas Mallon?  

You know, the guy who reviewed Bugliosi's Reclaiming History in The Atlantic?  He began the review by saying that he recalled spending an afternoon with Ruth, inside the garage where Oswald had hidden his rifle before he shot Kennedy.

How can you go wrong with Tom?

My selection was hasty. I am going to have to put together a selection of better research, for quick access, so they will be ready for Paul's ubuiquitous "Ruth "fluffs" butterflies"posts.

13 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Or they would have leant credence to the idea that Oswald was part of an intelligence operation.

I am sceptical that there would be anything in those files that was not meant to be, or planned to be in those files. If Oswald was a witting intelligence operative, even he would not have kept that stuff around, unsecured.

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

In my opinion, a better answer that fits the actual evidence today is that Oswald never ordered that rifle.

Agreed.

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paul:

If they were Oswald's, why would they be so reduced in number and then stripped?  And then subjected to the speculation and rumors section of the WR?

...in order to remove the pre-text for a Cuban invasion. Since, in my view, there was a plan in-place to blame Pro-Castro Cubans for the assassination, manufactured evidence was in place to tie Oswald to Pro-Castro Cubans, in a conspiracy. Those files once held that evidence.

2 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

I've seen nothing that would confirm that...and much to suggest otherwise, especially since in March 1961 both men would have been  deeply involved with matters pertaining to the pending Cuba project which came to fruition with the landings in April.   Given that it was Roselli who had helped put the logistics in place to poison Castro before the landings and since it was Hunt's last minute operational stupidity that broke the delivery chain for the poison you would suspect the two men were not coordinating their activities...much less traveling together.  

Thanks Larry.

This is the only WC testimony that I have regarding the Ruth-Michael "We both Know" call.

The WC testimony of MP, that I have, does not provide a time for the call. AFAIK, Ruth is never asked.

Hey Brian, this is an interesting tid-bit to me. Did you ever find any more verification for this?

Richard Nixon.

There are several stories for his presence. I'll add one or more here. 

When Julius Caesar was assassinated, Marcus Tulius Cicero, who was away from Rome for the occasion, wrote his friend, Senator and conspirator, Gaius Trebonius, saying "I wish that I could have been present for that glorious banquet; there would have been no leavings".By "leavings" Tully was not referring to sweet potato fries left uneaten, he was referring to Mark Anthony. Gaius Trebonius was opposed to killing Mark Anthony because, he argued, the action against Caesar was not a coup de ta, or a murder; it was an execution.Sorting-out that distinction is a very interesting argument, but requires an understanding of the Republican Roman "constitution", as it was. The salient point is that (almost) everyone had a hand in the matter. There are several accounts as to how many wounds Caesar received, and there are more participants than wounds, by most accounts.

.It's fair, here, to offer JFK's statement that Success has a hundred fathers, while Failure is an orphan. That there happened to be many, many, "fathers" near Dealy Plaza, roundabout 11-22-63 is a subject that is often encountered during our investigation and dialectic.There was careful attention paid to a sheep-dipping operation for the Dallas hit; and it went to the top, and everywhere else.

In this case, it should be called a "wolf-dipping"..

I was going off-topic in a couple of other threads, so I made a new one...

"I am thinking the phone call was a sheep-dipping operation. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, including Nixon and Rabin, went through the process. The Warren report did not even have to support it, or be factual about that call; the message was sent, even Michael was given the "out" (that he was not at work on Saturday to take or place that call). The details could always be changed. The "Confidential informant" who spread the rumor which the WC saw-fit to ask-about, in-session, and his correct statement, could always turn-up later."

"

I veered-off on to the phone call.... above.

Imagine later testimony, or an interrogation, if things rolled-out in a very different way. What's Michal or Ruth going th say;...."Insert vastly more incriminating statement that actually happened, and for which there is a recorded phone call or multiple witnesses" here.?

57 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

I don't think Michael was pointing his finger as part of a pre conceived plot.  It's likely he knew just enough to realize some of the potential implications of what was happening and deflecting suspicion from himself and Ruth a deliberately trying to frame Oswald. 

I am thinking the phone call was a sheep-dipping operation. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, including Nixon and Rabin, went through the process. The Warren report did not even have to support it, or be factual about that call; the message was sent, even Michael was given the "out" (that he was not at work on Saturday to take or place that call). The details could always be changed. The "Confidential informant" who spread the rumor which the WC saw-fit to ask-about in session, and his correct statement, could always turn-up later.

I assume that I am on Paul's ignore list.

2 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

Ron,

...... as far as I've read.  

 

 

As for World Peace, Ruth Paine and Nicaragua -- here is my reading of the events.  Ruth Paine went to Nicaragua in February, 1991 as a Charity worker representing her Quaker Church.  It was a building project.   Ruth was responsible for the funds, so she made continual status reports of the progress, including photographs, for her Church bulletin. 

 

 

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Paul, what are you reading to come-up with this stuff? That is not a reading of events, it is fiction or it is not. Where are you extracting this data from? Would you care to share?

ill share something. I'll post where the item I am sharing comes from. In the article I'll share, sources are cited. 

Assuming that the Tage curb-shot came from a location near Elm and Houston, the running-guy, near to the right of the light pole in the above pic, had to have been close to that bullet when it came flying by. And, man, he looks like it. He is running in a direction that makes sense for that shot.

Check-out the Frames that show this guy. He holds his hand to his head twice. He looks like he is wounded.

37 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

BTW, what was the time of the intercepted phone call?

The WC testimony of MP, that I have, does not provide a time for the call. AFAIK, Ruth is never asked.