Greg Doudna
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Posts posted by Greg Doudna
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On this:
It should further be noted that several metal cases of correspondence of Ruth Paine's were inadvertently taken by the Dallas Police Department on November 22, 1963, under the mistaken impression that they were correspondence of Lee Oswald's. This correspondence was examined by Special Agents Ronald E. Brinkley, Ben S. Harrison, and Leland D. Stephens. This correspondence was examined again on December 5, 1963, by Special Agents James P. Hosty, Jr., and Warren C. De Brueys at the Dallas Police Property Room. This correspondence reflected that Mrs. Ruth Hyde Paine is apparently a sincere Quaker and believes in God. Mrs. Paine, in one letter, made a statement that we should help Latin America to prevent Latin America from becoming Communist controlled. This correspondence also showed that Ruth Paine was concerned with aiding persons less fortunate than herself."
Two commenters have taken strong exception to the underlined words. And yet the words, as stated, are accurate, and nobody here will disagree with that, in terms of the operative words in bold if read as description of the correspondence. Everyone here will agree that that is how Ruth Paine's correspondence reads.
Where people are angered is that the FBI agent writing this description did not add an attack on Ruth Paine's character on the basis of things extraneous to Ruth Paine's correspondence, in this written report describing Ruth Paine's correspondence.
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4 hours ago, Steve Roe said:
Greg Doudna, I see DiEugenio's Wolf Pack has descended on you for posting real documents and evidence. You know you can't do that in here, they get upset. By the way Greg, did you know that Luby's Cafeteria where Michael Paine went after church to have conversations was a "Hot-Bed of Subversive Commies"? Yes, secret Castro Operatives were chowing down on Fried Chicken and Mash Potatoes while covertly plotting to overthrow the Government. They willingly gave a complete stranger, Michael Paine their names. Oh yeah, and Michael Paine filled up 7 metal file boxes of hundreds of Dallas area subversives.
Of course, this is major stupid. You proved it, and it's funny to watch these lame excuses trying to pin the Paine's on anything nefarious.
Now DiEugenio is changing his story again (he always does when caught telling these tales) blaming Michael Paine. Gee, don't you think he would have considered that long before getting on camera and telling the world?
I found it particularly unethical that DiEugenio or Good, whichever one it was, failed to disclose in "The Assassination & Mrs. Paine" that the only source for the 1963 claim of seven metal file boxes filled with Castro sympathizers names repudiated that claim in 1964. Failure to disclose that--a major, major material omission, to put it mildly, in a film featuring DiEugenio citing that as one of the film's most serious accusations against Ruth Paine-- is just unethical (failure to disclose exculpatory evidence). Thanks for the lighter note on the Luby's Cafeteria "Hot-Bed of Subversive Commies".
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Gene your points, however interesting and meritorious they may be, are off-topic and a diversion from the present issue which is the claim that the metal file boxes prove Ruth Paine was doing surveillance on leftists. The quotation to which you are responding is an FBI document quoted with information relevant to the topic of FBI examination and description of the contents of Ruth Paine's papers, and is not my writing. You quote that last line of the FBI document and riff off of it as if I wrote it and am responsible for it and as if that is the issue here.
Before getting into these other issues you raise, do you have a comment or opinion on the specific allegation under discussion, the topic of this thread? Does absolution of the Paines on this--this--allegation "insult your intelligence"?
Yes? No? Straight answer please?
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10 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:
If you look at pictures of the type files posted by me, Max Good and others here and in The Paine Files you will see they are designed to hold and transport 8 1/2" X 11" sheets of paper. Say they are 9" X !2". Regarding them holding phonograph records, LP's are 12", all the way around. This round hole doesn't fit the rectangular peg. Even 78's, popular in the 50's are 10" (I measured one).
Dallas Police officer Stovall who found them reported: "3 Brown metal boxes 12" x 4" containing phonograph records". That's in the inventory list for Nov 22. Stovall wrote that in handwritten notes at the time, before that was typed up in the report the next day.
You are citing measurements for 33 LP's (12") or 78's (10"). But 45 RPM's, the most common for popular music, were most commonly 7" diameter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HizfulrTvDI. So there would be no problem with 45's fitting. I am not aware of a photo verified to be one of the three metal boxes which held Ruth's phonograph records, and the depths in inches of those metal boxes are not stated in Stovall's inventory list. In the absence of that information it is not certain to me that 10" 78's would be excluded either.
I remember DJ's would spin 45's, one after another with commentary in between. Ruth Paine said her records were for folk dancing. The contra dances I used to go to would have a caller, analogous to a DJ. If there was not live music 45's would make sense, one song per side.
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On 5/21/2022 at 3:37 PM, Jeff Carter said:
In proper context, Nicaragua was a geopolitical flashpoint in the 1980s much as Cuba had been a quarter century earlier. The Reagan administration placed high priority on both destabilizing the Sandinista government and orchestrating an information and narrative management campaign around its Latin America policies. So anyone involved with identifying and taking notes on Americans sympathetic to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua would come under suspicion of serving a purpose related to such priorities. This observation gains further traction when it fits a familial pattern established twenty years earlier in the Cuban context. So the insistence that there is “nothing to see here”, or that suspicion merely reflects a defective logic, doesn’t hold up.
I understand your point Jeff and actually agree. In a sense you are going after a straw man and not my issue. I have been in such circumstances and on a certain level everyone is suspected, including that quiet young man over there who is new and not taking any notes but sure seems like he is awfully interested in things, or that young woman over there who looks so sweet and innocent but her father is rumored to be an executive for a defense contractor, and on and on and on. The issue isn't that. The issue is equating uncertainty or suspicion with conclusion, when that isn't known, and that is what has been done in the case of Ruth Paine in Nicaragua. I am also influenced by both experience and reading formal studies on the subject that humans just are not very good at detecting deception in other humans, no matter what people like to think. A combination of rational suspicion in some of these contexts (such as Nicaragua for the reasons you name) combined with poor human ability at detecting deception means a lot of innocent people in history have been falsely suspected and incriminated. I am also influenced by reading in two high-profile cases, the American Indian Movement (AIM) at Wounded Knee, and the IRA in Northern Ireland, the respective officers in each of those organizations tasked with finding the snitches in their midst turned out themselves to be have been police informants.
These suspicion dynamics work no differently than the anti-communist hysteria whipped up by Hoover in the early 60s, the Muslim sleeper cell hysteria post-911, and on and on. In all of these cases there are typically small numbers of cases of truth to the suspicions among a huge amount of false positives and innocent persons being damaged.
In the case of Ruth Paine, I saw claims of certainty that Ruth Paine was a CIA spy in Nicaragua and looked very carefully to see what evidence was there, if any, and what basis for the suspicion. It came down to nothing substantial in terms of any published information, simply her notetaking and the books which said because Ruth Paine had a father who worked for AID and a sister whom we know but which Ruth did not know (true) was employed by CIA (in some probably innocuous overt non-secret employment with CIA in D.C.), therefore the case was closed on Ruth being a CIA spy in Nicaragua. And I think no, its not closed any more than the Dreyfus case, or the ones accused by the House Un-American Activities Committee and Joseph McCarthy of the 1950s, or the innocent people I have seen falsely suspected in activist movements in contexts of long-term justified low-level paranoia.
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Is there anyone able to get this fingerprint check done? The only way to find out if there is a match to Craford is to find out.
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6 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:
Ok, so pretty much the same thing, Greg. I said they wouldn't work and you became emotional, took exception. I don't think the idea you suggested from your memory of Piketty would work, for reasons explained earlier. Cool.
What tax policies do you think would work, toward your objective of addressing wealth inequality?
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On 5/21/2022 at 9:59 AM, Paul Brancato said:
Every time the subject of 7 small filing cabinet boxes comes up I find myself amazed that no one ever asks the more interesting question. Were these boxes, the contents of which we apparently have no documentation for other that Ruth saying they were hers and did not contain a list of Castro sympathizers, really hers? Maybe they were Oswalds. If there is no independent verification of what was in them because they disappeared before they were examined in detail, how do we know they were Ruth’s? It’s one thing to say that Ruth was innocent of being involved in the crime of the century, and quite another to suggest she may have been enlisted in the coverup that everyone else from DPD to WC was engaged in. That happens to be my personal take. The only thing that might move the needle for me would be to see that DP examined and detailed the contents. So am I mistaken that there is nothing like that in evidence?
Paul I think the documentation I have posted (after you wrote the above) should make it clear that the 7 metal filing cabinets under discussion were all Ruth's and none were missing, all returned to Ruth, and that all discussion saying any other than that is just needless static. As noted in my longer preceding above, officer Stovall who testified he personally found all of those metal boxes testified he found all of them in Ruth's bedroom (the 1 with a projector in it in a closet in Ruth's bedroom). Multiple other documents show the FBI and DPD returning all 7 of the metal boxes to Ruth, stating that all 7 were her property, which is why they were returning them to her. You mention "contents of which we apparently have no documentation for" and "no independent verification of what was in them". Below, in a document I have not referred to or posted before, I believe you will see that is not correct: it is an FBI report as early as Nov 26 of an examination by FBI at the Dallas Police offices of the contents of the 3 of those 7 which had papers. (The other 4 did not have papers, identified as 3 having phonograph records of folk music and 1 having the projector.) This document came to me today, hat tip to Jean Paul Ceulemans-Peeters who found it in DPD archives (I am not sure that this is on the Mary Ferrell site; I had not seen it before). Note at the end no material of Oswald in them. I hope this is helpful to the questions you raised.
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14 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:
I'll just cut to the point here.
- We both want equality of opportunity.
- You advocated reparations.
- I asked how they would work, ie how much, who would pay.
- You quoted a memory of some economists proposal.
- I explained why that wouldn't work.No I didn't. I quoted Thomas Piketty's Inheritance for All as a distinct proposal, not an explanation of how reparations would work.
Piketty's Inheritance for All has nothing to do with reparations.
The "solutions that work" was in response to you speaking of wanting solutions that work toward resolving wealth inequality (as I understood you).
7 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:I believe MLK's vision was in the name of reparations and formal apology, a massive redistribution of wealth to all poor in America (non-race-based or even proof of ancestry or descent from a slave based). It would be like acknowledging a crime, and then as a memorial to the victims (who are dead and cannot be repaid) a hospital is set up dedicated to those crime victims, to help others today. That principle. So it would do an endrun around all the divisiveness of race and would heal poor whites vs. poor blacks divide. In the best case a majority of the superwealthy would support this (I actually think that is realistic that that could be so).
On solutions that work, take a look at Piketty's Inheritance for All idea. A stiff inheritance tax starting on estates of over $10 million, graduated rates starting lower up to no higher than 65% top end (Piketty had an argument that top end tax rates should never be higher than 65%, I don't know his argument but he had one), this inheritance tax going not into government general revenue but pass-through to a dedicated fund which would pay out a lump sum to every citizen on their 21st birthday, the same one-time amount that year to every person who came of age that year, the amount recalibrated annually based on how much was in the fund. Something like that, I may not have remembered every detail right.
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Jeff Carter--you make a few points which go afield from the specific issue of whether Ruth Paine's small metal file boxes and their contents justifies an accusation that Ruth Paine was surveilling the American left. That is the topic here.
Do you think so?
14 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:“innocence”). But the presence of index cards has nothing to do with illegality, and acting as an informant for the state has never been considered criminal. The presence or non-presence of such cards is certainly open to clarification, but as a data point it was entirely consistent with the acknowledged activity of Michael Paine
Well, since that is the sole basis even claimed for an open, public, accusation that Ruth Paine was surveilling American leftists, where do you stand on that? On the one hand, there is no name of even a single officer or person who ever claimed to see such cards.
And all investigators who looked through Ruth Paine's metal boxes said there was nothing there of that kind.
And the only one who ever said there was (who said he had not seen them himself) said in 1964, as clearly and as under oath as can be, never mind, that was a mistake.
OK, you can STILL imagine they existed and that 100% of the testimony of those in a position to know the truth of this were l-ying, a gigantic coverup of the real truth for which there exists not a single on-the-record witness.
Yes, you can imagine that. Its conceivable, in the world of all possibilities.
But do you consider that sufficient grounds to ACCUSE someone publicly of something, in a manner that causes 50% of hearers (Max Good's estimate of how many who see his film are persuaded the charges against Ruth Paine are true, of which this is one of the main ones)?
How much threshold do you think is a sound threshold before making a public and incendiary specific accusation toward another human being?
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Chris, the topic was equality of opportunity. I emphasized that the single greatest driver of equality of opportunity is family wealth, assets, capital. Families with assets = greater opportunity. Families without assets = less opportunity. Assets--family wealth levels into which one is born--is far more important and fundamental as a driver of good outcomes--the metric to look at-- than income level, education level, or social safety net programs, important as those are. Equality before the law does not deliver equality of opportunity. Families having assets delivers equality of opportunity.
You said you were seeking solutions that work, so I cited a specific one.
5 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:On solutions that work, take a look at Piketty's Inheritance for All idea. A stiff inheritance tax starting on estates of over $10 million, graduated rates starting lower up to no higher than 65% top end (Piketty had an argument that top end tax rates should never be higher than 65%, I don't know his argument but he had one), this inheritance tax going not into government general revenue but pass-through to a dedicated fund which would pay out a lump sum to every citizen on their 21st birthday, the same one-time amount that year to every person who came of age that year, the amount recalibrated annually based on how much was in the fund. Something like that, I may not have remembered every detail right.
Sure some people blow inherited money. But a majority do something productive with it. That is real equalization of opportunity. Capital. Inheritance for All.
To which you showed no interest but riffed off a few boilerplate economic arguments why it could never work, reminding me of boilerplate economic arguments from conservatives against raising minimum wage levels on the grounds that it is not beneficial to poor people for whom they care so much about (= no interest in attempting politically to push for the specific proposal?)
3 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:Even if you could close all loopholes and eliminate all avenues for the super wealthy to avoid paying taxes, they’d just take their wealth with them to a country that provided more favourable terms to them. Some of these fatcats own massive businesses that employ thousands, they’d probably move their companies abroad also, and you’d lose the taxation of the employee’s and have an unemployment situation to remedy.
To that you later added a second reason why the proposed change in tax policy could not work (= no interest in attempting politically to push for the specific proposal?): because the super-wealthy do not have compassion in their hearts.
1 hour ago, Chris Barnard said:I too desire a much more equitable situation for the new generations of my family, friends and the wider world. What you proposed relies on the super-wealthy being compassionate and of a different mindset. My experience tells me that those people want wealth, status and power in perpetuity. Which IMHO makes your memory of Piketty’s idea, incompatible.
That's a perfect reason not to reform tax policy toward a partial redistribution of inherited wealth in the form of Inheritance for All--because at the top level some do not have compassion in their hearts! Therefore, don't attempt a tax reform that could move toward partial equalization of opportunity for children born into millions of families at the low end? Makes perfect sense!
The beauty of having just laws, courts, environmental protections, and tax policies is it doesn't matter if not everybody has compassion in their hearts. The hearts can catch up later if need be.
Also, although it is a distinct issue (tax policy debates among economists and in Congress are not normally decided on the basis of whether a sector of society has sufficient inner compassion in their individual hearts) I am not as certain as you that at the super-rich top end it is such a lost cause as you say for all in that category. I suspect that perhaps as many as 55% of the super-wealthy do have a social conscience including where it costs some of that wealth. Warren Buffet types who support the Buffet Rule (supported by Democrats, opposed by Republicans). (Buffet Rule--that income taxation percentage rates shall be no higher--legal linkage--on people who work for it [wages and salaries] than on people who gain money without working for it [passive investments].)
Ralph Nader--who except for his giant blunder of running third-party for president, otherwise is one of the great American engaged citizens of all time--wrote a book which basically made the serious argument that the state of the world is so far gone that only the super-rich can save us now. He made a direct appeal to individuals with great wealth in the world to save the world (with concrete specifics of what he was talking about, not bromides).
Its why in my book Bill Gates is one of the good ones on earth, no matter what all the whackadoos on the internet (and a few serious criticisms too) say. That isn't giving dimes to children for public image.
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Update on the Ruth Paine metal file boxes--important
Some of the comments prompted me to go back through all of the information related to these metal file boxes, and I think what I set forth below could possibly help things become clearer.
What becomes clear is that there were 7 small metal filing boxes, about 12' x 6" in size or close to that size, and all 7 were Ruth Paine's. 6 of the 7 came from Ruth's bedroom and the 7th, which had a film projector, came from a closet. None of them came from the garage and none had anything to do with Lee Oswald's things--nothing. Three of the boxes had phonograph records (folk music records) and 3 had Ruth Paine letters, correspondence, college papers, and other miscellany of Ruth written material such as an address list to send birth announcements. The contents of the 3 of Ruth's metal filing boxes with Ruth's letters and papers were examined and reported by the FBI, were seen by a WC counsel, and their contents later released as part of declassification of FBi documents and are on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site. In brief it was all Ruth Paine's metal boxes, all her papers. There were no papers of Michael Paine in them, and no papers of Oswald in them. It was Ruth's papers through and through in those metal file boxes of Ruth, taken from Ruth's bedroom.
There were several first-day initial descriptions of Ruth's metal file boxes in the reports of officers telling of the search of Ruth's house that day on Nov 22. Only one, that of Walthers, characterized Ruth's metal boxes as having names of Cuban sympathizers. None of the other officers' reports did. Walthers' report did not refer to a separate set of seven boxes with names of Cuban sympathizers (making 14 in total, 7 Ruth Paine known ones and 7--same number-- of phantom additional ones "disappeared"). Walthers' metal file boxes of his reference both in 1963 and then in 1964 clearly were the same 7 metal file boxes that all the other officers knew, the FBI knew, the WC knew, and that Ruth Paine identified as her 7 metal file boxes and received back as hers. There was no "second 7" to which Walthers referred as if Walthers ignored telling of the first 7 of Ruth Paine's papers told by all the other officers, and Walthers spoke of a "second 7" filled with Castro sympathizer names which were disappeared and covered up in a conspiracy involving everyone including Walthers himself. No, there were only the same 7 small metal filing boxes, simply with a discrepancy in Walthers' original written description of the same 7 metal boxes described differently by other officers and the FBI and Ruth and Walthers too. There were no missing file boxes--Ruth got all 7 of them back--and it is simply an issue of difference in description by one officer of the same Ruth Paine metal file boxes Stovall (not Walthers) found and took from Ruth Paine's bedroom.
The FBI explicitly reported going through all of Ruth Paine's papers in those metal file boxes of hers and finding no names of Cuban sympathizers. They were letters, college papers, and other miscellany papers of Ruth Paine, not names of Cuban sympathizers. The Warren Commission who saw all that material before returning it to Ruth wrote in its final report that there were no names of Cuban sympathizers in Ruth's file boxes. Stovall who originally found those metal file boxes in Ruth's bedroom never said anything about Cuban sympathizers names in them. Walthers, the only officer who did say that, said he saw nothing personally, meaning there is no attributed name to any officer who supposedly did see what Walthers' originally reported. The contents of Ruth's metal boxes did not enter into WC exhibits (because WC returned Ruth's papers to her prior to doing that) but Ruth's papers did via declassification of FBI documents come into the public domain and have been on the MFF site for years now. So the story of "seven file boxes of Cuban names" was not correct because the seven which Walthers was describing are known and they simply had things other than what Walthers described, and nothing of what Walthers described. And Walthers' description, the only source of that claim, was not speaking from firsthand knowledge, and he later said he was mistaken in that original description.
I did encounter one minor question or discrepancy: there is a discrepancy between the number of metal boxes found in Ruth Paine's home on Nov 22 in a list prepared for a combined report of DPD officers Rose, Stovall, and Adamcik (6 such listed taken), and what the FBI and WC confirmed the FBI received from DPD which was seven (7). To clarify for discussion, there were 3 metal file boxes with Ruth Paine's phonograph records--folk dance music records--that is not in dispute. And there is 1 metal box with a film projector of Ruth's in it, also not in dispute. It is the 2 (the DPD Rose-Stovall-Adamcik inventory report) or 3 (per FBI, WC, and Ruth) metal boxes of Ruth's letters and papers where there is a difference in numbering. I do not have a good explanation for this discrepancy other than that the explanation is not that the DPD found 3 and held one back and sent only 2 to FBI. The reason that is not what happened is because the FBI did get all 3 from the DPD. Therefore the simplest explanation--what appears to be the case-- is that it is a paperwork error in the Rose, Stovall, and Adamcik list, a mistaken omission of 1 of the 3 metal boxes with Ruth Paine's papers which did exist and which were found by police on Nov 22 and which were all 3 sent to and received by the FBI, but which by some mistake only 2 were listed on the Rose, Stovall, and Adamcik inventory list. I do not know a specific explanation or mechanism for that error, that is simply my default as the simplest explanation. What can be known is there definitely were 3 not 2 metal boxes with Ruth Paine papers, therefore 3 were found, and yet only 2 of those metal boxes are listed on the original officers' typed report listing.
Following are the documents which I think tell the story: the metal boxes had Ruth Paine's papers exclusively and solely, no papers of Michael or Lee. The Cuban sympathizers was not a description of the officer who found those boxes in Ruth Paine's bedroom, Stovall, or of any other officer who told of the findings in Ruth Paine's home that day, only Walthers. Walthers never saw what he described and Walthers said his description had been mistaken. And the FBI written description, and the FBI released documents on the MFF site with Ruth Paine's personal letters and papers now public domain, confirm that the descriptions of those 3 metal boxes by all others than the one of Walthers repudiated by Walthers, were correct. Here are the documents.
To start with, the DPD Rose-Stovall-Adamcik list of property they took from the Ruth Paine house on Fri Nov 22: https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/DPDlist22.htm. Below is an excerpted section of that list showing 6 of the 7 metal boxes. There is an anomaly in that only 2 of the actual 3 metal boxes with Ruth's papers are listed (the "1 Grey" and "1 Black and grey").
- 1 Electric bill from New Orleans
- 1 Uneployment insurance stub
- 1 Russian mag.
- 1 Book from Sears Tower slide projector
- 1 Russian .35 mm camera and brown case
- 1 Plastic bag Russian papers and New Orleans Paper
- 1 Blue notebook with Cuba papers and other papers of Communistic nature
- 1 Grey metal file box 12" x 6" youth pictures and literature
- 1 Black and grey metal box 10" x 4" letters, etc.
- 1 Box brown Keystone projector
- 3 Brown metal boxes 12" x 4" containing phonograph records
- 1 Blue check telephone index book (addresses)
- 1 Bracket (Instruction for mounting)
- 1 Book white paper back (Russian)
- 1 Roll Kodak film
The Rose-Stovall-Adamcik written report gives no further description than referring to the property list (above): https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/stovallc.htm
Rose-Stovall-Adamcik: "She [Ruth Paine] invited us to make a search of her home at which time we began a methodological search of the house, for a list of the items we took from the house see the attached property list."
As brought out in his Warren Commission testimony, it was officer Richard Stovall who found the small metal filing boxes in Ruth's bedroom. Other officers present that day referred to the findings of that day including reference to the metal file boxes found by Stovall. Harry Weatherford, deputy sheriff, Nov 23, 1963, https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/jfkinfo3/reports/weatherf.htm:
Weatherford: "I stayed with Mrs. Oswald and Mrs. Payne [sic] while the rest of the men searched the house. They found some literature on Cuban Freedom affairs and some small files and a blanket which looked to have been wrapped around a rifle."
This reporting of Weatherford gives a first clue to a possible mechanism of fellow sheriff deputy Walthers' mistake: a conflation of two entirely different things: Ruth Paine's small metal file cabinets with her personal papers--letters, college papers--found in her bedroom, and Lee Oswald's things found in the garage which included Fair Play for Cuba and other Cuba pamphlets and printed material. Weatherford's above does not explicitly mix the two together but it can be seen how easily that might be misread running the two together.
Here is deputy sheriff J.L. Oxford, in his report Nov 23, https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/jfkinfo3/reports/oxford1.htm. Here the conflation can be seen happening.
Oxford: "We found a blanket in the garage. This blanket looked like a rifle had been wrapped in it. We also found about 7 metal boxes which contained pamphlets and literature from abroad. Also, there were cameras and film found."
The only "pamphlets and literature from abroad" were in Lee's things in the garage! All 7 of those "metal boxes" were not found in the garage and had no "pamphlets and literature from abroad". Deputy sheriff Oxford has conflated the two--Oswald's printed material in the garage, and the contents of Ruth's small metal file boxes from her bedroom--when that was a confusion of two distinct things. And Oxford's conflation puts into context a similar apparent conflation by another of the deputy sheriffs who was not the one who personally found Ruth's metal file boxes, Walthers, in his Nov 23 report, https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/walther1.htm:
Walthers 1963: "Upon searching this house we found stacks of hand bills concerning "Cuba for Freedom" advertising, seeking publicity and support for Cuba. Also found was a set of metal file cabinets containing records that appeared to be names and activities of Cuban sympathizers."
Walthers was in the garage and personally witnessed the finding of the "Freedom for Cuba" printed material. That was Oswald's, nothing to do with Ruth Paine. Walthers speaks of the metal file cabinets (Ruth's 7) as "also found" and describes them, describing those 7 metal file boxes of Ruth differently from all other descriptions including investigators who looked through carefully and reported on what was in Ruth's metal boxes. Walthers later said his description here of the contents of Ruth's file boxes was a mistake. That it was a mistake is based on all other testimony as to what was in those metal file boxes (Ruth's personal papers, nothing to do with Cuba), and that it was clearly the same file boxes referred to in all the testimonies including Walthers'.
Eric Tagg, Brush With History (1998), pp. 26-27, echoes the same Walthers 1963 report (https://ia801001.us.archive.org/14/items/brushwithhistory--adayinthelifeofdeputye.r.waltherserictagg1998/Brush with History—A Day in the Life of Deputy E. R. Walthers%2C Eric Tagg (1998).pdf
"Walthers and the officers also found six or seven metal filing cabinets full of letters, maps, records, and index cards with names of pro-Castro sympathizers. All the evidence found was put into the trunk of Walthers car and taken back to the Sheriff's Office."
Despite the date of this book--1998--Tagg simply restates Walthers' 1963 report without notice of Walthers' repudiation of it in 1964 in is Warren Commission testimony. There is no evidence at all that that reflects Walthers reverting post-1964 to what he said in 1963, after he had repudiated it in 1964. Instead, it appears Tagg simply drew from sources, in this case a source reflecting Walthers 1963 and not Walthers 1964. Therefore there is no independent weight to be attached to this Tagg statement published in 1998. It is simply repeating Walthers 1963 and, as such, is obsolete, superceded by Walthers 1964.
Walthers in his 1964 Warren Commission testimony, https://www.jfk-assassination.eu/warren/wch/vol7/page548.php:
Walthers: "we went into the garage there and found this--I believe it was one of these things like soap comes in, a big pasteboard barrel and it had a lot of these little leaflets in it, 'Freedom for Cuba'"
The "Freedom for Cuba" leaflets are Lee's, in the garage. Nothing to do with the metal file boxes taken from Ruth's bedroom.
Those were the deputy sheriff reports. The Dallas Police officer who actually found Ruth Paine's metal file boxes in Ruth's bedroom, Stovall, said nothing about their contents being Cuban sympathizers' names in the original Rose-Stovall-Adamcik report (above). In his Warren Commission testimony, https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/stovall.htm, Stovall runs through the Rose-Stovall-Adamcik property list (above) and comments on the items, which apparently at this secion he, Stovall, had written of that list concerning the items he found:
Mr. STOVALL. I've got listed "one grey metal file box, which is 12 inches by 6 inches; youth pictures and literature." I've got, "One black and gray metal box 10 inches by 4 inches, letters, etc., one box brown Keystone projector." Let's stop just a minute and let me tell you about this. These two metal boxes came out of Ruth Paine's bedroom. This Keystone projector came out of the closet in the hall. Then, I have listed, "Three brown metal boxes 12 inches by 4 inches containing phonograph records." They came out of Ruth Paine's bedroom.
That pretty clearly without much ambiguity explains whose metal file boxes those all were: Ruth's.
Walthers corrected his mistaken description in his 1963 report (above), in his testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964, https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/walthers.htm:
Mr. LIEBELER. I have been advised that some story has developed that at some point that when you went out there you found seven file cabinets full of cards that had the names on them of pro-Castro sympathizers or something of that kind, but you don't remember seeing any of them?
Mr. WALTHERS. Well, that could have been one, but I didn't see it.
Mr. LIEBELER. There certainly weren't any seven file cabinets with the stuff you got out there or anything like that?Mr. WALTHERS. I picked up all of these file cabinets and what all of them contained, I don't know myself to this day.
The contents of Ruth Paine's file boxes--her personal papers in those boxes--were searched by the FBI, and this is what they reported https://www.maryferrell.org/archive/docs/145/145598/images/img_145598_4_300.png:
"It should further be noted that several metal cases of correspondence of Ruth Paine's were inadvertently taken by the Dallas Police Department on November 22, 1963, under the mistaken impression that they were correspondence of Lee Oswald's. This correspondence was examined by Special Agents Ronald E. Brinkley, Ben S. Harrison, and Leland D. Stephens. This correspondence was examined again on December 5, 1963, by Special Agents James P. Hosty, Jr., and Warren C. De Brueys at the Dallas Police Property Room. This correspondence reflected that Mrs. Ruth Hyde Paine is apparently a sincere Quaker and believes in God. Mrs. Paine, in one letter, made a statement that we should help Latin America to prevent Latin America from becoming Communist controlled. This correspondence also showed that Ruth Paine was concerned with aiding persons less fortunate than herself."
And the Warren Report, which had physical possession of and saw the contents of all three of Ruth Paine's metal boxes with her papers and letters and college papers in them, reported, Appendix XII, p. 666, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=690:
"A number of small file boxes listed in the inventory as having been taken from the Paine residence in Irving contained letters, pictures, books and literature, most of which belonged to Ruth Paine, not to Oswald. No lists of names of Castro sympathizers were found among these effects."
Ruth Paine herself, who knew about as well as anyone what was in her metal boxes, had this to say about the Castro sympathizer names story, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rBImscsJZ0, starting at 40:14:
Ruth Paine: "I learned a lot about what's written isn't always true in newspapers and magazines. They were--one magazine said the police took out seven file boxes of Cuba sympathizer names. Well, there were my three boxes of folk dance records. (audience laughter) My three little file boxes of my college papers. And a projector for my 16 millimeter camera. Those were the seven boxes of Cuban names."
And here is Ruth Paine asked about her three metal file boxes of her papers by the Warren Commission:
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?
Mrs. Paine. And a few papers prior to college.
Mr. Jenner. I have marked these boxes for identification numbers 457, 458, and 459. During my meeting with you Wednesday morning, I exhibited the contents of those boxes to you, and are the materials in the boxes other than material which is printed or is obviously from some other source that which purports to be in your handwriting, actually in your handwriting?
Mrs. Paine. Yes.
Mr. Jenner. And those pieces of correspondence which purport to be letters from your mother, your father, your brother, and your sister are likewise the originals of those letters?
Mrs. Paine. Yes.
Mr. Jenner. And the copies of letters which purport to be letters from you to your mother, father, sister, and brother, and in some instances others are copies of letters that you dispatched?
Mrs. Paine. That is right.
(Discussion off record)
I hope this makes things clearer. No names of Cuban sympathizers existed in Ruth Paine's small metal file boxes. And there was no second set of small metal file boxes referred to by Walthers--it was only Ruth Paine's boxes. Nothing of Michael or Lee in Ruth Paine's metal file boxes. No metal file boxes went missing (the FBI had them all and all were returned to Ruth Paine). And recall that Ruth had nothing to do with Cubans or Castro groups or persons--nothing. Nor is there any evidence Michael did either. That idea not only has no basis in a reasonable assessment of Ruth Paine's 7 metal file boxes, but also supposes activity and interest--Castro Cubans, surveillance of leftists--that is not supported in anything known of Ruth or Michael.
To keep citing that claim of Walthers 1963 (or its echo in Tagg 1998 which adds nothing) against all the other officers of that first day, a claim which has been explicitly excluded not only by the FBI and Ruth Paine but by Walthers himself in 1964 (forget Tagg 1998 who simply repeated Walthers 1963 made irrelevant by Walthers 1964!), as a basis for incriminating Ruth Paine, or Michael Paine who had nothing to do with any of those metal boxes of Ruth, citing that Walthers' 1963 story as claimed evidence that one or both of the Paines were doing surveillance on the American left, is just absurd and wrong.
Jim DiEugenio, it gives me no joy in this, and if you would only acknowledge a mistake has been made here, I would be the first to honor and respect that, and oppose anyone who would attempt to clobber or humiliate you for acknowledging an error. It raises my respect when someone acknowledges an error. That is what should happen (when there is error).
The alternative in this case is to persist in something which, no offense intended, is just stupid.
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1 minute ago, Chris Barnard said:
I respectfully disagree with that being realistic. That isn’t the way the super-wealthy think. They pay for positive publicity and make charitable donations to enhance their status and change public perception of them, not because they feel guilty or want a more equitable society. If they don’t do this, the masses turn on them. Very few of them care about the working class. You may be familiar with JD Rockefeller giving out dimes to children.
Even if you could close all loopholes and eliminate all avenues for the super wealthy to avoid paying taxes, they’d just take their wealth with them to a country that provided more favourable terms to them. Some of these fatcats own massive businesses that employ thousands, they’d probably move their companies abroad also, and you’d lose the taxation of the employee’s and have an unemployment situation to remedy.
At present, we face the reality of all wealth falling into the hands of very very few and the rest renting everything. Which actually is tantamount to a form of slavery or serfdom. This is a massive issue that needs resolving.
So your assessment of Piketty's Inheritance for All argument--one of the leading and most respected economists in the world, and accompanied by serious and detailed policy argument--is that it "won't work", sight unseen, unread? Has it occurred to you that Piketty just might possibly have been aware of your kneejerk objection and substantively addressed the issue you raise?
Abolition of slavery? "Won't work". Women's suffrage? "Won't work". Civil rights legislation of the 1960's? "Won't work".
Inheritance for All? "Won't work", says Chris.
Never mind, I'm out of this discussion.
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36 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:
Hi Greg,
I am for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome doctrines, as I think the latter makes things much worse. How do you propose that reparations will work? How much and who pays?
As you've pointed out there white slaves/servants and if you look at history in its entirety, almost every race and culture has kept slaves. It's estimated that 12 million slaves crossed the Atlantic going west and that 18 million traveled east. It's just the ones that traveled east were castrated so they couldn't procreate. There are some academics who claim that there are more slaves in the world today than back then. If you work 10 hours per day for money that barely feeds you, doing debilitating work that reduces your life expectancy, is that not slavery? Do you think aside from the African slaves who helped build America that other groups should also receive reparations? What about anybody of native American heritage? Then let's look at the all of the countries abroad that have been exploited because of America, Britain etc, denying them a right to equality, because of economic policy. Do they deserve reparations, or because they were paid a pittance, is that ok? The point I am trying to make here is; how do you possibly begin to address this? And who pays? This is the story of human history. How do you get the point where everyone has an equal amount of capital and rebalance all of the injustices of the past? Also, do we think these El Salvadorian, Mexican or Guatemalan maids working in the houses of Democrats and Republican politicians have good self esteem, opportunities, wages, or do they feel like servants? Slaves? Did they choose that job, that life? Are past injustices responsible?
For me, governments should have been doing all they can to raise the standard of living in impoverished areas, education, policing, recreational facilities, access to nutritious foods, opportunities etc. That should be addressed everywhere, not just in areas of ethnic minorities. Instead they've been convincing you guys that wars that make the rich richer, and a pandemic that amounted to a bad flu was the right thing to spend taxes on. All it did was pass money into the hands of the very wealthy.
I forget who said it, but, someone notable said "slavery wasn't abolished, it was just made open to all races." Look at how much you are being taxed and where the money is going. The middle class is dissolving and merging into the poor. The window of opportunity have upward mobility is closing and you'll just end up with an elite and a poor.
One the present trajectory, you could give the poor the same amount of capital, and within a short space of time, the elites would have robbed them of it.
I am interested in solutions that work.I believe MLK's vision was in the name of reparations and formal apology, a massive redistribution of wealth to all poor in America (non-race-based or even proof of ancestry or descent from a slave based). It would be like acknowledging a crime, and then as a memorial to the victims (who are dead and cannot be repaid) a hospital is set up dedicated to those crime victims, to help others today. That principle. So it would do an endrun around all the divisiveness of race and would heal poor whites vs. poor blacks divide. In the best case a majority of the superwealthy would support this (I actually think that is realistic that that could be so).
On solutions that work, take a look at Piketty's Inheritance for All idea. A stiff inheritance tax starting on estates of over $10 million, graduated rates starting lower up to no higher than 65% top end (Piketty had an argument that top end tax rates should never be higher than 65%, I don't know his argument but he had one), this inheritance tax going not into government general revenue but pass-through to a dedicated fund which would pay out a lump sum to every citizen on their 21st birthday, the same one-time amount that year to every person who came of age that year, the amount recalibrated annually based on how much was in the fund. Something like that, I may not have remembered every detail right.
Sure some people blow inherited money. But a majority do something productive with it. That is real equalization of opportunity. Capital. Inheritance for All.
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1 minute ago, James DiEugenio said:
GD conveniently left out the later confession by Ruth about the matter.
Which even Max Good did not use in its complete form.
Why does anyone even talk to this guy?
The evidence does not matter to him. He met Ruth and she was..... nice. 😪
Note non-responsive to the substance of the topic, which was the allegation that Ruth was surveilling leftists, the lack of evidence for that allegation, and an unethical failure to disclose Walther's repudiation under oath in 1964 of what is still outlandishly and ridiculously being claimed in the name of Walther in the year 2022.
The response is this. This is formulaic, happens every single time.
- urge others do not speak to the one who raises such questions, like a cult leader directing the faithful to shun
- "whatabout" (the alleged later confession)--look over here or over there. You didn't talk about that over there.
- no straight answer, no addressing to the point.
- no acknowledgement of legitimacy of any point raised.
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Thanks very much Pete for the sensible comments.
On the Curtis Laverne Craford fingerprints, yes, it should be doable. The block on me getting it done is I work for a living (window cleaning) and simply cannot afford to get it done right on my own dime. I could get it done if there were funding (this is not a hint asking for funding, just statement of fact). There are others who could get this done competently and I would happily assist (with no funding needed for me to assist) so long as I am not in the position of being unfunded point man. In my vision of what ought to be done, I would want to identify three of the most reputable, experienced, top-tier names in America in latent fingerprint examination and offer them $2000 apiece, without condition or attempt in any other way to influence their result, for their best professional assessment. I would have them agree not to consult with or contact each other directly or indirectly. No results of any would become known until all three completed their examinations. Once all three submitted their findings, there would be a scientific paper coauthored by the team involved and the three, publishing the data and interpretation of that data. Maybe this sounds like overkill and it could all end up for nothing if there is a non-match to Craford, or could become unexpectedly complex (if there is a split decision requiring second or third rounds with additional experts to resolve), but if there is a match to Craford the significance is important enough that it is not overkill to do what I have outlined. (The nightmare scenario with only a single expert doing a match is what happened with the Mac Wallace print issue.) My idea is to get it done right the first time, in the best case unequivocally establishing an up-or-down finding as a new fact not previously known as a fact. I personally got done the second of two radiocarbon dating series which have been done and published so far on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the series carried out at Tucson, Arizona in 1994-1995. (By that I mean I initiated, obtained and negotiated the offer from the University of Arizona AMS Facility that was accepted by the Israel Antiquities Authority; obviously I did not do the lab measurements.)
You may be right on Prayer Man and I think you are right on the Walker bullet. I doubt the Walker bullet came from the Carcano, in agreement with HSCA on that. However the logical problem there is a steel-jacketed Walker bullet not from Oswald's Carcano does not actually exonerate Oswald if he was acting with others; it really exonerates him only if he was acting alone, which although that has always been supposed there is no reason to know that. The problem with saying Oswald had nothing to do with the Walker shooting is: witness (Marina); witness-story compatible with Walker inside job in which Oswald was involved (Angers); Walker letter (absolutely genuine Oswald handwriting, no question on that); and the Walker house photo (sure, could be planted but just simpler that it is real). The problem with rejecting all four of the just-named is that will not fly to intelligent mainstream America, plus it almost certainly is not right. I think both the point about the steel-jacketed Walker bullet not being from the Carcano and the (in my view) credible case to be made that Walker may have been party to a staged shot, would address these issues establishing reasonable doubt. I think it is a mistake to try to deny Oswald was involved in the Walker shooting. I think the Angers story is a version of the "true truth" which is that Oswald could have been mixed up with the Walker group and what may have been the staged shot. One thing is clear to me and that is there must be reasonable doubt on the Walker shot or few will see Oswald as exonerated in the case of JFK. For me this is not a matter of trying to sell a story I don't buy myself, because I'm skeptical Oswald was actually a killer (there is nothing in his writings about the virtues of tyrannicide, for example), and even more to the point, if the shooter of the shot into the Walker house was intending to kill why was the shot a complete miss? Another minor factor: I think Oswald not only was a poor rifle shot (for some physiological reason) but knew that (according to Laura Kittrell of the Texas Employment Commission, Oswald told her that).
On Prayer Man as Oswald I have been struck especially with the work of Andrej Stancak here and succeeding pages, https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/22247-prayer-man-is-a-man/page/2/. I don't know for sure that Prayer Man is Oswald--maybe it is the equivalent of the HSCA acoustics analysis which looked so good until it turned out it wasn't--but a lot looks like it was Oswald and would make better sense of some things. In terms of mainstream America, if Prayer Man as Oswald is correct, that unlike any other single point is narrative-changing. All the other arguments back and forth remain, but Prayer Man is the visual evidence (if so) that Oswald was not up there on the sixth floor shooting anyone. You are probably right, most people I think understand this, that a poor photo is a long shot to get decisive information from it. But there is no other choice--throw everything technical that exists at it, try to get the information that can confirm or exclude a match with Oswald, and bring in experts to the investigation who are not CT's.
However all that waits. The possible fingerprints solution to the true killer of Tippit must be run out to the extent possible. Thanks for the encouragement.
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5 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:
Every time the subject of 7 small filing cabinet boxes comes up I find myself amazed that no one ever asks the more interesting question. Were these boxes, the contents of which we apparently have no documentation for other that Ruth saying they were hers and did not contain a list of Castro sympathizers, really hers? Maybe they were Oswalds. If there is no independent verification of what was in them because they disappeared before they were examined in detail, how do we know they were Ruth’s? It’s one thing to say that Ruth was innocent of being involved in the crime of the century, and quite another to suggest she may have been enlisted in the coverup that everyone else from DPD to WC was engaged in. That happens to be my personal take. The only thing that might move the needle for me would be to see that DP examined and detailed the contents. So am I mistaken that there is nothing like that in evidence?
Well that is a good point Paul. I think it is 100% certain that all papers and property taken from the Ruth Paine house on Fri Nov 22 were examined by Dallas Police. But you are raising the question, suppose there was something held back by conspiracy within the Dallas Police Department, never entered into the written reporting--how would people like DiEugenio know it belonged to Ruth Paine, and not Oswald? (Since so much of their belongings were mixed together in what was taken.) After all, Oswald was the one involved in FPCC, pro- and anti-Castro Cubans, not Ruth. Maybe if there were secret files of Castro sympathizers hidden by conspiracy of the DPD, just maybe they might be connected to Oswald, instead of Ruth Paine who never had anything to do with Cuba issues or Cubans. Why assume they would be Ruth Paine's (if they existed, for which there is no evidence)?
Good question! My theory is DiEugenio has it in for Ruth Paine and doesn't bother with a question like that.
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Jeff, I gave a whole thread on the Nicaragua allegations in which Ruth Paine's note-taking was suspected of being evidence she was an intelligence agent (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27720-ruth-paine-in-nicaragua-counterpoint-to-the-assassination-mrs-paine/). It is one of those things where anyone who takes notes in any meeting--well they could be taking notes because they are going to mail in those notes to an agency. That could be said about anyone. There never was any proof of that. For a lot of people, unless one knows better taking notes is normal. The reason Ruth was suspected in Nicaragua was because someone there read some JFK assassination allegations against Ruth which preceded Ruth's arrival to Nicaragua. Then, that suspicion alone--no evidence that her note-taking went anywhere other than to her and her Board and the Friends Meeting back in St. Petersburg to whom she was reporting--that suspicion is cited as if it is proof for itself.
I am not as forgiving as you for a practice of making a serious allegation against someone stated in language of "cinches the case" and certainty based on an interpretation of some fact claimed in 1963, and failing to disclose that the only source of the claimed fact repudiated the claim in 1964 in sworn testimony under oath. Even if DiEugenio or Max Good want to insist that the original claim was true (even though there never has been any evidence of that) and that Walthers was lying his head off in repudiating his own claim in 1964 under oath, it still should have been disclosed. It is deceptive and misleading not to do so. That is just ethical journalism 101.
I am not familiar with a book by Walthers in 1967, do you have the reference? If such a book exists and if there is no link online could you say what Walthers said in 1967?
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On 5/20/2022 at 8:18 AM, Chris Barnard said:
I do have a question: are you pro equality or outcome doctrines, or are you for equality of opportunity? It seems to me that is a huge topic of contention in the race debate, in terms of problems that need solving.
Equality of opportunity, which is why I am for reparations. Because there is nothing that means opportunity like capital. Nothing matches it--not income levels, not education, not charity or largesse or welfare, but assets, capital.
Freed slaves never got their forty acres and a mule promised by General Sherman.
There was political freedom, political equality (for a few years until the US Army left and then 80 years of Jim Crow and segregation until JFK sent federal troops back in to end segregation by force). There is legal equality under the law today.
But there was not, is not, equality of opportunity among Americans, because assets--capital--wealth ownership--grubstake--that is the real measure of equality of opportunity. Families with assets = greater opportunity. Families without assets = limited opportunity.
The US--as an institution, as collective responsibility--still owes an unpaid check to the descendants of slaves. Because family wealth is not equal. There is not equality of opportunity.
Martin Luther King, Jr. had a vision of reparations for the descendants of slaves which those descendants of slaves would then share out to all poor in America including poor whites. Talk about a healing of divides based upon race if that happened. No wonder he was cut down.
The moral grounding for the unpaid check is told in Edward Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told, and other studies estimating that ca. half of America's national wealth pre-1860 was produced by slaves. Concentration camps of captive wealth-producers. Built America's national wealth and greatness. Built America's capital formation. There were white indentured servants too. (That was part of MLK's logic in sharing out reparations to put assets into the hands of all poor of America.) But African slavery was the big one.
Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Equality of opportunity. Capital. Family wealth indices, the most important measure of equality of opportunity.
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Does anyone have a comment on the viability of the schematic five-step roadmap to go to a change in mainstream consciousness re the JFK assassination?
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The incredible allegation that Ruth Paine did surveillance on Castro sympathizers
The Max Good film, "The Assassination & Mrs. Paine", airs the following allegation against Ruth Paine by Jim DiEugenio.
DiEugenio: When the Dallas police went to the Paine household, one of the detectives wrote a report about taking out several filing cabinets of notations and cards and maps etcetera of Castro sympathizers. This makes a very good case, I believe, that Michael and Ruth were involved in surveillance activities of the American left. These cabinets existed until the Warren Commission. Because there are several exhibit numbers in the Warren Commission that refer to them. But the big difference is when the Warren Commission went through them, they only found something like one letter from Ruth to one of her relatives. So in other words, if the original report is accurate, somebody fiddled with the contents of those cabinets.
This is an astonishingly irresponsible allegation which is known to be untrue. It is irresponsible in that the film does not disclose to the viewer that the deputy sheriff who wrote that report in Nov 1963, in his testimony under oath to the Warren Commission said it was mistaken, denied that he himself ever had personal knowledge that that item of that report was accurate—a report uncorroborated by any other officer or witness, and that he, the sole source of the claim, repudiated it.
There is no evidence Ruth Paine attended a meeting of Castro sympathizers, or belonged to an organization of the American left, except for the American Civil Liberties Union if that is considered such. There is no evidence Ruth sought the company of leftists, or knew any leftists other than Lee the husband of Marina. There is no evidence whatsoever that Ruth Paine was an informant on "the American left".
And the alleged filing cabinets of Castro sympathizers--nobody (including the deputy sheriff who wrote the 1963 report cited) claimed firsthand to have seen files in the Ruth Paine garage other than what turned out to be Ruth Paine's folk dance group records. It was clearly a mistaken report, in which Ruth Paine's folk dance records which had names and addresses were carelessly mislabeled by a deputy sheriff reporting some unknown other officer's hearsay, calling names and addresses of a folk dance group, "Castro sympathizers". The deputy sheriff who wrote that report repudiated the claim, and nobody other than that deputy sheriff (who repudiated it) ever voiced the claim in the first place.
How is it that someone can be accused of something like this, without any substance, and then a filmmaker can believe someone on screen who just says that "makes a very good case" that Ruth Paine was such and such?
There was no evidence or truth to it, and DiEugenio knew full well the deputy sheriff who wrote that hearsay claim of anti-Castro files repudiated the claim of anti-Castro files, said there was no basis for it being true, in his Warren Commission testimony in 1964. Yet Max Good's film does not disclose that.
The deputy sheriff was E.R. "Buddy" Walthers. Even in Walthers’ original report of Nov 22, 1963 in which the statement was made that DiEugenio quotes (“also found was a set of metal filing cabinets containing records that appeared to be names and activities of Cuban sympathizers” [19 H 520; https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1136#relPageId=538]), the wording strictly construed does not claim Walthers himself saw or witnessed such, as Walthers told the Warren Commission explicitly he had not. No other officer reported any such thing, and Walthers, the sole foundation for the story, made it clear to the Warren Commission that the story is baseless. Here is Walthers’ testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964:
Mr. Liebeler. What was in these file cabinets?
Mr. Walthers. We didn't go through them at the scene. I do remember a letterhead--I can't describe it--I know we opened one of them and we seen what it was, that it was a lot of personal letters and stuff and a letterhead that this Paine fellow had told us about, and he said, "That's from the people he writes to in Russia"; he was talking about this letterhead we had pulled out and so I just pushed it all back down and shut it and took the whole works.
Mr. Liebeler. I have been advised that some story has developed that at some point that when you went out there you found seven file cabinets full of cards that had the names on them of pro-Castro sympathizers or something of that kind, but you don't remember seeing any of them?
Mr. Walthers. Well, that could have been one, but I didn't see it.
Mr. Liebeler. There certainly weren't any seven file cabinets with the stuff you got out there or anything like that?
Mr. Walthers. I picked up all of these file cabinets and what all of them contained, I don't know myself to this day.
Mr. Liebeler. As I was sitting here listening to your story, I could see where that story might have come from--you mentioned the "Fair Play for Cuba" leaflets that were in a barrel.
Mr. Walthers. That's right--we got a stack of them out of that barrel, but things get all twisted around.
Notwithstanding this, in an article published on the Kennedys and King site, “Oswald’s Intelligence Connections”, July 29, 2017, DiEugenio claimed of the original sentence in the Nov 22, 1963 report, fifty-four years after its author and sole proponent, Walthers, repudiated the error on July 23, 1964:
“This cinches the case that the Paines were domestic surveillance agents” (https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/oswald-s-intelligence-connections-how-richard-schweiker-clashes-with-fake-history) (emphasis added)
One is left speechless at this, as if any unverified claim put into print even one time by a police officer, no matter how much contradicted by other evidence and later published corrections including by that officer himself, retains its currency fifty-four years later and is considered to “cinch” a case against someone, in this case Ruth Paine. It is worthy of a scene out of Kafka's The Trial.
The contents of Ruth Paine's papers were her personal property and should not have been taken by Dallas police or sheriff's deputies to begin with. They were taken without her permission and without a search warrant. Neither police nor the FBI nor the Warren Commission had any right to Ruth’s personal papers without her permission or a search warrant. But never mind that—the important point is that the contents of those file boxes, and all of Ruth Paine's papers taken, were fully examined, reviewed, and known to the Dallas Police who went through those papers, and later the FBI, and there was no surveillance of leftists, or addresses of Castro sympathizers, in Ruth Paine's papers or anything else of the sort, nor anything incriminating of Ruth of anything. It is not as if there is some mystery over what was in that property of Ruth Paine. What DiEugenio calls Warren Commission/FBI "fiddl[ing]" with the contents of Ruth Paine's file boxes reflects the return of Ruth’s property, a citizen's property, to her.
Nor is there any evidence or indication that Ruth or Michael were involved in surveillance of leftists independently of what was not found in those file boxes.
Apart from attendance at American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) meetings, a mainstream civil liberties advocacy organization of which Michael and Ruth Paine were members, there is no known attendance of either Ruth or Michael at any left-wing meeting in Dallas. No document indicating Ruth or Michael were involved in “surveillance of the American left”. Neither Ruth nor Michael are known to have attended any meeting concerning Cuba or Castro sympathizers. There is a separate accusation that Michael Paine liked to talk politics to students standing next to him in line he just met at a Luby's Cafeteria. But in the only instance of students interviewed to whom Michael Paine had talked politics in that Luby's Cafeteria, those students were not left-wingers, in fact the opposite. There is no basis for interpreting a Michael Paine conversation with non-leftist students standing next to him in line in a cafeteria, as "surveillance of the American left".
There is also an issue of plausibility and logistics. Ruth was functioning as a single mom of two toddlers demanding pretty much full-time attention. It is not easy to imagine in practical terms how she would surveil leftists, not knowing any leftists (other than Lee), not going to leftist meetings, not involved in Cuba organizations or issues. There is no evidence of such and DiEugenio's representations of Ruth Paine in this way in this film without the producer doing elementary fact-checking before airing this is a shameful smear of Ruth Paine pure and simple.
From the film:
Ruth Paine (a film clip speaking to an audience): I learned a lot about what is written isn’t always true, in newspapers and magazines. One magazine said the police took out seven file boxes of Cuban sympathizers’ names. Well, there were my three boxes of folk dance records (audience laughter), my three little file boxes of my college papers, and a projector for a 16 mm camera. Those were the seven boxes of Cuban names.
Max Good (displaying a metal file holder to Atesi): This is one of the so-called filing cabinets that contains—there’s a report that they contained names and info on Cuban sympathizers.
Joe Atesi (friend of Ruth Paine, JFK assassination researcher and collector of memorabilia) (shaking head): Yeah I think that’s nonsense. (. . .)
Narrator: When the issue of the contents of the file cabinets came up Ruth’s testimony was taken off the record, and the exhibit numbers were omitted without explanation. (Camera closeup of Warren Commission testimony showing going off the record.)
There are lots of “off the record”’s in the Warren Commission witness testimony transcripts. In the absence of knowledge of what was discussed, this is no basis for assuming something untoward was discussed and yet this is presented in the film as if that is being insinuated.
The physical metal file boxes were returned to Ruth because they were her property. The Warren Commission had no right to the personal papers of a citizen who was not under investigation and without a search warrant. That the Warren Commission left intact exhibit numbers which originally may have been occupied by Ruth’s metal file holders, without explanation in the Warren Report, is none of Ruth’s concern nor does it have anything to do with anything.
At the end of the film Max Good channels DiEugenio's utterly baseless accusation--Good asks Ruth Paine about something which no document, no witness, no credible hearsay, ever charged in the first place--focusing on this as one of the centerpiece allegations against Ruth Paine of the film:
Good: Their thing is that you and Michael were involved in surveillance activities of the radical left.
Ruth (look of disbelief): What?
Good: That you and Michael were involved in surveillance activities of the radical left. Uh, and that—
Ruth: Who would be the radical left?
Good: Cuban sympathizers.
Ruth: Oh.
Good: Communists.
Ruth: Absolute news to me. I was not aware of surveilling anybody. Or watching Oswald.
Good: Maybe watching Oswald was a job you had to keep an eye on—
Ruth: Flake.
Good: --this young communist defector, who had returned—
Ruth: Nonsense. Absolute nonsense.
Is Ruth Paine due an apology from Max Good for airing an allegation central to the film that Ruth Paine was "involved in surveillance activities of the radical left" based on DiEugenio's claim that "Ruth Paine had files of names of Cuban sympathizers in her garage" that make "a very good case" that "Michael and Ruth were involved in surveillance activities of the American left", without doing the most basic fact-checking of that claim before airing it?
Does this community consider this kind of smearing by DiEugenio acceptable?
Once baseless smearing stories are started, it seems nothing on earth can stop them if there is malicious continued spreading of them. Baseless stories just live on and on, believed by persons who hear the stories and spread them further.
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11 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:
Dodd also chaired the Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Committee on the Judiciary held hearings in 1962-63 about mail order guns. Interestingly, the two firms that LHO bought his weapons from were targets of this committee. Some have suggested LHO may have been working on behalf of this committee.
Good point--it does make sense that something like that may have been going on, doesn't it. I would dearly love to nail down specifics on this which remain elusive.
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On 5/20/2022 at 10:19 AM, Lawrence Schnapf said:
Greg- what is your basis for believing Lee removed the scope? Moreover, would someone have the gunshop both remove and add a scope? Isnt this nothing but speculation to fit your theory? The imposter theory is far more believable....
Hi Larry, the reason I believe Lee removed the scope is because he went to a gun shop to have a scope put on. But the rifle was shipped with a scope and received with a scope on it. Therefore for Lee to take the rifle to a shop to have a scope put on, means it had been taken off.
On your second question, no: no gunshop took the scope off, that is not necessary. The scope was taken off quite easily by the rifle owner by unscrewing it, no gunshop needed. As to why remove the scope that came with the rifle, all discussions I have seen of the particular Japanese scope that came with the Carcano say that scope was crap. That would be an obvious explanation why it was taken off--finding it unusable and in the way--though it does not matter whether the reason is known; the fact is the rifle was received with a scope and later it does not have a scope, therefore Lee had taken it off.
Dial Ryder remembered his customer, Oswald, did not buy a scope from the shop. Therefore Lee had brought in his own scope in to be installed. That scope therefore was either the original scope (that came with the rifle but was now not on it), or else a new purchase. Although theoretically either could be possible, the simplest reconstruction is Lee saved the scope after taking it off the rifle and at the gunshop had the same scope put back on. That is consistent with no paper record or evidence of Lee purchasing a scope, and also the Carcano in the TSBD had the original Japanese scope with which the rifle was shipped. The reason for going to the gunshop for a new drill and tap and installation would be because the threads were stripped, and the reason for having the original scope put back on can only be reconstructed but the explanation that makes the best sense is preparation for a sale or conveyance of the rifle in similar condition it was received.
I don't agree this reconstruction is just speculation to fit a theory. It starts from two facts: he received a rifle with a scope, then later goes to a gunshop with a rifle without a scope on it, but with scope in hand, to have the scope in hand installed on it. Its like reasoning that a credit card receipt for a gas purchase probably means the person bought gas. I disagree that an imposter theory is more believable. An imposter for Lee in this case has to have an imposter Marina and imposter child and baby, and vehicle that resembled Ruth Paine's, or else the real Marina with her real child and baby involved with an imposter Lee, either way piling up improbability upon improbability, when none of that is necessary.
January 16, 2023. Applicable to this thread (not just this post specifically): Please see the article "The mystery of the Furniture Mart sighting of Lee and Marina Oswald and their children and its solution", at http://www.scrollery.com/?p=1450.
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Acquila Clemons' description of the Tippit killer
Acquila Clemons has been one of the most misunderstood witnesses. What she actually said she saw is very credible but has been misrepresented. Acquila Clemons never claimed to have seen two gunmen at the Tippit crime scene. Nothing in her testimony calls for two men to have been involved in the Tippit killing. She said she saw two men go past one another and shouting words to one another, going in opposite directions, one of whom was the gunman. That's it. It was Mark Lane, Garrison, and countless others continuing to the present day, not Acquila Clemons, who interpreted that as a second gunman.
Acquila Clemons saw one gunman--the same single gunman of the Tippit killing seen by all the other witnesses--from a vantage point of near the northwest corner of 10th and Patton, at about the same location as Helen Markham. Clemons, from a mid-July 1964 Shirley Martin interview:
"He [gunman] went across that lot there [the Davis house, SE corner 10th and Patton], that's all I know. He went across that lot, I don't know which way ... I don't know which way he went after I seen him unloading and loading his gun. That's all I seen ... I was afraid. He frightened me. To come out and see him unloading his gun and reload it. But, I didn't pay no attention [to what he was wearing]. I just tried to get out of the way, because I thought he was going to shoot me... and I didn't pay him any mind. I was getting out of the way... See, I was pretty close to him. [He was] between that telegram [sic] post and that tree, loading his gun... And I was on this side of the walk standing right there and I didn't want him to be shooting me." (https://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-october-jfk-assassination-file.html)
Acquila Clemons did see a second person but Acquila did not interpret that second person as necessarily involved with the gunman. In fact although Mark Lane and Garrison and practically everyone else since have not recognized it, Acquila Clemons was describing Ted Callaway all along, and his interaction with the killer on Patton! The mystery is gone--the mysterious "second" person seen by Aquila Clemon was not a second gunman, not a second person involved in the Tippit killing, but Ted Callaway of the auto dealership who heard the shots and ran out to Patton, and as he did so he saw the killer across the street from him running south on Patton and he waved and shouted at him across the street (not realizing he was the killer), "Hey man, what's going on?" The man (the killer) waved back at him something unintelligible and kept going, while Callaway proceeded in the opposite direction around the corner on to Tenth to the scene of the Tippit cruiser. Callaway later said he did not know the man he shouted at was the killer, at the time he shouted at him "Hey man, what's going on?"
That is exactly what Acquila Clemons saw and heard and told. Heard the very words shouted, "go on!" (from "what's going on?")
Martin. There were supposed to be two men weren't there?
Clemons. Well, it was two men. I don't know, I wouldn't know them if I was to see them.
Martin. No, of course not. I wouldn't expect you to do that. They were both on that same corner?
Clemons. I don't know. All I know, he was talking to [unintelligible] who done the shooting [unintelligible]. [The gunman] was talking to a tall guy on the other side of the street with yellow khakis and a white shirt on, but I don't know whether he was in it or he was just going to get out of the way or something. I don't know because I had to go back in and tend to [Mr. Smotherman]."
(. . .)
Martin. The other one went up that... Patton?
Clemons. Yeah. He went up [unintelligible]. He may have been just a boy getting out of the way.
Martin. Scared maybe.
Clemons. Yeah. Probably somebody he told to get out of his way or something...
That was followed by an interview of Acquila Clemons by Mark Lane in 1966 which has been widely seen on Utube and the internet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRToGPV4W7M). (Note there is a splice of two clips at 1:37 in the Utube link. The relevant part starts at 1:37.
Lane. Now, when you went out of the house [after hearing shots] did you see a man with a gun?
Clemons. Yes I did.
Lane. What was he doing?
Clemons. Oh he was reloading. And I see he was reloading his gun.
Lane. And how would you describe that man?
Clemons. Well he was kind of chunky. He was kind of heavy, he wasn't a very big man.
Lane. Was he tall or short?
Clemons. He was kind of a short guy.
Lane. Short and heavy.
Clemons. Yes.
Lane. Was there any other man there?
Clemons. Yes one on the other side of the street. All I know is he told him to 'go on' (waves arm)
Lane. Mrs. Clemons, the man who had the gun, did he make any motion at all to the other man across the street?
Clemons. No more than to tell him to go on (waving).
Lane. Waves his hand and said--
Clemons. Yeah, said 'go on' (waving)
Lane. And then what happened with the man with the gun?
Clemons. He unloaded and reloaded.
Lane. And what did the other man do?
Clemons. The man kept going straight down the street.
Lane. And then did they go in opposite directions?
Clemons. Yes--they were--they weren't together (waves arms in opposite directions). They went this way from each other. The one that done the shooting went this way (points right arm to right at 45 degree angle). The other one (pointing with let arm about 45 degrees to the left) went straight down past the street, that way.
Comment: From the vantage point of where Acquila Clemons was standing near the NW corner of 10th and Patton, 45 degrees to her right pointed with the right arm for the killer's direction of movement is south on Patton. 45 degrees to her left pointed with her left arm points to 10th Street looking eastward around the corner from Patton in the direction of the Tippit cruiser. That is exactly the two directions of movement of the killer and witness Ted Callaway. Callaway on Patton first shouted at the killer, then went the other way as they went in opposite directions.
Lane. What was the man who did not do the shooting, but the man who went in the other direction from the man with the gun. What was he wearing, if you remember?
Clemons. Well <unintelligible> it looked like khakhis and a white shirt.
Lane. And was he tall or short?
Clemons. He was tall.
Comment: Ted Callaway was 6'2", 220 pounds, in 1964.
Lane. Was he heavy or thin?
Clemons. He was thin.
Lane. But the one who did—the one who had the gun seconds after Tippit was shot, he was short--
Clemons. Yes he was short and kind of heavy.
Ted Callaway's version:
Mr. BALL. And where were you when you noticed he had the gun? Or where was he when you noticed he had the gun?
Mr. CALLAWAY. When I first saw the gun, he had already crossed from here to here and was coming up this sidewalk.
Mr. BALL. Coming up the sidewalk on which side of Patton?
Mr. CALLAWAY. West side of Patton.
Mr. BALL. And did he continue to come?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. And did you say anything to him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. What did you say?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I hollered "Hey, man, what the hell is going on?" When he was right along here.
Mr. BALL. Make a mark there where he was when you yelled, "What the hell is going on?" "X" marks the place where the man with the gun was when you yelled at him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. Would you mark it on this chart, too--Exhibit 537?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Right along here about 27. I guess. That would be it. You see, here is where I was, sir. And then he was right there when I hollered at him.
Mr. DULLES. I don't get this. There is an alleyway there, apparently.
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. But here is where the squad car was.
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. And here is where the cab was.
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. He had come all the way down?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He had come from there through this yard and cut behind this taxicab, over to this side of the street.
Mr. DULLES. So he was there, then?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No, sir. I didn't holler at him until he came up to here. He was running up this sidewalk.
Mr. DULLES. He was going south on Patton?
Mr. CALLAWAY. On the west side of the street.
Representative FORD. You saw him run from about the taxicab--
Mr. CALLAWAY. Across the street, up this sidewalk.
Mr. DULLES. About how far is that? Fifty feet or more?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Oh, it is more than that. From here down to there, I think is about 300 feet.
Mr. BALL. Mark on this diagram, which is 537, where the man was, and the course he took.
Mr. CALLAWAY. Well, now, when I first saw him he was right here. Then he came across here, down this way.Mr. BALL. Down to the point where you spoke to him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right.
Mr. BALL. What did he do when you hollered at him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He slowed his pace, almost halted for a minute. And he said something to me, which I could not understand. And then kind of shrugged his shoulders, and kept on going.It is the same thing Acquila Clemons saw! The physical descriptions of Callaway and the killer, Callaway telling that he shouted to the killer, "what's going on?" and Acquila seeing that shouted interaction, hearing the final two words of that as a shouted, "go on!". Mishearing "what's going on?" for "go on!" In fact Acquila Clemons' testimony is corroboration of Callaway's account and vice versa. Also, Acquila Clemons who was ignored by the Warren Commission as a witness it turns out was saying nothing unusual at all--what she was saying agrees with the other witness testimonies concerning the movements of the killer.
The point: there was only one gunman, a single killer of Tippit, and nothing Acquila Clemons told ever claimed or gives reason to suppose any differently. And this witness, Acquila Clemons, who saw the killer, remembers that killer as "short and kind of chunky", not a usual description of Oswald (5'9", 131-140 lbs.) but a not-implausible description of Craford who at 5'7 or 5'8", 150 lbs., was 1-2" shorter than Oswald and ca. 15 pounds heavier. The "M" sized jacket might have further filled out Craford's appearance slightly to Acquila's perception.
The point: these three witnesses who saw the killer--Scoggins, Benavides, Acquila Clemons--in each case gave physical descriptions which better agree with Curtis Craford than with Oswald. Given that many witnesses confused Craford for Oswald independently of the Tippit case such that that is a known--not speculated or conjectured--phenomenon of eyewitness mistaken identification in Dallas in 1963, this suggests the extremely reasonable possibility, indeed arguably likelihood, that the so-called "positive identifications" of Oswald as the Tippit killer, by witnesses in the Tippit case, were nothing more and nothing less than simply mistaken identifications like so many other cases of mistaken Oswald identifications. That is not hard to imagine at all. How many innocent persons have been convicted or even executed in history from mistaken identifications by witnesses?
A check of the fingerprints taken from the Tippit cruiser compared to Craford's fingerprints could tell the story here.
The incredible allegation that Ruth Paine did surveillance on Castro sympathizers
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Yes. Someone should also do a study of how many whoppers that never were true in the first place got said that first weekend by Dallas Police prior to later clarification.
The issue is that film--either DiEugenio failed to tell Good, or DiEugenio did tell Good and Good failed to put it in the film, whichever it was--misrepresents to the viewer by leaving out that the claim was retracted by the only officer who made it. And this was no minor detail in the film. It was one of the key accusations of Ruth Paine in the closing interview with Ruth Paine in the film.
It would be like writing a story about the Abraham Bolden story and leaving out that one of the main witnesses against him later recanted his testimony. Whether that exonerates Bolden of his conviction might still be argued, but it surely is relevant for any ethical reporter to disclose if reporting that case and the original testimony of that witness in making Bolden look guilty. That's my point.