Greg Doudna

The recently released film of Max Good, “The Assassination & Mrs. Paine” (2022) contains the following relating to Nicaragua allegations against Ruth Paine. In this thread I stick strictly to the Nicaragua allegations and request others to do likewise.

DiEugenio: Later on in her life Ruth Paine goes on down to Nicaragua, and there are reports of her going to Sandinista sympathizers’ meetings and taking notations of what went down. For many, many people, the veneer has come off Ruth and Michael Paine. I mean they are just not credible any more.

Anonymous man (image scrambled and voice altered): I knew a woman who in the early 1990s who worked with Ruth Paine as a Christian peace activist in Nicaragua. This was during the time of the civil war in Nicaragua during the Reagan and Bush I years.

Sue Wheaton: It was a contentious time down there. It was very clear that the CIA was supporting the so-called “Contra” freedom fighters all the way. The Contras were the ones opposing the Sandinistas revolution.

Anonymous man: The Christian group that this woman and Ruth were involved with was called ProNica. And they were helping the poorest people of Nicaragua who naturally sided with the Sandinistas. Because of this, these Christian peace groups were often heavily monitored by our U.S. intelligence agencies.

Ruth Paine: My work in Nicaragua was with a Quaker organization. We had a project to help the poorest of the poor in Nicaragua. And at one of these meetings a woman showed up and proceeded to accuse me of a lot of things.

Wheaton: She introduced herself as Ruth Paine representing the Quakers. And I said well you’re not that Quaker Ruth Paine who knew Marina Oswald are you?

Anonymous man: This woman told me that after Sue Wheaton had told people about Ruth’s association with the assassination, which they did not know about, then they became even more suspicious of her. She and others in their organization believed that Ruth was a CIA agent or asset who was down there for the purpose of gathering information about the group.

Wheaton: So Ruth had a photographer that comes and was with her. He was there snapping everybody. And that’s when they said well we’re doing the article for the Nicaragua Network. But Nicaragua Network had never heard of such a story. They were taking their <last> picture at a meeting, and we tried to take their picture and they left.

After her retirement from a career in a public school system, Ruth Paine served a number of years as the director of ProNica. ProNica was a project begun in 1985 by the St. Petersburg, Florida, Friends Meeting to help the hardest-hit people of war-torn Nicaragua. ProNica did many good things, an honorable organization which continues its work in Nicaragua to the present day. ProNica’s office is located on the property of the St. Petersburg Meeting. ProNica was Ruth Paine’s major post-retirement project. Ruth was a competent organizer and administrator and had the skills and dedication for the job.

The suspicions of Ruth Paine in Nicaragua cited in the opening comment of DiEugenio reflects a cruel epistemological circularity in which claims and suspicions of JFK assassination conspiracy researchers—the claims voiced in the film—directly originated and caused the suspicions encountered by Ruth in 1991 when she was newly arrived to Managua, Nicaragua, as director of ProNica to begin her work there. In circular reasoning, the suspicions in Nicaragua, arising from some JFK assassination conspiracy believers’ suspicions of Ruth, are claimed as confirmation that the suspicions of her role in the JFK assassination are true. The suspicions at each end are cited as evidence for the truth of the suspicions at the other end.

I was a regular attender of the St. Petersburg Friends Meeting in the early 2000s. The St. Petersburg Friends Meeting has a long history of engagement in controversial social and political issues in keeping with traditional Friends concerns. That Meeting and the people there were for real in my knowledge and experience. If there had been anything substantive to the Nicaragua allegations raised against Ruth Paine I do not believe the St. Petersburg Friends Meeting and the ProNica board would have had Ruth Paine as ProNica’s director for so many years. 

Four key points

The primary source document for the allegations against Ruth Paine in Nicaragua is the text of this link written close to the time of the events by Sue Wheaton, titled “Incident in February/March 1991 in Nicaragua”, dated April 20, 1991, and an Addendum written by Sue Wheaton dated Jan 28, 1992, with an attached ProNica newsletter and pages from a JFK assassination conspiracy book: http://jfkpage.com/Paine/Occurrence_in_Nicaragua.pdf.

On the notetaking issue, Wheaton reports that on Feb 5, 1991 Ruth Paine attended a meeting of the governing council of the pro-Sandinista Ben Linder House in Managua, Nicaragua, soon after her arrival as the new director of the St. Petersburg, Florida-based ProNica organization. Jon Roise, director of Friends work in Nicaragua which included being resident director of a Friends hospitality house, El Centro de Los Amigos (Friends Center), and responsible for carrying out ProNica’s work on the ground in Nicaragua, was a member of the Ben Linder House Council. Ruth, not a member of the Council, accompanied Jon and participated in the meeting as a guest. On Feb 15, 1991 Wheaton led a potluck discussion group at the Ben Linder House discussing the JFK assassination to the surprise of Ruth who was present. Wheaton started by asking Ruth to tell of her role with Marina in Dallas of those days which Ruth did. That is all that Wheaton tells in the original account as to what was said at that meeting—nothing of what followed Ruth’s words about her and Marina. What happened after that in that meeting may be suggested in the account of the “Anonymous man” of the film (above), saying that it was what was said of Ruth’s role in the JFK assassination that was pivotal in creating wider suspicions of Ruth Paine in Nicaragua (“This woman told me that after Sue Wheaton had told people about Ruth’s association with the assassination, which they did not know about, then they became even more suspicious of her.”).

Ruth Paine’s version of what transpired may be this from the film (above) (or does this refer to a later meeting in March? uncertain): “And at one of these meetings a woman showed up and proceeded to accuse me of a lot of things.” The “lot of things” appears to refer to the JFK assassination. Jon Roise and Ruth were present again at the next Ben Linder House Council meeting about three weeks later in March and here was the occasion in particular, apparently the main and only real occasion at issue, at which Ruth was observed to take “copious notes” (“[she] took copious notes of every name, organization and subject mentioned. She also peered over the organizational membership list in the office prior to the meeting and took notes.”). As brought out in the Wheaton document, when asked, Ruth explained that she was vetting, doing due diligence, checking out an organization for which she was the decider for ProNica concerning whether ProNica should continue affiliation, subject to approval of the ProNica board and the Meeting back in the States which would likely approve whatever Ruth recommended. Wheaton:

“At the close of the meeting, the person chairing commented on the many notes she  [Ruth] had taken and pictures Sean had taken and asked Ruth if she would send us a copy of her report after she returned to the States, or share any other document she planned to prepare. Ruth responded that her notes were simply for her report to the group back in St. Petersburg and the purpose was to determine whether or not the Quaker project would continue as a member group of the Ben Linder Council. She said she planned to recommend that they continue, as she found the work of Casa Benjamin Linder to be of value.”

This point should be carefully remembered through every discussion of Ruth in Nicaragua: there never then or since has been shown or set forth any evidence that Ruth’s notetaking was for a purpose other than the purpose she said it was. In addition, as I read the account I wondered if there might also be a contributing factor at work of a clash between Friends’ culture and non-Friends/solidarity organizations’ suspicions of surveillance. I have experienced both. In Friends culture everything is documented in writing—Friends’ documentation of activities are considered among the best-documented records in existence by historians--nothing is overtly hidden. There is no secrecy either in process or outcome concerning what Friends decide to do in their business meetings, including civil disobedience if so. The no-secrecy ethos is wired deep in Friends’ history in the form of testimonies from the beginning against Friends holding memberships in any society with secrets such as the Masons (Friends opposed on principle). Because of this no-secrecy ethos, there is not an atmosphere of suspicion toward spies or surveillance finding out or gathering intelligence on what Friends are really up to. (Friends would have concerns and a response if it were learned that a spy agency was seeking to influence decision-making or that an individual Friend in a committee or leadership position was a covert agent of such, a different matter.)

In contrast, in antiwar or solidarity groups in my experience often or typically there are atmospheres of suspicion and concerns about infiltrators functioning as informants on the group’s activities, a different ethos than in Friends’ meetings. I have seen this. I have seen how easily innocent people, especially newcomers, can be suspected and whispered about in such settings, about 95% of the time wrongly so, “false positives”, the way suspicion in a climate of sustained justified low-level paranoia works out in practice.

So the first key point is the suspicions about the perception of Ruth Paine’s notetaking in Nicaragua were, are, and always have been, suspicion alone, underlying which there never has been evidence shown of wrongdoing. The second key point, and this is central, is that the overwhelming starting point and driver of the Nicaragua allegations against Ruth Paine, as the Wheaton documents make absolutely crystal clear, was the JFK assassination allegations against Ruth themselves. From this starting point Ruth was a priori suspicious to Wheaton before Ruth took her first step off the plane in Managua in 1991, because of beliefs of Wheaton that Ruth played a sinister role in the JFK assassination—the accusations against Ruth of the present film. In this way Ruth arrived to Managua with three strikes against her in some eyes even if she had not been seen looking at a single bulletin board or taking down a single note. Then when Ruth was seen taking notes, Wheaton and confidantes concluded that settled it, Ruth was “a CIA agent or asset” (as the “anonymous man” interviewee in the film states above). This became the narrative about Ruth in Managua spreading from those circles even though there never was any evidence Ruth had ill intent or ill purpose when taking her notes.

The third important point is that the student photographer who accompanied Jon Roise and Ruth was not affiliated with Ruth or ProNica nor was Ruth involved in that photography, according to Ruth’s account at the time and for which there has not been any evidence shown otherwise, even though the photographer accompanied Ruth and Jon. This is important because Wheaton in the present film misrepresents Ruth Paine in stating that Ruth Paine was part of that photographer’s activity. Wheaton above in the film: 

“Ruth had a photographer that comes and was with her. He was there snapping everybody. And that’s when they[Ruth, Jon, and the photographer] said well we’re [Ruth, Jon, and the photographer] doing the article for the Nicaragua Network. But Nicaragua Network had never heard of such a story.”

That is not what Wheaton’s original report read in 1991. In the original 1991 report Wheaton reports Ruth Paine saying that that photographer’s activity was not affiliated with Ruth or Ruth’s doing. Wheaton in 1991:

“Ruth came to the March [1991] meeting of the Ben Linder Council and took copious notes of every name, organization and subject mentioned. She also peered over the organizational membership list in the office prior to the meeting and took notes. At the close of the meeting, the person chairing commented on the many notes she had taken and pictures Sean had taken and asked Ruth if she would send us a copy of her report after she returned to the States, or share any other document she planned to prepare. Ruth responded that her notes were simply for her report to the group back in St. Petersburg and the purpose was to determine whether or not the Quaker project would continue as a member group of the Ben Linder Council. She said she planned to recommend that they continue, as she found the work of Casa Benjamin Linder to be of value. She said Sean was not affiliated with her program; that he was simply a guest at the Quaker hospitality house and his pictures were for the Nicaragua Network, not her organization.”

Related to this but of sufficient significance to be considered a fourth point is that according to the primary documents there never was an original issue that Ruth had taken suspicious photographs in Nicaragua, even though that later came into the narrative against Ruth Paine secondarily. The original allegation as concerns Ruth’s personal behavior in Nicaragua—that specifically which Ruth did in Nicaragua that was considered objectionable—was entirely and solely the notetaking according to the primary documents. As the Nicaragua allegations that Ruth was a spy were repeated in the years that followed, the note-taking became conflated with the photography of the photographer as if Ruth had done both, both objectionable notetaking and picture-taking, even though no picture-taking on Ruth’s part at all had been mentioned as part of the original allegations in the 1991 account. In a 1995 interview Wheaton repeated her allegation that Ruth had taken too many notes and added a new detail: that at the Friends hospitality house where Ruth was staying, the Friends Center—“Someone told me she studied the bulletin board there, copying everything on it” (Probe, July-Aug 1996, p. 9). (This addition to the accusation surprised me for I thought, I read bulletin boards too. I have always thought things posted on bulletin boards were put there with intent to be read. Perhaps the criticism was not Ruth’s reading, but copying down of information from the bulletin board. I have done that too, without it having occurred to me that someone would take that amiss.) 

But the point is even here four years later in 1995 the behavior of Ruth in Nicaragua cited by Wheaton as objectionable remains still and solely the notetaking, no mention of Ruth taking pictures. By 1997 that has changed. Someone else repeating the same story originated from Wheaton appears now for the first known time to have taken the story of the photographer’s photos and attributed that activity to Ruth as if Ruth took those photographs (“and she took photographs of people for supposed purposes that were later proven to be false” [http://whokilledjfk.net/paine.htm]). This is how the hearsay grew, the piling on to Ruth Paine. In the film in 2022, Wheaton herself, while not saying Ruth snapped any photos, says that Ruth was involved in objectionable photography.

The photographer

Going back to the Jan 1992 “Addendum”, Sue Wheaton accused Ruth Paine of being party to a false representation concerning the student photographer’s activity. In the earliest text Wheaton reported that Ruth had said the student “was not affiliated with her program; that he was simply a guest at the Quaker hospitality house and his pictures were for the Nicaragua Network, not her organization.” Wheaton in the Addendum gives this followup:

“The Nicaragua Network in Washington, D.C. told a friend of ours that they had not commissioned anyone to take pictures in Nicaragua. Thus, the explanation given by Ruth Paine and Sean Miller as to why Sean [n.b.] was taking pictures of members of the U.S. community in Nicaragua was not valid." 

From what I have read, Nicaragua Network in the 1990s was a U.S.-based hardline pro-Sandinista solidarity organization. Hypothetically some agency or semi-private corporate intelligence-collection effort could put up some shell front organization, have it become listed as an affiliate or supporter of Nicaragua Network, and the photographer hired to obtain the photographs paid by the shell organization, while being able to tell people in Nicaragua, “I’m working with Nicaragua Network” or “I’m doing a project commissioned by an affiliate of Nicaragua Network”, meaning the front group affiliated with Nicaragua Network. Something like that, if there was something amiss with that photography. But it cannot and should not be assumed that that photographer’s activity was Ruth’s doing or that Ruth was witting to an improper purpose of that photography, simply because that photographer was staying as a guest at the Friends House and car-pooled to meetings with Jon Roise and Ruth. A car-pooling or ride-share from the Friends house, where all three were staying, is how the arrival of all three in the same car seen by Sue Wheaton reads to me. There is no information in the documents before us that the photography of that photographer was known to Ruth in any form other than what he would have told her. The fact that Ruth repeated that need mean no more than that is what he told Ruth and Ruth believed it. It does not mean Ruth was saying something she knew was not true.

My encounter with an Australian senator at a Friends Center in New Zealand

I wish to press and emphasize the force of the last point above. For I have been in just this kind of situation myself, in a way that causes me to be less quick to jump to conclusions than those condemning Ruth Paine have been willing to consider. I have been in hostels and Friends hospitality houses in North America and Europe and New Zealand. One meets everyone in such settings, everyone has a story, one hears stories of other parts of the world, instant new friendships are struck up, people who have just met join up to go out to eateries and destinations and events, taxis and auto rides are shared. That is how it can happen that that photographer arrived with Jon Roise and Ruth to the Ben Linder House, and in default of more specific information, how I believe it did happen—the two Friends’ directors and the visiting college student newly arrived to Nicaragua on his assignment to do a photography project. They were at the Friends House at the same time, and it becomes only sensible that they would drive to events together.

Friends meetings in major cities internationally typically have guest lodging on the property of the meetinghouse in which travelling visitors can lodge. Usually there is a live-in caretaker and it is an informal hostel-like situation. These are not normally advertised or promoted in venues aimed at the tourist market. On the other hand they are not secret or limited to use only by Friends either. They are intended to serve both travelling Friends and non-Friends and are open to anyone who wishes to visit, whether en route when travelling or for temporary periods in place in a city. Guests are expected to do their own tidying up and housekeeping in the quarters which are often rooms in refurbished residential homes; there is no maid or hotel room service. Typically the costs to guests are kept very reasonable and affordable. I lived for two months in this kind of situation at the Auckland Friends Center in Mt. Eden, Auckland, New Zealand, in 1987.

Completely by accident, during the time I was there, an Australian senator visited and stayed there also, just like a US senator except in Australia, a charismatic principled Quaker from Perth named Jo Vallentine. Jo Vallentine had run as an insurgent candidate of a newly-formed startup party called the Nuclear Disarmament Party, not part of an existing major political party, on a single-issue anti-nuclear platform and (through a fluke in Australia’s election system she explained to me) had been elected (https://biography.senate.gov.au/vallentine-josephine/). As senator in Australia she spoke intelligently and passionately on issues that mattered and, motivated by Gandhi and King, did civil disobedience and was arrested a number of times for things like protesting at Pine Gap (https://reimaginingpeace.wordpress.com/2014/10/25/jo-vallentine-peace-activist-and-pacifist-protesting-us-warship-in-fremantle-1985/). I believe at the time she was the only Quaker in elected national office in the world. After dinner at the Friends Center I washed dishes with Jo Vallentine, she washing the dishes, me drying and putting the glasses and saucers away, while having a good one-on-one talk with the courageous senator for maybe thirty minutes in that informal setting. (Yes this was a real live senator washing dishes in a hostel—that was the unassuming kind of person Jo Vallentine was, the real deal. I have never washed dishes with a US senator.)

The next morning Jo Vallentine invited me to accompany her party on a private tour of the Rainbow Warrior, the Greenpeace ship which had been bombed by French frogmen sent by the French government, in which a Dutch photographer was killed and the ship sunk in Auckland’s harbor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior). The ship’s hull where the bomb had blasted a huge hole had had a metal patch welded on underwater to make the hull again watertight, then the water pumped out and air in, and by that means the ship was raised again in the Auckland harbor. However it was off-limits to the public to visit. Jo Vallentine had been invited to visit the ship by the Rainbow Warrior’s captain, and I had the good fortune to be invited and included by the senator herself, which I did. 

Here is the point: I was nothing other than who I said I was, travelling on my own from the U.S. with only good purposes and reasons, but I could have been anyone. What if I had not been who I seemed to be? But anyone meeting her party, Jo Vallentine introduced me among the others, repeating to others what I had told her I was doing in Auckland. To an outsider it could look like I was with Sen. Vallentine. I thought of that when reading Sue Wheaton’s account of Jon Roise, Ruth Paine, and the photographer who carpooled from the Friends Center to events. I do not believe Ruth was involved in that photographer’s photography, which is what Ruth said at the time according to Wheaton’s account.

When Ruth said that photographer was doing a project for Nicaragua Network, I believe that is Ruth repeating what that photographer told her, no different than Sen. Vallentine introducing me and repeating what I had told her of who I was and what I was doing. That photographer at the Friends Center in Managua with Jon and Ruth will have had a plausible reason or story as to why he was doing his photography that will have been told and believed. Then there is carpooling and Ruth telling others what he has told her, as to who he was and what he was doing. It does not mean Ruth was involved with his project or part of doing it herself, going by the statements and information published by Wheaton on this. With respect to that photographer I do not believe Ruth Paine was guilty of anything more than believing what that photographer told her and carpooling, the same way I had been invited by Senator Jo Vallentine to accompany her party to the Rainbow Warrior that day in Auckland in 1987, solely because I was there and she felt comfortable enough with me that she included me the next morning in her trip to see the Rainbow Warrior.

There is no evidence, in the statements and information that we have, that Ruth would have or should have known there was anything amiss with that photographer, if there was, or that there was some reason she should not interact or carpool with him, if there was. Ruth should not be condemned simply because she, Jon Roise, and the photographer arrived together at destinations in the same car, since they came from the same origin, the Friends Center in Managua where they were all staying. 

Another malicious accusation against Ruth Paine

Another accusation raised by Wheaton did not involve Ruth Paine directly but was directed toward Friends’ work in Nicaragua in general. This was an incident that occurred about six months after Ruth returned to the States in 1991. Friends’ House director Jon Roise in Managua, on the board of the Ben Linder House, invited as a guest speaker to the Ben Linder House an ex-contra leader. In his presentation this ex-contra leader had spoken of his people not receiving sufficient aid from aid organizations. During the question-and-answer following his talk he said there were two exceptions to his criticism, one of which was the Friends of whom he said: “the Quakers—they always come through for us (in humanitarian assistance)”. Although not stated directly, it almost reads to me that his complaint may have been that other aid organizations, most of whom were pro-Sandinista in sympathies, had discriminated against his group because they had been contra fighters (could be true). Friends have had strong traditional policies of neutrality in serving humanitarian needs of civilians on both sides of conflicts. That Jon Roise would reach out to an ex- (note: not current) contra leader and “the Quakers always come through for us (with humanitarian assistance)” is in keeping with Friends practice, reaching out to civilians on both sides of conflicts across political and ideological divides. On a more mundane level, an invited speaker saying, “the Quakers always come through for us (in humanitarian assistance)” could also read as the kind of feel-good praising remarks one makes to one’s hosts as a good guest.

But in the world of JFK assassination conspiracy believers that incident reprehensibly became turned into a claim, by Vince Salandria in a speech that I understand received a thunderous ovation, that “according to recent research in the 1990s Ruth Paine assisted illegal anti-societal activity in Nicaragua” (Vince Salandria, 1998 address to the Coalition on Political Assassinations, Dallas). On the basis of that innocuous incident—the ex-contra leader saying “the Quakers always come through for us (with humanitarian assistance)”—Vince Salandria accused Ruth Paine personally of having been a supporter of contras’ illegal activity. (!) (There was no issue of Friends’ or other aid organizations’ humanitarian assistance being illegal at the time. The ex-contras at the time were living, as many of the poor of Nicaragua, as “squatters” illegally in an area of Managua, at the time they may have received humanitarian assistance from ProNica affiliates.) Vince Salandria’s statement was a breathtaking fabrication. This is how the smearing of Ruth Paine happens, and leading JFK assassination conspiracy proponents have been responsible and those internal to this community who have repeated or failed to call out this kind of smearing have also been responsible. This kind of shameful smearing of Ruth Paine gained traction and approval in article after article, internet post after internet post, book after book. 

Conclusion

While the concerns regarding surveillance and infiltration among activist and solidarity groups in Nicaragua were real, the sources and information at hand give no substantive basis for concluding or supposing that when Ruth was in Nicaragua she was functioning as a spy, a conduit of information to an intelligence agency or in a covert capacity of any kind. But to a witchhunt mentality that lack of evidence does not matter: the existence of suspicion is considered evidence for itself. This is the logic of the DiEugenios among JFK conspiracy believers, so quick to condemn without evidence, in some cases seemingly without sign of conscience or qualm—in tones of certainty and sarcastic questions left hanging in the air in mockery of the possibility of innocent explanations. The Ruth Paine Nicaragua allegations arose and took traction specifically because of the prior smearing of Ruth Paine by JFK assassination conspiracy believers. In terms of any known information, there is no “there” there against Ruth Paine underlying the argument that her allegedly sinister role in the JFK assassination is confirmed by the suspicions of her in Nicaragua. Ruth Paine did not deserve to be accused of being an agent of the CIA or any other kind of spy in Nicaragua.

The most illuminating capsule summary of this sorry history of what happened in Nicaragua with Ruth Paine is the following account of Sue Wheaton in the Addendum of the primary source document, telling of a futile attempt on the part of Jon Roise, director of the Friends Center in Nicaragua, to try to get Sue Wheaton to stop spreading accusations that Ruth Paine was working for the CIA. In this account one can see so clearly that the driving cause of Wheaton’s suspicion of Ruth Paine was JFK assassination conspiracy authors’ portrayals, in a way that goes beyond reason of anything then at issue in Nicaragua—an impossible accusation for Ruth Paine or any innocent person who would be hit with the same thing to refute. One can see in this account Roise trying in vain and powerless to get Wheaton from stopping her campaign against Ruth, damaging not only to Ruth but to the work of Friends in Nicaragua, in the form of accusations not grounded on any evidence. Jon Roise is the reasonable voice here, trying but getting nowhere for his efforts. Wheaton’s account:

“In early April [1991] Jon Roise [director of the Friends Center program in Nicaragua] asked to talk with me about my telling members of the U.S. community of Ruth Paine’s history related to the Kennedy assassination. I agreed, and he came to our house in Managua, where my husband, mother and I talked with him for about an hour. He was concerned that I had a ‘whisper campaign’ going against Ruth and had accused her of being CIA. I said, ‘Wrong on both counts. I haven’t been whispering about her history; I’ve been telling people loud and clear. Second, I never said she was CIA because I have no idea who or what she is. I’ve said only that she is writing down every name and acronym in sight, which she is.’ John said Ruth likes to write things down. He said the Kennedy Assassination was a long time ago and insinuated it was irresponsible of me to ‘stir things up’ at this late date. My husband and I both told him in no uncertain terms why we think history is important. He was familiar with Jim Garrison’s case against Clay Shaw and Mark Lane’s work (which I found curious, as most people not immersed in JFK assassination reading are very fuzzy on these matters); he said a former roommate of his had known Mark Lane and had found him ‘off the wall.’ He accused me of acting in a ‘McCarthyite way’ and said it would hurt the Quakers’ work in Nicaragua. I said this relationship with Oswald wasn’t my history; it was Ruth’s history, and I had no intention of not talking about it, and that was far from being McCarthyite, a slur and slant way off the mark. He said the U.S. community had to stick together in Nicaragua. I told him the U.S. population had been deeply divided over policy toward Nicaragua and there were people on both sides of the contra question in the U.S. community in Nicaragua. When he left, we tacitly agreed that we disagreed on almost everything discussed.”

And so Jon Roise tried but failed.

Ruth’s notetaking did not prove or indicate Ruth was doing other than her Friends-organization job. But the pre-existing belief of Wheaton, based on assassination conspiracy books saying Ruth had a sinister role in the JFK assassination, caused a motivated ProNica director to be regarded with suspicion, smeared and ostracized on the basis of no evidence. 

“[Ruth] was confronted (. . .) but consistently and vehemently denied that she had anything to do with the CIA or any other governmental intelligence agency. Normally when an agent or asset was outed they would quietly leave in order to avoid further embarrassment. But since Ruth never admitted her guilt and refused to leave, she was instead asked to take a leave of absence. When she was taken to a R&R camp in nearby Costa Rica, she was asked to leave because they, too, suspected that she was an agent. Ruth returned to Nicaragua and finished her tour of duty and then left for the U.S.” (From interview of anonymous source in 1997 cited earlier)

It is a modern parable of a witch accusation evoking central Europe of bygone centuries, in which there was no way for an accused witch to prove her innocence. Every way a woman so accused looked cross-eyed or laughed nervously was interpreted as further proof of her guilt by witch-hunters who could “tell” just by looking at her. How could Ruth have proved her innocence to Sue Wheaton in Nicaragua in 1991? Or to JFK assassination conspiracy believers today with respect to her actions in Nicaragua? What could an innocent accused person say or do in such circumstances to convince accusers they are innocent? The sad answer is, sometimes, nothing, so primal can such accusations be.

Instead of the allegations of Ruth Paine’s Nicaragua work in the present film, Ruth Paine would better be honored and remembered for her years of sustained work in her retirement with the good work of ProNica in Nicaragua. Ruth’s work with ProNica as unpaid director for years, as well as her participation with several other women of the St. Petersburg Friends Meeting in war tax resistance, illustrates Ruth not only talking the talk but walking the walk of the values of a Friend, the organizational work with ProNica being the kind of work that I have found so very common among the lifelong Friends I have known. This is the Ruth Paine I knew.

From the ProNica website (http://pronica.org/pronicas-story/) : 

“Ruth Paine directed ProNica for many years, working steadily building the organization and its reputation for integrity and true solidarity. Ruth never collected a salary. ProNica sponsored AVP (Alternatives to Violence Project) workshops in Nicaraguan prisons in the 1990s and eventually spread across the country by training ‘trainers’ using the AVP model to teach non-violence and self-empowerment. Money was raised to drill wells in communities to provide safe potable water sources. Cooperative groups of women were given funding to jointly raise poultry to earn money and feed their families. ProNica helped develop a cooperative’s transition to the production of organic sesame oil, which garnered a fair trade contract with The Body Shop. The ProNica newsletter told stories of Nicaraguan communities organizing collective responses to their post-war needs for trauma healing, feeding and housing displaced people, establishing free clinics for women for cancer screening, pre and post natal care, family planning, and counseling for the high rates of abuse and post-traumatic stress.”

ProNica board member Doug McCown (https://pronica.org/welcome-back-doug-mccown-to-the-pronica-board-of-directors/) :

“I’m unclear of the year, let alone a date, as to when I joined the ProNica community. It was in large part due to a friend’s encouragement. How could I, how could any of us, resist the gentle urging of Ruth Hyde Paine? Like now, back in those days, the mid-1990s, the ProNica community consisted of a Board, a few employees, and some supporters. Among these were Lillian Hall and Ken Kinzel. Am I shaking the memory tree for you long-term supporters? I loved this community: how dedicated folks were to assisting Nicaraguans’ grass-roots needs! It helped that our decisions were embedded of Quaker process, under the stewardship of Ruth, Herb and Pam Leigh, Lillian, and the many others who have given of themselves over the years…” 

5 hours ago, David Josephs said:

19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the 'play dumb' rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.

This sounds like DiEugenio's responses to my substantive discussion of the Minox camera ... the unloading of bombs away and then refusal to respond or acknowledge or address the most direct information shown in response suggesting he is in error ... and the absolutely consistent failure to show any hint of conscience about the possibility of accusing an innocent person, not talking of other things but talking of this thing, this charge. 

David, I have seen you have a long history of being a "detail" person. You go into the weeds and the documents and the details, do your research, come up with your arguments and give your reasons for them, write them up and put them out there. While I do not necessarily agree with your conclusions, I like the fact that you address facts and primary sources of evidence, and more than once even in the process of following an argument with which I do not agree have nevertheless learned something in the process of reading your argument. I have also noticed you have shown willingness to stand to be corrected, a necessary humility in the research enterprise all of us should have and which should be positively reinforced when someone acknowledges error when pointed out.

Therefore I am glad for your appearance here, and I wonder if you would be willing to take up and engage the questions I last asked of DiEugenio above, posted twice, which DiEugenio will not answer, and if he does answer in the future has a high likelihood of doing so in an abusive way.

I may not agree with what you say, and may come back to you with discussion of it, but I know that your comments, whatever they may be, will have some informed basis and raise the level of discussion from where it is here--and also return to the topic of this thread.

To Jake Hammond and others: Ed LeDoux on the ROKC site has brilliantly and clearly correctly identified your lady with the camera: it is Wilma Irene Bond. https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2552-bond-no-not-james-wilma-irene 

Wilma Irene Bond has given testimony of her movements that day, and she never mentions going up to the front entrance of the TSBD. That appears to me to argue she is not Prayer Man.

Leaving Oswald himself as the best candidate for Prayer Man.

Well done Ed L.!

Or was the Paines phone call closer to 2 pm (and Ruth's timing of ca. 1 pm was mistaken)?

The only way to get to a timing of the phone call is from Ruth's estimate of 1 pm and analysis of the content of the phone call which may or may not have inaccuracies introduced via the hearsay/paraphrasing factor.

But this from Krystinik seems to be a witness saying the phone call of Michael to Ruth happened after the news on the radio of Oswald's arrest in the movie theatre carrying a pistol, and when that news came over the radio, Michael Paine now believed Oswald had killed JFK. If he called Ruth then--which is the way Krystinik says it happened--then it would make sense that Michael and Ruth's conversation could contain some back and forth discussing what to make of Oswald maybe did it or if he did or ... did it. It would make excellent sense with the timing, and the only thing that would need to be assumed is that Ruth was mistaken on the time when later asked when the phone call happened. Here is Krystinik's WC testimony again:

Mr. KRYSTINIK. I guess mainly because the first time I had heard of the Texas Book Depository was, Michael told me Oswald had gotten a job there. And when he said Texas Book, that was perhaps the second time I had ever heard the name. I don't know that I actually knew they had one. And when he said Texas Book Depository, it immediately rang right back. And I said, "That's where Oswald works." And I didn't think of Oswald shooting the President at that time. I just commented that was where he works. And then my next comment, "You don't think it could be him?". And he said, "No; of course not, it wouldn't be him." And it wasn't but just a little while later that we heard that Officer Tippit had been shot, and it wasn't very long after that that it came through that the Oswald fellow had been captured, had had a pistol with him, and Michael used some expression, I have forgotten exactly what the expression was, and then he said, "The stupid," something, I have forgotten. It wasn't a complimentary thing. He said, "He is not even supposed to have a gun." And that I can quote, "He is not even supposed to have a gun." Or, "Not even supposed to own a gun," I have forgotten. We talked about it a little bit more, about how or why or what would the reasons be behind, that he would have absolutely nothing to gain, he could hurt himself and the nation, but couldn't gain anything personal, and we discussed it. That immediately ruled out the John Birch, but why would the Communists want him dead, and Michael couldn't imagine whether it was a plot or a rash action by the man himself. He didn't know which it could be. He said he didn't know. And he called home then to Ruth.

With the timing of the phone call reset to where Krystinik has it--Krystinik being a witness who was there when Michael made the call--I think this renders that call sensible and clears up just about everything. There is no unusual meaning in what Michael or Ruth were overheard saying other than an extension of this very discussion told by Krystinik. Ruth Paine, it seems, simply got the estimated time of the call wrong. Krystinik's account makes more sense and renders it all now sensible. 

Analysis of the Paines' phone call at about 1 pm

The Warren Commission testimony of Michael Paine and of his coworker and friend Frank Krystinik show a focus on Michael Paine's thinking as the news broke. That testimony, especially from Kyrstinik which corroborates Michael Paine, the question of interest to the Warren Commission was when did Michael Paine first suspect Oswald may have done it.

And the answer seems to revolve around the pivotal news broadcast naming the Texas School Depository. Because Michael Paine had talked about his wife's situation with Lee and Marina to Krystinik--and Krystinik invited by Michael Paine to the ACLU meeting had gotten into an argument over politics with Oswald--Krystinik was quite familiar with Lee Oswald. Krystinik and Michael Paine and perhaps a small number of others were in an office listening to the radio.

When the name of the TSBD building was announced over the radio--when would that first be? maybe 1:50 pm? I don't know--, Krystinik said to Michael, isn't that where Oswald works? Michael Paine realized, yeah, it was. Krystinik to Michael (bear in mind Krystinik had had an argument with Oswald and considered him negatively as an illogical leftist)--asks Michael, "do you suppose he could have done it?" According to both Krystinik and Michael, Michael answered, no, Oswald would not have done it. Michael didn't think Oswald was that kind of person to do something like that. But, the question had been raised.

But that was the center of discussion at that point: the building had been named (TSBD); causing the connection to be made to both Krystinik and Michael Paine that that was where Oswald worked; they both had priorly talked of Oswald quite a bit informally; and the topical obvious question was, voiced by Krystinik, "could Oswald have done it?" 

Also, Krystinik tells before that--before the TSBD detail was announced on the radio--how the several coworkers in that office listening to the radio were speculating on who could have done it. They focused first and immediately on John Birchers as the most likely--the extremist right. This was before the news of the TSBD and the Oswald connection led Krystinik to ask Michael if it was possible Oswald had done it.

The point is this: this is the background to the phone call from Michael to Ruth which happened within moments or a small number of minutes after that point.

After the initial back and forth between Krystinik (at 9 H 472-474) and Michael Paine over whether Oswald could have done it (after the TSBD announcement caused Krystinik and Michael to make the connection to Oswald), Michael called Ruth.

That Michael called Ruth at this point is confirmed by Krystinik, in agreement with Ruth's estimate of about 1 pm. It is in this context of wondering whether Oswald did it--at about 12:50 pm or so or whenever the TSBD is announced--before Oswald is publicly named as a suspect, before the news of Oswald's arrest in Oak Cliff. This is the setup to Michael's call to Ruth.

All that needs to be supposed is that Michael, despite initial denials to Krystinik and a couple of other coworkers that he did not think Oswald would do something like that, reconsiders privately between that first-reaction answer, and his phone call to Ruth. By the time he talks to Ruth, he informs Ruth that either Oswald did not do it but the extreme right wing did, or maybe Oswald did do it but the ones really responsible are still the extreme right wing. Bear in mind that the overhead conversation--provided that it was an overhearing and not the wiretap that Jeff Carter argues--could be subject to error in exact wording. Even if Jeff Carter were to turn out to be right that it really was from a wiretap, the form that was reported and got into the news could be hearsay (originating from someone who knew the wiretap), so still subject to the errors that any paraphrasing of hearsay can distort.

But the key points are that Michael informs Ruth that there was a question whether Oswald maybe could have done it, hard to imagine Michael would have certainty that Oswald did it (based on the testimony of Krystinik) but Michael could well be expressing uncertainty at that point--before the rest of the world knows of Oswald Michael is talking of this to Ruth--and to be prepared for arrival of police. This explains Ruth's greeting to police when they arrive: "I've been expectng you--come right in". It was the prior phone call from Michael which accounts for that. She did expect a police arrival, after Michael's phone call.

It all is consistent with a time of the phone call of about 1 pm, a thinking that the extreme right wing had done it, but Oswald under suspicion too (prompted by Krystinik's questions to Michael raising the question of could Oswald have done it), and Ruth not surprised but welcoming to the police when they arrived, giving voluntary permission for police to search without a warrant.

Warren Commission testimony of Krystinik (complementary to parallel and fuller elaboration in Michael Paine's testimony, not posted here). The important point is that the phone call of Michael to Ruth immediately follows naturally from this context runup to that phone call:

Mr. LIEBELER. But also to the best of your recollection, you were both in the lab?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. We were both in the office portion of the lab. Michael has a stereo hi-fi that he brought to the lab for use by all of us.
Mr. LIEBELER. You were there at that time when you first heard that the President had been fired at?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. And immediately when the first report came in that the President had been fired at, three or four of us, I forget them, myself, Michael Paine, Ken Sambell, and Clarke Benham all gathered right around the radio like a bunch of ticks and stayed there. 

Mr. LIEBELER. Was Mr. Noel there?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Dave Noel, yes; I believe he was. I believe Dave was the one that went to dinner with Michael, if I am correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. He went to lunch with Michael?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. As best you can recall, you had not heard anything about the attempted assassination prior to the time Michael and Dave returned from lunch?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. No; we were listening on the radio and heard the report. As far as being shot at, I can't remember exactly whether Michael was there when the very, very first report came in, but he was there when the report came in. He was there when the report came in that he had died.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you and Michael have any conversations about the assassination?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Yes; we did.
Mr. LIEBELER Tell us to the best of your recollection what he said?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. I commented, "Who in the blue-eyed world would do a thing like that?" And if I remember right, Michael didn't make any immediate comment at all about the assassination other than what a terrible thing and what in the world could he gain. We commented, first immediate impression was that possibly the John Birch people would have had a grievance against him, possibly, and we talked about that. And Michael said he didn't know. He wouldn't expect that the Communists would do it, yet at the same time he wouldn't expect the John Birch people to do it and wouldn't know. Then the first report came through that he had been fired at from Elm and Houston Streets in that area, and at that time Michael commented that, well, that is right close to the Texas School Book Depository. I did remember prior to the assassination Michael telling me that Oswald had finally gotten a job and he was working at the Texas School Book Depository, and at that particular time right then, I said, "You don't think it could be Oswald?" And he said, "No, it couldn't be him." At any rate, he had the same impression I had, that none of us could really believe it was a person they had met. It was such a big thing that a person doesn't imagine himself having met a person that could do such an act.
Mr. LIEBELER. Your first discussion with Michael on the question of Oswald's possible involvement in the assassination came after you had learned that the shots were fired in the vicinity of Elm and Houston near the Texas School Book Depository?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Yes; he commented about Elm and Houston, and he said that is where the Texas School Book Depository is, and the next comment was I commented, "Well isn't that where Oswald works?" And he says, "That is where he works." And I said, "Do you think it could be him?" And he said, "No; he doesn't see any way in the world it could have been him." But it wasn't but just a little bit----
Mr. LIEBELER. Let me interrupt you for a moment. You were the first one to mention Oswald's name in connection with the assassination between you and Michael Paine, is that correct?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Yes, sir; everyone was standing around.
Mr. LIEBELER. Why did you think of Oswald's name in connection with the assassination?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. I guess mainly because the first time I had heard of the Texas Book Depository was, Michael told me Oswald had gotten a job there. And when he said Texas Book, that was perhaps the second time I had ever heard the name. I don't know that I actually knew they had one. And when he said Texas Book Depository, it immediately rang right back. And I said, "That's where Oswald works." And I didn't think of Oswald shooting the President at that time. I just commented that was where he works. And then my next comment, "You don't think it could be him?" And he said, "No; of course not, it wouldn't be him." And it wasn't but just a little while later that we heard that Officer Tippit had been shot, and it wasn't very long after that that it came through that the Oswald fellow had been captured, had had a pistol with him, and Michael used some expression, I have forgotten exactly what the expression was, and then he said, "The stupid," something, I have forgotten. It wasn't a complimentary thing. He said, "He is not even supposed to have a gun." And that I can quote, "He is not even supposed to have a gun." Or, "Not even supposed to own a gun," I have forgotten. We talked about it a little bit more, about how or why or what would the reasons be behind, that he would have absolutely nothing to gain, he could hurt himself and the nation, but couldn't gain anything personal, and we discussed it. That immediately ruled out the John Birch, but why would the Communists want him dead, and Michael couldn't imagine whether it was a plot or a rash action by the man himself. He didn't know which it could be. He said he didn't know. And he called home then to Ruth.
Mr. LIEBELER. Before we get into that, you specifically remember that Michael said that Oswald was not even supposed to have a gun?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Yes, sir; I remember that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember those exact words?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Yes. He could have said, "Oswald doesn't own a gun." That could be. That could be. The exact thing is cloudy a little bit.
Mr. LIEBELER. What is your best recollection on the point?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. My best recollection is, "He is not supposed to have a gun," or something in that vicinity. That is the best I remember right now.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have the impression----
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Now that you mentioned to me that he isn't supposed to own that gun, it is possible that he did say that, but the way I remember is that he said "He is not supposed to have a gun."
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you get the impression at that time that Michael had any foreknowledge of Oswald's possible involvement?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. None at all. I felt it hit him as a big shock.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now you said that you were the first one to mention Oswald's name?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. The basic reason you mentioned it was because you had associated his name with the Texas School Book Depository?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. Is there any other reason why you thought of Oswald in connection with the assassination?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Oh, it might possibly be; I can't really tell you, it was all just everything was going that way, and it was a trying thing of oppression and worry at that particular time. It may be that he is the only Communist I have ever been introduced to, that I knew was possibly a Communist or Marxist, or whatever they are, and he was the only villain I could think of at the time, possibly. And I didn't really feel that he was a villain. I didn't really feel it was him, but he was the only person I knew connected with the Communist Party, and if the Communist Party should be associated with something, his was the name that came to my mind, possibly. I feel the correlation came through the fact that Michael had told me about him getting a job at the Texas School Depository, and when I heard the name again, I feel that was the correlation that brought his name to my mind. A lot of these things, I don't know where or how they come to mind.
Mr. LIEBELER After you heard that Oswald had been apprehended in connection with the slaying of Officer Tippit, did you and Michael Paine then associate Oswald with the assassination of the President?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. I did, and I feel that Michael did also.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did you and Michael say to each other just very shortly after the word had come through?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. I can't really remember. Michael said that he felt that he should be going home, that Ruth and Marina are both going to be muchly upset and there was going to be people at the house asking questions, and he felt he should be there to answer them. He did say, if I can answer, "I feel I should be there." 

Mr. LIEBELER. He said that prior to the time that Oswald had been publicly connected with the assassination, is that correct?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. I just really don't know. Prior to 0swald's being apprehended, there was a description of the man on the radio, if I remember correctly, and the shot had been--it had been reported that--can we go .back Just a little bit?
Mr. LIEBELER. Sure.
Mr. KRYSTINIK. More of this is coming back.
Mr. LIEBELER. Surely.
Mr. KRYSTINIK. At the time the radio had commented that the shots had come from the vicinity of the Texas School Book Depository, and they put out a description of a young man. After I had asked Michael about the possibility of Oswald, well, he commented that that is where Oswald works. Then they put out the description of the young man, and I said that fits him pretty good, to the best of my memory. You don't thank it could have been him? They did put out the description prior to his arrest and prior to his having shot Officer Tippit.
Mr. LIEBELER. The description seemed to fit Oswald?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. The description seemed to fit Oswald, and they did at that time, if I remember, comment on him being about 25 years old. I think that was the age they gave, weighing about 160 pounds, and being sandy head, and if I remember right, they said a fair complexion. I don't remember that part of it. And shortly, just a little while after that, they commented on Officer. Tippit having been shot and Oswald having been arrested in the Texas Theatre.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you discuss with Michael the possibility that the description given fitted 0swald?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. Yes; I did. I said it sounds like him. Do you think we should call the FBI. And he said, "Let's wait a little bit." And at that particular time he said that he didn't see, any way in the world it could be Oswald at all. Besides, the man was in Oak Cliff, and Oswald was---works in the School Book Depository. They commented on the radio there was a man fitting this description and having shot Officer Tippet in Oak Cliff, and being shot. They commented on Tippit, and they were after him, and it was after they arrested him in the Oak Cliff Theatre.
Mr. LIEBELER. The description of this individual was given out after Officer Tippit had been shot, is that correct?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. It seems that someone had seen him shoot Officer Tippit. I don't remember that for sure, the description was on the radio.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did Michael say when you suggested that he call the FBI?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. He said, "If it is him, there is nothing they could do right now. It seems they are right after him." He didn't see in any way in the world it could be him. He didn't believe that it could be him. And then just a little bit after that, I can't remember time spans, that was a pretty bad day--when I first heard about it having been Oswald, to the best of my recollection, the thing he said was that, "He is not even supposed to have a gun." He may have been meaning to the best of his knowledge, he didn't know that he owned a gun. That would have been what he meant.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did it seem strange to you at the time that Michael didn't want to advise the FBI?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. No; it didn't at all. We had talked about--Michael is a little, I couldn't call him an odd duck, but he is very different. He doesn't like to intrude on anyone's personal privacy at all, I mean, the least little bit. I can be making a telephone conversation to my wife or to the company on business, and he is very careful not to come into the office, and he will see me on the telephone and turn around and go back. He is very careful to afford to other people all the privacy that he can.  

Correction: only one Paines' phone call at about 1 pm. No second Paines' phone call at 2 pm.

Correction: the 2 pm "bonus loot" phone call overheard by the operator I do not believe was a Paine phone call. Explanation below.

I have given further thought to this. This represents corrections of my earlier. I believe I was mistaken and there was only one Michael and Ruth phone call, a collect long-distance phone call from Michael in Fort Worth to Ruth in Irving billed to the Irving home phone, which occurred about 1 pm.

Michael Paine in his testimony denied a second phone call. And although I had not noticed it until now, Ruth Paine explicitly testified there was no second phone call. Warren Commission:

Mr. Liebeler. Was there a telephone conversation of any kind between you and Michael between your residence and Michael's office on November 22 or November 23, 1963?

Mrs. Paine. I have testified to the fact that MIchael called--I don't know whether it was from the cafeteria where he had been eating or more likely from his office, to my home, on the 22d. He had learned of the assassination at lunchtime and called to tell me to find out if I knew it, and this was the entire substance of the conversation. I told him I did know--from watching TV.

Mr. Liebeler. Was that the only telephone conversation between those two numbers on those 2 days that you know of?

Mrs. Paine. Yes.

The second item of evidence that the operator's phone call was not a Paine phone call is the area code. The operator's statement said, 

"Then I picked up an Irving signal (Blackburn exchange) about or near 2 p.m. The radio or TV was very loud. A woman placed a call to North Richland Hills (Butler Exchange) which is a fringe office of Fort Worth. I gave her the area code (817), dialed the number on a direct Fort Worth circuit and asked for her number. She evidently did not hear me for the radio was announcing the news. The number in Fort Worth answered. Again, I asked for the number. The Irving customer said, 'Just a minute.' I thought she was talking to me, so I waited."

Although this is a phone call from an Irving exchange number to Fort Worth, the Fort Worth area code called, 817, does not match the area code of Michael Paine in Fort Worth according to the FBI document of 1/25/64 posted by Max Good. Those two numbers are given as Irving (Ruth Paine) BL3-1628 and Fort Worth (Michael Paine) CR5-5211.

The one and only long-distance phone call between Michael and Ruth that happened appears listed as:

"11/22/63 Collect call from Arlington, Texas, number CR5-5211. Mrs. Michael Paine was calling."

All testimony from Michael and Ruth says that Michael initiated the call. Evidently "Mrs. Michael Paine was calling" is garbled for the charge went on Ruth Paine's phone, a collect phone call. (The only way I can read that as an explanation for that call charged to Ruth Paine's phone.)

The "bonus loot" phone call has nothing internal to its content that identifies either of its speakers as Ruth or Michael Paine; the area code does not match; the time of the phone call does not match; and the content certainly does not match anything reported of the content of the MIchael to Ruth phone call. The 2 pm "bonus loot" overheard phone call is not a Michael and Ruth phone call at all. But it MAY have been an overheard phone call RELEVANT TO THE ASSASSINATION, entirely apart from Ruth and Michael Paine. 

2 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

More evidence that David Healy has no clue what he's talking about. I do not believe in the "lone nut, 1964 WCR conclusion," and have said so here on this forum multiple times.

And my apologies Jonathan for momentarily accepting that which David Healy stated about you as true!  

13 hours ago, David G. Healy said:

ahhh, wonder why you have to seek solace and hide behind another lone nut, 1964 WCR conclusion excuse maker/cartel, maybe?

When is your book coming out?

In all seriousness, I did not know he was LN. Comment still stands though.

Update: Jonathan Cohen has denied that Healy's characterization of him as LN is truthful.

9 hours ago, John Butler said:

If it was in a coffee can then why didn't Ruth give it to the DPD officers when they were there on the 22nd. 

Yes--why would Ruth not give her husband Michael's Minox camera to Dallas police officers who were scooping up belongings of Oswald out of her house? Why indeed? She also did not give Dallas police officers Michael's car, Michael's clothes, Michael's band saw in the garage, Michael's toothbrush, or any other of her husband's property to officers. Why not?

The reason is that the police were not seeking, and had no right to take, property belonging to Michael or Ruth Paine. And a second reason, in addition, would be that Ruth Paine had not been asked.  

The question is like the central argument of the 1996 Carol Hewett article alleging that Ruth Paine engaged in a sophisticated criminal conspiracy in which she wilfully fabricated a false claim that her husband owned a Minox camera in his own house. Some on this forum have urged that Ruth Paine merits prosecution and being put behind bars for doing such a thing--for falsely claiming her husband owned the inoperable Minox camera in the coffee can Ruth gave to the FBI at their request in Jan 1964.

Someone else here chimes in that Ruth Paine CANNOT--CANNOT--be acquitted of the charge of falsely claiming her husband owned a Minox camera, because (it is asserted) Ruth Paine is supposed to have perjured herself on some unrelated matter somewhere else. Makes perfect sense! 

Carol Hewett wrote that it can be known that Ruth Paine's claim cannot be true that her husband owned the Minox camera in the coffee can that she gave to the FBI when asked, and here is the reasoning:

"Dallas FBI Agent Bardwell Odum on January 30, 1964, contacted Ruth Paine to inquire into whether the Paines owned a Minox camera. Ruth recollected that her husband had a Minox which he had dropped into salt water several years ago; she was sure that he had thrown it away but she would ask him about it and get back to him.
She also stated that the police took a Minox camera case along with a light meter belonging to Michael which may or may not have been a Minox light meter. The next day on January 31, 1964, Ruth Paine called Odum to tell him that her husband still had the camera and that it was in a coffee can in the garage. If this was true, one would have to conclude that the local police not only did a poor job of searching the garage the weekend of the assassination but also fabricated the Minox camera on both its inventory list and joint DPD/FBI list. Since this was not the case, the collusion of the Paines is readily apparent." (Hewett, "The Paine's Participation in the Minox Camera Charade")

Carol Hewett was an attorney. How could she have made this scale of blunder, to think that it is proof of a police failure in search for person Y's property that they failed to confiscate some property of person Z without a search warrant and whose property was not of interest to the police to collect in the first place? And to cite "since that was not the case" (that police could not possibly have neglected to take some private citizen's property other than Oswald's of police interest and within scope of search warrant) as proof that Ruth Paine is guilty?

The reason Ruth Paine told the FBI of her husband's inoperable Minox camera in Jan 1964, and then gave it to the FBI, is because it was her husband's camera and they asked. What a CRIME that was on Ruth Paine's part, according to the Carol Hewett article and the uncritical repeaters of that article today!

To echo Jonathan Cohen's worthy words, if newcomers come to this forum looking for serious discussion and inquiry concerning the JFK assassination criminal conspiracy, and see this kind of reasoning, what will they think? 

Jim DiEugenio, are you in your heart of hearts certain Michael Paine never owned the Minox camera in that coffee can that Ruth and Michael both said Michael owned? Do you know that? Do you truly have no internal uncertainty in your condemnations of Ruth Paine based on that premise?

 

22 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Jim DiEugenio, in the past you have said you would criminally charge Ruth Paine for what you believe was her being part of a criminal conspiracy with the FBI to fabricate a false claim that her husband Michael owned the Minox camera she and he said he did, the one in the coffee can. Do you still hold to that?

Does it ever occur to you that you may have accused an innocent person? Does that thought never cross your mind, in your quiet moments?

You see a Dallas Police Department evidence photo in front of your eyes, unquestionably authentic. The photo was not taken by Rusty Livingston but by the crime lab, Day and Stringer, and Livingston made a first-generation copy for himself. Its chain of custody is as clean as it gets at the time of publication of First Day Evidence. The Minox camera is not there. 

To that, and I commend you for giving a response to the question, you say you have seen a photo of the Minox. No you haven't.

And you say it doesn't matter whether it is in the photo, because it may have existed but not be in the photo, Paul Brancato's point. While remotely possible, how likely is that? I mean, the crime lab wants to photograph all the evidence, lays the evidence out on that floor, why would they purposely leave the camera out of the picture? Does that make sense?

But then there is the light meter which is in the DPD photo before sending evidence to FBI in Washington, and which FBI says it received from Dallas DPD after getting the evidence sent to them, but which is nowhere on the evidence lists and which DPD denies it sent. And yet the light meter FBI says it received from DPD's shipment is identified by Michael Paine as his light meter, the same light meter that is in the DPD evidence photo before DPD shipped.

Can you consider the possibility that DPD's paperwork might have some minor mistakes, rather than that Ruth Paine and the entire agency of the FBI was part of an extraordinarily serious criminal conspiracy to literally fabricate a claim that her husband Michael owned a Minox camera (and the rest of that Minox camera equipment)? 

And finally, on tone. I have noticed you don't take difference of views well, but seem to think it necessary to bludgeon opposing views from being listened to by attempting to discredit the speaker. Please stop it. You have sought to implant into the air claims that I am about to out myself as a lone-nutter, which is not true. People echo and channel what you put into the air like that. Please stop it.

I would not be talking about Ruth Paine issues if I had not seen horrible things said of her which do not match the Ruth Paine I knew, a decent and honorable woman. 

 

Two, not one, long-distance phone calls on Fri Nov 22--1 pm and 2 pm

Max G., although I admit it is puzzling, it is difficult for me to avoid the conclusion that there were two, not one, phone calls. The first was about 1 pm from Michael to Ruth charged to Michael's phone. The second was at about 2 pm from Ruth to Michael charged to Ruth's phone. The second one at 2 pm is the only one charged to Ruth's phone and hence the only one of those two calls listed on the sheet you show which lists "long distance telephone calls ... charged to BL3-1628". The second one, at about 2 pm, is the one that was overheard by two operators and of which there exist two versions of that overhearing.

Since the first one, the Michael to Ruth of 1 pm, was not charged to Ruth's phone, it is not on the list of long distance calls charged to her phone on the sheet.

The 1 pm Michael to Ruth call is referred to by both Michael and Ruth in their Warren Commission testimony.

Michael: "I called Ruth immediately after getting back [to the lab from lunch] just to see that she would turn on the radio and be clued in with the news, but this was before the Texas School Book Depository was mentioned" (WC 2, 424)

Michael: "I called her immediately getting back to the lab, so she would be watching and listening and getting clued in to the news, start watching the news" (WC 9, 449)

Ruth: "He [Michael] called. He knew about the assassination. He had been told by a waitress at lunchtime. I don't know whether he knew any further details, whether he knew from whence the shots had been fired, but he knew immediately that I would want to know, and called simply to find out if I knew, and of course I did, and we didn't converse about it ... Michael was as struck and grieved as I was, and we shared this over the telephone" (WC 3, 110)

Ruth: "Mrs. Ruth Paine, 2525 West 5th Street, Irving, Texas, has previously stated that on November 22, 1963, at about 1:00 PM, her husband telephoned from his place of business and advised her that President Kennedy had just been shot."  (FBI, Jan 23, 1964)

 

Michael said this call from him to Ruth occurred before he was aware of Oswald's possible involvement, such that the name or subject of Oswald did not even come up in that phone call. This is Mar 17, 1964, WC 9, 449:

Mr. Liebeler. Did you call Ruth after you learned of the assassination and prior to the time that you heard Oswald--

Mr. Paine. Yes, I did call her.

Mr. Liebeler. What did you say and what did she say?

Mr. Paine. We said very little. That must have been, I guess I called her immediately getting back to the lab, so she would be watching and listening and getting clued in to the news, start watching the news. That must have been before the Texas School Book Depository Building was mentioned because I would have mentioned that I didn't. I just--we said almost nothing except--

Mr. Liebeler. Did you talk to her after you learned that the TSBD was involved, but before you learned that Oswald was suspected of being involved?

(Comment: notice the construction of Liebeler's question and the "but before". The technically accurate answer would be no, he did not talk to Ruth by phone in that brief period after TSBD was known but BEFORE Oswald's arrest.) 

Mr. Paine. No, I don't believe I called her again.

(Comment: Michael appears to be concealing the existence of the second phone call at 2 pm.)

This from Mar 18, 1964, closely repeating the day before, WC 2, 425-26:

Mr. Liebeler. When did you first think of Lee Oswald in connection with the assassination?

Mr. Paine. As soon as I heard the Texas School Book Depository Building mentioned. (. . .)

(. . .)

Mr. Liebeler. Did you talk to your wife after you heard that the Texas School Book Depository building was involved in the shooting, and before you subsequently heard that Oswald had been arrested in connection with the assassination?

Mr. Paine. I don't believe so. I think I called her only once to see that she was listening to the news, and then I assumed she would know all that I knew (. . .) It wasn't many minutes later though, it seemed to me, that the name Lee Oswald was mentioned--in the theater. The newsmen didn't connect it up at all, but that is all I needed to send me home.

(. . .)

Mr. Liebeler. So the news broadcast connected Oswald with Officer Tippit?

Mr. Paine. That is right.

Mr. Liebeler. Did you then consider again whether or not Oswald had been involved in the assassination?

Mr. Paine. Well, that was too much to have his name mentioned away from his place of work as having killed somebody; the stew was too thck to stay at work, and I was shaken too much, anyway.

Mr. Liebeler. So your testimony is that you first thought of Oswald after you heard of the Texas School Book Depository Building being involved in the assassination, but you concluded at that time that Oswald was probably not involved in the assassination; is that correct?

Mr. Paine. That is correct.

I believe that first phone call, Michael to Ruth 1 pm, was not overheard nor its (innocuous) content reported by Barger to the FBI.

The 2 pm phone call is the one that was overheard and came to the attention of the FBI via Barger, and also overheard fragmentarily by the operator of the story I posted. That operator confirms that the call she overheard was 2 pm, and that that 2 pm call was initiated from Irving (Ruth) to Fort Worth (Michael)--this is the one long-distance call that day charged to Ruth's phone.

The second operator who overheard the 2 pm call I am sure misunderstood what she thought she overheard--I do not believe Michael and Ruth were discussing "bonus loot" for Lee (the other operator's overheard account that got to Barger and FBI had nothing about "bonus loot"). I think that operator misheard a reference to Lee's possible legal situation and a question of whether Lee would qualify for "pro bono" legal assistance for indigent persons.

But never mind what she may have misunderstood in listening in, as the operator who placed that call and whose account otherwise shows a closely detailed timeline of her work that day her witness is strong and credible as concerns the time of the phone call she overheard, which she put at about 2 pm, not 1 pm. The 2 pm time is consistent with hearing news of Oswald's arrest at the Texas Theatre.

So the 2 pm call differs in direction, time, content, and in being overheard, from the 1 pm call. Calls at both of these times, 1 pm and 2 pm, are independently confirmed. There is no other conclusion to be drawn, say I: there were two long-distance phone calls, not one, between Michael and Ruth on Nov 22. And all of the overheard material comes from the second, the 2 pm.

I do not know if this two-calls solution has been previously worked out, but this is what it looks like to me. So there is no conflict between 1 pm and 2 pm on time of phone call. Both are correct. But the overheard one, well, that was 2 pm.

3 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

The Paines are not acquit able.  They both committed perjury before the Warren Commission Jmo  

They are acquittable of conspiring with the FBI to fabricate a claim that Michael Paine owned the Minox camera which he owned, if they didn't do it, which is the charge under discussion.

38 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

If O had a Minox light box, what good would it do him without the same brand specific camera, way out of his price range?

Oswald never had any Minox light meter, so the question does not arise. That was all Michael Paine's Minox equipment in that evidence photo.

Jim DiEugenio, in the past you have said you would criminally charge Ruth Paine for what you believe was her being part of a criminal conspiracy with the FBI to fabricate a false claim that her husband Michael owned the Minox camera she and he said he did, the one in the coffee can. Do you still hold to that?

Does it ever occur to you that you may have accused an innocent person? Does that thought never cross your mind, in your quiet moments?

You see a Dallas Police Department evidence photo in front of your eyes, unquestionably authentic. The photo was not taken by Rusty Livingston but by the crime lab, Day and Stringer, and Livingston made a first-generation copy for himself. Its chain of custody is as clean as it gets at the time of publication of First Day Evidence. The Minox camera is not there. 

To that, and I commend you for giving a response to the question, you say you have seen a photo of the Minox. No you haven't.

And you say it doesn't matter whether it is in the photo, because it may have existed but not be in the photo, Paul Brancato's point. While remotely possible, how likely is that? I mean, the crime lab wants to photograph all the evidence, lays the evidence out on that floor, why would they purposely leave the camera out of the picture? Does that make sense?

But then there is the light meter which is in the DPD photo before sending evidence to FBI in Washington, and which FBI says it received from Dallas DPD after getting the evidence sent to them, but which is nowhere on the evidence lists and which DPD denies it sent. And yet the light meter FBI says it received from DPD's shipment is identified by Michael Paine as his light meter, the same light meter that is in the DPD evidence photo before DPD shipped.

Can you consider the possibility that DPD's paperwork might have some minor mistakes, rather than that Ruth Paine and the entire agency of the FBI was part of an extraordinarily serious criminal conspiracy to literally fabricate a claim that her husband Michael owned a Minox camera (and the rest of that Minox camera equipment)? 

And finally, on tone. I have noticed you don't take difference of views well, but seem to think it necessary to bludgeon opposing views from being listened to by attempting to discredit the speaker. Please stop it. You have sought to implant into the air claims that I am about to out myself as a lone-nutter, which is not true. People echo and channel what you put into the air like that. Please stop it.

I would not be talking about Ruth Paine issues if I had not seen horrible things said of her which do not match the Ruth Paine I knew, a decent and honorable woman. 

 

A telephone conversation between Ruth Paine, at her home in Irving, and Michael Paine, at his work location in Fort Worth, shortly after the assassination, was reported to the FBI by informant "T-4". In this conversation was reported the words, "we both know who is responsible". Both Michael Paine and Ruth Paine denied that they had claimed to know who had assassinated Kennedy or that they knew who did it. However Ruth Paine has said there was a conversation in which their earliest thought was that the extreme right in Dallas had done it--the overwhelmingly most common first-instinct conspiracy theory that occurred to nearly everyone in Dallas before that was replaced with the lone-nut narrative focused on Oswald following Oswald's arrest.

In the Max Good film, "The Assassination & Mrs. Paine", which I saw earlier this month via the Ashland Film Festival, that phone call is presented as one of a series of allegations against Ruth Paine. I am not interested here in discussing any of the other allegations, only this one, and I urge commenters here to keep the focus on this allegation. The film takes the stance of a neutral narrator (Good) presenting back and forth of "both sides" to allegations against Ruth Paine. Here are the relevant transcriptions from the film (from a larger partial transcription of the film made by me) of this allegation. Ruth Paine is in her mid-80s responding below.

Narrator: Soon after the assassination, Michael calls Ruth from his job at Bell Helicopter. Declassified FBI documents reveal that their conversation was being monitored. An informant reported that Michael was overheard to comment that he felt sure Lee Harvey Oswald had killed the president, but did not feel Oswald was responsible, and further stated, "We both know who is responsible."

DiEugenio: According to the records, that phone call was made about an hour after the assassination. Which means it was a few minutes before Oswald was actually arrested for the crime.

Ruth Paine: Pure garbage. Pure garbage. I did describe the phone call that Michael and I had after the assassination when we were kind of commiserating with each other about Kennedy's killing. And thinking that it was a conspiracy--you know, right-wing radicals who had done it. Uh, so we both thought we knew?--but we didn't know who had done it. I hear that one every now and then. That one comes up, yeah. But (shaking head)--there's nothing to it.

Now I will make my comment, and I have new information to bring to bear on this which, though published long ago, has received no attention.

There are two issues here. First is what was said and an accurate interpretation of the meaning of what was said. The second is the matter of the timing--that to which DiEugenio refers, the claim that the phone call, in which Michael and Ruth allegedly referred to Oswald's guilt, occurred before, not after, Oswald's arrest.

First on the content of the call. Extreme and violent right-wing hatred for JFK was the most prominent issue in Dallas in the runup to President Kennedy's visit of Nov 22, 1963, and the first thought that would and did occur to liberal Dallasites and the world as to who was responsible for the assassination, even prior to the arrest of or announcement of identity of any suspect or any other information. That quickly became obsolete in the news reporting as Oswald was arrested and overwhelmingly reported as the one who did it, and Oswald had leftist and communist associations. But before Oswald came into the picture in the news, in the absence of information, the extremist right, the segregationist right, the John Birch Society and General Edwin Walker and Minutemen right, the spitters on Adlai Stevenson of his visit to Dallas just a month earlier, the authors of the black-bordered ad with Kennedy's photo headlined "Wanted for Treason" that had been published in the newspaper that morning--that was the first that would come to mind.

The phone call itself was reported to the FBI by an informant "T-4". T-4 is not a euphemism for a wiretap but is identifiable as a live human informant, Paul Barger, an Irving Police department captain at the time, according to this 1976 Dallas Times Herald article:

"The declassified material said: 'On Nov. 26, 1963, confidential informant T-4 advised that he had received information that a male voice was overheard in a conversation which took place between telephone number CR5-3211, Arlington, Tex., and telephone number BL3-1628, Irving, Tex., on Nov. 23, 1963.

"'Informant advised that the exact time of the conversation was not available and that it was not known from which of the phone numbers the call originated.

"Paul Barger, then an Irving police captain and now director of buildings and grounds for the Irving Independent School District, said he recalled the situation and that it was he who told the FBI the essence of the conversation, as related to him. He said the reason he wouldn't divulge the name of the person who actually heard the conversation,' was because the person who overheard it would have lost his job.

"'Due to some mechanical difficulties or something,' Barger said, 'he was checking out the line. He was a telephone company repairman.' Barger refused again Monday to name the person. 'I'm just not going to mention his name. I don't think that it makes any difference now.' Barger further said he did not know that it would affect him in any way with the telephone company, but said, 'I know where he is, but what good would it be to name him now.'

"Barger said he didn't recall exactly what the phone conversation allegedly said. 'I do know that the conversation was between her and her husband and it went to the effect that 'we all know who did it,' Barger added.

"He said he did not believe the FBI had any wiretap on the Paine house. 'If they did,' he said, 'they wouldn't have been asking me for what happened.'

"Theodore L. 'Ted' Gunderson, special-agent-in-charge of the FBI Dallas office, said, 'I can only tell you that we had no wiretap on the Paines at any time, none.'

"A former FBI agent, now retired, said, 'If we had had a wiretap, there wouldn't have been any question about what time the call came, from which point it originated or exactly what it said. This [wiretap idea] sounds like a figment of somebody's imagination.' This agent worked on the case for many months." https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62517#relPageId=71 )

Barger becomes T-4, and Barger/T-4 is not the primary source but relays information from a human source (not a wiretap) that had come to him. As should become clear from the further information brought out below, the reason for the reticence or sensitivity over naming the source is that it was actually from one of two operators inside the telephone company who had listened in on and overheard that conversation which was against company policy, an offense for which an employee could be fired, and something the phone company itself would fervently wish not to become public for image reasons--and may have been illegal (to eavesdrop without lawful authority or permission). (Barger's information came from a human source inside the telephone company, but it was not a lineman up on a pole.) On the other hand what these operators had overheard was considered so important that, as one put it, she did not care if she was fired, she wanted to report what she had heard because it was so important.  

The article goes on to tell of Warren Commission testimony and then Ruth Paine's response to the newspaper reporting in 1976:

"Warren Commission probers questioned Michael Paine briefly about the allegation on March 18, 1964. Wesley Leibeler, a staff counsel, asked Paine: 'Did you talk to your wife on the telephone at any time during Saturday, Nov. 23?'"

(Note the date of the question is wrong. The phone call--the one intended as the subject of the inquiry--occurred Fri Nov 22. Michael Paine answers what is asked of Sat Nov 23. It is unclear whether this mistake in the date in Liebeler's question was an actual typo or mistake, intentional on the part of the Warren Commission, or intentional on the part of a source which submitted the question to WC/Liebeler to be asked.)

"Paine: 'I was in the police station again [he had been there the previous night, Fri night], and I think I called her from there.'

"Leibeler: 'Did you make any remark to the effect that you knew who was responsible?'

"Paine: 'And I don't know who the assassin is or was; no I did not.'

"Leibeler: 'You are positive in your recollection that you made no such remark?'

"Paine: 'Yes.'

"Mrs. Ruth Paine, reached in Philadelphia by the Times Herald, said she recalled no such conversation. 'I have heard this allegation before,' Mrs. Paine went on, 'but there was no conversation like that. Yes, Michael called and we talked about the situation, but there was nothing like that mentioned.

"'Where is this transcript? I believe they're quoting from rumors that surfaced a long, long time ago, I believe in some of the more less-than-factual publications ... that's a lot different than an FBI transcript, isn't it?'

"Mrs. Paine said she recalled talking about Oswald and the likelihood he killed the President, but had no way of knowing, then or now, 'who was responsible'--if anyone else was. 

"'I know where our heads were at that time though,' she said. 'Right wing. My first impressions, first feelings were that it came from the right wing.' "

Note that there is no transcript from an electronic recording or wiretap of what was spoken between Michael and Ruth. Also note that the exact time of the Nov 22 phone call is not known but is established on the basis of estimates or memory from human sources.

An expression "we both know who was responsible"--as the human sources alleged they heard and which it is very reasonable could have been the exact words--the same wording spoken in probably ten thousand households in the Dallas area as a first response to the news of the death of President Kennedy from people who had no direct or personal knowledge--can have been truly literally spoken and it also be truthful on the part of Michael and Ruth Paine that they did not know and never said they knew who killed President Kennedy. If readers here follow. It is a sentence which can be taken two ways. Ruth Paine says the sense that she and Michael meant (if those words were spoken exactly) is the sense that was ordinary and routine across Dallas in the first ninety minutes following the assassination. Those who see the worst in Ruth Paine, like the prosecutor in the cartoon above, will simply blow off and disregard and reject out of hand Ruth Paine's protestations of what was meant and assume the worst--that Michael and Ruth had covert actionable knowledge of the plot to assassinate President Kennedy, and in an unguarded moment over that open phone line had let the truth slip out--and then l i e d in denying it, so evil were they. So, two ways of interpreting the same data.  

On the issue of the timing, it is not correct that the phone call occurred before Oswald's arrest was known or reported on the news. Rather, the phone call appears to have occurred between Ruth and Michael in the moments immediately following the news of Oswald's arrest and in reaction to that news, as the horror of not only the assassination but Ruth's and Michael's imminent being thrust into the glare of national spotlight and law enforcement scrutiny became clear within seconds--within seconds of learning the news that Oswald had been arrested for killing a police officer and his workplace already was known to be at the site of the assassination, q.e.d.

The reason that was the time of the phone call, and not the incriminating reporting of time cited in the Max Good film of before Oswald's arrest, comes from the following little-known primary information, a document produced by the son of the telephone company operator who placed that phone call and overheard part of it. Because of the importance of this source and story, first published in the spring of 1992 in the first and what I think was also the last print issue of a short-lived publication (one issue) called "Dateline: Dallas, Vol. 1 No. 1", I am going to give the full and complete text of this story here. When reading this, realize that what the operator thinks she heard as Michael or Ruth Paine saying, "Will Lee get the bonus loot?" appears to be a mishearing of "Will Lee get a pro bono lawyer?" And where the operator says she heard, "Kennedy has to be dead for to get the bonus", that appears to be a mishearing of "Kennedy has to be dead for Lee to get pro bono." And the timing of the phone call is established by the operator's statement that the phone call occurred "about or near 2 p.m." Bear in mind that this is not a transcript of an electronic recording but an operator saying what she believed she overheard. 

The phone call, in which Ruth called Michael, has Michael responding to Ruth in light of what is about to be an avalanche of law enforcement and media crawling all over the Ruth Paine home. Michael telling Ruth he will get to her in Irving as soon as possible. That police will be arriving to her home imminently. That he will get there and be with her and support her as the avalanche is about to hit.

As for the importance of this text as primary information--in solving the question of how the FBI learned of this phone call--and an independent version of overhearing at least a part of that phone call from a firsthand witness--and the time of the call--from examination this text and this witness is authentic. The witness is truthful which does not mean she heard or interpreted what she heard correctly, but is truthful in that she was there and that is what she believed she heard. This is a primary witness, the operator who originally placed that call from Ruth to Michael and heard two pieces of it, who from her account did not hear all of the call but heard two fragments of it--an operator who reported what she knew to her superiors, and then upon the advice of a lawyer wrote and preserved her statement and stored it while keeping silence, as the years followed with nothing done to follow up on what she had reported. Because in her account she did not hear the entire phone call, because she alludes to a colleague or supervisor besides herself who also listened, and because the reporting of that phone call from "T-4" (Irving police captain Barger) tells of different content than this operator's, this operator does not appear to be the source of T-4's information to the FBI. The source of T-4's information would go back to the other one, the colleague. This then is a different witness's version of that same phone call told by T-4 to the FBI. She was there. And she, the operator who placed that call, gives the time of the call, not otherwise documented or known apart from witness memories or estimates: "about or near 2 p.m."

The date of writing of her statement below, the text which appears below, appears given within the statement as at or about July 1965, the time of a consultation with an attorney in July 1965, from this: "My attorney (...) me to write it all down in longhand to be opened upon my death. Maybe my debt to society will be paid someday." Here it is (pp. 6-7 of http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/F Disk/Fensterwald Bernard 1990/Item 004.pdf).

"Open...Upon My Death.

"Larry Howard was given this testament by the son of the author after her death. Their names remain anonymous in this article. The original manuscript is on file at the Center's [JFK Assassination Information Center's] Archives.

"Friday, November 22, 1963 (8:34 p.m.)

"I was awakened this morning with only one thought in mind: could I afford to get excused from work to go to the parade to see the greatest man of our times, the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy.

"Thinking that everyone loved him as much as I did (with the exception of a neighbor who worked in the Republican Party whom I had words with in the front yard--more on that later, and Mr. Edwin C. Clark, President of AT&T--who made a speech in Texas which was put into a pamphlet orm and distributed among telephone people during the campaign trying to sway people, of which I did not appreciate). Anyway, I decided there would be such a crowd that I could never get a glimpse of my favorite couple, much less get to shake his hand and let him know how I had fought for him in my small way.

"Here are the events that happened to me, events that have caused me to count the days and hours until I become 55 years old and could retire, so I could pay a moral debt to society (as my lips have been sealed by the Federal Communications Law).

"I was on my lunch hour (12-1 p.m.) and Mr. Allen, Traffic Chief, District 1, 4100 Bryan Street, Dallas, Texas, was also on his lunch hour. The telephone in the cafeteria rang about 12:35-:40 p.m., an emergency for Mr. Clark. 'The president has been shot.' (silence) You could hear your heart beat. Mr. Allen stumbled around the cash register, hitting the rail the food trays slide on--he's a large man, about like Lyndon Johnson and sorta favors him, too. (You notice these things without moving.)

"District 1 had all the connections for Kennedy's speech at the Trade Mart (going to the White House, UP, API, and the FBI).

"Now then mad frustrations of switching all of these connections to District II, and Mr. J.A. Potts and Mr. Paul Cheatum (over both districts) were there. Parkland Hospital's Cental Office on Melrose appeared Unit II, District II. I am on District II, a service assistant. My job is training people and moving traffic.

"Someone at our lunch table said we'd better go back to work, they probably need us. I did not want to go back for fear that I would hear that President Kennedy was dead.

"I got up to go back to work about 12:50-:55. The switchboard was lit up like a Christmas tree. Everyone went to the board to help the operators, including myself. The Assistant Chief Operators and Chief Operators took our posts. Every signal I answered, there was a radio or television in the background blaring out about the shooting. Over and over customers (all but one) would put us in the know by saying, 'Did you know the president was shot? Have you heard the president was shot in Dallas? I can't believe it, must be a joke about the president...'--as always when a disaster strikes.

"Then I picked up an Irving signal (Blackburn exchange) about or near 2 p.m. The radio or TV was very loud. A woman placed a call to North Richland Hills (Butler Exchange) which is a fringe office of Fort Worth. I gave her the area code (817), dialed the number on a direct Fort Worth circuit and asked for her number. She evidently did not hear me for the radio was announcing the news. The number in Fort Worth answered. Again, I asked for the number.

"The Irving customer said, 'Just a minute.' I thought she was talking to me, so I waited.

"When she returned to the phone (approximately 5-10 seconds later) she blurted out, 'Will Lee get the bonus loot?'

"A man at the Fort Worth number said, 'What are you calling me, and don't mention my name on the phone. Kennedy has to be dead for to get the bonus.'

"'He is dead,' the Irving customer said, ''They've just announced it on the radio.'

"I closed the key, stunned. I do have a witness to this, whom I did not report because I will not involve an innocent person.

"I then made a call back check on the Irving number (for the correct number charge). I monitored the connection again, not believing my ears.

"'Don't you call here again. You will be contacted. They are not suspicious of him, no.'

"I closed the key and reported the call to the Assistant Chief Operator. Later, I was relieved of the position and told that Mr. Anderson wanted to see me. He was behind me and walked to the District office. He had the toll ticket in his hand and told me I might be questioned by the FBI. I told him I didn't care if I lost my job, because I loved President Kennedy.

"Reaching the district office, Mr. Potts was at his desk, his head lowered like he was writing. Mr. Cheatum interviewed me and all I told him were the exact words of the conversation. I also told him that the Irving caller said, 'Just a minute,' and that was why I was on the line. Mr. Cheatum told me the information would be given to the telephone company's investigators for the FBI.

"I left the district office, escorted by Mr. Anderson. He told me to take the position with open communication from Parkland Hospital to FBI Headquarters at the White House and stay on the line and not release them--not once was there a conversation between two people. After I went on my break I did not take the same position.

"After work I stopped at Wyatts grocery store for some kidney for our two cats. My neighbor Mrs. Norris, whom I've mentioned earlier, walked up to me and said, 'Well, waht do you think of your President Kennedy, now?'

"Saturday--November 24 [sic], 1963

"I did nothing, but prepare meals and watch T.V.

"Sunday--November 25 [sic], 1963

"I asked my husband to drive me down where President Kennedy was shot and let me take some pictures so the grandchildren would have some authentic pictures of his story. He did not want to, but he did. He took his movie camera and I took an old Kodak--the film is still in the camera and not developed--I don't want to see it right now. We had to drive down Commerce Street past City Hall (there was a large crowd there). We did not stop, but one block past the crowd we heard a commotion. Looking back, people were running every way and before we reached the end of Commerce Street, we knew that Oswald had been shot. There were large trucks with T.V. cameras, spotlights, crews and all the necessary equipment for news and reporters. Everyone had a camera of some kind.

"There were many floral offerings in Dealy Plaza. My eyes were wet with tears. It was all so sad, gloomy and frightening. We were there for about an hour, then went home. We watched all of this tragedy on T.V. and read the newspapers. I sent Mrs. Kennedy a note of sympathy.

"The record of the call I took and heard part of was recorded and sealed and addressed to the FBI and placed in another envelope addressed to my attorney in case of my death. I locked the envelopes in my locker at the telephone company--I kept them there in case I was questioned again so I could easily reach it.

"I talked with the Priest, Father Huber, who administered the Rite of Absolution to President Kennedy. I told him that I had information, but did not say that I had a moral obligation to society when I could talk. My attorney was told the same thing.

"[Neither] [t]he telephone company, the FBI nor the Warren Commission have contacted me. I have kept this information inside of me.

"The first week of July, 1965, I was on vacation. Returning to work, I had no occasion to go to my locker for several days. Then I needed some training material and opened the locker (on the 5th floor) and it was empty. I asked Mrs. Smith (on the 4th floor) where my things were. She referred me that Mr. Thorn, a JET (janitor), had ordered the lockers of those on vacation to be emptied--all of the materials were to be put in a box--so the lockers could be painted. The box was supposed to be at the end of the locker room. I searched but found no box. He told me it was probably put in one of the store rooms and he would find it the next day. I told him I had material in the locker for the FBI. (He was not in our office when the president was assassinated.)

"Mr. Anderson had been transferred to Arkansas. Mr. Cheatum to St. Louis. A Mr. Smith was our Traffic manager now. The next day, they told me everything in the box was burned. I filed a grievance and had Mr. Smith give me a letter and one to the Union stating that I was not responsible for lost company material--dated July 12, 1965. They paid me by check for my personal belongings. I had Mr. Smith call and get Mr. Anderson in Little Rock, Ark., on the line. I talked with him and asked how to get duplicates of the material for the FBI. He said that the information was given to the telephone company's attorneys or special agents, but the FBI had never asked for any information concerning President Kennedy's death and was not volunteered. WHY?

"Mr. Thon was reprimanded and sent to St. Louis. Mr. Potts retired.

"My attorney advised me that my position with the company was hardly enough to try to force the company to give me a copy of the information--the clock time on the toll ticket, the length of the conversation, the number called and the calling number.

"He advised me to write it all down in longhand to be opened upon my death. Maybe my debt to society will be paid someday."

What did the Dallas Police do with the MINOX LIGHT METER they collected as evidence on Fri Nov 22?

Some thoughtful comments, to which can be added this. A Minox light meter was found by Dallas police on Fri Nov 22. It is in the evidence photo below, lower right, in its open carrying case. Yet none of the original Dallas Police evidence lists--the handwritten inventory, the typed inventory, or the Dallas Police/FBI inventory--have a Minox light meter listed.

The Dallas Police definitely did take a Minox light meter from the Paine garage. (See evidence photo below.) What happened to it? Where did it go? Why is there no record of it in the Dallas Police lists?

Of course the FBI said they received a Minox light meter in the evidence the DPD sent, even though the Dallas Police Department insisted they never sent one. But set that aside, and focus on the Minox light meter in the evidence photo below.

What happened to it? Can anyone who does not think DPD sent a light meter to the FBI wrongly identified as a camera, explain where else it went? Because it did not end up on any DPD inventory list. 

And physical evidence, such as the light meter below, is not supposed to just vanish into thin air while in police custody, right? Where did that light meter go? 

FBI Special Agent Vincent Drain, FBI liaison with the Dallas Police Department:

"There was also a story about an alleged Minox camera. I'm well aware of what a Minox camera is because we used them. When we itemized all that material, I don't recall any Minox camera; however, the light meter would be easily mistaken for one by somebody that really didn't know and, at that point in time, I never knew the Dallas Police Department to use them. In fact, I would seriously doubt that the average officer would have known what one would have looked like. I'm not casting any reflection on them but, one must remember that, back then, those cameras were very expensive. A good one might cost between $500 and $700 something like that." (Vincent Drain, in Sneed, No More Silence [1998])

But for those here who do not think the Dallas Police Department (and an FBI man checking off on a list) could have mistaken a light meter for a camera, what did become of the light meter in the evidence photo below? What happened to it?

 

Dallas Police claimed a Minox camera exists in the center of the DPD evidence photograph where none exists. Dallas Police misidentified something not a Minox camera as a Minox camera. 

THANK YOU to David Butler! The link given by David Butler is here: https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/22024/black-and-white-police-photograph-of-objects-belonging-to-os;jsessionid=A8F628FB2F1B217F1B464EB94872E27F?ctx=5cd98fcc-465a-499e-901b-c2ed38f9b74e&idx=0#.

I did not know of this when I opened this thread with its title. But what David Butler found independently confirms Dallas Police mistakenly identified a Minox camera not simply in the inventory lists, but in their own evidence photograph itself. This is the same police evidence photo of Rusty Livingston, the one which was published in 1993 in First Day Evidence. (Bold and underlining below is added by me.)

"Description. Black and white Dallas Police crime lab photograph of objects belonging to Lee Harvey Oswald. The image shows Oswald's possessions spread out over a tiled floor. Included are materals such as a 'Hands Off Cuba!' flyer, cameras, photographs, film, papers, binoculars and other unidentified objects. In the middle of the array is a sign on white paper with black writing: 'Voluntarly Given Dallas P.D. by Ruth Paine + Mrs. Oswald; Paine's Residence, Irving Texa 11/22/63.' R. W. 'Rusty' Livingston, an employee of the Dallas Police crime lab, developed many of the images taken by officers investigating the assassination. This print is from a first-generation set of copies he kept for himself. The photograph was stored in a clear plastic sleeve with a small, white label which read, 'Dallas Police Crime Lab photo showing some of the belongings of Oswald. Several photos were taken of many items laid out on the basement property-room floor before they were released to the FBI. In the center of the photo is the small Minox camera located on top of the open camera case. The chain on the side was used to judge the distance from the item to be photographed.' "

The object in the evidence photograph "on top of the open camera case" is not a Minox camera. It is a rectangular metal box in which the top half opens and closes fixed on hinges. It is a Minox film cassette holder, inside of which would likely have been two Minox film cassettes reported found. 

The odd thing is that in First Day Evidence the evidence photo is presented as if it is proof the DPD was right and the FBI had destroyed DPD's Minox. First Day Evidence also says look at the photo: just above the camera case, there is the Minox camera--proof the FBI destroyed it. That is First Day Evidence.

The Carol Hewett article in Probe in 1996 knew of the DPD evidence photo and, says of that photograph in First Day Evidence the same thing as the Dallas Police, that the Minox camera is in that photograph. Hewett:

"[T]here were the photos made by the Dallas Police Crime Lab before the evidence was turned over to the FBI which shows the evidence grouped together on the floor of the police station and which depicts the Minox camera" (3rd paragraph of article). 

Except the Dallas Police, and the Carol Hewett article, blundered. The Dallas Police misidentified something that was not a Minox camera as a Minox camera. Did Carol Hewett carelessly believe what First Day Evidence said about the Minox camera being in that photo without verifying for herself, even though First Day Evidence did publish the blowup too? 

Eddy Bainbridge above asked a good question: what is the mechanism for officers making that kind of mistake.

Good question. How did Dallas Police screw that up, and then First Day Evidence? How did Carol Hewett get that most fundamental basic point wrong which is the linchpin of a vicious attack on Ruth Paine in that article, and without which the basis for that attack collapses? And then when the Dallas Police were correctly told they had screwed up the identifications by the FBI, the DPD doubled down and insisted they were right, and Carol Hewett would base her attack on Ruth Paine on saying the evidence proves it, this photo below proves it, see the Minox camera right there? Except its like the emperor's new clothes--it isn't there. 

I understand Carol Hewett has passed away. But it is within the ability of Jim DiEugenio to get this clarified and corrected, and retract the vicious smear on Ruth Paine of that article founded upon that mistake.

 

Also, the issue of interpretation of the Minox camera issue has nothing--nothing--to do with defending the Warren Commission, or lone-nut versus criminal conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy. Just to make that clear. 

I would prefer to keep secondary articles out of this and have the focus be on the primary evidence. If my citation of a link of an article which discussed that primary evidence with what I considered of high-quality analysis in that link becomes a flash point, that is regrettable. I urge that discussion not be taken in that direction (it is not productive). Keep the focus on citation of and assessment of the primary evidence, the Dallas Police evidence photograph, the documents, the written reporting, the witness testimonies, and analysis of such, please.

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Greg,

Are you an LNer / WC apologist?

I certainly wouldn't trust an article posted on John McAdams' website to try and make my case.

No.

This is not me making "my" case. This is a matter of the Dallas Police Department's evidence photo showing the physical evidence, matters of fact and evidence. Your question and reaction is like cult-think, in which written material is not to be read because of its source, rather than read and evaluated in terms of its substance and the merits of its evidence and argument. That article is sound and substantive its argument and content. I could care less what website posts it, or who authored it (I do not know who authored it). I saw only that the content is gold-standard quality on the issues under discussion.

Don't make the issue the source of that article, as if ad hominem is a substitute for reason. Did you read it? Are you certain without reading it that it is wrong? If so, cult-think. All I can say. 

 

Thanks for the update Gayle. I hope Fr. Machann is OK wherever he is. Too bad no one is able to undertake to get his story if he's willing to talk. 

I was just looking again at your book Pieces of the Puzzle. Such important information such as relative to the Walker shooting and more that no one else got, your tracking down witnesses. I notice Robbie Schmidt has just died at age 80 on Jan 14, 2022, https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/kansas/name/robert-schmidt-obituary?id=32325470. According to the Bradford Angers story Robbie Schmidt was with and assisted Oswald the night of the Walker house shooting, yet never once was this witness, potentially so important, interviewed or questioned by anyone either in formal investigation or book author. You came the closest, with tracking down his brother Larrie who still lives and in your book telling a number of interviews of Larrie. But Robbie--whatever he might have been able to tell of Walker and/or Oswald or the shooting, gone forever now. I am sure that Walker shooting was an inside job, faked, and Walker self-inflicted those 2-3 surface skin wounds on the outside of his right forearm by simply pressing his arm down on broken glass or metal shards on a flat surface, so easy to do. The Brad Angers story is a version of an inside job. Oswald may have been part of it but no one was trying to kill Walker that evening, there was no attempted murder. Walker's extremely light injuries confined solely to the outside of his right forearm exactly where harmless surface skin cut bleedings would be if self-inflicted in the manner named ... the early suspicion of reporting Dallas police officers that he faked it was right. If only the Bradford Angers story had been investigated. I wish Congress had passed a law of unconditional blanket amnesty for anyone with information on the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK. 

I agree with this:

"[Dick Russell in The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1992] had interviewed a popular Dallas social climber named Brad Angers who said Lee Harvey Oswald with two others shot at Walker. I wondered then why a new commission wasn't begun ... I contacted Mr. Angers in 2016 and spoke to him on two separate occasions and his wife on the last call." (p. 149).

Is it possible Angers is still alive and you could talk to him again? Did he say anything to you regarding the tape of Robbie Schmidt telling of the Walker shooting he said he had? The mention of news in the next 60 days regarding your father's film and Zapruder is interesting.

"Missing Minox or Major Mistakes?" https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/minox.htm

Anyone following this, note carefully: neither DiEugenio nor the Lisa Pease article address the DPD evidence photo. When asked in the conversation in the past to which he refers where is the Minox camera in that DPD evidence photo, DiEugenio became abusive and said he was refusing to talk to me further. That was his response to the question the last time I asked. But never mind the style issue, look at the substance: no addressing the Dallas Police Department evidence photo.

The Dallas Police Department Crime Lab's evidence photo of Rusty Livingston published in 1993, taken before that evidence was given to the FBI, tells what was there. To talk all that smoke and mirrors without addressing this central point and the central question of the title of this topic is just deflection and distraction.

Sorry James DiEugenio. You cannot address this issue without addressing the issue.

12 hours ago, Max Good said:

I've spent some time trying to figure this out.  The whole story is so convoluted that I decided not to include it my film.  There doesn't appear to be a Minox camera in this photo, but if you zoom in close you will notice that the Minox camera case could be sitting on top of the camera.  You can see the chain coming out of a hole.  From other photos online, it appears the chain attaches directly to the camera and runs through a hole in the case.

Even if there is no Minox camera in the photo, it doesn't prove one wasn't taken into evidence by Gus Rose.

Attached is a Dallas Morning News article from 1978 about the Minox and photos from it.

Even if the camera was Michael's, isn't it still suspicious?

 

Max G.-- on that chain or lanyard, I read elsewhere, cannot find the article that explained that, but it does not mean a camera is connected to it. As you can see in both of the photos you show, the lanyards in both cases come out of the case, then optionally attach to the camera at the other end. In the evidence photo is only the camera case and the lanyard coming out of it--just as in the two examples showing lanyards in the photos you show. But there is no camera connected to the lanyard. The point being that the existence of the lanyard itself does not mean or imply there must be a camera there. 

On the suggestion that the camera could be underneath the camera case (since it is not inside the camera case), I read someone propose that but I must say, I do not see that as possible visually. It would in any case not be a normal or very good way to have an evidence photo, in which one of the important items was covered up by being under another. That is not how the evidence is arrayed on any of the other items. But never mind that, it is excluded because the camera case is directly on the surface of the table. That "whitish" spot just below the camera case is not vertical camera metal but rather the coloring of the tabletop. And as noted, the lanyard attached to the camera case is not evidence that a camera is there.

On suspicious, I don't know, the Minox cameras as I understand were mixed commercial and spy/military use, so in itself falls short of indicating someone is a spy. Weighing in favor of the non-spy interpretation in Michael Paine's Minox case would seem to be (a) Michael said he bought it in a retail store, not received as military issue; (b) all the developed photos from Michael's Minox cartridges--the ones obtained by Weberman through the FOIA--are basically normal photography with no documents or obvious spy photos; and (c) Michael told of the camera having been dropped into some water and sand a few years earlier while on vacation in New England--that does not sound like it was being used for spycraft on that occasion.

14 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

Exposures made from one of the cameras were also developed and appear to have been taken in Asia, and, according to researcher A.J. Weberman (who filed the Freedom of Information Act to have the photos released), one of the photos shows Oswald holding an M16 rifle. 

Greg, the above quote I took from https://debunked.wordpress.com/the-possessions-of-lee-harvey-oswald-photographic-equipment/  I assume Weberman is referring to the photograph that Denny has posted above.???  I'm confused! (Again)  If you are correct that Oswald did not have any Minox camera, & the light meter belonged to Michael Paine, then where did Weberman's Oswald pic. originate from, and what to make of Rose & Stovall & Alexander's statements of a film in a Minox?

Pete I have Weberman's book and checked on this. I finally figured out that Weberman's book consists of genuine photos from Michael Paine's Minox camera from his Korea military service and time in Asia that Weberman got through FOIA--these were the photos developed from film taken by DPD that first weekend from the Paine garage--combined with some absolute horses--t commentary from Gerry Hemming. Long story short, the book is filled with some bogus claims of Gerry Hemming spinning out explanations of the photos that are Hemming tall stories, whoppers of stories, just making the stuff up unbelievable stories about those photos. The photo Denny posted, the so-called Oswald photo with a rifle in a military barracks, is in the Weberman book, one of the photos, and my conclusion there is that is not Oswald because it cannot be. These were Michael Paine photos. (Weberman-Hemming wrongly call them photos taken by Oswald.) The guy looks vaguely like a younger Oswald might but its not a decisive match to Oswald. Obviously there was no occasion for Oswald to appear in a Michael Paine military barracks photo. That photo is therefore probably some unidentified man in Michael Paine's unit and the so-called "Oswald photo" isn't. 

That's some digging Richard. To add to what you bring out as Rose's adamance that he found a camera, in Sneed, No More Silence (1998), Bill Alexander, Asst. Deputy Attorney, says, p. 551:

"The FBI denied the existence of a very small pocket Minox camera found among Oswald's belongings. We picked up a Minox camera which had some film in it and turned it over to the FBI. Despite their denials, claiming that it was a light meter, I examined it, and I know a camera when I see one. We had the Minox camera and that was all there was to it!"

My reaction to this is, I think there is a good chance he is making it up 35 years later. How would he have examined it? It was not an issue at the time DPD had the evidence, only became an issue after DPD no longer had the evidence. Maybe he came in and looked at what the police had collected from the Paine garage, saw the same things as in the evidence photo, and just like the author of First Day Evidence who published the evidence photo in 1993 says there is a Minox camera there, even when there isn't. I don't know, except that it is 35 years later.

But all of this witness testimony of Gus Rose early and sticks to it later, and then Bill Alexander chiming in 35 years later backing up Rose, just does not match up with the evidence photo which tells what the DPD actually had.

I admit Gus Rose's testimony of finding film inside the Minox camera (not possible with a light meter) sounds convincing. But--it is not consistent with the evidence photograph, and that photograph is not lying. The choice is either the photograph is right and Gus Rose, for all of his detailed explanation and consistent story, was mistaken, or ... well I don't see any viable "or".

What is the "or"?

I cannot see a viable "or". Its like a witness tells you one description of a scene, and an authentic photo of the scene shows something else. There is no "either or", no matter how convincing the witness sounds, the witness is simply wrong, because the photo shows differently. Human witnesses can be mistaken, but an authentic photo is not going to be mistaken.  

If DPD in the person of officer Rose did pick up a Minox camera, why is it not in the DPD's evidence photo?

On the other matters, I have not gone into those in detail but an interpretation which might account for the major facts is that the two cameras in the National Archives are Michael Paine's inoperable one (that's the one with cement and stuck), and then another modern Minox which had nothing to do with the Paine house but was shown to Marina for comparison so is of no interest here. Read MIchael Paine asked years later what happened to his camera as mistaken in thinking it was returned to him and then lost in a fire later stolen along with other photographic equipment. Chalk that up to a mistake, he got some property back, confused over details, but didn't get that one back, its in the National Archives. On the serial number matching II but the camera is a III, resolve that as Michael's camera which is the cemented one in the Archives was a II and Odum got it misidentified when writing it up. The serial number proves it was a II, and the way the II's were made also is in agreement with it stopping being functional for Michael due to a shutter getting stuck, a known problem with the II's. Incidentally although I can't locate it at the moment, there is an FBI interview document on the Mary Ferrell site that has Michael Paine telling how he got his Minox camera. He says he bought it (around 1950? I don't remember the year exaclty) used in a store. As I recall, the date he bought it agrees with the small number of months that IIs were manufactured and on the market before replaced by IIIs due to the IIs having a shutter-sticking issue, which affected Michael's Minox too. So on the II vs. III just chalk that one up to Odum was mistaken in writing it up as a III with a serial number that can only be a II; it was a II.

There's another point: if you are going to take the officer's, Gus Rose's, testimony to the bank against the decisive counterevidence of the evidence photo, consider that is not the only thing. Taking Gus Rose's testimony to the bank requires ALSO assuming that the FBI literally disappeared evidence sent to it on that occasion. I mean, its not impossible in an ultimate existential sense that FBI could do that, but really, how likely here? Well, people imagine all sorts of motives to account for a coverup etc and etc, and etc, but that's all imagined. From the FBI lab's point of view, they get a list that has 1 Minox camera, 0 light meter. They run down the items of evidence and they see they have received 0 camera and 1 light meter. What are they supposed to do? What if they didn't destroy a camera and create a light meter? What if it really was a mistake on DPD's end? What is FBI supposed to do? The press starts reporting, based on Gus Rose and a lot of DPD backing up their fellow officer, that the FBI destroyed some evidence. All the while, although several copies exist of the DPD evidence photo, none are known publicly, none are known to the FBI, or to the press, none are known to anybody until 1993.

As for Gus Rose's testimony, there is this: nobody starts out getting something wrong like that. But it is very human, and very common, that after one is committed, and one's story is challenged and now its an issue, to just lock in and double down on one's story. 

According to the DPD evidence photo, there was all that Minox camera equipment but no camera. That is not just the FBI saying that. That is the DPD's own evidence photo, though neither FBI nor anyone else could know that before 1993. So if there is all that Minox accessory equipment--light meter, case, lanyard, plus some film ... where is the camera? Hoover writes, "go find the camera". Don't read that as sinister. Hoover is not telling them to fabricate manufactured evidence, go into criminal conspiracy to perjure and fabricate evidence with two witting Paines--absurd! Hoover is saying, with all that accessory equipment there has to be a camera, and no camera came to us--find out where is the camera. Like many, many other Hoover and FBI hq instructions to field offices to resolve certain discrepancies in reports sent in. When there was a problem with the documentation sent to hq, hq would tell the field offices to go reinterview witnesses, resolve the problem. Not forge evidence to solve the problem! That's not what that means!

So the FBI asked Ruth Paine and Ruth Paine gave them Michael's inoperable Minox in the coffee can. It goes with the rest of the Minox equipment which the DPD found the first weekend, all of which was Michael's. It explains why only the Minox camera itself was missing in the evidence photo--because police didn't have it no matter what Gus Rose and their written inventory lists said. The one and only Minox camera in the Paine house, Michael Paine's Minox camera which went with all of Michael Paine's Minox camera accessories and Michael Paine photos taken with a Minox, is all of a piece. The missing camera was elsewhere in the garage, in the coffee canister, and it all belonged to Michael, never had anything to do with Oswald. People say, well the police could not have missed Michael's Minox in the coffee can the first time in their search. But the police had no right to Michael's property in the first place! Nor were the police looking for Michael's property whether cameras or anything else! And of course they could miss it, they did't go over that garage with a toothbrush through all of Michael's and Ruth's belongings too. So that is a non-issue. The simple solution is: all the Minox accessories in the evidence photo are Michael's, and the missing Minox camera that went with the accessories was elsewhere in the garage and produced later by Ruth Paine in January when asked, and it was all Michael Paines, and none of that Minox equipment was Oswalds. 

All that needs to be supposed, and it is a necessary supposition because it is what the evidence photograph shows, is Gus Rose made a mistake. It is easier to suppose that than that the DPD evidence photo is not showing accurately what really was found. With that one thing--Gus Rose was mistaken--the rest of everything else falls into place and all the problems disappear. 

There is a Minox camera case in the evidence photo taken by the Dallas Police Crime Lab, in the possession of Dallas Police Crime Lab officer Rusty Livingstone, unknown until published by his nephew Gary Savage in First Day Evidence in 1993. It is not a photograph taken by or ever belonged to Michael Paine. There are items of property of Michael Paine in that evidence photo--wrongly taken by police whose search warrant was for Oswald things not Michael's or Ruth's--but Michael Paine had nothing to do with that photograph.

But yes there is an empty Minox camera case but no Minox camera, in that DPD evidence photo, before those items were sent en masse to the FBI lab in Washington, D.C.