The Real Ruth and Michael Paine

[Jon G. Tidd]

Martin Blank,

The relationship between drug running into South Vietnam and U.S. Army intelligence was complex.

I can tell all here that if your job is to collect valuable information, such as information on NVA hospitals and American POW strongpoints along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, you look at any source you think might have valuable information.

[Paul Trejo]

...As Tommy Graves rightly said -- no bona fide Intelligence Agent would ever have become a Patsy in an assassination.

He wasn't an agent - but that statement is still crap.

It was precisely because LHO was a wanna-be that he was in a position to become the Patsy of those people he thought were his FRIENDS.

No wannabe's. He was by then an FBI informant. But you're right about his friends helping to set him up... especially those in Irving...

As Dr. Jeff Caufield said, I think rightly, insofar as LHO had anything to do with the JFK Killers, he had already lost his virtue. Yet LHO just handed them his rifle.

The book is a great resource on the Right.

Well, Greg, at least you agree that LHO wasn't an Intelligence Agent, even though you doubt that being one would afford any protection against being framed for murder by Intelligence Agencies.

As for LHO being an FBI informant, I can accept that because of the data supplied by Dallas DA Henry Wade showing LHO getting $200 monthly for supplying FBI data. I think LHO made an arrangement with the FBI very soon after he returned from the USSR to Ft. Worth, and the FBI interviewed him and recognized that LHO wasn't a Russian spy and could be useful. According to former FBI man Wesley Swearingen, local FBI offices in the early 1960's could make informant deals at the local level, as long as the cost was low -- say, $200 monthly.

As for Jeff Caufield's new book, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy (2015), I agree with you that it's a great resource on the Extreme Right during the Cold War USA.

Finally, those who set-up LHO were the leaders of the Extreme Right -- and the Paines were not among them. The Paines were comparatively liberal. Ruth Paine, for example, served as an advocate of school desegregation in Irving.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 15, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[William Kelly]

I worked closely with Carol Hewett, Barbara and Steve while they did their research on the Paines and shared with them my recorded interview with Arthur Young, who married Michael Paine's mom Ruth Forbes Paine Young, who I also met at their home in suburban Philadelphia.

I think it important the terminology Ruth Paine used when talking about Oswald - she doesn't say Oswald lived somewhere she said, "He was operating from a base at 214 Neeley Street and operating for a time out of a room on Beckley."

Oswald certainly fits the Covert Operational Personality profile - COP -

I also note the Hewett, Lamonica, Barber research in the footnotes to my latest article - Valkyrie at Dealey Plaza Revisited.

JFKCountercoup2: Valkyrie At Dealey Plaza Re-Revisited

13) Hewett, Lamonica, Barber. Ruth Paine’s Summer Vacation. – The Confessions of Ruth Paine- DPQ http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2015/10/steve-jones-confessions-of-ruth-paine.html /http://www.manuscriptservice.com/DPQ/dparchiv1.htm - RUTH

JFKCountercoup2: Steve Jones - The Confessions of Ruth Paine

JFK / DPQ Issue Archives

Though I take issue with Steve Jones' characterization of Ruth Paine's summer vacation as something she did every year and innocent, as she didn't always stop at the Forbes island retreat, visit Michael's mom or pick up Marina and the rifle in New Orleans and take them to Texas, as she did on that particular trip.

There are a few other incidents that deserve mentioning, Ruth Paine's letter to her father a few weeks before the assassination in which she describes Oswald as a good and loving father, Oswald's scolding the kids in the Paine's front yard for fighting and telling them not to fight or resort to violence, and the visit to Ruth and Marina at the Paine home by a US Army Reserve Colonel a week before the assassination.

Bill Kelly

[Thomas Graves]

I worked closely with Carol Hewett, Barbara and Steve while they did their research on the Paines and shared with them my recorded interview with Arthur Young, who married Michael Paine's mom Ruth Forbes Paine Young, who I also met at their home in suburban Philadelphia.

I think it important the terminology Ruth Paine used when talking about Oswald - she doesn't say Oswald lived somewhere she said, "He was operating from a base at 214 Neeley Street and operating for a time out of a room on Beckley."

Oswald certainly fits the Covert Operational Personality profile - COP -

I also note the Hewett, Lamonica, Barber research in the footnotes to my latest article - Valkyrie at Dealey Plaza Revisited.

JFKCountercoup2: Valkyrie At Dealey Plaza Re-Revisited

13) Hewett, Lamonica, Barber. Ruth Paine’s Summer Vacation. – The Confessions of Ruth Paine- DPQ http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2015/10/steve-jones-confessions-of-ruth-paine.html /http://www.manuscriptservice.com/DPQ/dparchiv1.htm - RUTH

JFKCountercoup2: Steve Jones - The Confessions of Ruth Paine

JFK / DPQ Issue Archives

Though I take issue with Steve Jones' characterization of Ruth Paine's summer vacation as something she did every year and innocent, as she didn't always stop at the Forbes island retreat, visit Michael's mom or pick up Marina and the rifle in New Orleans and take them to Texas, as she did on that particular trip.

There are a few other incidents that deserve mentioning, Ruth Paine's letter to her father a few weeks before the assassination in which she describes Oswald as a good and loving father, Oswald's scolding the kids in the Paine's front yard for fighting and telling them not to fight or resort to violence, and the visit to Ruth and Marina at the Paine home by a US Army Reserve Colonel a week before the assassination.

Bill Kelly

Great post, BK!

Thanks for all that info.

I agree with you that Oswald had the markings of an intelligence operative.

He wasn't just an "odd duck" who was spotted by the bad guys right before or right after the assassination, IMHO.

Welcome back,

--Tommy

[Greg Parker]

Oswald's scolding the kids in the Paine's front yard for fighting and telling them not to fight or resort to violence

Bill,

Did Ruth say this? And did she say it happened at her place?

Reason I ask is because it is a story told by the current owner of the N. Beckley boarding house in relation to Oswald and her brothers.

But the reality is that the Mr Lee she knew was Herbert Leon Lee, not Lee Harvey Oswald, who never actually lived there.

If Ruth Paine has been spinning the same yarn, that would be very interesting, indeed.

[William Kelly]

Hi Greg - this was reported on a Facebook post that I am trying to track down - overheard and quoted by a neighbor or one of Paine's daughters.

I need help in documenting it and also locating Ruth Paine's letter to her father.

BK

[William Kelly]

Hi Greg - this was reported on a Facebook post that I am trying to track down - overheard and quoted by a neighbor or one of Paine's daughters.

I need help in documenting it and also locating Ruth Paine's letter to her father.

BK

[Greg Parker]

Hi Greg - this was reported on a Facebook post that I am trying to track down - overheard and quoted by a neighbor or one of Paine's daughters.

I need help in documenting it and also locating Ruth Paine's letter to her father.

BK

FB? Leave me out of that search. It had nothing to do with the Paines. Whoever wrote it on FB is misremembering.

Here is the story. If it happened at N. Beckley and it was with Herbert Lee. Oswald never lived there.

http://www.dallasnews.com/lifestyles/arts/columnists/michael-granberry/20060312-patricia-puckett-hall-remembers-lee-harvey-oswald-before-the-world-descended-on-her-grandmother-s-rooming-house.ece

Edited January 15, 2016 by Greg Parker

[William Kelly]

No Greg - it happened at the Paime's front yard. In Irving.

BK

[Greg Parker]

No Greg - it happened at the Paime's front yard. In Irving.

BK

Well, if so, there are two separate claims. One that it happened in Irving and one that it happened N. Beckley.

It could have happened at Irving. It could not have happened at N. Beckley - not with LHO anyway.

I'm just pointing out that the two stories have exactly the same elements - and that rings warning bells for me.

Here is the N. Beckley version of the story as given by Ms Hall:

Even though she was only a sixth-grader, Ms. Hall also remembers the tenant as a cordial man of few words, who would, however, occasionally play catch in the front yard with Ms. Hall's brothers.

One afternoon, her brothers got into a fight with each other. A big one. Oswald rushed outside to break it up.

"He went down and pulled them apart," says Ms. Hall. "He sat them on the front porch and sat down between them. And he said, 'I want to tell you something: You need to love each other and always take care of each other, and you don't fight each other.'"

And then he said something that Ms. Hall and her family will never forget. With the boys at rapt attention, he said, "And don't ever do anything...that would harm another human being."

[Paul Trejo]

No Greg - it happened at the Paime's front yard. In Irving.

BK

According to the October 14 letter Ruth wrote to her mother, she had totally changed her opinion of LHO as a boor. He was a changed person in Irving after NOLA. He helped around the house. He planed a door for her, and played with her children. Her kids liked him. He never struck Marina in Ruth's presence or showed any signs of violence.

Ruth said repeatedly that she didn't see LHO as the JFK shooter. It was the circumstantial evidence she couldn't explain.

Michael Paine told the WC that he didn't see how the murder of JFK helped to advance any of LHO's stated causes; so he also doubted LHO was the killer.

Michael and Ruth Paine did have an 11/22/1963 phone call, which was wire-tapped, and nobody has come forward to claim responsibility for that wire-tap, but it was reported in the WC that Michael told Ruth something like, 'LHO will get blamed for killing JFK, but we both know who is responsible.'

Ruth Paine was asked point blank about those she and Michael "knew were responsible" and she said plainly: 'It was those who published the WANTED FOR TREASON handbill and the WELCOME TO DALLAS MR. KENNEDY full-page ad in the DMN.' Whoever they turned out to be.

Well, that was Robert Allen Surrey and the team surrounding General Walker, as the WC later learned. Bernie Weisman told the WC that General Walker's chauffeur, Robbie Schmidt, was riding around the night of the shooting with a stack of WANTED FOR TREASON posters in his back seat. So we know who it was.

Ruth and Micheal Paine were right. The Extreme Right in Dallas killed JFK just as they had humiliated Adlai Stevenson the month before.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 15, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

I worked closely with Carol Hewett, Barbara and Steve while they did their research on the Paines and shared with them my recorded interview with Arthur Young, who married Michael Paine's mom Ruth Forbes Paine Young, who I also met at their home in suburban Philadelphia.

I think it important the terminology Ruth Paine used when talking about Oswald - she doesn't say Oswald lived somewhere she said, "He was operating from a base at 214 Neeley Street and operating for a time out of a room on Beckley."

Oswald certainly fits the Covert Operational Personality profile - COP - ...

Bill Kelly

The impression I get from Ruth Paine's WC testimony, Bill, is that as a Quaker Charity lady, Ruth Paine continually put forth a persona as a Liberal's Liberal.

Although Ruth was against Communism (because, she said, Jesus Christ was a radical pacifist, but Communism advocates violent revolution), Ruth also supported the ACLU in an outspoken way, and believed strongly in Freedom of Speech, and in the right of LHO to advocate for the FPCC, and subscribe to Russian magazines and even The Militant and The Worker (all going to her home).

In other words, it seems to me that Ruth Paine thought of LHO as a fledgling political activist, who might have had a chance to mature and actually become somebody worthwhile in local or regional politics -- and should be allowed to grow at his own speed.

That said, I believe Ruth believed that she knew more about leftist politics than LHO, and of course Michael Paine openly said that he knew far more about leftist politics than LHO. They tolerated LHO, and perhaps to a certain degree patronized LHO.

From that vantage, it isn't surprising that Ruth would speak of LHO as "operating from a base," because she seemed to be rooting for his political career IN THE LONG RUN.

Michael Paine, for his part (reported Steve Jones) would show off to college students at Luby's restaurant, challenging them to personally attend political meetings of their opposition, and mix it up! When asked if he ever did this, he said, 'Yes! I personally know a man whose been to the USSR and back!'

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 15, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Greg Parker]

The impression I get from Ruth Paine's WC testimony, Bill, is that as a Quaker Charity lady,

Wow. Just wow.

The impression I get from a wolf in sheep clothing... is a wolf in sheep clothing...

[Paul Trejo]

The impression I get from Ruth Paine's WC testimony, Bill, is that as a Quaker Charity lady,

Wow. Just wow.

The impression I get from a wolf in sheep clothing... is a wolf in sheep clothing...

I just don't see any indication of Ruth Paine being a wolf.

Here are some of the suspicions that Carol Hewett and her followers on Probe magazine tried to raise:

(1) Ruth Paine -- largely through her garage in Irving -- was the source of most of the evidence used against LHO in the JFK murder.

(2) That includes: the rifle blanket; the BYP; the Walker house photograph; the Imperial Reflex camera; FPCC fliers; Russian magazines; the Walker Letter and the Embassy Letter.

(3) To some, that makes Ruth Paine a wolf. To others, like me, what else could Ruth Paine do but let the Police search her home?

The Police simply found what they found -- these were among LHO's possessions in Ruth Paine's garage. The truth is that simple.

To imagine that Ruth Paine *planted* that evidence is just -- IMHO -- making stuff up.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 15, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Gene Kelly]

According to some good factual digging by Greg Parker in 2011:

March 12, 1963: Ruth Paine visits Marina at the new apartment on Neely Street (the safe house where he never lived). Also that day, Lee Oswald orders a rifle from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago.

March 20, 1963: Ruth Paine makes her second trip to visit Marina at the Neely St address. Also that day, the rifle and the revolver are shipped.

Marina is allegedly taken away from the apartment on both occasions ... coincidence? I think not.