The Real Ruth and Michael Paine

[Greg Parker]

Boy that's really interesting Tom.

Always nice to have first hand confirmation.

Maybe Greg is right.

Jim, Thanks for the acknowledgement.

"Pan Am" and Greg have it right.

Tom

Thanks Tom. Great to have that confirmed by someone "in the know".

And yes indeed... "why wouldn't they."

The whole story with the "dates" between Quinn and Oswald and Quinn and Donovan beggars belief as innocent nights out once you look at what each were doing in their lives.

[Sandy Larsen]

SL: Thanks Paul... that's precisely what I wanted to know.

Not it is not Sandy.

​The source for Marina speaking English in the USSR is not some guy at a party in Minsk.

Its Robert Webster, via an interview with Dick Russell. (Armstrong, pgs. 256-57) And it was not just a phrase or two. The conversation went on a long time. But Webster pointed out an interesting fact: Marina spoke understandable English, but with a heavy accent. This detail should be interesting to anyone with a bit of curiosity.

​And it was not in Minsk, Webster met her in Moscow.

​The first American defector in the wave of phony defections that began around this time was Nick Petrulli. Prior to this wave, there had been something like two defectors for over twenty years. (Melanson Spy Saga,, p. 24) But now there were suddenly three in a year, then Oswald and then two more behind him. In other words there were three times the previous number in 18 months than there had been in two decades. And by 1960, the number reached the teens.

​Webster worked for Rand Development Corporation. Its president, Henry Rand, had been a senior officer in the OSS. Executive George Bookbinder also worked for the OSS. Their Washington lobbyist, Christopher Bird, had been a CIA agent. (ibid, p. 25)

​Like Oswald, Webster went to the US Embassy and announced his intention to defect. Guess who he did this with? You got it--RIchard Snyder. The guy Oswald did it with. In fact, 72 hours before Oswald arrived, Snyder wrote a letter to his fellow State Dept.employees on his experience with American "defectors". The quotes are in the original. And he was referring to Webster. (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, Second edition, p. 141) And when Oswald was preparing to leave, in 1961, he reportedly asked about the guy who had come to Russia right before him, Webster. Even though he was not supposed to know about him. (Melanson, p. 25))

Webster met Marina in 1959, when she was 19. Before she met Oswald. Is this how Oswald knew about Webster? Finally, after the assassination, the address of Wester's Leningrad apartment was found in Marina's address book. (Marrs, first edition, p. 117) For as Oswald was ejected from Moscow to Minsk, Webster was ejected from Moscow to Leningrad. From there, Webster applied for an exit visa. The KGB was on to both of them.

​Marina once told an acquaintance she had met her husband at a trade exhibition in Moscow. She was mistaking Webster for Oswald. (CD 5)

This is what you want to know Sandy. It tells us a good deal about Oswald, Marina, and the CIA's fake defector program, which the KGB had figured out pretty early.

Thanks Jim. That is precisely what I wanted to know.

I just wanted to know if Marina really could speak non-broken English. Because it was my understanding that she couldn't. Yet Mrs. Gray/Bray said she could.

I appreciate also the information on the false defector program. I've read John Newman's book (and Destiny Betrayed), but didn't know about two or three things you said.

[Sandy Larsen]

What are the odds of a 19 year old girl, who trained to be a pharmacist, meeting two of the first four defectors to the USSR in a city the size of Moscow?

FYI, the population of Moscow was over six million in 1960, and the city had an area of about 400 square miles.

That is a good question for Jon Tidd, who seems to believe that little can be learned from circumstantial evidence.

The answer, of course, is that Marina's meeting up with Webster and Oswald was by design. There is no doubt in my mind about that. Regardless of the fact that I have never seen any physical evidence.

Though I will admit one potential caveat to what I say here. If there was one, or just a few, American organizations in Moscow that met regularly. And if Marina met with them. And if Oswald and Webster met with them. Then there is some non-astronomical possibility of it happening.

(I lived in Esfahan, Iran in the mid 1970s and bumped into a guy whose great grandfather is also my great grandfather. But we're both from Utah and we met at church. (You can probably guess what church.) That increased the odds of our meeting dramatically.)

[Sandy Larsen]

I see I forgot to pose the obvious question in relation to the above information.

What are the odds of a 19 year old girl, who trained to be a pharmacist, meeting two of the first four defectors to the USSR in a city the size of Moscow?

FYI, the population of Moscow was over six million in 1960, and the city had an area of about 400 square miles.

The odds are very broad, given that Marina was related to a KGB honcho, and she was a single girl over the age of consent, and the people she was meeting happened to be American servicemen during the peak of the Cold War. The KGB would watch Americans like a HAWK.

So, do you really think the odds are one in millions that she would meet them? Not a chance.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

But that would be a meeting by design, no?

I mean, even if Marina wasn't instructed to date the defector, she was told to "watch the Americans like a hawk," as you say. And apparently she was told to focus on the "American servicemen," because surely most American defectors were not servicemen. Or ex-servicemen.

(We *are* talking EX-servicemen, right? I'm no expert, but I can't imagine there were active American servicemen in Moscow, of all places.)

[James DiEugenio]

In Titovets' book, he makes an interesting argument that the first meeting between Oswald and Marina was set up by the KGB at a dance.

The odds of her meeting both Webster and Oswald by accident in a city that size are, to me, just astronomical.

[Thomas Graves]

In Titovets' book, he makes an interesting argument that the first meeting between Oswald and Marina was set up by the KGB at a dance.

The odds of her meeting both Webster and Oswald by accident in a city that size are, to me, just astronomical.

Maybe Marina was an English-speaking spy with a "honey trap" prostitute background, assigned to "hook up with" Marguerite Oswald's son, Lee.

http://oswaldsmother...-with-love.html

Just sayin'

--Tommy

[Paul Trejo]

Unless, of course, Marina was an English-speaking spy with a prostitute background, assigned to "hook up with" Marguerite Oswald's son, Lee.

http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2009/10/from-marina-prusakova-with-love.html

Just sayin'

--Tommy

sexed-up a bit and bumped

Well, some of you guys are looking for SPY FICTION. That seems to be your real purpose -- not really Solving the JFK Murder.

Using the principle of Occam's Razor, you don't need Marina Oswald in 1959 for a theory that the KGB assassinated JFK in 1963.

But hey, you guys want to sell books, right? And if this fiction sells, then why not, right?

IMHO, though, it's just STUPID. There's no solid evidence there, and you're massaging unreliable verbal accounts in bits and pieces, from "witnesses" never screened, to whip up commercial interest in pulp fiction. It's useless. No wonder the CT community has such a low reputation in this century.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 26, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[James DiEugenio]

Everything I have cited is factual.

Russell interviewed Webster.

And I footnoted everything else I wrote.

Now, if you don't believe these witnesses, fine, just say so.

But don't say its fiction. I mean Caufield saying Oswald was really a segregationist spy in 1957 for Leander Perez, while he is in the service learning Russian, now that is fiction.

[Paul Trejo]

Everything I have cited is factual.

Russell interviewed Webster.

And I footnoted everything else I wrote.

Now, if you don't believe these witnesses, fine, just say so.

But don't say its fiction. I mean Caufield saying Oswald was really a segregationist spy in 1957 for Leander Perez, while he is in the service learning Russian, now that is fiction.

Well, James, you mention Dick Russell, so let's examine your sources a little closer.

Dick Russell is usually a good source, but he also made some leaps of logic, and also stretched testimony of unscreened witnesses to his own ends on occasion.

I refer to his landmark book, The Man Who Knew Too Much, which comes in two editions -- the first edition in 1992 and the second edition in 2003.

in the first edition, researching the General Walker shooting, Dick Russell interviewed private eye, Bradford Angers, and says that Angers told him that Larrie Schmidt, down on his luck, had confessed to Angers that he helped Lee Harvey Oswald shoot at General Walker.

In the second edition, in the same section, Dick Russell says that Angers told him that Robbie Schmidt, down on his luck, who had been living with General Walker at the time, had confessed to Angers that he helped Lee Harvey Oswald shoot at General Walker.

Of course, Brad Angers is no longer around to confirm what he really told Dick Russell, or if Russell properly understood what he said.

So, even a fine CT researcher like Dick Russell can make mistakes -- and this is especially true when one uses non-screened witnesses and verbal data taken while not under oath. Rumors. Stories over drinks. Hey -- it makes great pulp fiction.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 27, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[James DiEugenio]

Well that is a nice non sequitir to get yourself off the hook.

Confusing brothers is not in the same league as confusing a language, with tow witnesses, from the USSR and the USA, who do not know each other.

Keep it up PT.

Maybe you will convince someone that Oswald was really a segregationist infiltrator in 1957. While he was learning Russian.

[Paul Trejo]

Well, James, I'll let Dr. Caufield promote his own theories, and I'll continue to promote my own.

In your second edition of Destiny Betrayed (2012) you devote an entire section to attacking Ruth and Michael Paine, casting aspersions on Ruth's "Quaker Charity" with regard to Marina Oswald.

Your principal source for that screed was Carol Hewett and her 1990 articles in Probe magazine. Yet the weakness of Hewett's articles is now being exposed to public view. She made so many errors that we've lost count already. And this is your source. What emerges is no better than cheap fiction.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited January 27, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

Ruth shows who she is post assassination. Her letter to Garrison, which I had never seen before (thanks for posting it) is creepy. She tells him point blank that he should consider using her as a counterweight to his theories. Inotherwords, her mind is closed. Not very intelligent. And to write that to the man who was at the time our best chance for uncovering the truth about the murder of a president whose loss she claims to have felt deeply. That's no 'liberal' talking. That's no humanist, no charitable lady. That's a woman with an agenda.

Marina figured out who Ruth was, just a little too late.

[Thomas Graves]

Unless, of course, Marina was an English-speaking spy with a prostitute background, assigned to "hook up with" Marguerite Oswald's son, Lee.

http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2009/10/from-marina-prusakova-with-love.html

Just sayin'

--Tommy

sexed-up a bit and bumped

Well, some of you guys are looking for SPY FICTION. That seems to be your real purpose -- not really Solving the JFK Murder.

Using the principle of Occam's Razor, you don't need Marina Oswald in 1959 for a theory that the KGB assassinated JFK in 1963.

But hey, you guys want to sell books, right? And if this fiction sells, then why not, right?

IMHO, though, it's just STUPID. There's no solid evidence there, and you're massaging unreliable verbal accounts in bits and pieces, from "witnesses" never screened, to whip up commercial interest in pulp fiction. It's useless. No wonder the CT community has such a low reputation in this century.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Dear Paul,

Maybe the CIA or FBI "turned" Marina after she arrived in the good ol' U. S. of A.?

Because they knew she was KGB?

--Tommy

[Gene Kelly]

And two years after the assassination, Marina married a former Collins Radio employee, Kenneth Porter ...

[Paul Brancato]

Gene - what do you suppose that means? I am familiar with the Collins Radio connections....does that account for the estrangement with Ruth Paine, or does it somehow nullify any possible conclusions one could draw from that estrangement?

The marriage might be completely random and without significance. Do you know something about Porter that indicates otherwise?

Marina's estrangement from Ruth Paine could not be random in my opinion.