The St. Ruthie and St. Michael "We both know" call

[Michael Clark]

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

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

"

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

 

Edited July 21, 2017 by Michael Clark

[Michael Clark]

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

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

 

Mr. LIEBELER - Now, there has been a report that on November 23, 1963, there was a telephone call between a man and a woman, between the numbers of your residence and the number of your office, in which the man was reported to have said in words or substance, "We both know who is responsible for the assassination." Have you been asked about this before?Mr. PAINE - I had heard that--I didn't know it was associated with our numbers. I had heard a report that some telephone operator had listened in on a conversation somewhere, I don't know where it was. I thought it was some other part of the country.Mr. LIEBELER - Did you talk to your wife on the telephone at any time during Saturday, November 23, on the telephone?Mr. PAINE - I was in the police station again, and I think I called her from there.Mr. LIEBELER - Did you make any remark to the effect that you knew who was responsible?Mr. PAINE - And I don't know who the assassin is or was; no, so I did not.Mr. LIEBELER - You are positive in your recollection that you made no such remark?Mr. PAINE - Yes.

[James DiEugenio]

From what I understand Liebeler had the records in hand when he asked this question.

That would indicate he phrased it for the wrong day on purpose.

It would seem to me that the phone records and FBI report would have the time on them.

[Chris Newton]

Was this the result of a black bag job (a tap) or was there a physical operator and transcriptionist assigned to monitor that line? It's Paine that mentions an operator not Liebeler.

If it was a black bag job then it raises lots of questions about when it was installed. This is why there was probably limited questions and no follow up.

[Larry Hancock]

As Michael has pointed out, there are many "telephony" ways to do this, some quite simple.  You can use a butt in set to just listen and do it at any cross connect point on the cable that serves them.  If you actually want to put a recorder on the line to capture a full record of all voice calls over a period of time the FBI would have either gone to the telephone company and put a tap and recorder on at the local tel exchange office.  Of course you could go all out, run a line tap on the cable and take it into a rental house, a van, etc but that's more CIA/overseas stuff where you cannot just legally go to the telephone company and get cooperation.  I see no reason why entering the house to place a tap of any sort would be necessary, that's more for placing wireless/radio bugs.

[Michael Clark]

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

[Michael Clark]

59 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

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

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

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

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

 

[Michael Clark]

6 minutes ago, Paul Trejo said:

James,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

 

[Michael Clark]

2 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Do I understand this right?  If the call was at 1:00 on 11/22 then the tap had to be in place prior to the assassination.   The Irving PD did not even at the behest of say the FBI start listening in on the suddenly suspicious Paine's phone conversations within 30 minutes of the shots.  Somebody was suspicious of the Paine's and or their association with Marina and Lee to justify monitoring the line.  Local small suburban police departments didn't do a lot of taps on their own at the time did they?  The Paine's weren't dope dealers or otherwise suspected of criminal activity at the time that I've ever read about.  Monitored because Oswald was a returned Communist defector, when he only came out on weekends?  HE wasn't monitored closely enough for anyone to know about the Beckley address where he stayed during the week. 

The Paine's were in contact with the Oswalds since the spring of 63. There is no reason to think that they were not being surveilled from that time on. There are CIA, FBI, Mob, Industrial, Police and who knows what other intelligence entities whom might have been involved in the tapping of that call. Mr. Carter''s pointing out that Irving police are named as the source doesn't mean anything; no disrespect to Mr. Carter; I assume he is passing on information, and that he is not married to the idea that it was necessarily Irving police who tapped the call. Keep in mind that the other end of the call was the Fort Worth Bell Helicopter facility where Michael Paine worked. It seems too convenient that Irving Police had a man who was assigned to the telephone company and this info was generated therefrom. Any agency or entity could have asked the Irving police for cover in this matter.

Local PI's, extortionists, Mob, Confidential informants, as well as Government agencies could have had someone listening to all their calls, or have hopped on that line at anytime.

Assuming that there is something fishy about that call being monitored at 1PM on 11-22 is assuming that there was no reason to have an eye on LHO, Marina or the Paine's before that time.

I would be surprised if the mob, Bell Helicopter and all government agencies, including rogue elements were not tripping over themselves in manholes, on poles, in dusty phone-rooms with diverted pairs or at phone company buildings listening in all calls.

To add a bit of humor, imagine a phone guy who was known to be "purchasable" , who just by serendipity, happened to have been approached by Jim Hosty, I. B. Hale, Howard, Hunt, Jack Ruby, H. L. Hunt, Holmes, Mrs. Paine, and and Mr. Paine,.. all individually paying one lucky phone-guy to tap that line. He would have collected 7 checks for one job, and no one should have been any-the-wiser.

ha-ha!

I am just trying to point-out that it could have been everyone,, everywhere, or anyone, anywhere that "ordered" it.

It had to be brought to the WC records, so we have an Irving Police officer, assigned to fill-out the story.

.

 

Edited July 23, 2017 by Michael Clark

[Mark Knight]

Specifically, who had the authority to order a wiretap, beyond the FBI, in 1963? The information ended up in the hands of the FBI, but did they issue the order? Why did the Paynes not object, once they learned of the wiretap? Most people would protest loud and long. The Paynes did not, best I can determine. Did they know about the tap, and only afterwards feign ignorance? Were the Paynes actually FBI informants, and willing participants in the wiretapping scheme? Did the FBI possibly hope to gather incriminating information, possibly spoken in Russian, in calls that the Oswalds participated in? 

Too many unanswered questions there. Too many UNASKED questions, at least ON THE RECORD, by the WC regarding the wiretap information.

[Michael Clark]

I really don't see any need to question it, at all. If I invited LHO and Marina into my life, in 1963, I would fully expect that I would be monitored, by any and every agency and entity that had that capability, legal or not.

[Paul Brancato]

1 hour ago, Mark Knight said:

Specifically, who had the authority to order a wiretap, beyond the FBI, in 1963? The information ended up in the hands of the FBI, but did they issue the order? Why did the Paynes not object, once they learned of the wiretap? Most people would protest loud and long. The Paynes did not, best I can determine. Did they know about the tap, and only afterwards feign ignorance? Were the Paynes actually FBI informants, and willing participants in the wiretapping scheme? Did the FBI possibly hope to gather incriminating information, possibly spoken in Russian, in calls that the Oswalds participated in? 

Too many unanswered questions there. Too many UNASKED questions, at least ON THE RECORD, by the WC regarding the wiretap information.

Mark - interesting idea that the Paines were willing participants in an FBI tap.

Edited July 23, 2017 by Paul Brancato

[Michael Clark]

37 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Mark - interesting idea that the Paines were willing participants in an FBI tap.

In the first page of the "The latest from Ruth Paine" thread I awkwardly suggested that the whole thing just served to suggest that they are not agents, which would be the point of the charade.

[James DiEugenio]

Its true that almost anyone with the skill and money could perform a wiretap.

But the paper trail seems to suggest the FBI did this through the phone company, and then used Barger of the Irving police to conceal it.

[Larry Hancock]

Performing an illegal wire tap at an office, home, motel room is one thing but if you want to install one on the line inside a Bell Tel Central Office - as this apparently was - you are going to need some legal clout. Easy enough for the FBI but even back then somebody did not just walk in and connect a tape recorder to a line distribution frame.