Did Ruth Paine knowingly refuse to inform Oswald of a Trans Texas Airways better job? No. Another baseless smear.

[Kirk Gallaway]

Of course. It's like other assumptions. Nobody know the content of the phone call from Adams to RP.But it's probably more likely that unless Ruth had been established to Adams to be Lee's wife, The professional thing for Adams to do would be to reveal the place of work and no other details over the phone, which will be disclosed to Lee upon phoning back. That's not hard and fast, it could also be RP had established a rapport mutual concern .for Lee with Adams, I suppose.

So this is all really about a fumbling of RP under questioning, when given the facts, we can't know  what was said or revealed in the phone call, and that it couldn't have been confused with other phone calls in Lee's search for a job? Looks like a deadlock to me. Is this worth pursuing? Is there something I don't know?

Lawrence, involving your inquiries of Greg.

 

Lawrence:Curious on your take of the infamous phone call between the Paines on the day of the assassination.  At 1:00 pm on November 22. 1963, Michael Paine placed a collect call to his wife to discuss Oswald's involvement in the assassination. While the telephone operator remained on the line, Michael Paine told his wife that he “Felt sure Lee Harvey Oswald had killed the President but was not responsible.” He added, “We both know who is responsible.” (FBI report of Robert C. Lish, November 26, 1963, JFK Document No. 105-82555-1437) This call took place one hour before Oswald's arrest.

Lawrence:Buried in volume 19 of the Warren Commission hearings and exhibits is report written by Dallas Deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers on the day of the assassination stating that upon searching the Paine's garage, officers found “a set of metal file cabinets that appeared to be names and activities of Cuban Sympathizers.” (19H520).

 

Of course, these metal file cabinets did not make it onto the Dallas Police inventory sheets and were never entered into evidence along with Lee Harvey Oswald's belongings. If they did not belong to Oswald, then they must have belonged to the Paines. Do you know why Ruth and Michael Paine might have had a “set of metal file cabinets” containing “the names and activities of Cuban sympathizers”?  

*****

 

Lawrence: where have you been? Greg has taken out threads dealing with both of these topics, as well as many others,  much to the ire of the RP as witting/unwitting accomplice faction here. As for Buddy Walthers, you have only to look at this very page, "The allegation that Ruth Paine did surveillance on Cuban Sympathizers". That's directly linked to the question you pose of Greg concerning Buddy Walthers. Check it out.

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Speaking of Jeff Meek, I just today received his book, The Manipulation of Lee Harvey Oswald and the Cover-Up That Followed (2021). Like David Talbot, Meek thinks the CIA was deeply involved with Oswald and the assassination and cover-up but that Ruth Paine was not part of that. Summarizing Meek's interviews with Ruth Paine,

"Although there is little doubt family members had direct CIA or CIA-related associations, I was not able to directly connect Ruth Hyde Paine to any such connection. None of the many allegations directed at Paine, in my opinion, warrant a conclusion of her being a CIA contact." (p. 147)

 

Somebody should ask Jeff Meek how HE thinks Oswald just happened to end up at the right place for him to play the role as patsy.

Do you know the answer to that, Greg?

Strong circumstantial evidence has Ruth Paine being a CIA asset who was instructed to urge Oswald to apply for a job there. The same evidence has the CIA instructing Oswald to follow Ruth Paine's suggestion.

 

[W. Tracy Parnell]

12 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

Do you know why Ruth and Michael Paine might have had a “set of metal file cabinets” containing “the names and activities of Cuban sympathizers”?

They didn't, unless you are willing to make the leap (many are of course) that the WC, FBI and Dallas Police were in on it:

The Assassination and Mrs. Paine-Ruth Surveilled the Left? ~ W. Tracy Parnell (wtracyparnell.blogspot.com)

[Pat Speer]

17 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

The wording was poor. What I meant was that was Adams' purpose in leaving the message, not that he conveyed information about the job in the message to Ruth. That was what I meant.

Actually, your wording was fine. By saying "SO that he could tell Lee of the Trans Texas Airways job offer" you indicated that he did not, in fact, tell Ruth Paine about the offer. 

[Allen Lowe]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

Actually, your wording was fine. By saying "SO that he could tell Lee of the Trans Texas Airways job offer" you indicated that he did not, in fact, tell Ruth Paine about the offer. 

Pat I usually trust your judgement  more than mine on these matters, but he called her twice. There’s no way someone would call twice about a job, speak to the same person both times, and not indicate either the job or the importance of a response. If Ruth didn’t indicate any interest or pass any information on, as she clearly didn’t, it’s more than just careless negligence. Everything else she did in these matters was conscientious and to the point. 

[Greg Doudna]

Allen Lowe--because it makes no sense at all that Ruth would not pass on a phone message to Lee, that is my basis for assuming Ruth did pass on that message. You see it differently, in which to you it is perfectly normal that Ruth would be party to a presidential assassination plot involving an unwitting Oswald manipulated into falling into a job at TSBD, then Ruth deviously derailing a job offer (by not passing on a phone message) which could wreck the carefully-planned plot in which Oswald is clueless, for if Oswald had gotten wind of it, he would have fluttered away for the better job. That sounds reasonable to you, so you interpret ambiguity--lack of full information as to precisely what happened-- in that way. Whereas what is reasonable to you as a conclusion makes extraordinarily little sense and has virtually zero likelihood as a reasonable explanation to me. This is why there are these opposite responses to the same set of facts. I, unlike you, reason there must be some more mundane explanation to account for the facts than the conclusion you think is necessitated.

You conclude as if it is settled fact that Ruth did not pass on the Mr. Adams' phone message ("she clearly didn't"). What is the basis for certainty for that? You do not say directly, but I assume your reasoning is twofold: (a) Lee never returned the call to TSBD (based on Adams' testimony); and (b) Ruth, when questioned, volunteered no memory of passing on the phone message from Adams to Lee (surely she would have remembered and said so if she had). 

Based on those two points you go to the utterly extraordinary conclusion of deliberate malevolence of Ruth as the only possible explanation of the facts.

That leaves out possibilities in which Ruth did what we would expect her to have done-- pass on the message to Lee (without knowing content of the job offer). For example, perhaps Lee, having gotten the message from Ruth, did call back to TEC but reached someone other than Mr. Adams, and said he had already found a job so had no need for further job leads. That would agree with the facts and testimony without supposing unprecedented malevolence on Ruth's part.

This is not special pleading to make Ruth be innocent. It is presuming there is likely some reasonable explanation in preference to an utterly extraordinary one.

On "b", Ruth was not asked in her Warren Commission testimony about phone calls from Robert Adams or from the Texas Employment Commission. She did not respond with telling of passing on Mr. Adams' phone message to Lee (which she would have done) perhaps because neither "phone call", "Texas Employment Commission", nor "Robert Adams" were in the questioning of her. We know those things from Adams' testimony--and we know those things are connected to Trans Texas Airways--but Ruth Paine does not know those things in the questions she is asked. Ruth only knows she is being asked if she knew anything about Lee having some great job offer from Trans Texas Airways. If Ruth had not been told that employer name or details by Mr. Adams she would answer exactly as she did, with blank memory of knowing of such a job offer, then confuse it with something else she did remember in trying to answer the question.

She might have remembered Robert Adams' phone calls if she had been prodded or asked about phone calls from the Texas Employment Commission so as to connect that with what the WC was asking her. But she was not told those points of connection (that we know from Adams' testimony). As for the job interview opportunity from Trans Texas Airways, it is reasonable Ruth did not know anything about that. And it is reasonable--I would say certain-- that she would have passed on Mr. Adams' phone message to Lee, even though Mr. Adams never heard back from Lee.

As opposed to conclusion of an outlandish alternative. On grounds of simple likelihood.

[Greg Doudna]

Response from Oswald to the Texas Employment Commission following the Robert Adams phone call: "the rest of the story"

This is new. I believe the following tells Oswald's response to the Texas Employment Commission after Ruth Paine passed on to him the message from Robert Adams. This information has not received attention or notice up to now in discussions of the Robert Adams message for Lee.

Another employment counselor, Laura Kittrell, a colleague of Robert Adams, wrote of receiving a phone call at the Texas Employment Commission, said to be at the request of Oswald, after Lee got the TSBD job. This is the denouement, the missing rest of the story. The following is from Laura Kittrell's 90-page typed manuscript starting at page 62, at https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/sightings-of-lho-oct.-1963-laurel-kittral/687524?item=687528. Laura Kittrell wrote this narrative after the assassination and her time-dating memories could be slightly mistaken.

[START KITTRELL]

Section 6. The Other Phone Call, from a Friend of His Wife

Some days went by, and I ceased for a while to be so concerned about Mr. Oswald's welfare as I had been. I had asked him to let me hear from him, and not having heard, I supposed that he had gone to work somewhere. (. . .) I sent, probably late in October, or early in November, a post card to him, with the usual instructions to counselees, to tear off the detachable part and mail it back to me, or else come to the office. I had two answers to this card, and they make up this section of this account... [two lines missing in the photocopy here] ... Let me say here, that in the conversation which follows, I have no memory of the name "Oswald", or "Paine", or "Irving" being mentioned. I do recall the company name, "Texas School Book Depository", and that is suffiicient, coupled with the word, "Russia", to enable my imagination to supply the names "Oswald" and Paine and "Irving". Nevertheless I shall leave blank, in the interest of accuracy, the names I do not truly recall. The telephone at my desk rang. (My thoughts or unspoken words are in parentheses.)

Me: Miss Kittrell.

Voice: This is Mrs. ____ _____, in _____. (I do remember that word "in"; it meant that the caller was not calling from Dallas proper, but from a semi-detached suburb, which used to be on a toll-call line, so that people calling from there were in the habit of saying the name of the town, although it was no longer necessary to announce it, in order to let the caller know that the call was costing the caller money.)

Me. Yes?

She: A Mr. _____, wanted me to call you and say he had found a job. I am a friend of Mr. and Mrs. _____. He said you would be worried about him until he had found a job. Well, you can quit worrying about Mr. _____., he has found himself a job. He works now, and he could hardly get to the phone during the day, to call you, and his wife can't talk either, so I am calling.

Me: Oh. Thank you so much. I'm awfully glad to hear that he has a job. (Actually, I was not as glad as I tried to sound. For just a moment, I could not remember who Mr. _____ was. When I ... [two lines missing in the photocopy] ... was trying hard under the stress of the moment to attach Mr. _____'s name to a face. I couldn't, and meant to stall for a bit before I let it slip out that this Mr. _____, was someone I could not at the moment recall.)

She: He said that you would be. (glad that he had a job, that is).

Me: Where did he go to work?

She: He found a job at the Texas School Book Depository.

Me: The Texas School Book Depository! Well, I declare. (I used to send people to apply for jobs there, years ago, and though I had not thought about that company in years, being on a desk where I no longer sent them applicants, I had many unpleasant memories of the firm, for the management of it used to fuss--they were awfully fussy people--when I sent them someone, if, as the saying goes, "his hair was not parted just right".) A shipping clerk's job! Why, that's just what he wanted! Isn't it. (I was commencing to remember Mr. _____, and to picture his bright face.)

She: Well, it isn't much of a job, really, just a dollar and a quarter an hour, but he seems awfully pleased with it.

Me: Well, I'm just awfully relieved to know that he has found a job (. . .) (Suddenly I felt that same urgent alarm I had felt that day when I was talking to him and chanced to make him angry, and I became momentarily and quite unreasonably terror-stricken once more: Just who was this Mrs. _____ who wasn't his wife? Why was she calling ... [half of line missing in photocopy] ... "his wife can't talk to you". I was unable at that time to think of any reason why she should not be able to, for I was too frightened to think clearly. Was the poor woman dead? Had he gone home after all, that day, and shot her? And taken up with this other woman? I plainly pictured him burying his wife under a rosebush, and acting as nothing had happened. I recall that my hand on the telephone commenced to tremble, and I was just about unable to speak.)

She: I feel that I owe you an explanation, why I am calling, and not his wife. As a matter of fact, she is here with me now.

Me: She is? (I was so relieved I could have wept) Well, say, do you mind putting her on the phone?

She: That is what I want to explain. I could put her on the phone, but it wouldn't do any good. You see, she doesn't speak English.

Me: Oh, that's all right. I speak Spanish.

She: (laughing) Well, I'm afraid that wouldn't do any good either.

Me: Why not?

She: Because she speaks Russian, that's why!

Me: (stupidly, and stammering) B-But why does she speak Russian?

She: Because she was born and reared in Russia, that's why! (I noted that she said "born and reared" and not as is more usual for people in her locality "borned" ... [two lines missing in photocopy] ... Her voice was light and gay, and her laughter was ladylike, too.)

Me: Oh. Well. Thanks for calling, Mrs. ______.

She: (now angrily and coldly) Goodbye!

(. . .)

Just a few days after this conversation, I had a postcard, a detached half of an Employment Service franked card, sent back to me announcing that the sender had gone to work at the "Texas School Book Depository". Again I do not honestly recall the name of the person who sent the card. I only remember tossing it into the wastebasket because I had already received, by a telephone call from a lady, the information it contained, but that recollection is sufficient to convince me that I am right in thinking the name was "Oswald", that plus the fact that I had, as I have said, good reason to remember the "Texas School Book Depository" as a firm to which I used to send applicants years ago. I was impressed to think that they must really have been "scraping the bottom of the barrel" when they hired him [Oswald]. I hasten to add that I would not have thought that about just any company which might hire him. What struck ... [half line missing in photocopy] ... hire anyone with a less-than-honorable discharge. He would not have got by there lying about his discharge. They check. Or at least they used to. If in past years, when I had been sending them applicants, I had sent them anyone who was not a 100% red-blooded, true-blue, American, I would have heard about it, plenty! The people who used to, then, own the depository, the Ross Carleton family (who sold it a year or so before the assassination) were leading lights in the Public Affairs Luncheon Club, one of those Dallas vigilante groups a little to the right of the John Birch Society. I did not recall this at the time. I only knew that they were terribly finicky about the people they hired, and always wanted "the moon with a string tied around it" for a dollar an hour. So this thought, that if I had sent them a person like that, I would never have heard the last of it coupled with the thought that they had turned right around and of their own accord hired a person with a less-than-honorable discharge, rankled in my mind. 

Nevertheless, I was comforted with the thought that if he pleased them, as cranky as they were, perhaps I had judged him far too harshly, and that maybe all he needed was just a job, in order to become like anyone else. (. . .) The Warren Commission could have asked Mrs. Paine if she remembered calling a Miss Kittrell at the Texas Employment Commission to tell her that Oswald had gone to work at the Texas School Book Depository, and then becoming amused, then annoyed with her, after she had offered to talk to Mrs Oswald in Spanish (. . .)

[END KITTRELL]

[Gene Kelly]

All:

For the record (and as posted elsewhere), I recommend studying what cognitive psychology calls the “illusory truth effect” - where we legitimize lies by reiteration (see: “I Heard It Before, So It Must Be True” by Susana Martinez-Conde, October 5, 2019, Scientific American; and “Illusory Truth, Lies, and Political Propaganda” by Joe Pierre, January 22, 2020. Psychology Today). Commonly known by the phrase "if you repeat a lie enough, it becomes the truth", this tactic is commonly employed in political propaganda, marketing, cult brainwashing and notably on social media blogs (e.g., repetitive posts on threads).  This stems from the fact that we process repeated statements more fluently, and we mistake that feeling of fluency for a signal that the statement is true: 

• If repeated enough times, the information may be perceived to be true even if sources are not credible
• The illusory truth effect is very evident on subject matter people perceive themselves to know about
• The effect can happen even if someone had previous knowledge that the information was false

I see that same tactic being employed with this thread, similar to a number of threads that have appeared coincident with Max Good's film. We should beware of posts that have a suggestive (false) title ...  the headline alone is intended to cement a false idea in our minds (see “When Correcting a Lie, Don't Repeat It. Do This Instead” by Steve Rathje, July 23, 2018, in Psychology Today).  Rathje discusses experiments performed to examine the effects that incriminating innuendo delivered by media sources have on audience impressions (i.e., so-called fake news). The author's simple advice to counter this tactic and discredit lies - without repeating them and spreading them further - is to always lead with the truth. The facts should come first, so our minds will stop confusing “alternative facts” with real ones. 

Gene

 

 

[David Von Pein]

QUOTING JEAN DAVISON (one of the best and finest JFK researchers I've ever had the pleasure of talking to):

"The book you're quoting claims that Adams spoke with someone at the Paine house about an offer for a permanent, higher-paying job. But if you'll look at Adams' affidavit you'll see there's no evidence that he mentioned any details about this job to Ruth. His affidavit says only that he left a message for Oswald to contact him:

[QUOTING ROBERT ADAMS:]

My best recollection is that on that day I called [the Paines' phone number]. I learned from the person who answered the phone that Oswald was not there. I left a message with that person that Oswald should contact me at the Commission. My further recollection is that the following morning at 10:30 o'clock I again called ... and learned from the person who answered that Oswald was not there and that he had in the meantime obtained employment and was working.

[END ADAMS QUOTE]

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh11/html/WC_Vol11_0246a.htm

Everything else was the author's [James Douglass] assumption -- or rather, the assumption of whoever first made this allegation about Ruth Paine.

[...]

Again, there's no evidence that she [Ruth Paine] ever heard these details [about how much the airline/cargo job paid], so why should she recall them?

[...]

[Robert Adams' affidavit of 8/4/64] says that on October 7 Adams left a message at the Paine house. Evidently Ruth told Oswald, because he applied for the job but wasn't hired. It would've been a permanent job paying $350 a month.

Here's the agency record showing Oswald's job referrals. "NH" in the Results column means "not hired." (Scroll down)

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0209b.htm

[...]

It's likely that Ruth took the call [from the Texas Employment Commission after Oswald was hired at the TSBD], certainly. But you're still *assuming* that she was told there was a *higher-paying job available* -- there's no evidence for that! Adams said the message was to have Oswald return his call, nothing more.

It's possible that Ruth did tell Oswald about the call, and that Oswald himself decided not to bother since he'd already started working somewhere else. Don't people usually stop looking for work after they've found a job?

Ruth apparently did pass on a lead to a different higher-paying job, mentioned above. How does that fit into her nefarious plans for Oswald, in your view? If he'd gotten that job, no 6th floor sniper's nest for him!"

-- Jean Davison; June 29, 2008

[Original 2008 discussion is HERE.]

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by David Von Pein

[James DiEugenio]

Very nice post Gene.  

And. that is what GD is doing by flooding the board with these silly posts.

There are five sources in the record about the Minox camera being in the hands of the DPD after the initial searches.  Five, I counted them.

Like a magician, GD makes all that evidence disappear.

Did Ruth pass on the message?

No evidence for that which I have seen. Why not?

And here goes DVP with that provable hack Jean Davison. The following is in two parts.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/davison-jean-oswald-s-game

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

From the WC:

This is based on October 15th, the day before Oswald started work at the TSBD.

Adams:"I learned from the person who answered the phone that Oswald was not there. I left a message with that person that Oswald should contact me at the [Texas Employment] Commission." (Douglass, p. 171)

Adams called again the next morning. He was told that LHO found a job in the interim.

Let me paraphrase from Jim's summary.  When Ruth Paine was questioned by a sympathetic Warren Commission lawyer, Albert Jenner, about this more promising job possibility--which Oswald would have snapped up since it paid significantly more--she first denied knowing anything about it.  She then recalled it vaguely, and she finally said she knew about it from Oswald himself. (WTF😗)

Edited June 30, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Clearly, the Commission was worried about this and how it made Ruth look.  Because, from the context, it was Jenner who brought it up. "Did you ever hear anything by way of discussion or otherwise by Marina or Lee of the possibility of his having been tendered or at least suggested to him a job at Trans-Texas, as a cargo handler at $310 per month." (ibid, p. 172)

From the context, Jenner brought this up.  Which indicates to me that they perceived this as a problem and they were offering Ruth a way out. Like Jessamyn West when Ruth said she was glad Ruby killed Oswald, West gave her a chance to repair the damage.

She then says she recalled a reference to that which fell through.  

Jenner: "Tell us what you know about that.  Did you hear of it at the time?"

Ruth says yes, but then she says she heard about it from Oswald!  She then goes on to say that Oswald did hear of the Adams message and went into town but the job had been filled.

Adams disagreed with this spin. "I do not know whether he was ever advised of this referral, but under the circumstances I do not see how he could have been." (ibid, p. 173)

 

[James DiEugenio]

Now, the WC advocates somehow never observe a clear demarcation in this testimony.

Ruth's story should have been explored and tested.  In other words, the FBI should have been on the ground and talking to people at the TEC and also Marina and Mike.

Did Oswald go to the TEC?  If he did, how did he get there?  What time was he there?  Who did he talk to?  What was the impetus of the visit?

This is what a real criminal lawyer would have done.  Because Ruth's story has all the earmarks of being self serving.  If it was true, it would have been easy to show it was.

I have never seen a 302 on this subject. If anyone else has, please post it.

[David Von Pein]

46 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

 And that is what GD is doing by flooding the board with these silly posts.

Greg's posts regarding Ruth Paine are hardly "silly" at all. They are very good, and very useful (to a reasonable person, that is, who realizes that all of the efforts by CTers to trash Ruth Hyde Paine are nothing more than pure conjecture on the part of those conspiracy theorists.

 

46 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

And here goes DVP with that provable hack Jean Davison. The following is in two parts.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/davison-jean-oswald-s-game

Gee, what a sweet comment, Jim. (But it's not surprising, of course, considering the source.)

Jean Davison is hardly a "hack". She has written some of the finest online replies when dealing with CTers that I've ever seen. I've archived many of her posts at my own website. Everybody should take a look sometime.

Equal time (re: Jean's 1983 book "Oswald's Game", which is a fine book on LHO):

http://oswalds-game.blogspot.com

On January 20, 2021, I discovered this interesting 1983 newspaper article on Jean Davison. Click to enlarge it:

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Tom Gram]

Reading back through this, I think that the stuff from Kittrell actually supports the notion that Paine concealed the Trans Texas Airways job. If Paine had mentioned calling the TEC on Oswald’s behalf to anyone it’d be one thing, but Paine only testified that she remembered that an opportunity with the TEC had fallen through. 

It seems reasonable to think that Paine would remember calling the TEC herself a lot clearer than a few random earlier conversations. If Paine told Oswald about a generic job offer and/or phone call received from Adams, and Oswald subsequently told her to call the TEC and inform them that he was already employed, and the conversation went as Kittrel described, it seems to me like that would be pretty memorable.

I’ve been doing a lot of this lately, but to quote Larry Schnapf: “Yes- she may have been confused in her testimony or she could have been prevaricating. If she was confused, it could also mean she did not pass on the phone message from Lee. Her confusion is not proof of anything. And the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”    

Paine’s failure to testify about - or ever mention to anyone - the phone call to Kittrell could be an innocent lapse, or she could have been prevaricating. Like Jim said, Adams said that Paine told him that Oswald was already employed, but Paine failed to remember that conversation too. 

On the other hand, David Von Pein said: “It's possible that Ruth did tell Oswald about the call, and that Oswald himself decided not to bother since he'd already started working somewhere else. Don't people usually stop looking for work after they've found a job?” This seems pretty reasonable, but if this is true Ruth both forwarded the message to Adams, and called Kittrell to inform her that Oswald found a job at the TSBD, and subsequently forgot that any of this ever happened. 

Paine’s selective memory about her own interactions with the TEC is a legitimate ambiguity in the evidence, and I think it’s very hard to argue with Jim’s assessment:

“…This is what a real criminal lawyer would have done.  Because Ruth's story has all the earmarks of being self serving.  If it was true, it would have been easy to show it was.”