Ruth Paine on "The Assassination & Mrs. Paine" film: "Well done, but powerfully awful"

[James DiEugenio]

Let us line it all up to see the evidence plainly.

 

1. The Marine Oswald, a radar operator, begins to "teach himself Russian".   One of the most difficult languages to learn.

2. He takes a Russian test, in which he gets about half of the queries correct.

3. Oswald applies for a hardship discharge,  which are hard to get. The only reason for this could be that his mom had an accident at work.  Which disrupted her sinuses.

4. Oswald continues to study Russian.  In fact when Dan Campbell goes to the base for rifle instruction, he missed his plane, so he was told to sleep in Oswald's bunk. The C. O. said, the guy misses a lot of days.

5. Oswald meets with a relative of a colleague, Rosaleen Quinn. Quinn had been tutored for a year in Russian in preparation for a State Dept. test.  Quinn was impressed, she said Oswald spoke Russian better than she did.

6. Oswald applies for attendance at Albert Schweitzer College (ASC) in Switzerland, a college so obscure that the FBI could not find it! It took two months for the Swiss police to find it!

7. Oswald's assignment was to end on Dec 7, 1959.  Instead, he applied for a hardship discharge on August 17, 1959, just four months before the expiration. 

8. Question:  if the excuse was to care for his mother and her sinuses, then why did he request a passport?  You do not need a passport to go from California to Texas, and one destination listed was ASC.

9. Further, when his mother went to see a doctor about her sinuses, she told him her son wanted to defect to Russia. This was nine months before Oswald's discharge.

10. From when Oswald filed his petition to when it was approved, took ten days. Four days later it was directed that Oswald be released from active duty.

11. When the HSCA interviewed one of the board members on the discharge committee, he said it usually took 3-6 months to process a hardship discharge. Nelson Delgado also said, it usually took a long time to get a hardship discharge.

12. In other words, it should have been a shorter time for Oswald to just get his normal discharge than to apply for a hardship one.  

13. What makes this even more strange is this. Oswald spent all of three days in Fort Worth once he got out. Hmm. What about his poor mother? That was obviously a pretext, perhaps on both sides.

14. On his application, he wrote that he was going to get into the import-export business in New Orleans.  Well, he did pick up his passport at the ITM.

 

And we have not even got to the shenanigans at the CIA with his file, or what the  Russians did with him. Or Otto Otepka!

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[John Cotter]

15 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

John Cotter writes:

The point I was making is that if we have more than one explanation that is consistent with the known facts, we should choose the simplest explanation. The lone-nut explanation may be simple, but it is not consistent with the known facts.

The question that was being discussed was whether Oswald was given a job in the TSBD by the conspirators as part of their plan to assassinate JFK, or whether the conspirators discovered that someone with some sort of intelligence connections already worked there, and that he could be utilised as a possible patsy.

As Matt Allison has pointed out, Oswald got his job at the book depository long before the motorcade route was decided, and at a time when there was no guarantee that JFK would ever be within shooting distance of the TSBD. That fact seems to undermine the notion that Oswald was placed there for that purpose.

I wouldn't rule out the notion that Oswald was placed in the TSBD for some other reason related to his intelligence connections. I've heard it suggested that Oswald's role might have been to keep an eye on Joe Molina, who was of interest to the authorities because of his active membership of a group of Hispanic military veterans. I'm not sure how strong the evidence is for that particular suggestion; it may well be that Oswald ended up working at the TSBD for purely innocent reasons.

Jeremy,

Like the lone nut fairytale, your explanation is not consistent with the known facts either.

David Von Pein, obviously desperate to keep his belief in the lone nut theory afloat (unless, of course, there’s a less innocent motive), in a display of utter perversity denied the known facts of the sheep-dipping of Oswald.

Judging by your previous post, you haven’t gone quite that far. However, you have perversely denied the true nature of the sheep-dipping. Quite clearly, there was a series of sheep-dipping incidents which was not only, as you claim, designed to portray Oswald as a Castro sympathiser.

It was also designed to portray Oswald as a potential assassin. There was the problematic rifle purchase in March 1963, followed by the shot fired at General Walker in April which was deemed by the Warren Commission and the HSCA to be evidence of Oswald’s “disposition to take human life” (Anthony Summers, p 161).

On pages 354-357 of his book Destiny Betrayed, James DiEugenio deftly dissected the elaborate machinations of the CIA which were designed to incriminate Oswald by association with Soviet KGB agent Valery Kostikov in Mexico City. The following passage in James Douglass’s book JFK and the Unspeakable, underlines how damning this association would be in framing Oswald for the JFK assassination:

‘As we have seen, Kostikov was no ordinary CIA agent. According to Clarence M. Kelley, FBI director from 1973 to 1978, Valery Vladimirovich Kostikov was “the officer in charge for Western Hemisphere terrorist activities – including and especially assassinations.” He was, according to Kelley, “the most dangerous KGB terrorist assigned to this hemisphere!”

Other sheep-dipping incidents clearly designed to depict Oswald as a potential assassin were the Odio incident, the firing range incident, the parking lot incident and the car showroom incident.

As for Matt Allison’s argument, I have already explained how Matt torpedoed his own argument by acknowledging that despite its security concerns, the White House was prevailed upon to allow the motorcade go through the death trap of Dealey Plaza. In other words, the conspirators had predetermined the route beforehand.

The “critical path” of the sheep-dipping of Oswald as a potential assassin through his placement in the TSBD constitutes irrefutable proof of a conspiracy. It’s obvious why a lone nut theorist such as David Von Pein would want to ignore such proof.

Why are you ignoring it?

Edited November 9, 2022 by John Cotter

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

David Von Pein, obviously desperate to keep his belief in the lone nut theory afloat (unless, of course, there’s a less innocent motive), in a display of utter perversity denied the known facts of the sheep-dipping of Oswald. .... The “critical path” of the sheep-dipping of Oswald as a potential assassin through his placement in the TSBD constitutes irrefutable proof of a conspiracy. It’s obvious why a lone nut theorist such as David Von Pein would want to ignore such proof.

There's not a single "LNer" in history who actually believes that Lee Harvey Oswald was being "sheep-dipped" in the various ways that CTers think he was being "dipped" in 1963. You can't be an "LNer" and believe in the sheep-dipping theories. So I'm certainly not a Lone Lone-Nutter when it comes to disbelieving the various elements contained within the "sheep-dipping" topic. Far from it. There are millions of other LNers out there who disbelieve it too.

And I don't "ignore" the things that CTers say are "sheep-dipping" (e.g., the Ryder incident, the Bogard incident, the parking lot incident, the Odio incident, the rifle purchase, etc.).....I merely disagree with the assertion that these things constitute "sheep-dipping".

None of those incidents were pre-arranged by behind-the-scenes conspirators in order to set up their alleged patsy named Oswald. Some of those "Oswald sightings" are very likely simply cases of mistaken identity, but some of them really did involve Oswald doing those things---with the RIFLE PURCHASE being the biggest example of the many things in JFK Assassination Land that fall into the crowded category of: "This Really Did Happen Even Though Many Conspiracy Theorists Insist It Didn't".

And it's quite possible (IMO) that Oswald was, indeed, at Sylvia Odio's door in late September of 1963. I'm on the fence concerning that incident. I'm just not sure if it was really Oswald at Odio's residence. And nobody else in the world can be 100% sure either.

And to believe, as John Cotter does, that "his [Oswald's] placement in the TSBD constitutes irrefutable proof of a conspiracy", is just--quite simply--a stupefyingly ridiculous claim, because the way Oswald got his Depository job [see the two links below] is not only NOT "irrefutable proof of a conspiracy", it actually goes in the opposite direction and is most certainly a very good indication that NO pre-planned conspiracy existed to kill the President in October and November of 1963. Which proves, yet again, that white almost always means black to the many conspiracy fantasists in the JFKA world.

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/Was Oswald Planted In The TSBD By Plotters?

Edited November 9, 2022 by David Von Pein

[John Cotter]

Post deleted.

Edited November 9, 2022 by John Cotter

[John Cotter]

38 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

There's not a single "LNer" in history who actually believes that Lee Harvey Oswald was being "sheep-dipped" in the various ways that CTers think he was being "dipped" in 1963. You can't be an "LNer" and believe in the sheep-dipping theories. So I'm certainly not a Lone Lone-Nutter when it comes to disbelieving the various elements contained within the "sheep-dipping" topic. Far from it. There are millions of other LNers out there who disbelieve it too.

And I don't "ignore" the things that CTers say are "sheep-dipping" (e.g., the Ryder incident, the Bogard incident, the parking lot incident, the Odio incident, the rifle purchase, etc.).....I merely disagree with the assertion that these things constitute "sheep-dipping".

None of those incidents were pre-arranged by behind-the-scenes conspirators in order to set up their alleged patsy named Oswald. Some of those "Oswald sightings" are very likely simply cases of mistaken identity, but some of them really did involve Oswald doing those things---with the RIFLE PURCHASE being the biggest example of the many things in JFK Assassination Land that fall into the crowded category of: "This Really Did Happen Even Though Many Conspiracy Theorists Insist It Didn't".

And it's quite possible (IMO) that Oswald was, indeed, at Sylvia Odio's door in late September of 1963. I'm on the fence on that incident. I'm just not sure if it was really Oswald at Odio's residence. And nobody else in the world can be 100% sure either.

And to believe, as John Cotter does, that "his [Oswald's] placement in the TSBD constitutes irrefutable proof of a conspiracy", is just--quite simply--a stupefyingly ridiculous claim, because the way Oswald got his Depository job [see the two links below] is not only NOT "irrefutable proof of a conspiracy", it actually goes in the opposite direction and is most certainly a very good indication that NO pre-planned conspiracy existed to kill the President in October and November of 1963. Which proves, yet again, that white almost always means black to the many conspiracy fantasists in the JFKA world.

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/Was Oswald Planted In The TSBD By Plotters?

Please see my previous "elephant" reply to you, David.

[David Von Pein]

3 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

Please see my previous "elephant" reply to you, David.

Thanks, John. That elephant quip is sure to make me see the "sheep-dipping" light.

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

John Cotter writes:

Quote

Like the lone nut fairytale, your explanation is not consistent with the known facts either.

I beg to differ. Read on ...

Quote

Quite clearly, there was a series of sheep-dipping incidents which was ... designed to portray Oswald as a potential assassin.

None of the incidents John mentions necessarily imply that Oswald was being portrayed in advance as a potential assassin. Some of them may not have had any connection to "sheep-dipping" at all, such as "the firing range incident" and "the car showroom incident", which could easily be two of the many mistaken sightings of Oswald. I'll deal with a couple of John's incidents in detail.

Let's accept, for the sake of argument, that Oswald himself in March 1963 purchased a rifle of the same type as that found on the sixth floor, as well as a pistol of the same type as that placed into evidence after his arrest. A non-conspiratorial explanation is available for the existence in the record of these particular weapons (whether or not they were actually used by Oswald): Oswald purchased these weapons on behalf of a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which in early 1963 was investigating the sales of weapons by mail order.

Now, there's no positive evidence of Oswald's involvement, such as a memo or an invoice for expenses, signed by Senator Thomas Dodd, who headed the subcommittee. But it is conceivable that Oswald was involved:

• The subcommittee made use of individuals who purchased weapons on its behalf.
• Oswald's activities in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, in particular his well-documented association with Guy Banister, demonstrate that Oswald had the type of low-level intelligence connections that could have been utilised by the subcommittee when recruiting people to purchase weapons clandestinely.
• The two companies from which Oswald allegedly purchased the weapons, Klein's Sporting Goods and Seaport Traders, were under investigation by the Dodd subcommittee.
• Also under investigation by the Dodd subcommittee were other organisations of interest to Oswald. His address book contained the names and addresses of officials of the American N-a-z-i Party, and he interacted in New Orleans with Cuban exile organisations.

Maybe Oswald was instructed to purchase the weapons specifically so that they could be used to implicate him in the assassination, eight months later. Maybe the weapons were actually purchased by conspirators specifically to implicate Oswald in the assassination, eight months later. Or maybe Oswald purchased the weapons on behalf of the Dodd subcommittee and the weapons were utilised much later to link him to the assassination.

As for the shooting at General Walker, it was indeed officially interpreted after the assassination as evidence of Oswald's "disposition to take human life", but that interpretation is worthless. The Dallas police did not suspect Oswald at the time of the shooting.

There are several aspects of the Walker shooting which make Oswald's involvement unlikely. The only witness claimed that there were two men involved, and that the men drove away from the scene in two cars; Oswald could not drive (at least, not legally) and did not have access to a car. And any conspirators who wanted to portray Oswald as a lone nut would not have had him working with a second person. General Walker himself claimed that the bullet was of a type incompatible with the rifle Oswald supposedly used in the JFK assassination.

The Walker shooting was just an incident that was pinned on Oswald after his death. There is no reason to suspect that any conspirators set it up in April 1963 to frame Oswald for the assassination seven months later.

And so on. It's a mistake to seize on every lone-nut talking point and try to explain it as part of an elaborate conspiracy, when a simpler explanation exists.

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Miles Massicotte said:

I believe that Litwin's and Roe's assertions about Oswald's pay are incorrect.

The portion of Oswald's discharge papers that indicates "sett by cash" only refers to the 23 days of UL (unpaid leave) that Oswald had accrued. ...However, Oswald's pay from the rest of the 3rd quarter is still unaccounted for. 

 

13 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

As per Fred Litwin, you may want to ask him why he did not show the other Marine records of Oswald.  He did not because he knew they would negate his thesis. Which I have already explained, and again you ignore.

 

Why am I not surprised by these revelations?

Thanks for studying and reporting back on that, Miles.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

11 minutes ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

None of the incidents John mentions necessarily imply that Oswald was being portrayed in advance as a potential assassin.

 

Wow. Jeremy, aren't you aware of the Mexico City shenanigans the CIA used to paint Oswald as conspiring with the Cubans and Russians in a plot to assassinate Kennedy? Surely you've read the Lopez Report, haven't you?

 

[John Cotter]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

John Cotter writes:

I beg to differ. Read on ...

None of the incidents John mentions necessarily imply that Oswald was being portrayed in advance as a potential assassin. Some of them may not have had any connection to "sheep-dipping" at all, such as "the firing range incident" and "the car showroom incident", which could easily be two of the many mistaken sightings of Oswald. I'll deal with a couple of John's incidents in detail.

Let's accept, for the sake of argument, that Oswald himself in March 1963 purchased a rifle of the same type as that found on the sixth floor, as well as a pistol of the same type as that placed into evidence after his arrest. A non-conspiratorial explanation is available for the existence in the record of these particular weapons (whether or not they were actually used by Oswald): Oswald purchased these weapons on behalf of a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which in early 1963 was investigating the sales of weapons by mail order.

Now, there's no positive evidence of Oswald's involvement, such as a memo or an invoice for expenses, signed by Senator Thomas Dodd, who headed the subcommittee. But it is conceivable that Oswald was involved:

• The subcommittee made use of individuals who purchased weapons on its behalf.
• Oswald's activities in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, in particular his well-documented association with Guy Banister, demonstrate that Oswald had the type of low-level intelligence connections that could have been utilised by the subcommittee when recruiting people to purchase weapons clandestinely.
• The two companies from which Oswald allegedly purchased the weapons, Klein's Sporting Goods and Seaport Traders, were under investigation by the Dodd subcommittee.
• Also under investigation by the Dodd subcommittee were other organisations of interest to Oswald. His address book contained the names and addresses of officials of the American N-a-z-i Party, and he interacted in New Orleans with Cuban exile organisations.

Maybe Oswald was instructed to purchase the weapons specifically so that they could be used to implicate him in the assassination, eight months later. Maybe the weapons were actually purchased by conspirators specifically to implicate Oswald in the assassination, eight months later. Or maybe Oswald purchased the weapons on behalf of the Dodd subcommittee and the weapons were utilised much later to link him to the assassination.

As for the shooting at General Walker, it was indeed officially interpreted after the assassination as evidence of Oswald's "disposition to take human life", but that interpretation is worthless. The Dallas police did not suspect Oswald at the time of the shooting.

There are several aspects of the Walker shooting which make Oswald's involvement unlikely. The only witness claimed that there were two men involved, and that the men drove away from the scene in two cars; Oswald could not drive (at least, not legally) and did not have access to a car. And any conspirators who wanted to portray Oswald as a lone nut would not have had him working with a second person. General Walker himself claimed that the bullet was of a type incompatible with the rifle Oswald supposedly used in the JFK assassination.

The Walker shooting was just an incident that was pinned on Oswald after his death. There is no reason to suspect that any conspirators set it up in April 1963 to frame Oswald for the assassination seven months later.

And so on. It's a mistake to seize on every lone-nut talking point and try to explain it as part of an elaborate conspiracy, when a simpler explanation exists.

I see that you’ve “moved the goalposts”, Jeremy.

Since your contention that the sheep-dipping was designed exclusively to paint Oswald as a Castro sympathiser has been rebutted, you’re now nitpicking in such a way as to imply, David Von Pein-like, that there was no sheep-dipping at all.

Your self-contradiction invalidates both of your arguments.

[James DiEugenio]

10 hours ago, Miles Massicotte said:

It's far from baloney.

I'm on quite a long road trip at the moment, and it gave me a chance to read through this document which is a historical manual for the Marines personnel accounting system. I believe that Litwin's and Roe's assertions about Oswald's pay are incorrect.

The portion of Oswald's discharge papers that indicates "sett by cash" only refers to the 23 days of UL (unpaid leave) that Oswald had accrued. See here, or below:

Oswalds leave record can be located just a few pages down in the same document. In other words this entry indicates Oswald was paid cash for his unpaid accrued leave, but not necessarily for his actual monthly pay during the 3rd quarter.

This is what Oswald was actually paid by the Marines on his discharge: 

If you subtract Oswald's deductions in red from his credits in yellow you get $219.20, the same amount reported in Oswald's 201 file. However, what this makes clear is that this represents only Oswald's pay from September 1st to 11th, along with travel allowances and unpaid leave. I believe that Oswald likely did receive this money from the USMC in cash.

However, Oswald's pay from the rest of the 3rd quarter is still unaccounted for. The amount shown above does not represent the rest of the 3rd quarter. Furthermore,  Oswald's tax return reports $996.31 as his earnings for 1959. I am not privy to Oswald's 1st and 2nd quarter earnings at the moment, but Oswald's monthly pay as a Marine averaged $108 (before any deductions). Anyway you look at it Oswald is missing money. This combined with the fact that the SSA was adamant that it was nearly impossible that their records were wrong means that we should still have a high degree of suspicion about Oswald's 3rd quarter earnings (or lack thereof).

 

Nice one Miles.

Being "incorrect" is I think mild.

If it was baloney then why does the last quarter record look so different?  And why did Hoch and Litwin not show the others?

Edited November 9, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

👌 Welcome to the club.

[Matthew Koch]

Max Good on Jackman Radio

I'm putting it here because the title of the thread is mentioned at around the 43 min mark. 

 

[Joe Bauer]

On 11/8/2022 at 1:20 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Let us line it all up to see the evidence plainly.

 

1. The Marine Oswald, a radar operator, begins to "teach himself Russian".   One of the most difficult languages to learn.

2. He takes a Russian test, in which he gets about half of the queries correct.

3. Oswald applies for a hardship discharge,  which are hard to get. The only reason for this could be that his mom had an accident at work.  Which disrupted her sinuses.

4. Oswald continues to study Russian.  In fact when Dan Campbell goes to the base for rifle instruction, he missed his plane, so he was told to sleep in Oswald's bunk. The C. O. said, the guy misses a lot of days.

5. Oswald meets with a relative of a colleague, Rosaleen Quinn. Quinn had been tutored for a year in Russian in preparation for a State Dept. test.  Quinn was impressed, she said Oswald spoke Russian better than she did.

6. Oswald applies for attendance at Albert Schweitzer College (ASC) in Switzerland, a college so obscure that the FBI could not find it! It took two months for the Swiss police to find it!

7. Oswald's assignment was to end on Dec 7, 1959.  Instead, he applied for a hardship discharge on August 17, 1959, just four months before the expiration. 

8. Question:  if the excuse was to care for his mother and her sinuses, then why did he request a passport?  You do not need a passport to go from California to Texas, and one destination listed was ASC.

9. Further, when his mother went to see a doctor about her sinuses, she told him her son wanted to defect to Russia. This was nine months before Oswald's discharge.

10. From when Oswald filed his petition to when it was approved, took ten days. Four days later it was directed that Oswald be released from active duty.

11. When the HSCA interviewed one of the board members on the discharge committee, he said it usually took 3-6 months to process a hardship discharge. Nelson Delgado also said, it usually took a long time to get a hardship discharge.

12. In other words, it should have been a shorter time for Oswald to just get his normal discharge than to apply for a hardship one.  

13. What makes this even more strange is this. Oswald spent all of three days in Fort Worth once he got out. Hmm. What about his poor mother? That was obviously a pretext, perhaps on both sides.

14. On his application, he wrote that he was going to get into the import-export business in New Orleans.  Well, he did pick up his passport at the ITM.

 

And we have not even got to the shenanigans at the CIA with his file, or what the  Russians did with him. Or Otto Otepka!

 

Someone had to instruct Oswald in how to get to Russia. Can't believe he figured out the right travel plans to do this on his own.

Didn't doing so require specific train and flight info and routes through the right Euro countries. Especially for an American. Correct? 

Was there a bookstore, public library access manual that explained all this?

Like James Earl Ray planned his escape route on his own as well?

Extremely uneducated and poor petty thief Ray had never traveled out of the country in his life. But after MLK he dons suits he never wore in his life. He gets a fake passport made up. He's got good money on him. He's already made a flight and was on his way to Europe?

International travel takes a lot different knowledge than simply running bootleg moonshine in the Kentucky backwoods.

Ray didn't plan and finance all this on his own. It was beyond his lifetime experience habits, knowledge and financial means.

So who set up Ray's escape plan and paid him more money than he ever had in his life?

 

 

 

[T Weier]

Has there ever been an body language analysis of Ruth Paine in any extended video clips outside the documentary?  I realize you have to take it with a grain of salt or less. 

 I was quite intrigued seeing her use the same story over and over in a series of video clips during a portion of the documentary. It was also conveyed that she seems to cry a lot during the retelling of her story.  Who honestly has tears, seemingly on cue, over and over for so many years!  Who does that?  Also, the instances where she laughs when difficult questions are asked in old and contemporary interviews, the mock court case, etc...it seems peculiar to me. 

I want to believe she's an innocent woman, a victim of circumstance.  But there is just something about her mannerisms that always causes me to pause.