Senator COOPER - Let me ask a question there. After the assassination, at anytime did you go into the garage and look to see if both of these packages (=curtain rods package + venetian blinds package, A.F.)
were there?
Mrs. PAINE - A week and a half, or a week later.
Senator COOPER - At any time?
Mrs. PAINE - Did I, personally?
Senator COOPER - Have you seen these packages since the assassination?
Mrs. PAINE - It seems to me I recall seeing a package.
Senator COOPER - What?
Mrs. PAINE - I don't recall opening it up and looking in carefully. I seem to recall seeing the package
Senator COOPER - Both of them?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes.
Senator COOPER - Or just one?
Mrs. PAINE - Both.
Senator COOPER - Did you feel them to see if the rods were in there?
Mrs. PAINE - No. I think Michael did, but I am not certain.
Senator COOPER - But you never did, yourself?
Mrs. PAINE - It was not my most pressing--
Senator COOPER - What?
Mrs. PAINE - It was not the most pressing thing I had to do at that time.
Senator COOPER - I know that. But you must have read after the assassination the story about Lee Oswald saying, he told Mr. Frazier, I think, that he was carrying some curtain rods in the car?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes.
Senator COOPER - Do you remember reading that?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes; I remember reading that.
Senator COOPER - Didn't that lead you-Did it lead you then to go in and see if the curtain rods were there?
Mrs. PAINE - It was all I could do at that point to answer my door, answer my telephone, and take care of my children.
Senator COOPER - I understand you had many things to do.
Mrs. PAINE - So I did not.
Senator COOPER - You never did do it?
Mrs. PAINE - I am not certain whether I specifically went in and checked on that. I recall a conversation with Michael about it and, to the best of my recollection, things looked as I expected to find them looking out there. This package with brown paper was still there. Ms Paine is only willing to indicate that the PACKAGE was still there, not that the RODS were still there. This enables her to play dumb on 23 March when she gives on-the-record testimony at her home:
Mr. JENNER - Now, Mrs. Paine, one of the things we said we might see is a package that was in your garage containing curtain rods.
Mrs. PAINE - Yes--as you recall.
Mr. JENNER - You said you would leave that package in precisely the place wherever it was last week when you were in Washington, D.C., and have you touched it since you came home?
Mrs. PAINE - I have not touched it.I.e.: Whatever you 'find' in that package now neither confirms nor denies anything I could know about what was in that package after Lee left my home the morning of the assassination. I am happy to talk about the presence in my garage of the package, but when it comes to its exact contents I know nothing.
Meanwhile, we have Mr Michael Paine saying this:
Mr. LIEBELER - Mr. Paine, you mentioned before these curtain rods that were in your garage. Can you tell us approximately how many curtain rods there were in the garage when you last saw them and tell us when you last saw them?
Mr. PAINE - I saw them quite recently, 2 weeks ago.
Mr. LIEBELER - How many curtain rods were there then?
Mr. PAINE - There might be as many as four.
Mr. LIEBELER - Were there ever any more than that?
Mr. PAINE - I don't believe so. There
might be
as many as four curtain rods? Mr Paine shares his wife's allergy to non-declarative statements! Like her, he hedges carefully. There might be as many as four. Then again, there might be as few as two.
But! He may have let slip an important thought here: at some point there might have been as many as four curtain rods in the package in the garage.
Were there 4 curtain rods in that package before Mr Oswald's overnight at Irving (21-22 Nov), but only 2 after Mr Oswald left for work the morning of the assassination?
2 rods discovered in the Depository and tested for Mr Oswald's prints 15 March?
2 rods left in the Paine garage and removed from there on the record 23 March?If so, then Agent Howlett and Lt. Day did a switcheroo: the two
missing rods (which were found at the Depository,
accurately length-marked with the digits 2-7-5 and 2-7-6) were magically turned into the two rods
left behind in the garage (which needed to receive
makey-uppey marking with the digits 2-7-5 and 2-7-6).
And how did they arrive at those makey-uppey markings? Why, by starting to count the Ruth Paine Exhibits at the
makey-uppey number 270: