Michael Paine's Thoughts On Lee Oswald

[Bill Brown]

Along with Ruth Paine, I got to spend four days in Dallas (for the 60th) with Ruth's son Chris.  He sent me this and said it was okay to post elsewhere.  I figured most of you would enjoy the read...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sHFYsi3YS3Wgqo02Lv7v9SFmEpmGZS7ZjYqxGZ3YSWw/edit

[Richard Smith]

Oswald was a very weird dude.  When you realize that his commitment to Marxism dated back to the age of 15 or so it enters Norman Bates territory.  Thanks for posting Bill.   

[Charles Collins]

It is worth noting that the people who knew LHO believed that he did it. Michael Paine was no exception. I find it interesting that Michael said he was given a chance to see LHO by the DPD and he declined.

[John Mytton]

Thanks Bill, that was an interesting read, both Michael and Ruth were very intelligent people, I wonder why they got a divorce?

JohnM

[Steve M. Galbraith]

It is worth noting that the people who knew LHO believed that he did it. Michael Paine was no exception. I find it interesting that Michael said he was given a chance to see LHO by the DPD and he declined.

Yes, but not the people who knew him in the Soviet Union. Mailer interviewed many of them for his book - and they've been interviewed elsewhere - and to a person they all said they couldn't believe it. The Oswald they knew, they said, couldn't have assassinated JFK.

I think that's not just them succumbing to Soviet propaganda. Priscilla McMillan made this point in her review of the Savodnik book "The Interloper." Savodnik said the angry violent Oswald could be seen in Minsk, there was a straight line from there to Dallas; McMillan said no, it was a different person.

McMillan: "Savodnik goes so far as to say that if the reader understands Oswald’s life in Minsk, he or she will understand much about how the Kennedy assassination came about. This claim is a stretch: the anger and violence that were to characterize Oswald’s behavior after his return to the United States were barely visible during his time in Minsk."

Oswald really did become erratic and unstable in the US; much different person then he was in Minsk. I think in particular after being turned down by the Cubans he realized he had no where else to go; this was it. And "it", who which I think he blamed the US government for (especially the FBI), was something he could no longer live with.

 

[Charles Collins]

Yes, but not the people who knew him in the Soviet Union. Mailer interviewed many of them for his book - and they've been interviewed elsewhere - and to a person they all said they couldn't believe it. The Oswald they knew, they said, couldn't have assassinated JFK.

I think that's not just them succumbing to Soviet propaganda. Priscilla McMillan made this point in her review of the Savodnik book "The Interloper." Savodnik said the angry violent Oswald could be seen in Minsk, there was a straight line from there to Dallas; McMillan said no, it was a different person.

McMillan: "Savodnik goes so far as to say that if the reader understands Oswald’s life in Minsk, he or she will understand much about how the Kennedy assassination came about. This claim is a stretch: the anger and violence that were to characterize Oswald’s behavior after his return to the United States were barely visible during his time in Minsk."

Oswald really did become erratic and unstable in the US; much different person then he was in Minsk. I think in particular after being turned down by the Cubans he realized he had no where else to go; this was it. And "it", who I think he blamed the US government for (especially the FBI) was something he could no longer live with.

Yes, it appears to me that LHO behaved better in Russia than elsewhere. I think that he probably realized that the authorities there, in Russia, didn’t put up with anything they didn’t want to put up with. (Much like the authorities in a small town I used to live in.) Sadly, back in the USA, LHO’s mother had taught him to disrespect the authorities. LHO appears to have thought that he was smarter and better than the authorities. Jack Ruby took care of that problem.

[Richard Smith]

Yes, it appears to me that LHO behaved better in Russia than elsewhere. I think that he probably realized that the authorities there, in Russia, didn’t put up with anything they didn’t want to put up with. (Much like the authorities in a small town I used to live in.) Sadly, back in the USA, LHO’s mother had taught him to disrespect the authorities. LHO appears to have thought that he was smarter and better than the authorities. Jack Ruby took care of that problem.

As an American defector he was also a person of interest to the folks he encountered in Russia.  A quasi-celebrity.  I'm sure that appealed to him much more than working in some mundane job in the US.  Eventually his celebrity wore off and it became more of the same in Russia.  So he made tracks.   It is interesting to contemplate Oswald's level of commitment to the Marxist cause.  Was he a true believer and that it what caused him to act like a lunatic?  Or was he just an attention seeking person with a lot of anger, who turned to an ostracized political cause as a way to be noticed?  In other words, it was less the Marxist ideology and more his own psychological makeup that led him to be a political extremist.  Or both?  Regardless, Oswald was a very strange person from early on in life when you read the psychological evaluations of him as a teenager.  It's clear that he was several bricks short of a load.