Ruth Paine remembers the Assassination

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Ruth Paine admitted that she spied on Lee Oswald and reported her observations to the FBI.    When she clandestinely read the letter that Lee wrote to the Russian embassy she became angry because Lee had referred to the FBI as "notorious "....   Ruth Paine thought that the FBI was a perfect,  all American, red, white, and blue organization....  And Hoover's mother was also a Quaker.  ( Don't know if J. Edna Hoover was Quaker)   Ruth may have assumed that Hoover was a Quaker.

Lee knew that he could deflect suspicion by including outrageous, or provocative statements, in written correspondence, thus he referred to the FBI as "notorious" while knowing that the letter would be opened by the FBI before it reached the Russian Embassy .... Lee deliberately used the term "notorious" to grab the attention of the FBI agent who read the letter.  The Russians would see the "notorious FBI " as a defamatory, or derogatory term and pay no attention to it.

Lee had used this strategy many times in writing  to his "mother" from Russia ....   He stated that his loyalty was to Russia and he would take up arms against Americans if required.   That kind of stuff was for the eyes of the Russian censors. 


 

Did Paine tell the FBI about the letter? Its contents? Answer: No. She showed it to her husband Michael who also dismissed it as nothing. Some informants.

According to the KGB officers/Embassy staffers at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, Oswald showed them his revolver and told them he need it to protect himself from the "notorious" FBI. Exact same characterization.

As to Ruth Paine: Paine is and was a political leftist - she went to Central America in the 1980s and volunteered work for the Nicaraguan government helping the poor. I've read/seen no evidence whatsoever that she believed the FBI represented "Mom's apple pie and the Fourth of July."

[John Tonkovich]

Did Paine tell the FBI about the letter? It's contents? Answer: No. She showed it to her husband Michael who also dismissed it as nothing. Some informants.

According to the KGB officers/Embassy staffers at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, Oswald showed them his revolver and told them he need it to protect himself from the "notorious" FBI. Exact same characterization.

As to Ruth Paine: Paine is and was a political leftist - she went to Central America in the 1980s and volunteered work for the Nicaraguan government helping the poor. I've read/seen no evidence whatsoever that she believed the FBI represented "Mom's apple pie and the Fourth of July."

Ruth Paine is a leftist.
Please explain.
Citations, if possible.
Thanks.

[Jon Banks]

As to Ruth Paine: Paine is and was a political leftist - she went to Central America in the 1980s and volunteered work for the Nicaraguan government helping the poor. I've read/seen no evidence whatsoever that she believed the FBI represented "Mom's apple pie and the Fourth of July."

Not to get too deep into the Weeds of political theory but Ruth Paine sounds like a Trotskyite.

The Trotskyite Left in modern times has come to be defined as the anti-Communist Left (At least Communism as practiced by the Soviets).

They are on the Left for the most part but suspicious of the Radical Left or the Authoritarian/Stalinist Left.

Some Trotskyites voluntarily informed the FBI about radical Left movements in the 1960s.

The co-Founder of Amnesty International, Luis Kutner, is probably the most high profile example of that sort of thing. He informed the FBI about radical Left groups and other things. He was also a Mob lawyer and knew Jack Ruby.

http://ourhiddenhistory.org/entry/luis-kutner-the-declassified-life-of-a-human-rights-icon

Also, didn’t Marina Oswald testify a few years after the assassination that she was told by the Secret Service that Ruth was close to the CIA?

[Richard Smith]

Most people don't know the first detail about the JFK assassination.
Says who...the big know it all?
Their opinion is worthless.
How much is yours worth?
a Quaker, housewife can be a sinister master spy involved in an assassination
What a pile of crap. I do not ---nor do I agree that Ruth Paine was involved with any plot to assassinate JFK.
However her connection with the Oswalds [whatever that attachment might have been] left her vulnerable and vulnerable people are infused then with fear and intimidation. Mrs Paine's contradictory statements have been posted several times and long time members know this and some choose to ignore it.
Fear is the greatest motivator.

So you don't think Paine was involved but then you go to imply that she was involved due apparently to "fear."  You make this allegation base on no evidence whatsoever. And  fear of what?  It's 2020.  When is Paine going to come forward and tell us that she was coerced into making certain statements.  If someone was influencing her testimony, why didn't they do the obvious if they were trying to frame Oswald like: get Paine to say that Oswald stored a rifle in her garage, that he hated JFK, that he acted strangely on the night before the assassination, and that she saw him carry a long bag on that morning?  That would have been very helpful.  Instead she doesn't do any of those things.  But she is suspect for some unspecified reason.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Ruth Paine is a leftist.
Please explain.
Citations, if possible.
Thanks.

This is from John Simkin's site: "Ruth Paine has worked for a Nicaraguan relief group in St. Petersburg, Florida. She is also a peace activist. In 1982 she claimed: "This year, for the first time, I am withholding that portion of my income tax (40 percent), which I estimate goes toward military uses and war preparations" In 2004 she was interviewed by the St. Petersburg Times: "I believe in taxation. I believe in government.. But I also believe in our right to religious freedom. And I believe in the fact that we value dissent as a patriotic thing."

I shouldn't have written that she's a liberal/leftist today. I don't know what her current views are. But her views certainly seem to me be of a liberal/left point of view.

Here she is briefly discussing her work (this is from "Mrs. Paine's Garage" by Thomas Mallon) in Central America in the 1990s (ProNica is a charity/aid group that goes to Nicaragua and provides care/help to the poor there; whether one wants to call that pro-Sandinista or not can be debate) :



And this relates to her college years. Obviously, that she went to a liberal/left college doesn't prove she held those political views in 1963. Or today. But it does indicate the type of thinking or worldview I think she still has. As I said, whether that shows a liberal/left political view or a apolitical religious view can be argued.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Not to get too deep into the Weeds of political theory but Ruth Paine sounds like a Trotskyite.

The Trotskyite Left in modern times has come to be defined as the anti-Communist Left (At least Communism as practiced by the Soviets).

They are on the Left for the most part but suspicious of the Radical Left or the Authoritarian/Stalinist Left.

Some Trotskyites voluntarily informed the FBI about radical Left movements in the 1960s.

The co-Founder of Amnesty International, Luis Kutner, is probably the most high profile example of that sort of thing. He informed the FBI about radical Left groups and other things. He was also a Mob lawyer and knew Jack Ruby.

http://ourhiddenhistory.org/entry/luis-kutner-the-declassified-life-of-a-human-rights-icon

Also, didn’t Marina Oswald testify a few years after the assassination that she was told by the Secret Service that Ruth was close to the CIA?

Yeah, like you warned, we can get into the swamps of political theorizing and really pretend like we know more than we do <g>.

Trotsky, of course, was a Marxist. But he broke with Stalin - and Stanlinist Soviet Union - after Lenin's death and for that Stalin had him killed. Many of his followers were, similarly, anti-Stalin and anti-Soviet. But Trotsky was still a Marxist and an atheist and a believer in violent revolution. It seems to me that Ruth's worldview - as a Quaker pacifist - was steeped in religion, in the Christian social gospel cause of applying Christ's teachings to modern social problems like poverty and racism, et cetera. So while she may sympathize with the Trotsky view on economic justice and the exploitation of man, I don't think she'd embrace his call for the need for a violent overthrow of capitalist systems. Trotsky wanted to hang bankers from lamp posts; I think Ruth wanted to convert them to Christianity.

Having said that, maybe I'm full of it by labeling her politically as a liberal/leftist. Perhaps it was entirely religiously-based. But her pro-Sandinista work (as I see it) certainly indicates a political component of her behavior. I do think she and to a lesser extent Michael believed that our differences with the Soviets could be worked out through conversation and reasoning.  Perhaps that not liberal/left "goo goo" thinking but just a faith in human beings.

And if I recall, I think either she or Michael said that Oswald called himself a Trotskyite.

As to Ruth and the CIA: Yes, but I think Marina was warned by the Secret Service that Ruth was associated with the FBI and Marina apparently thought she said CIA. I think that's in the McMillan book. I'll try and find it.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Ruth Paine gives this account about her visits to Nicaragua and when she was accused of working for the CIA because of her involvement in the assassination (from the book "Mrs. Paine's Garage"):

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Michael Paine and Lee discussed capitalism and communism (from "Marina and Lee" by Priscilla Johnson McMillan):