This is an interesting passage in the appendix of “Mrs. Paine’s Garage”. It says a lot about who Ruth Paine is.
Shortly after returning home from her appearance before Jim Garrison’s grand jury, Ruth wrote the New Orleans DA this letter (reproduced here exactly as originally written):
1201 Woodleigh
Irving, Texas 75060
April 20, 1968
Mr. Jim Garrison
District Attorney of Orleans Parish
Criminal Courts Building
2700 Tulane Avenue
New Orleans, Louisiana
Dear Jim Garrison:
I was much moved by the two days just spent in New Orleans. I had had no personal knowledge of you and only the most fragmentary and inaccurate information on the nature of your investigation of conspiracy. I was glad to discover that there are some fundamental ways in which I agree with the importance of your pursuit of information regarding a possible conspiracy. Most basic is the conviction that if our form of society is to survive we must create checks and balances on the burgeoning clandestine wing of our government called the CIA. (Or close it down.) Your charges are so sweeping and major that it would be national folly not to pursue the issue to see where truth lies. There can be no harm in such pursuit, it seems to me, unless innocent people suffer markedly as a result of it. The harm in our not pursuing truth regarding the questions you raise could be great indeed.
I was impressed, as many must be, by the sheer force of your personality. It would seem in the nature of things that people who agree with you would gather to you, and those who disagree would simply turn away. It has occurred to me that if I can be helpful to your search it is as a person who might raise doubts about your conclusions and data from a position basically sympathetic to your objectives. You don’t have many “middle-ground” people around you and are not likely to have. It is possible that this sort of “check and balance” on the probe itself would not be of interest to you, but my guess is that it would be.
If there are ways I can help I shall be glad. I was struck by your passionate concern for Man, and by the intense grief you feel over the loss of President Kennedy. I, too, feel that loss acutely. He was a most remarkable person, and extremely valuable to our country. Besides his charm and brilliance as a man he also was a president inoculated by the experience of the Bay of Pigs. He had taken the measure of the “expert advice” of generals (and the CIA) and had found it wanting. He was a man prepared to do his own thinking in a framework of the highest regard for man, for life and for civilization. For myself, I have given up wondering when the sharp sting of my grief over his loss will wane. I have concluded it never shall, and in that I found you kindred.
With highest regards, /s/
Ruth Mrs. Michael R. Paine
The respectful tone and cooperative manner here may seem to contradict the alarm that Ruth recalls experiencing in New Orleans (see pp. 130–133). But amidst the letter’s apparent deference (wise behavior for anyone around this particular prosecutor), Ruth indicates her awareness of the “sweeping” nature of Garrison’s charges and expresses a concern that “innocent people” may suffer. (Most citizens addressing a district attorney might take it for granted that he was trying not to trample over the innocent. Ruth seems to realize that this one needs to be reminded of that.) She tells Garrison, however delicately, that he is surrounded by yes-men—clearly the impression she got from visiting his office. She is offering to serve as a reality check to this man whose “sheer force of…personality” had, for sure, made an impression. Ruth’s negative view of the CIA is neither surprising nor terribly significant. In thinking about the agency, she had gone down the same road millions of liberals had found themselves traveling between ’63 and ’68; the dismay had nothing to do with her enmeshment in the assassination or any real expectation that the CIA would prove to have been involved in that crime. Ruth’s expression of agreement about the need for unflinching investigation of the president’s murder is consistent with the opinion she had held since the day it occurred. It’s important, above all, to remember that Ruth Paine was ultimately a thorn in Garrison’s side: less than a year after writing this letter she testified as a defense witness for Clay Shaw. Indeed, this letter resides amongst the papers of Edward Wegmann, Shaw’s attorney, in the National Archives. I am grateful to Patricia Lambert for bringing it to my attention.
