Tag: WARREN COMMISSION

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Part 5:  Michael Paine and the Backyard Photos

Ruth and Michael Paine responded exactly the same way when news broke that shots were believed to have originated from the Texas School Book Depository: they both immediately assumed that Oswald was involved. During a phone call placed at one pm November 22, 1963, Michael Paine calling from his office at Bell Helicopter to Ruth at home in Irving, this assumption receives a qualification: “the male voice was heard to comment that he felt sure LEE HARVEY OSWALD had killed the President, but did not feel OSWALD was responsible, and further stated, “We both know who is responsible.”¹ Whoever it is Michael Paine believed “responsible” for the assassination it has remained closely held, as neither he or Ruth Paine have faced official scrutiny since 1968.

Michael Paine intersects with the backyard photo story at least six ways, surprising since the official story portrays him as akin to a bystander, simply caught up in events. Michael Paine was one of a handful of known visitors to 214 West Neely Street. The Imperial Reflex camera said to have taken the backyard photos was apparently stored at his house in the autumn of 1963. He saw a backyard photo at the Dallas Police station the night of the assassination. The backyard photos known as 133-A and 133-B were discovered at his house the following day. He was involved in the delivery of a box of records, from which the de Mohrenschildt backyard photo would be later discovered. Michael Paine, with his wife Ruth, had dinner with the de Mohrenschildts soon after the photo was discovered in 1967. Years later, around the time of Oliver Stone’s JFK, Paine began claiming that Oswald actually showed him a backyard photo when he first visited the West Neely Street apartment in April 1963.

April 1963: Michael Paine Visits 214 West Neely

Mr LIEBELER: Did you ever make the acquaintance of Lee Harvey Oswald?

Mr PAINE: Yes.

Mr LIEBELER: Would you tell us briefly the circumstances under which that occurred?

Mr PAINE: My wife invited Lee and his wife over to supper one evening.

Michael Paine arrived by automobile at 214 West Neely Street around 6 PM in the late afternoon of April 2, 1963.² He was there by arrangement, to pick up Lee and Marina Oswald and their young daughter, and transport them to the Paine’s home in Irving for a dinner engagement. At the time, Lee Oswald had begun his final week of employment at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, having previously received his notice. Allegedly, the backyard photos had been exposed two days before. Paine was brought upstairs to the Oswald’s modest second-floor apartment. According to him, “Marina took about half an hour to pack all the things for Junie. Meanwhile, I was talking to Lee at their house there.”³

The subsequent thirty minute delay, or conversation, or briefing, is portrayed as a chance event allowed by the circumstance of Marina’s packing bags for the trip to Irving. The two men started up a conversation based on Oswald’s experiences in the Soviet Union. Michael Paine: “I asked him what he was doing, his job … I asked him about Russia … I wanted to know why he had gone to Russia and why he had then come back … I asked him how was it they so readily accepted (him) … he spoke more with disfavour of the Soviet Union … I wasn’t sure whether he was speaking derogatively in order to win my good graces or thinking he would win my friendship that way … I was asking him questions, taking his answers.” (WCH II, pp. 393-398)

Michael Paine’s account of the conversation held during the half-hour delay at the Neely Street apartment fills ten transcript pages in the Commission Hearings (WCH II pp 393-402). As he concludes this detailed account, largely concerned with Oswald’s experiences in Russia, he tells the Commission: “What you have heard now occurred mostly in the first half hour when I was speaking directly to him when I met him … in all the subsequent conversations, you are going to get less information in what he said.” (WCH II, p. 398) Paine would maintain he and Oswald had a total of four conversations in the spring and autumn of 1963.

General Walker ’s name came up later during the April 2 visit, apparently during or subsequent to the dinner at the Paine home in Irving.⁴ Paine: “I was still trying to find common ground with him, and I think we probably spoke critically of the far right. It seems to me we may have mentioned Walker … My memory is very foggy … a friend of ours … just achieved her citizenship papers … and General Walker had been invited to lead the singing [sic] … she was rather sorry that Walker should take it upon himself to define … what this country stands for. So I think I mentioned this episode to him … and I think (Oswald) smiled and nodded his assent … I don’t think he made any important remarks about Walker … that is the only time, probably the only time we mentioned Walker.” (WCH II, p. 402)⁵

Michael Paine drove Lee, Marina and daughter June back to Neely Street to conclude the evening. He claimed he did not see Lee Oswald again until October. Paine would provide material support for Ruth Paine’s efforts in housing Marina Oswald, and transporting her to and from New Orleans, ostensibly as a means to brush up her Russian language skills. The Imperial Reflex camera which took the backyard photos was probably transported to New Orleans in May, in Ruth Paine’s station wagon, included with the Oswald belongings or on her own initiative.

The New Orleans photo set, taken by that camera, features eleven photos, which could be said to represent a single twelve exposure roll of film. The eleven photos consist of similar versions of effectively four separate poses or views, suggesting the photographer was intent on shooting out the roll of film on this occasion. The Oswald and Paine families enjoyed a New Orleans tourist day on Sunday May 12, but no photos were taken on that occasion. If Ruth Paine was responsible for the New Orleans set, then the likeliest date was Monday May 13, when Oswald was at work. It is possible that Ruth Paine did not reveal to Lee that the hard-to-forget Imperial Reflex camera was in her possession, or else it was uncovered as the Oswald possessions were moved into the Magazine Street apartment. It is possible the roll of film was already in the camera. Ruth Paine may have returned to Irving with this camera, as there are no other personal photographs in the Oswald record dated after May 1963.⁶

	The eleven New Orleans photos feature four groups of similar views.

October 1963: Oswald, Michael Paine and the ACLU

November 10, 1963, the Sunday of a long weekend, the last weekend he would in fact spend with his family, and Lee Oswald, according to Ruth Paine’s timeline, “spent the entire day … watching television.”⁷ Michael Paine remembered this occasion before the Warren Commission: “ I think that weekend I remember stepping over him as he sat in front of the TV … thinking to myself for a person who has a business to do he certainly can waste the time. By business I mean some kind of activity and keeping track of right-wing causes and left-wing causes or something. I supposed that he spent his time as I would be inclined to spend more of my time if I had it, trying to sense the pulse of various groups in the Dallas area.” (WCH II, p. 412)

Oswald, September 1963

The inquiries of Commission counsel Wesley Liebeler switched at this point to topics related to the informal driving lessons Lee was receiving from Ruth Paine, leaving aside the curious aspects to Michael Paine’s observation: Oswald had a “business to do”, he had “activity … keeping track of right wing causes and left-wing causes”, an inclination shared by Michael Paine, “trying to sense the pulse of various groups in the Dallas area.” Was this a hobby for both or either men? Was this activity more exactly described as a “business to do”? If it was a business, monitoring political activity, which Paine was inclined to do more of but had time constraints, might his annoyance with Oswald be generated from having sub-contracted, so to speak, some of this “keeping track” to Oswald? Paine was questioned by the FBI in June 1964 over a report he had talked about Cuba and Oswald with students of Southern Methodist University at Luby’s Cafeteria in April or May 1963. Paine said he was in the habit of eating lunch on Sundays at Luby’s, and would engage in “intellectual conversations or debates concerning world affairs with various SMU students … he did not specifically recall discussing (Oswald) with any of these SMU students … although he could very well have since at this time he was acquainted with OSWALD and OSWALD’s background. (CD 1245, p. 196)

On October 2, 1963, Oswald had resurfaced in Dallas, after seeing off Marina, June and Ruth Paine in New Orleans on September 23.⁸ Oswald stayed at the YMCA for two nights, and then spent the weekend of October 4-6 at the Paine home in Irving. The following week, Oswald rented a room at Mary Bledsoe’s Oak Cliff rooming house, while he searched in Dallas for a new job. Bledsoe would later tell the FBI that Oswald told her at least twice “he was attempting to obtain work at Texas Instruments and Collins Radio.”⁹

On Sunday night October 13, although Ruth Paine’s timeline says “OSWALD was at the PAINE home all during this day and night,” (CE 2124) Oswald, or someone identical to him, was seen sitting at the back of the room at a meeting sponsored by the Student Directorate of Cuba (DRE) (CD 205, p. 646). “This individual spoke to no one but merely listened and then left.” General Walker was also in attendance at this meeting. How Oswald knew of, or traveled to this meeting and then back to Irving, is not known.

Ruth Paine took Oswald into Dallas the following morning, and Oswald moved from Bledsoe’s to a rooming house at 1026 North Beckley. Two days later, Oswald began work at the Texas School Book Depository. Two days after that, Lee Oswald turned 24 years old. On Sunday night, October 20, Marina went into labour and daughter Rachel was born. This began a busy week for Oswald.

On Wednesday October 23, Oswald attended a “United States Day” right-wing political rally featuring General Walker, a response to the Adlai Stevenson United Nations Day event scheduled for the following evening. That next night, as Stevenson spoke in Dallas, the event suffered a vigorous protest by right-wing demonstrators organized in part by Larrie Schmidt. Stevenson would be struck by a placard. Michael Paine would express to the Warren Commission his understanding that Oswald was in attendance at this protest. Paine, for his part, attended a John Birch Society meeting on this same night.¹⁰ He would explain: “I have been to a number of rightist meetings and seminars in Texas.” (WCH II, p 389) Michael Paine would say of Oswald: “ I gathered he was doing more or less the same thing … I didn’t inquire how he spent his free time but I supposed he was going around to right wing groups … familiarizing himself for whatever his purposes were as I was.” (WCH II, p. 403)

Ruth Paine’s timeline features the following entry for October 25, 1963: “LEE OSWALD came out after work with WESLEY FRAZIER and saw his wife and baby for the first time after they had left the hospital.” Oswald soon left with Michael Paine, to attend a Dallas meeting of the American Civil Liberties Union. Paine: “I took him in my car, he and I alone, and on the way, which takes about 35 minutes, described the ACLU to him, and he didn’t know about it, and described its purpose.” (WCH II, p. 407)¹¹ During the meeting, Oswald stood and challenged an opinion from the moderators regarding the religious tolerance of the right-wing. Paine: “Lee at this point got up, speaking loud and clear and coherently … reporting that he had been to this meeting of the right-wing group … two nights before and he refuted this statement, saying names and saying how that people on the platform speaking for the Birch Society had said anti-Semitic things and also anti-Catholic statements … ” (WCH II, p. 408) Oddly, Michael Paine uses a generality (Oswald “saying names”), instead of reporting that Oswald referred specifically to General Walker, as Paine’s co-worker Frank Krystinik, also invited to this meeting, observed.¹²

As the meeting broke to informal discussion, Krystinik, who had been informed earlier that Oswald was a Marxist, engaged in a debate on economics with Oswald and another older man. Michael Paine: “in this … argument that he had with Frank and a third person, on the way home he asked me if I knew that third person and whether I thought he was a Communist, Lee thought the third person was a Communist, and he gave me some reason … a receptivity to some words spoken about Castro. And I thought that was such a feeble reason … he must be out of it if that is the way he has to find his fellow travellers.” (WCH IX, p. 456)

Shortly thereafter, Oswald wrote to Communist Party USA newspaper The Worker, a letter postmarked November 1: “Through a friend, I have been introduced into the American Civil Liberties Union Local chapter, which holds monthly meeting on the campus of Southern Methodist University. The first meeting I attened (sic) was on October 25th, a film was shown and afterward a very critical discussion of the ultra-right in Dallas … Could you advise me as to the general view we have on the American Civil Liberties Union? And to what degree, if any, I should attempt to highten (sic) its progressive tendencies? … some of those present showed marked class-awareness and insight.” (Johnson Exhibit 7)

On the same day, previous to mailing this letter, Oswald rented a new Dallas post office box and listed both the Fair Play For Cuba Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union on the postal form (Holmes Exhibit 1).¹³ Oswald mails a membership application to the ACLU that same day. He includes two dollars in cash for the membership fee and lists his occupation as “photographer”. He adds a handwritten letter which requests notification on how to contact “ACLU Groups in my area,” even as he already knows they hold monthly meetings at SMU. (CE 783) Michael Paine had been an ACLU member for some years, and Ruth Paine was the local treasurer.

Following the assassination, the ACLU had to react defensively after Dallas Bar Association president H. Louis Nichols met with Oswald on Saturday afternoon November 23, then appeared on television to reveal Oswald was an ACLU member and requested an ACLU lawyer if John Abt was not available. By Wednesday November 27, a reporter from the Dallas Times Herald had been informed of the Oswald postal form listing the ACLU along with Fair Play for Cuba Committee as the assassin’s specified organizations. By that afternoon, the ACLU executive were anticipating “danger in the future, as a result of the tragedy of last Friday, that civil liberties will be under increased stress.” (CD 205, pp. 704-708)

November 22, 1963: Michael Paine Is Shown A Backyard Photo By the Dallas Police

According to Michael Paine, he was asked at the Dallas Police station Friday night November 22, 1963, if he could “identify the place where Lee was standing when he was holding this rifle … I identified the place by the fine clapboard structure of the house … the house has an unusually small clapboard.“ This, taken at face value, reveals an alert observational skill set and excellent memory retention as, according to Paine, he had only visited 214 West Neely Street once, almost eight months previous.¹⁴

Paine’s excellent retention skills are particularly admirable given the “fine clapboard structure” of the Neely Street house, as seen in the backyard photos, is visible but hardly dominates the frame the way the staircase and its support beams do. The clapboard can be seen behind and below the staircase on the left side of the frame. If the photo viewed by Michael Paine on Friday night was 133-C, it is the individual backyard photo showing the least detail of the clapboard structure. If 133-C was possessed by the Dallas police in the format of a “drugstore print”, then still less detail would be visible as the photo would be cropped on its horizontal edges, as well as appearing in its small 3”x3” size.

Considering that the backyard photos, according to the official story, would not be discovered until the following afternoon, it is interesting that it is Warren Commission counsel Wesley Liebeler who brings the subject up during Paine’s testimony. Liebeler, at that time, is seeking to establish some other point, related to the rifle, and does not seem to realize that Paine is describing being shown something which officially had not yet been found. (WCH IX, p. 444)

Michael Paine and the de Mohrenschildt Backyard Photo

Everett Glover was separated from his wife at the start of 1963, and had arranged to share his house with two fellow employees at Magnolia Oil, Richard Pierce and Volkmar Schmidt. Everett Glover was a friend of George de Mohrenschildt, and also with Michael and Ruth Paine. Michael Paine: “We met the Glovers at madrigal singing, we liked to sing madrigals and he was part of the group … he showed up once or twice at a single adult party dance of the Unitarian Church.” (WCH IX, pp. 451-452)

Folk dancers and madrigal singers: a hotbed of intrigue?

In February, Glover, along with Volkmar Schmidt and others, met Lee and Marina Oswald at George de Mohrenschildt’s home, and they were supposedly impressed enough to arrange their own social occasion and invite the Oswalds. Through their friendship with Glover, the Paines would be invited to this Magnolia Oil party held on February 22,1963, which was the President’s Day holiday. Everett Glover provided the transportation for the Oswalds. The party was said to feature George de Mohrenschildt’s Central American walking tour slideshow, but it really seemed about presenting the Oswalds to new people.¹⁵ Michael Paine: “Everett Glover invited us knowing that Ruth was studying Russian … they were presented to us as an American who had defected to Russia and decided he didn’t like it and came back and brought a Russian wife with him. Would we like to meet these people? Yes, that sounded interesting.” (WCH II, p. 404)

Sometime after this party, a record player lent to Glover by the de Mohrenschildts was, at their request, in turn lent to Marina Oswald, and delivered to the Neely Street apartment by Glover and roommate Richard Pierce. Jeanne de Mohrenschildt had also lent Marina a few instructional English/Russian language LPs to go with this player. Some weeks later, after the Oswalds had moved to New Orleans, Everett Glover was contacted by one of the Paines regarding this record player:

Mr. GLOVER. I got a call on the telephone, I am not sure whether it was Mr. or Mrs. Paine, in which they said the record player – I believe it was the same one I had given or taken over to (Marina) that belonged to the De Mohrenschildts, was there at their house … I think at this time I learned through them that Marina had gone to join (Lee) in New Orleans.

Mr. JENNER. Was anything said about Mrs. Paine having taken Marina to New Orleans?

Mr. GLOVER. Nothing was said about her taking her to New Orleans, but I do believe I knew at that time that Marina had stayed with her. I think I learned it through conversation with them. I don’t remember having heard from or seen the Paines since the time they were at my house until the time that I have learned Marina had gone to New Orleans and had previously stayed with Ruth. And until the time that Mike came over and delivered the record player. I think Mike was the one who brought the record player, and I don’t remember the circumstances on that …

Months later, Glover is contacted again by the Paines:

Mr. GLOVER … the only other connection I had with them was that later than that … I got a call from one of the Paines saying they had records that the De Mohrenschildts had given Marina. These were for Russian speaking people learning English, I believe, that they had, and what to do with them? And I said, bring them over here and I will store them … and I remember Michael Paine brought the records over to me and came in the house, and I talked with him a little bit. At this time Michael Paine told me the last information I had about (the Oswalds). He told me that, I am not sure whether he said they were back, Marina was coming back, or Marina had already come back to Dallas, that Lee had lost his job and that Lee was coming back, and that was in the time I believe.

Mr. JENNER. Was coming back to live or was visiting?

Mr. GLOVER. Well, was coming back. Presumably he lost his job and was coming back here.

The backyard photo known as deMohrenschildt-A, a first generation print which shows information from the original negative cropped from the “drugstore print” 133-A, and which features handwritten inscriptions on its backside, was discovered within the sleeve of one of these language LPs when the deMohrenschildt’s returned to Dallas in 1967. Accepting Glover’s Warren Commission testimony, this photo was presumably inside the LP sleeve when the language albums were returned at about the beginning of October 1963. Presumably, these LPs had travelled with Marina Oswald to New Orleans and then back to Irving, even as they could not be played since the record player had possibly been returned months earlier, as established during Glover’s questioning by Commission counsel Albert Jenner (although when exactly Michael Paine dropped off the record player is not explicitly stated). Conceivably, the backyard photo known as deMohrenschildt-A could have been inserted into the LP sleeve by Oswald at any time between April and September. Or, inserted by the Paines, or someone associated with the Paines, just before the records were returned to Everett Glover. Or, since Everett Glover is uncertain of the circumstances, perhaps the record player was not returned in May but actually at about the beginning of October, and Glover was confused between the record player and the LPs. There is no indication any investigatory agency went to have a look at these LPs after Glover’s testimony, even as important evidence had been uncovered inside other items associated with the Oswalds.

A month after Glover’s appearance, during testimony from George de Mohrenschildt, Commission counsel Jenner would suggest the LPs were actually found in the Paine’s home:

Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. We gave (Marina) some records to study English – not mine, but my wife’s and her daughter’s records, of Shakespearian English, how to learn English, and they obviously still have those records.

Mr. JENNER. Yes, they were found in Mrs. Paine’s home.

Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. We even gave them a phonograph, I think, a cheap phonograph, to play the records.

Stovall Exhibit A lists the property “taken from” the Paine house in Irving on November 22. The list includes “3 Brown metal boxes 12” x 4” containing phonograph records”. If the language LPs lent to Marina Oswald were among these “phonograph records,” then they would have been taken to Dallas Police HQ, and apparently later that night sent to the FBI lab in Washington. If Oswald had stashed the de Mohrenschildt backyard photo inside a record album later seized at the Paines, it would in all probability been discovered by the Dallas police or by the FBI. If these LPs were found at the Paine home after the assassination rather than delivered to Glover weeks earlier, then the backyard photo must have been inserted into the sleeve after being returned from the custody of the FBI sometime in 1964. Glover, who had assumed much of the de Mohrenschildt’s furniture on their departure for Haiti in April 1963, moved many of these items into a storage locker early in 1964, and it is in this locker the language LPs with the backyard photograph were found.

Glover left Dallas before the de Mohrenschildt’s return, and there have been indications that Ruth Paine had access to the storage locker in the meantime. When the de Mohrenschildt’s discovered the backyard photo, they called the Paines, despite having only been introduced to Ruth once, years before. During an ensuing meeting between both couples, over dinner, the newly found backyard photo was a topic of conversation as well as discussion “generally, of events.”¹⁶ In his manuscript “I Am a Patsy”, George de Mohrenschildt described Ruth Paine as “a perfectly charming, charitable Quaker … (who) helped the Oswalds out of pure humanitarian impulses … She and her husband were simply admirable people.” (HSCA Volume XII, p. 260) Paragraphs earlier, de Mohrenschildt disparages Marina Oswald’s deportment following the assassination. He was under the incorrect impression that it was Marina who wrote “Hunter of fascists ha-ha-ha” on the back of the discovered photo.

1993: Michael Paine Claims That Oswald Himself Showed Him A Backyard Photo

“Almost the next thing he does is to pick up this eight-by-ten glossy photo of himself in black with a rifle and a couple of pamphlets … it was very different from what I had expected to find … I had been told he was a communist and I kind of expected a social idealist and couldn’t see the connection between this picture of a guy with his rifle there in black clothing. But he was obviously proud of that picture ….” (Michael Paine, quoted in Gus Russo, Live By The Sword, interview conducted 1993)

“When I first met him … the first thing he showed me was a picture of himself holding a rifle and I could see he was proud of that picture. I had the strong impression that it was an icon of himself that he liked.” (Michael Paine, ABC News, “Beyond Conspiracy”, 2003)

In 1993, Michael Paine began telling interviewers that Oswald had showed him a backyard photo when they first met in the Spring of 1963. If Michael Paine’s relatively recent claim is actually true, then his Warren Commission testimony is severely compromised, a fact which appears to have escaped many mainstream journalists and network research departments. If Oswald showed Michael Paine a backyard photo in the Spring of 1963 it must have been, according to Paine’s timeline, during the visit to the Neely Street address when Paine arrived to drive the Oswald’s to dinner in Irving. This event, if true, is entirely absent from Paine’s long and detailed description of his half hour with Oswald as told to the Warren Commission. If true, and Oswald was offering Michael Paine visual evidence of an apparent tendency to violent fanaticism, it is not at all clear why this troubling information was not passed to Ruth Paine as she continued to forge her friendship with Marina. Ruth Paine claimed to the Warren Commission that she did not know Lee owned a rifle and would not have accepted the presence of a rifle in the same home as her children.

Most critically, if true, it calls into question Michael Paine’s extensive deliberations during his Warren Commission testimony on the supposed “camping equipment” inside a rolled blanket amongst Oswald’s possessions in his garage at the Paine residence in Irving. During Paine’s first appearance before Warren Commission attorneys Wesley Liebeler and Norman Redlich on March 17, 1964, a total of seven transcript pages describe his interaction with a rolled blanket, wrapped with string, lying on the floor of the garage. (WCH IX, pp. 437-443) The Warren Commission would determine that the murder weapon used in the assassination had been wrapped inside this blanket, which had been stored on the garage floor without the Paines’ knowledge of what was in it. Michael Paine’s efforts to explain why he did not make any effort to understand what may have been wrapped, (or allegedly wrapped), in this blanket are strained and tend to over-thinking:

Paine: “ I picked up this package and the first time I picked it up I thought it was camping equipment and thought to myself they don’t make camping equipment of iron anymore … I supposed it was camping equipment because it was wrapped in this greenish rustic blanket and that was the reason I thought it was a rustic thing … there was also a certain wideness at one end and then I thought of a folding tool I had in the Army, a folding shovel and I was trying to think how a folding shovel fit with the rest of this because that wasn’t quite, the folding shovel was too symmetrical … I first thought it was tent poles and then I thought there are not enough poles here, enough to make a tent … I visualized a pipe or possibly two, and with something coming off, that must have come off kind of abruptly a few inches at 45° angle … I wasn’t thinking of a rifle. Definitely that thought never occurred to me … I would lift the package up, move it, put the package down and one time I was trying to puzzle how you could make camping equipment out of something – this is only one pipe in the package … if I had been the least bit curious I could have at least felt of this blanket but I was aware of personal privacy … ”

Instead of a rifle, Michael Paine visualized tent poles and folding shovels.

Neither Liebeler or Redlich asked Paine why, if he was not curious, did he expend so much intellectual energy visualizing tent poles and folding shovels in an effort to understand what might be inside this blanket. He was not asked if he was aware the Oswalds had ever been camping. He was not asked why he did not simply inquire of Oswald what was up with the blanket, which had been in Paine’s way as he worked in the garage (Oswald presumably could be found in front of the television set). Although neither Liebeler or Redlich could know this, if Michael Paine had indeed previously been shown a backyard photo, then all of his supposed puzzling over what was in the blanket is utter nonsense.

It is possible that Michael Paine is simply completely mistaken, and since 1993 has been relating what amounts to a false memory. It is also possible that the story of being shown a backyard photo by Oswald in the spring of 1963, was deliberately concocted by Michael Paine to assist in buttressing the official portrayal of Oswald as a lone nut assassin – a portrayal which had at that time faced renewed public skepticism with the release of Oliver Stone’s JFK. The inclusion and positioning of Paine’s backyard photo claim, in books and network documentaries supportive of the Warren Commission’s findings, favors the latter view. If this is the case, then Michael Paine can be regarded as less the simple madrigal-singing Quaker unwittingly caught up in historic events, and more a conscious collaborator assisting the project of framing Oswald, at least in the public mind, as the lone nut assassin. At the very least, the eagerness by which mainstream publications and broadcasts have presented Michael Paine’s revisionist account, despite the obvious damage this claim does to his Warren Commission testimony and other tenets of the official story, is a demonstration of just how shoddy and agenda-driven these histories really are.

Michael and Ruth Paine were interviewed at their home by Dallas television station WFAA on Sunday November 24, 1963. They both shared their impression that Oswald was the lone assassin of President Kennedy, motivated, Ruth Paine suggested, by a realization “that he had an opportunity to no longer be a little guy, but to be someone extraordinary.” Michael Paine would echo: “I think it was a lone wolf thing, the opportunity presented itself to him and he probably wanted to make a mark on society by – suddenly it occurred to him that he could.” The Warren Commission would later presume Oswald’s motivation using similar language.

Fifty some years later, the informed benign version of what occurred in 1963 would concede the Paines’ involvement with the Oswalds had purposes other than officially stated, but which did not necessarily directly relate to an assassination plot directed against JFK, although the Paines did assist in the post-assassination framing of Oswald, in deference to the authorities and by intuiting what was really happening.¹⁷ This view is supported by the intercepted phone call from the afternoon of November 22, 1963, where Michael Paine speculates that Oswald may have been involved but was not “responsible.” If the Paines had been directly involved in an assassination plot, this phone call would not have happened.

One pm November 22, 1963 – “We both know who is responsible”

During his questioning of Michael Paine on March 18, 1964, Warren Commission counsel Wesley Liebeler addressed the issue of a particular phone call which was referred to in FBI records. Liebeler handled this issue in a notably lawyerly fashion:

MR LIEBELER. Now, there has been a report that on November 23, 1963, there was a telephone call between a man and a woman, between the numbers of your residence and the number of your office, in which the man was reported to have said in words or substance, “We both know who is responsible for the assassination.” Have you been asked about this before?

MR PAINE. I had heard that – I didn’t know it was associated with our numbers. I had heard a report that some telephone operator had listened in on a conversation somewhere, I don’t know where it was. I thought it was some other part of the country.

MR LIEBELER. Did you talk to your wife on the telephone at any time during Saturday, November 23, on the telephone?

MR PAINE. I was in the police station again, and I think I called her from there.

MR LIEBELER. Did you make any remark to the effect that you knew who was responsible?

MR PAINE. And I don’t know who the assassin is or was; no, so I did not.

MR LIEBELER. You are positive in your recollection that you made no such remark?

MR. PAINE. Yes.

Liebeler makes reference to a “report”, within which the date of the phone call is established as November 23, 1963. Liebeler should have known that subsequent information, including phone records, corrected the report to which he refers, and established the actual date of the phone call as November 22. Inside a lengthy collection of FBI reports dated February 11,1964, a sub-section is titled ‘Investigation Regarding Alleged Telephone Call Between CR 5-5211, Arlington, Texas and BL 3-1628, Irving, Texas on November 23, 1963” (the telephone numbers identified are Michael Paine’s Bell helicopter office in Arlington, and the Paine household in Irving). Part of this investigation is a January 25, 1964 report by FBI Special Agent Robert Lish listing long distance phone calls charged to the Paine’s number in Irving, from late October to mid-December 1963. These records, made available from the Southwestern States Telephone Company, establish the phone call in question was made on November 22. (FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 83, p. 127) Both Michael and Ruth Paine told the Warren Commission, several times, that a phone call between themselves, from the same locations, occurred on November 22, 1963 at about one pm. Liebeler’s questions to Michael Paine have the dismissive effect of labelling a supposed November 23 phone call, discussing “who is responsible,” as something like an unestablished rumor.

The initial report on this phone call was generated by Special Agent Lish on November 26, 1963. It summarizes an interview with Captain Paul Barger of the Irving Police Department, who had “received information that a male voice was overheard in a conversation,” during a telephone call held on “November 23”. Barger provided both the Arlington number from Michael Paine’s office, and the Paine’s residential number in Irving. “Captain BARGER advised that the male voice was heard to comment that he felt sure LEE HARVEY OSWALD had killed the President, but did not feel OSWALD was responsible, and further stated, “We both know who is responsible.” Barger does not identify the source of his information. (FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 67, p. 51)

This information is repeated, essentially word-for-word, in the FBI Gemberling Report of January 7, 1964, but instead of naming Paul Barger, the source is identified as Confidential Informant Dallas T-4 (CD 206, p. 66). Why this designation when there was nothing confidential about Barger’s identity or original statement? Barger is interviewed again by the FBI’s James Hosty on January 17, 1964, where this question seems to come up, as Barger says he “had no objection to the use of his name in connection with information he furnished … ” (CD 329, p. 91) Barger claims “he made extensive inquiry in an effort to identify the name of the individual who furnished him with the information concerning a telephone conversation … He said he had an unusually large amount of work assignments during that period and these assignments kept him from recalling the time of day that this information was received.” Barger said he was assigned to “obtain a list of telephone tickets, or other helpful information” from the Southwestern States Telephone Company. “He felt sure the information he furnished SA LISH had come from some telephone company sources, but he was still unable to identify the individual who related it to him … ”

Additionally, Barger claimed the information he passed to Lish in November was based on his “personal recollection”, as he did not have his handwritten notes at the time. In what he identified to Hosty as his original handwritten note, the overheard dialogue from the male caller is presented as: “Oswald wouldn’t have any reason to do it, but when you get right down to it, the only guilty person is that bastard himself.” That is significantly different from the information provided on November 26, such that even “an unusually large amount of work assignments” cannot account for the disparity. If Barger actually received the information as first reported, from a source at Southwestern States Telephone Company sometime during the assassination weekend, his response to such potentially explosive information is notably muted and casual.¹⁸

The Gemberling report specifying Confidential Informant Dallas T-4 was classified and not shared with the Warren Commission. It was declassified in 1976, and Bernard Fensterwald of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations determined that “confidential informant T-4 is almost undoubtedly a wiretap recording. The nomenclature is widely used by the FBI to indicate to their own agents the wiretap source of a piece of information without having to reveal the source to outsiders.”¹⁹ Fensterwald’s allegations were repeated by Congressmen Thomas Downing and Henry Gonzalez, who publicized the Paine’s “we know who is responsible” conversation on the House floor. In a 1976 Dallas Times Herald article written to refute the allegations of a wiretap on the Paine’s residential line, Hugh Aynesworth interviewed Paul Barger, then working for the Irving Independent School District. Barger claimed the source of his original report was known to him after all, and was a telephone repairman who by chance, “due to some mechanical difficulties … he was checking out the line” and inadvertently listened in on the conversation. Barger, supposedly, did not identify the man back in 1963 over concerns of reprimand. Barger added he “did not believe the FBI had any wiretap on the Paine house, ‘If they did,’ he said, ’they wouldn’t have been asking me for what happened.’” (FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ File, Section A28, p. 71-72). The phone call itself, and its content, are not denied.

Michael Paine denied the content of the call during an interview conducted December 23, 1963 by FBI Special Agent Bardwell Odum. “Mr. PAINE advised that on November 23, 1963, he did not make any statement to anyone that he felt sure LEE HARVEY OSWALD had killed the President but did not feel OSWALD was responsible … Mr. PAINE advised that what he did say, in fact, in a conversation with his wife, was that he was not sure that OSWALD had killed the President because at that time he had no facts at his command … Mr PAINE flatly denied at any time saying that he felt he knew who was responsible for the President’s death other than OSWALD.” (CD 206, p. 67)²⁰ Paine’s Warren Commission testimony to Liebeler – that he did not know the “who is responsible” conversation was associated with his telephone numbers – is challenged by this report.²¹

Paul Barger’s 1976 story of a telephone repairman, as well as his initial stories of being so busy on the assassination weekend that he could not recall either the source of the information or when it arrived to him, do not seem credible in the absence of cross-examination. The January 7 Gemberling identification of Confidential Informant Dallas T-4 is probably not referring to Barger, since Barger had been identified by name in an FBI report from weeks earlier, and there was no confidential necessity to that interview. Barger’s handwritten note presented on January 17 is unconvincing, and was not pursued. The Warren Commission was apparently unaware that telephone records established the phone conversation in question occurred on November 22 instead of the following day. These unsatisfactory efforts suggest that the Paine telephone conversation was indeed captured through a wiretap on the Paine’s residential phone, that Paul Barger assisted in covering up the source of the information by fudging his recollection and attributing an incorrect date to the phone call in question, and that Gemberling revealed the true source (Dallas T-4) for internal FBI use.

Michael Paine has yet to be asked directly who he thought, at one pm on November 22, 1963, “was responsible” for the assassination.

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Notes

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Series Bibliography

• Warren Commission Hearings, Exhibits and Documents
• House Select Committee Report and Appendixes
• Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After The Fact
• Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much
• Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death Of JFK
• John Newman, Oswald and the CIA
• John Armstrong, Harvey And Lee
• Edward Epstein, Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald
• Gus Russo, Live By The Sword

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Part 4:  Oswald in Oak Cliff

The Warren Commission’s description of the origin of the backyard photos relies on a very unreliable narrator. Many critics believe the visual content of the photos is unreliable (i.e. it is a composite). When the Kennedy case was re-investigated by the HSCA, examination of the backyard photos was limited to the question of authenticity. Other pertinent questions, once examined, impeach the unreliable narration adopted by the Warren Commission.

Follow-up questions: If the camera wasn’t Oswald’s, whose was it? If Marina didn’t take the photos, then who did? ¹ The answers could lead directly to the plot to frame Oswald, and therefore to the plot to remove Kennedy.

The Kuleshov Effect

In the interest of realizing a scientific materialist understanding of cinema technique, young filmmakers in the new revolutionary Soviet Union conducted a series of visual experiments designed to quantify elements of montage (editing). One of the most famous was conducted by Lev Kuleshov, a twenty-three year old theorist and educator. A medium close-up of an impassive actor was variously juxtaposed with specific images – a plate of soup, a prison gate, a dead child – cutting back to the actor’s impassive face. Viewers of these simple cross cutting experiments invariably read the actor’s always identical blank visage as variously expressing hunger, loneliness, or mourning. The audience would invariably conjure an association, even absent a spatial relationship within the shots (through lighting or scenic consistencies). ²

		HE IS HUNGRY
		HE IS SAD

The backyard photos, since the Life Magazine cover in 1964, have been presented to the public as a deliberate self-representation by JFK’s future lone-nut assassin Lee Oswald, who interrupted his wife’s household chores on a spring Sunday afternoon so she would snap two photographs, him dressed in black, brandishing firearms and socialist literature. The backyard photos are understood as the self-portrait of a political fanatic, a man preparing for violence, in the service of ideology and his twisted psyche. They are said to be Oswald’s idealized image of himself – the hunter of fascists, the man ready for anything. ³

		FANATIC LONE-NUT KILLER
		DESTROYER OF INNOCENCE

Should it be understood that Marina Oswald did not snap these photos at her husband’s insistence, the context and interpretation of these photos must transform. Are the backyard photos instead the portrait of a political provocateur, posing as part an operation to discredit organizations of the left? Are the backyard photos some kind of in-joke, a trophy from a modestly successful false flag attempt? Hunter of fascists ha-ha-ha!

A Backyard Photo Was In Possession Of Dallas Police On The Evening of November 22

An internal FBI memo dated February 25, 1964, generated as part of the FBI’s multi-city investigation into the leak of backyard photo 133-A to the media, describes an interview with Jerry O’Leary, Jr., a reporter for the Washington Evening Star. O’Leary confirmed to agents he had arrived in Dallas on the evening of November 22, 1963 and “advises as follows: Deputy Sheriffs and Dallas Police Department detectives, he believes, arrived at the Payne home in Irving … O’Leary understands that the officers started searching, Mrs. Payne objected, whereupon they told her they would get a search warrant. O’Leary thinks these officers took photographs back to the police department or the Sheriff’s office which they obtained in the Payne residence from Marina Oswald. O’Leary says he believes the photograph carried by “Life” on its 2-21-64 issue was among those taken by the police. O’Leary says that either late the night of 11-22-63 or the morning of 11-23-63, he saw a copy of the photograph in the hands of a police officer” (FBI DeLoach to Mohr 2-25-64)

O’Leary was not in attendance at the Paine home during the initial search, and his information of what happened there is not accurate. Ruth Paine, according to all in attendance, never objected to the police presence and allowed full access. The legal issue of a search warrant, as officially explained, rests on the distinction that officers could access visible objects as they moved through the residence, but a warrant was required to open sealed items such as the seabags and suitcases in the garage. O’Leary may have received or overheard incomplete and/or inaccurate background information, but his seeing “the photograph carried by Life” on the Friday night or early Saturday morning “in the hands of a police officer” is important and has corroboration.

On March 17, 1964 Michael Paine provided testimony to Warren Commission attorneys Wesley Liebeler and Norman Redlich. The following exchange was recorded:

Mr. LIEBELER – Did the FBI or any other investigatory agency of the Government ever show you a picture of the rifle that was supposed to have been used to assassinate the President?

Mr. PAINE – They asked me at first, the first night of the assassination if I could locate, identify the place where Lee was standing when he was holding this rifle and some, the picture on the cover of Life.

Mr. LIEBELER – Were you able to?

Mr. PAINE – I identified the place by the fine clapboard structure of the house.

Mr. LIEBELER – By the what?

Mr. PAINE – By the small clapboard structure, the house has an unusually small clapboard.

Mr. LIEBELER – What did you identify the place as being?

Mr. PAINE – The Neely Street address.

Michael Paine confirms the observation of Jerry O’Leary Jr., that Dallas Police had in their possession, on Friday night November 22, 1963, a copy of a backyard photo, many hours before these photos were officially discovered.

There is a third confirmation. In a typed version of notes taken by Dallas Police Homicide Captain Will Fritz during his interrogations with prisoner Lee Oswald, the following information covers midday Saturday November 23: “Oswald was placed back in jail at 11:33 a.m. At 12:35 p.m. Oswald was brought to the office for another interview with Inspector Kelley and some of the other officers and myself. I talked to Oswald about the different places he had lived in Dallas in an effort to find where he was living when the picture was made of his holding a rifle which looked to be the rifle we had recovered. This picture showed to be taken near a stairway with many identifying things in the back yard … Mr Paine had told me about where Oswald lived on Neely Street. Oswald was very evasive about this location.” (CE2003)

The Dallas police had at least one version of a backyard photo long before the photos were officially found mid-afternoon Saturday. In the Fritz typed notes he adds: “We found later that this was the place where the picture was made.” The Dallas police would go to 214 West Neely Street on November 29, 1963 to take photos of the property, including a replication of the Oswald pose identified as backyard photo 133-C, supposedly unknown, beyond certain Dallas police officers, for another dozen years. (CE712) This demonstrates the existence of 133-C was not some dark secret known only to a few. It is highly unlikely backyard photo 133-C could have been withheld from the FBI or the Secret Service. The Secret Service, in the person of Forrest Sorrels, supervised the November 29 photo recreations. ⁴ There is no acknowledgment of the existence of 133-C anywhere in the official record generated in 1963/1964, other than the recreated pose. The withholding of 133-C from the official record appears a deliberate decision, involving a tacit understanding between the Dallas Police, the FBI, and the Secret Service. Why would this happen?

A speculation: 133-C was the backyard photo in possession of the Dallas police on the evening of Friday November 22, 1963. The reason for its withholding: the means by which it came into the hands of the police was problematic, by origin or method.

Looking again at Jerry O’Leary’s information, the suggestion is made the lack of a search warrant might have compromised evidence gathered that first afternoon, though it is also said the photographs were “obtained” directly from Marina Oswald. The information regarding the search warrant is not correct, and if Marina directly passed photographs to the attending officers, the incident was not mentioned in any reports or recollections. Perhaps O’Leary was given or overheard something like a cover story. The photo may well have been “obtained” from a location or source other than the Paine household, and this source could not be rationalized within the emerging lone-nut paradigm. Once 133-A and 133-B came into the record on Saturday afternoon November 23, in convenient fashion, 133-C could be quietly shelved.

The complete lack of curiosity concerning photograph 133-C on the part of the HSCA – the government panel which first became aware of this photo – supports a notion that there was something decidedly fishy about this photograph, and the fishiness is not a matter of content, which is effectively the same as the other two backyard photos in the record. The HSCA took forty pages of testimony from Dallas police officer R.L. Studebaker concerning the many copies made of all three backyard photos in the Dallas Police Department Photography Laboratory, but the provenance of 133-C was not clarified. ⁵

A closer look at the context and circumstances of these photographs may help establish the range of possibility which could explain the backyard photographs.

Oswald the “Marxist”

In October 1962, the Dallas FBI closed its Oswald file started the previous June, when Oswald returned from the Soviet Union. Five months later, the file would be reopened, supposedly after learning Oswald had subscribed to the Communist Party USA newspaper The Worker. As John Newman describes in Oswald and the CIA, the FBI’s reasoning appears flawed. Oswald maintained contacts and subscriptions with numerous left and radical-left organizations continuously since his return, and the FBI had no reason not to be aware of this. Oswald began his subscription to The Worker on August 5, 1962 and he had contacted the Socialist Worker’s Party, a listed subversive organization and publisher of The Militant, a week later, not long before his FBI file was rendered “inactive”. A copy of both The Worker, and The Militant are featured in the backyard photos.

Oswald communicated with left-wing organizations as early as fifteen years of age, and was known to espouse left-wing sentiments while with the Marines. When he attempted to renounce his American citizenship in Moscow, he claimed: “I am a Marxist” (CE910). Consul Richard Snyder recalled “strong impression he used simple Marxist stereotypes without sophistication or independent formulation” (CE909). The same impression was expressed by others acquainted with Oswald. ⁶ While in the Soviet Union, Oswald did not associate with Marxist or communist institutions, and there is little to indicate he engaged in Marxist analysis or discussions with his friends in MInsk. Oswald’s Marxist / leftist persona appears exclusively to an American audience, first in the Marines, then to American officials and reporters in Moscow, and then again on his return to Fort Worth in 1962.

On August 26, 1962 Oswald ordered pamphlets on Trotsky from Pioneer Publishers, associated with the Socialist Worker’s Party. He applied for SWP membership at the end of October (Dobbs Exhibit 9). On December 6 he steps up his prospective involvement by offering his skills in “blow-ups, reversals and reproduction work” gained at his employer Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall to the SWP’s New York office (Dobbs Exhibit 12). He makes a similar offer to the Hall-Davis Defense Committee, linked to the CPUSA (Tormey Exhibit 1). On December 15 Oswald subscribes to the The Militant. ⁷

If Oswald’s Marxist tendencies had been more informed, his subscription and party membership activity should have been limited to one or other of Communist Party USA or the Socialist Worker’s Party. Factional splits and philosophical differences had led to bitter divisions between the two organizations. Oswald’s correspondence through 1962 and 1963 with various left-wing outfits shows him apparently unaware or unconcerned with these splits. Oswald assumed a personal stance, articulated during social occasions at the time, that he disliked both the Soviet and American political systems and instead endorsed Marxist analysis and ideals. Yet in Texas and Louisiana, in 1962 and 1963, he worked and socialized with, for the most part, persons of the right. ⁸ Oswald’s Marxist identity should be considered a front, and his communications with left-wing organizations insincerely motivated.

Oswald in Oak Cliff

Near the beginning of October 1962, George de Mohrenschildt’s daughter Alexandra and her husband Gary Taylor were invited to a modest gathering held at Oswald’s Mercedes Street apartment in Fort Worth. For the Taylors, this was their first meeting with the Oswalds, and as they were not Russian speakers, the interaction with their hosts was limited. Even so, as the occasion concluded a few hours later, Marina Oswald gathered clothes and her infant daughter, and joined the Taylors for the drive back to their apartment in Dallas, where she would then stay for almost a week. One rationale for this holds that Marina complained of spousal abuse to the guests, so the removal to the Taylor home was a hastily conceived reaction. Alexandra Taylor, in contrast, told the FBI on November 30, 1963 that Marina’s stay had been arranged by her father some time before (CD60). Gary Taylor’s Warren Commission testimony also confirmed that it was a prearranged event orchestrated by George de Mohrenschildt. ⁹

Lee and Marina would be separated throughout October 1962, commencing a year of absences and separations, when Lee Oswald’s movements and activities assume a murky or unknown character. On his own, Oswald stayed at the Mercedes apartment until October 8, when he vacated and quit his job at Leslie Welding the same day. Where he stayed the following week is unknown. He rents the (later infamous) Post Office Box 2915 on October 9, and has several appointments with the Texas Employment Commission. On Friday October 12, Oswald is hired by the typographic firm Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. Oswald checks into the Dallas YMCA on October 15 and stays there until October 19, when he relocates to the Coz-I-Eight apartments on North Beckley Street in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. For the rest of his days in Dallas, Oswald would reside at addresses closely clustered, within a ten block radius, in Oak Cliff. ¹⁰

Jeanne de Mohrenschildt, referring to the Dallas-Fort Worth Russian community, would tell the Warren Commission: “Lee insisted for some particular reason to live very, very far from everybody, from all these people. They lived in Oak Cliff – God knows where from us … Why did he live so far? … Why wouldn’t they take a little place near us, it will be much easier for me to help her. He had some reasons to live far away. I don’t know if anybody else mentioned that to you. That was everybody’s impression. For some particular reason, he moved all the way out” (WC testimony April 24, 1964).

On November 3, 1962 Gary Taylor would help rent a trailer for Oswald, then assist in the relocation of Marina and June, with belongings, from Fort Worth to a new home at Apartment 2 – 604 Elsbeth, which Lee had arranged the week before. ¹¹ Three days later, Marina moved out, allegedly the result of a bad argument sparked by her conversation with the wife of the Elsbeth apartment’s building supervisor. Marina and June shuttled between three White Russian homes for two weeks before another reconciliation with Lee was achieved on November 18. On November 22 the Oswalds attended a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by his brother Robert in Fort Worth. Several snapshots of the Oswald family were taken at the Fort Worth bus depot’s Photo-mat booth, the only specific instance of “family-type snapshots” from the period that Marina could later recall.

The Oswald’s domestic situation is notable for its instability throughout the autumn of 1962, coinciding with George de Mohrenschildt’s efforts as their benefactor. Marina Oswald would say in a letter to the Soviet Embassy on December 31,1962 “we change address often because my husband changes work and for other reasons” (emphasis added). She shares with the Embassy her new mailing address “Box 2915, Dallas, Texas” (CE986). ¹²

The February Hand-Off

Even though Lee Oswald’s unemployment in October 1962 lasted only four days, George de Mohrenschildt was known to lament “we‘ve got to find Lee a job.” The kind of job he was likely referring to was as free lance informant, investigator and possibly provocateur – activity associated with industrial security and/or private firms and organizations linked to federal intelligence or police agencies (such as Guy Banister’s outfit in New Orleans). ¹³ This is the milieu believed to have motivated otherwise inexplicable activity on the part of Oswald throughout the year 1963. Introductions or inquiries on Oswald’s behalf were made by de Mohrenschildt in the autumn of 1962 to persons such as Admiral Chester Bruton, of Collins Radio, and Max Clark, overseeing industrial security at General Dynamics.

Oswald had extra money available to him in December 1962 / January 1963, not huge amounts but enough to pay the remainder of the State Department loan which assisted his return to America. A few months later, allegedly, Oswald was able to purchase the mail-order guns under the name Hidell, amounting to just over $50, representing a week’s salary. ¹⁴

In 1963, not only did Oswald’s Fair Play For Cuba activity coincide with active programs by the FBI and CIA directed against the organization, he also (allegedly) ordered interstate mail-order firearms from Klein’s and Seaport Traders when both of these firms were also targeted by federal investigations. Peter Dale Scott notes: “in 1963 Seaport Traders and Klein’s Sporting Goods were being investigated, by the ATF unit of the U.S. Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service, as well as by Senator Dodd’s Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee. Treasury and the Committee sought to demonstrate the need for more restrictive federal legislation to control the burgeoning mail-order traffic in firearms” (Deep Politics, Chapter 15).

In early February 1963, George de Mohrenschildt introduced Oswald to Volkmar Schmidt, a German oil geologist employed in Dallas by Magnolia Oil. During a small dinner party held at de Mohrenschildt’s home, a political and philosophical conversation ensued between Schmidt and Oswald lasting two hours, during which Oswald exhibited traits similar to the Warren Commission’s lone nut psychological profile. ¹⁵ Schmidt claimed Oswald seemed to him a man “desperate, spiritually, totally desperate … His determination to leave an imprint in history was just incredible.” After redirecting Oswald’s spiritual desperation toward an antipathy to the far-right positions of General Edwin Walker, Schmidt came to believe this conversation triggered Oswald’s alleged obsession with Walker, which may have resulted in a failed assassination attempt two months later. ¹⁶

From Oswald’s address book

Schmidt decided to arrange his own get-together for Oswald, at the house he shared with other Magnolia Oil employees including Ruth and Michael Paine’s friend Everett Glover. Schmidt described the event as one which he hoped could assist getting Oswald “out of his shell”, though he would not personally attend. Invited guests included the de Mohrenschildts and the Paines. ¹⁷ The Magnolia Oil party occurred on Friday night, February 22, 1963. Ruth Paine met Marina Oswald at this event, beginning a rapid transition for the Oswalds – from dependence on the generosity of the de Mohrenschildts to dependence on the generosity of the Paines.

A few days previously, on February 17, Marina Oswald had written the Soviet Embassy, apparently at her husband’s insistence, to request assistance in returning to the USSR. This letter differed markedly from Marina’s earlier genial communications with the Embassy, due to its specific pleading and urgency. ¹⁸ As their friendship took root, Ruth Paine would go into something of a panic as Marina spoke of Lee’s insistence she return to Russia. Her first offers for Marina to stay with her in Irving are made in response, a persistent theme through the year. Earlier, in November 1962, the Dallas area Russian community had been canvassed to find a place “where (Marina) could live with somebody for 2 or 3 months.” ¹⁹

214 West Neely Street

The Oswalds moved again soon after the Magnolia Oil party, on March 3, 1963 to 214 West Neely Street, a short distance away. After moving to this address, Oswald was said to have begun surveillance of General Edwin Walker’s residence and ordered the rifle from Klein’s Sporting Goods. At this address the backyard photos were said to have been taken, followed by Oswald’s supposed assassination attempt on General Walker. Notes taken by Dallas Police Homicide Captain Will Fritz during Oswald’s interrogations indicate Oswald was distinctly evasive about this location. During her testimony to the Warren Commission, Marina allowed that Oswald’s behavior had changed in this time:

Mrs. OSWALD. … the later time he was more excited and more nervous but it was quite a contrast between the way he was in Russia.

Mr. RANKIN. By the later time that you just referred to what do you mean? Can you give us some approximate date?

Mrs. OSWALD. When we went to Neely Street. (WC, February 3, 1964)

CE404. In a letter dated March 4, 1963, Marina Oswald drew Ruth Paine a map to 214 Neely Street

Known visitors to this address included a few members of the White Russian community, the de Mohrenschildt’s once or twice, Michael Paine once and Ruth Paine several times, and also Gary Taylor, George de Mohrenschildt’s now estranged son-in-law. He came by the apartment one afternoon, when Lee Oswald was at work.

Mr. JENNER. Why did you go there?

Gary Taylor: “Some of the baby’s toys – a ball and something or other – were out there on this porch.”

Mr. TAYLOR. Just for a friendly visit. Marina was at home. She – her English had improved enough for her to get across to me a few ideas … I did inform Marina of my impending divorce and – uh – in other words, telling her that Mrs. Taylor and I were no longer living together and we had separated.” (WC testimony March 25, 1964)

Taylor was able to recall a specific image: “this apartment in question had a small balcony on the front of it and I remember the door was open and I thought what a nice place for the baby to play and some of the baby’s toys – a ball and something or other – were out there on this porch.”

Early during Taylor’s testimony, Commission counsel Albert Jenner established:

Mr. JENNER. During the time you had your interest, which you still may have, in – what did you say – photographing?

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes …

Mr. JENNER. Are you an amateur camera fan?

Mr. TAYLOR. Just a little bit. I try to carry it on as best I can …

His former wife Alexandra (Mrs Donald Gibson) confirmed “he was working on and off with a photographer … ” (WC testimony May 28, 1964). In light of Gary Taylor’s photography interest, the Commission’s interest in establishing this hobby, and his specific recollection of June Oswald on the Neely Street balcony – this may establish the origin of the Neely Street balcony photographs (and assist in emphasizing Lee Oswald did not take any “family-type snapshots” while in America 1962-63).

Oswald and the Walker Shooting

A Dallas Times Herald story titled Walker Target of Sniper’s Blast, dated Thursday April 11, 1963, describes the aftermath of the apparent assassination attempt directed at General Walker (CD1019 pp. 4-5). Walker is portrayed as upbeat and on-message:

“The Kennedys say there’s no internal threat to our freedom,” the general said with a laugh, nodding to the gaping hole in the wall. Gen Walker said the shooting was not going to slow him up in any way from carrying out his fight against Communists at home and abroad. “The shooting here is going to speed me up. You know I said … that the front lines were right here at home – in Dallas,” he said.

This assassination attempt, on the immediate heels of Walker’s cross-country tour with the Christian crusader Billy James Hargis, had an element of convenience in that it underscored Walker’s message of vigilance, despite the absence of suspects. Walker could be portrayed as patriotically filling out his tax forms, reacting bravely to the shot, then eschewing medical care so he could continue with his taxes. Viewed through a cynical lens, one might wonder if this was really an assassination attempt at all.

If Oswald was involved in this supposed assassination attempt against General Walker, and there’s a chance he was, then the circumstances would certainly bear little to no relation to the stories told by Marina Oswald and adopted by the Warren Commission. Marina’s Walker stories portray Oswald as erratic, irrational, and prone to panic. This flies in the face of the common perception of Oswald as calm and collected whatever the circumstance. ²⁰ The Warren Commission’s acceptance of Oswald as the lone would-be assassin of Walker in turn disavows sightings of multiple persons surveying Walker’s residence ahead of the shooting, and multiple persons fleeing the area immediately after the shot was fired.

Whatever the true circumstances, Oswald is linked to the Walker incident at least by association, since one of the so-called surveillance photos of the Walker residence was identified as having been taken with the same Imperial Reflex camera responsible for the backyard photos. ²¹ The Walker surveillance photos would be discovered among Oswald’s possessions at Ruth Paine’s home.

Researcher Dick Russell interviewed Walker for his book The Man Who Knew Too Much, and was told a private investigation revealed brothers Larrie and Bob Schmidt may have connected with Oswald and may have been responsible for the shooting at Walker’s home. ²² The Schmidt brothers were far-right political activists, part of a scene described by Peter Dale Scott as a “Minutemen-Cuban exile-General Walker milieu supported by H.L. Hunt.” Oswald the Marxist would have no business making friends with such persons. The paths of Oswald, Larrie Schmidt and General Walker would cross again in the autumn of 1963. Schmidt and Walker tie back to Munich, where a right-wing newspaper would print a story on November 29, 1963 claiming Oswald was responsible for the Walker assassination attempt. ²³ Marina Oswald began relating her version of the alleged Walker attempt four days later on December 3, 1963.

The Warren Commission corroborated Marina Oswald’s version with testimony from the de Mohrenschildts, focused on a supposed trip one night to Neely Street to present an Easter toy for infant June. In one version of this story, Marina Oswald takes Jeanne de Mohrenschildt on a tour of the Neely Street apartment and the rifle is observed, prompting George to joke that Oswald could have been Walker’s would-be assassin. In the other, de Mohrenschildt makes the Walker joke as they are greeted at the door. Jeanne de Mohrenschildt was nervous as she testified about this visit, and she implied her visit to 214 West Neely actually occurred on a different occasion.

Mr. JENNER. Was it upstairs or downstairs?

Mrs. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Upstairs. There was a little terrace, and a big tree growing right next to the terrace.

Mr. JENNER. Had you been there before?

Mrs. De MOHRENSCHILDT. No.

Mr. JENNER. That is the first time you had ever been there?

Mrs. De MOHRENSCHILDT. I don’t remember. Maybe I was. I don’t think so.

Mr. JENNER. All right … Now, just relax –

Mrs. De MOHRENSCHILDT. I am trying to think hard, because every little fact could be important.

Mr. JENNER. But you are excited. Relax, and tell me everything that occurred, chronologically, as best you can on that occasion. You came to the door and either Marina or Oswald came to the door, and you and your husband went in the home?

Mrs. De MOHRENSCHILDT. That is right.

Mr. JENNER. Then, go on. Tell me about it.

Mrs. De MOHRENSCHILDT. And I believe from what I remember George sat down on the sofa and started talking to Lee, and Marina was showing me the house that is why I said it looks like it was the first time, because why would she show me the house if I had been there before? (WC testimony April 24, 1964)

When Jeanne de Mohrenschildt had been interviewed by a representative of the State Department in Haiti in early December 1963, she claimed to have seen a rifle in Oswald’s possession in the autumn of 1962 (State Department airtel December 8, 1963). Marina Oswald first described showing a rifle to Jeanne de Mohrenschildt at 214 West Neely Street during an FBI interview December 11, 1963, but this story does not mention it being nighttime or that Oswald and George de Mohrenschildt were also there (CE1403). Questioned later the same day, Marina told of an occasion when George de Mohrenschildt visited and made a joke about Oswald shooting Walker, but Jeanne’s presence and observation of the rifle is not mentioned. The Warren Commission, for its part, apparently did not notice that the rifle is allegedly seen inside a small room elsewhere described as Oswald’s secret sanctum, a room said to be completely off-limits to Marina.

Jeanne de Mohrenschildt finished her Easter visit recollections to the Commission’s Albert Jenner with a concrete image: “And we left. She got me some roses. They had a big rose tree right by the staircase. And she got me a lot of roses, and we went home.” This implies the de Mohrenschildt’s exited down the back staircase, even though it was night. It suggests that, in the dark, Marina Oswald plucked “a lot of roses” from a nearby bush. It is very possible that Jeanne de Mohrenschildt instead visited 214 West Neely during the day sometime in March or April 1963.

Could there be a reason for the de Mohrenschildt’s co-operation with the Warren Commission, supplying an important but untrue corroboration in the case against Lee Oswald? George de Mohrenschildt begins his Commission testimony with a matter of personal concern:

Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. You know, this affair actually is hurting me quite a lot, particularly right now in Haiti, because President Duvalier – I have a contract with the Government … They got wind I am called by the Warren committee … and I am about to be expelled from the country. My contract may be broken … So I hope that this unpleasantness will be somehow repaired … if the committee could do something in that respect … (WC testimony April 22, 1964)

Possible Circumstances of the Backyard Photos

If the backyard photos were not actually photographed at 214 West Neely Street in March or April 1963, then persons unknown made a considerable effort to make them appear as such. The Warren Commission used the props displayed by the Oswald figure to set a likely creation date (Sunday March 31), and to solidify a link between Oswald and the murder weapons. In addition to accessing these weapons and the newspapers, forgers would also require knowing that Oswald resided at this address in the first place, as his stay was only about eight weeks. ²⁴

According to Marina Oswald, the backyard photos were created to be submitted to the Socialist Worker’s Party newspaper The Militant:

Mrs. OSWALD. … it happened just before he went to shoot General Walker. Then, I asked him why he was taking this silly picture and he answered that he simply wanted to send it to the newspaper.

Mr. LIEBELER. The Militant?

Mrs. OSWALD. The Militant.

Mrs. OSWALD. I didn’t attach any significance to what he said at the time, but he added, “That maybe some day June will remember me.” He must have had something in his mind – some grandiose plans. (WC July 24, 1964)

If Oswald’s primary concern was to ingratiate and associate himself with The Militant, then a backyard photo would surely had the opposite effect. The firearms plus the ideological contrast of the two papers would have signaled Oswald as unhinged and confused rather than a reliable warrior for the cause. The photo would have revealed Oswald as some sort of provocateur and potentially compromised his upcoming activity for the Fair Play For Cuba Committee. ²⁵

Oswald contacted the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in mid-April, claiming he had leafletted in Dallas with a pro-Castro placard around his neck, and requested more pamphlets. A notation on Oswald’s letter indicates that 50 of what Oswald described as “fine, basic pamphlets” were sent to P.O. Box 2915 on April 19 (Lee Exhibit 1).

Oswald left for New Orleans on April 24. The Warren Commission, using the testimony of Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine, explained this as a response to desperate unemployment. Oswald had been out of work for less than three weeks, and it is not clear that the reasons for his leaving Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall were exactly that implied by his supervisors. ²⁶

Oswald contacted the Fair Play for Cuba Committee from New Orleans on May 26. He requested formal membership in the organization: “I have been thinking about renting a small office at my own expense for the purpose of forming a F.P.C.C. branch here in New Orleans.” He desires information on “buying pamphlets in large lots, as well as blank FPCC applications … a picture of Fidel, suitable for framing would be a welcome touch” (Lee Exhibit 2).

In Dick Russell’s book, Richard Nagell emphasized Oswald was not trying to “penetrate” the FPCC: “His involvement with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans was something entirely different. There was no chapter of the committee that he was associated with, not in reality. It was a ploy.” Former New Orleans CIA agent William Gaudet would tell Russell: “I don’t think (Oswald) knew exactly what he was distributing … (with) the Fair Play for Cuba deal, which was nothing but a front and was one of the dreams of – I think Guy Banister.” ²⁷

When Oswald arrived in New Orleans, the Fair Play for Cuba operation was already active, the first contact made in mid-April, suggesting his association with Banister had been arranged while Oswald was still in Dallas. The intrigue of March and April 1963 – which includes the fast friendship with the Paines, the ordering of the rifle from Klein’s Sporting Goods, the Walker attempt, the backyard photos, the start of the FPCC activity and the move to New Orleans – is not easily explained by the official record, which relies largely on Marina Oswald’s shifting testimony. Lee Oswald’s activity requires assistance, of which the Warren Report is silent.

On the morning of November 23, 1963 the FBI were in contact with M. Waldo George, who was the owner of 214 West Neely Street. George did not reside at or nearby that address, and his contact with Oswald the previous spring had been limited to three brief occasions. The Warren Commission obtained an affidavit from George dated June 12, 1964.(WCH Vol. XI, p 155) In this affidavit, tenants of the ground floor apartment at 214 Neely Street were identified as Mr. and Mrs. George B Gray. The Grays would have conceivably served as crucial witnesses to this extremely important time period, witnesses who had maybe seen Oswald with his rifle, or witnessed the backyard photo session, seen visitors to the Oswald suite, and who perhaps could verify Oswald’s bizarre activities leading to the Walker attempt (as described by Marina). A Secret Service Report from December 1963 (CE2189), however, just as the later affidavit, states succinctly: “The Gray family has now moved and Mr. George does not know where they moved to.”

It might be assumed the resources available to the Commission would succeed in locating these potentially crucial witnesses, the Gray family, but nothing appears in the published Report or Exhibits. However, buried inside Commission Document 6 – the FBI De Brueys Report of 8 Dec 1963 – is information from FBI SA Robert E. Wiatt, referring to a November 30, 1963 interview held in Corrigan, Texas with George B. Bray and his wife Clydie. Spelling aside, Mr Bray is clearly the downstairs tenant from 214 West Neely. Bray states: “The OSWALDS were moved into this apartment by a woman who was driving a white station wagon. This woman transported them and their personal belongings.” ²⁸ While Bray claims there was little contact with the new neighbors, as he and his wife both worked full time, he does recall an astonishing detail: “OSWALD and his wife often quarreled loudly and on occasions these quarrels occurred in the presence of an unknown male visitor who utilized the back stairs to visit the OSWALDS. This man is described only as white male having a chunky build.” (CD6, p. 57)

“An unknown male visitor who utilized the back stairs”

A man with a “chunky build” does not square with the known visitors to the West Neely apartment. ²⁹ This man “utilized” the back staircase, which suggests furtive behavior, and he did so more than once (“on occasions”). He is not a casual acquaintance, as he is present during Lee and Marina’s quarreling. These quarrels may have had something to do with this man. Despite this information, there is no record of any follow up with the Brays (Grays). Marina Oswald is never asked during her Warren Commission testimony if she could identify the “chunky” man who arrived up the back stairs and was present during quarrels with her husband. All that appears in the published record is an acknowledgment that there were downstairs tenants at 214 West Neely, who had since moved. This can be understood as a deliberate omission on the part of the Warren Commission, as the staff counsel were well versed in the contents of the Commission Documents.

Within this atmosphere of intrigue and furtive acquaintance, it is possible to envision a backyard photo session, featuring Oswald and arranged by an as-yet unknown person or persons. With both neighbors working full-time, using the back staircase Oswald and persons unknown could have accessed the backyard, taken three or more photos, and returned to the second-floor apartment without attracting undo attention. This could have happened on a weekday, such as Thursday April 11, 1963, when Ruth Paine shuttled Marina and June Oswald to a visit at her home in Irving. Following this reasoning, the persons unknown could have brought black clothing, the weapons, and the camera with them. The purpose of the photos could have been related to the Walker incident, which would have occurred the previous evening, or for the upcoming provocation involving the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The backyard photos are not random snapshots, as Oswald’s presentation featured deliberately selected clothing, weapons, and literature. The context of the backyard photos may relate to the intrigues of March/April 1963, and were later appropriated for the patsy operation.

The Neely Street duplex sat empty for a few months later in 1963. This presents a possibility the backyard photos were created at a later date, with the intent of superimposing Oswald’s face atop someone else’s body. The argument against this, noted by the HSCA photography panel, due to the technical skill required to produce a composite which did not give itself away too obviously, purported forgers would have been content creating one single photo. It is difficult to understand why the Imperial Reflex camera would not also have been stashed within Oswald’s seabags, as the two forged photos must have been. Instead, the camera’s insertion into the record was awkward and required questionable and uncorroborated information from Irving policeman John McCabe.

There is nothing uniquely incriminating within the backyard photos, and they were not absolutely necessary to the posthumous prosecution of Oswald. For the Warren Report, paper trails trace the mail order firearms to Oswald’s postal box, and paper trails to CPUSA and SWP establish Oswald’s Marxist bona fides. The backyard photos are invoked as secondary confirmation of Oswald’s guilt, but their true influence is marked by their power and value as a photographed image. ³⁰ The backyard photos, whether forged or retrieved from another operation, were placed with Oswald’s belongings for the purpose of public dissemination.

The introduction of a backyard photo to the Dallas police on Friday night November 22, 1963 was probably not planned and may have been a response to Oswald’s survival, also not planned. The Friday photo may have served the purpose of convincing key personnel of the Dallas police and other investigators that Oswald was the assassin, as Curry, Wade, and Fritz insisted he was during statements to the media when no evidence to support this claim otherwise existed and Oswald proclaimed his innocence.

Accepting that the backyard photos were not taken by Marina Oswald, and that the Imperial Reflex camera was not owned by Oswald, and accepting that the photos are genuine, it follows that whoever was responsible for these photos was known to Oswald, was known to Ruth Paine, had something to do with the Walker “assassination attempt”, and had a hand in setting up Oswald as the patsy for the Kennedy assassination.

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Notes