It was 60 years ago on Nov. 22, 1963, that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in the streets of Dallas with his wife, Jackie.
There is a key witness in the investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of JFK, whom I discovered is living right in Santa Rosa, Calif., where I live; in fact, in the same part of town. Her name is Ruth Paine. She is now age 91 and living in the Friend’s House, a lovely facility for elderly people, sponsored by the Quakers.
I called their number and was connected to Ruth. She graciously accepted an appointment for an interview and allowed me to take a picture of her. This was done a year ago, November 2022.
The picture shows her seated on her small porch in front of the window of her apartment showing the slogans that she, as a Quaker and a peace activist, has stood for most of her life: “War Is Not the Answer” and “Love Thy Neighbor.” She felt so strongly that our nation should not be involved in war that she refused to give her entire yearly taxes to the IRS and would deduct what she thought was the amount that our government was using for war. She would always write a letter to the IRS explaining why she was not paying the full amount and would even copy her congressmen.
Ruth’s Involvement With Oswald and His Wife
In 1962, Ruth was separated from her husband, Michael, and was living in Dallas with her two children when she met Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife at a party. Marina was from Russia, where Lee had met her. Ruth was studying Russian, so that helped them have a connection.
The Oswalds had been living in Fort Worth with Lee’s mother and were moving to Dallas, and they needed a place to stay, but they were also separated and needed separate places to live. Ruth said that Marina and their two small daughters, June and Rachel, could stay with her. In exchange, Marina could give her Russian tutoring lessons.
The reason the Oswalds were separated was probably because Lee had a terrible temper and was often abusive and would hit Marina. Lee lost his job, and Marina suggested that he go back to New Orleans where his relatives were and maybe they could help him. He did find a job in New Orleans, and Ruth was kind enough to drive Marina and her children to join him there. Lee was working for the Louisiana Coffee Co. but didn’t like it and only worked there from May until August.
In September, Ruth drove to New Orleans and helped them move back to Dallas. Lee then made a surprise bus trip to Mexico City to visit the Cuban and Russian Embassy, wanting to move to Cuba, but he was denied. When he returned, Ruth, through a friend, was able to get Lee a job working at the Texas School Book Depository, the seven-story warehouse that supplied the schools in both Texas and Oklahoma with the textbooks they needed.
(This building “just by coincidence” turned out to be a “perfect sniper nest” where just six weeks later, on Nov. 22, he supposedly stood before the sixth-floor window to have a perfect view of the motorcade passing below with the convertible car carrying JFK and his wife.)
Oswald’s Childhood
Ruth Paine told me that she was always worried about Oswald. He did not seem like a very stable person. She found out that he had had a rough childhood growing up without a father and with a very difficult mother. His father had died of a heart attack two months before he was born. His mother, Marguerite, was not very loving. She remarried for only three years, and she was then single again and had a hard time supporting her family of three children: Lee, his older brother Robert, and his half-brother John.According to an interview with Oswald’s brother Robert by Frontline Magazine on Nov. 13, 2013, Marguerite and her three children moved frequently—20 times before Oswald was age 17. Sometimes the children were put in an orphanage and Lee was put in a boarding school. Marguerite made sure they all knew what a burden they were on her.
The older brothers both left home early and served in the Marines. With all the moves and his unstable life, Lee had a real struggle in school and was a loner. He would just sit by himself and read. One of the places that he and his mother lived was New York City. He spent much time in the public library there reading. That could be where he began to learn about Marxism.
Oswald’s Time in the Marines
An article from PBS Frontline on Nov. 19, 2013, states that Oswald spent only three years in the Marines, for the most part stationed in Japan. He learned to be a sharp shooter, the one thing he enjoyed. The rest was a real struggle for him.‘Allusions of Grandeur’
In an article about Oswald in PsychologyToday.com in November 2013, a psychologist, Stephen A. Diamond, gave an analysist of Oswald as a typical loner, coming from a sad childhood and seeking “allusions of grandeur,” wanting to do something that would make him stand out and feel important.Oswald Defected to the Soviet Union
In 1959, after Oswald said he was allowed to “voluntarily leave the service” (he was really “dishonorably discharged”), he was disillusioned with his life in the United States and decided to defect to the Soviet Union. He traveled to Finland and went by train to Moscow, where he sought to become a citizen. In his letter applying for Soviet citizenship, he wrote, “I want Citizenship because I am a Communist and a worker. I have lived in a decadent capitalist society, where the workers are slaves.”He fantasized “he would be welcomed as a hero with open arms.” But instead, the Soviet officials promptly rejected him, telling the stunned American to go home.
Oswald was so discouraged and despondent that he tried to commit suicide. He wrote in what he called his “historic diary” the following: “I am shocked! My fondes [sic] dreams are shattered. … I decided to end it. Soak wris [sic] in cold water to numb the pain, then slash my left wrist.”
Shortly after this journal entry, he did slash his wrist and was found unconscious in the bathtub. He was rushed to a local hospital in Moscow, where he remained for a week. The Soviet officials then decided to let him stay, under extremely “close scrutiny.” The KGB had intensive spying on him the entire time he was in the Soviet Union.
He also became involved with a group of students. They wanted him to teach them English, especially to speak with a southern accent as Oswald did. Oswald stayed for three years, working and marrying a young Russian woman, Marina. However, feeling bored and disappointed with the reality of life in the Soviet Union, in 1962, Oswald returned to the United States, taking Marina with him along with their three-month old daughter, June. They ended up back in Fort Worth, living with his mother.
Oswald’s First Attempted Killing
Ruth told me that most people are not aware that seven months before the killing of JFK, on April 10, Oswald had attempted to kill another man with the same powerful military rifle that he used on JFK. Ruth discovered that Oswald had it stored in her own garage, hidden inside a rolled-up blanket.Background on Major General Walker
In doing more research on Walker, I found out that he served in both World War II and the Korean War. In 1955, on assignment in Korea, he became aware of the communist Chinese brainwashing tactics that were being used on our U.S. military (what the Manchurian Candidate book and movie were all about). In October 1959, Walker was appointed commander of the 24th Infantry Division in Europe, stationed in Augsburg, Germany.‘Pro-Blue’ Program
Walker decided to start a program to counter the propaganda and brainwashing tactics of the communists. He called it “Pro-Blue,” a program for teaching his troops about the true history of our nation to make them proud to be American and have them become “true-blue” loyal Americans so they could not be so easily brainwashed.However, he also encouraged his troops to vote for Barry Goldwater in the presidential election. Of course, that did not go over well with President John F. Kennedy or Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. They also were upset with Walker for calling Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman “pinkos” (meaning small communists) in print.
In 1961, Walker was called home and relieved of his command. Walker then resigned from the army, even turning down his pension. He moved to Dallas, where more conservatives lived.
Walker wasn’t against integration. He was against the federal troops being used. He believed they should have used the state national guard. He had been assigned to bring in federal troops under Eisenhower in the Little Rock integration of schools, and he didn’t like it then either.
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy had Walker arrested for his protesting and had him committed to an insane asylum for a 90-day evaluation. But many people, even psychiatrists and the ACLU, protested Walker being there. Walker was released after five days. When he came back to Dallas, there was a huge crowd of people at the airport to welcome him.
In the beginning of 1963, Walker had been traveling around Texas on a six-week speaking tour with Billy James Hargis, head of the Christian Crusade. They were warning people about communism and how it had infiltrated high up in our government and among Hollywood movie stars, schoolteachers, and university professors.
Walker was back home in Dallas, seated at his desk and working on his taxes on April 10, when a gunshot was heard; a bullet went through the window and right over his scalp, parting his hair and causing bleeding.
The Hidden Note
Ruth Paine had made copies of the note and allowed me to take one. It was originally written in Russian and showed a list of what Oswald had provided for Marina in case he was arrested or killed—things like the mailbox that he had opened at the post office and paid for where his checks from work would be sent; a message to her that he had paid for the rent, the water, and the gas; and instructions on where his papers were, in a small blue suitcase. He left her as much money as he could, $60 and $10 a week. The last item (#11) stated, “If I am alive and taken prisoner, the city jail is at the end of the bridge we always used to cross when we went to town.”Why Did Oswald Try to Kill Walker?
When I asked Ruth Paine if she believed Oswald was a communist and someone high up in the Communist Party was telling him whom to kill, she said no. She believes that he was just emotionally and mentally disturbed and that he acted alone on both shootings.She believes that he had targeted Walker because he was so prominent in Texas at the time and Oswald wanted to make a name for himself. But he immediately fled the scene (with an obvious accomplice because Oswald did not drive), so he did not make a name for himself. No one knew about it until later.
Many others believed Oswald was a communist or a communist sympathizer. His fellow Marines said that Oswald was often making pro-Russian, pro-Cuban, and anti-American radical remarks. According to the testimony of his wife Marina before the Warren Commission, Oswald wanted to kill Walker because he felt Walker was “a bad man; the leader of a fascist organization,” and Lee “was very sorry that he had not hit him.”
In the Warren Commission hearings in which Marina was asked to testify, she said that some communist leader (probably from New York) had written a letter to Lee, and Lee was very happy after receiving it.
Assassination of JFK
As mentioned, Ruth said that the large rifle that Oswald had used, unknown to her, had been stored in her garage, placed inside a rolled-up blanket. Oswald always came to visit Marina on the weekend, but this time he came on a Thursday and spent the night. He must have gotten the gun then.The next day was Nov. 22. Oswald was picked up and taken to work at the TSBD by Buell Frazier, a friend and fellow worker, who later testified that he believed Oswald was innocent. Frazier said that Oswald had the gun wrapped in brown paper, and he assumed it was the curtain rods that Oswald had talked about getting for the sixth-floor window where he worked.
Three shots rang out. Not only was JFK fatally shot, but Governor Connally was shot as well. He had injuries to his chest, hand, and thigh. (Some historians even wonder if maybe Connally was Oswald’s real target. Oswald resented Connally since he rejected Oswald’s plea for assistance coming back from Russia. He wanted Connally to overturn his “dishonorable discharge” from the Marines, but Connally refused to do so.)
The Killing of Officer J.D. Tippits and Oswald’s Capture
Oswald left his rifle on the sixth floor and immediately fled the building. He caught a bus a few blocks away and then a taxi back to his room at the boardinghouse where he was staying at 1026 N. Beckley Ave. in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. He got his revolver and a coat to cover it with and started walking aimlessly.Oswald resented being questioned. Angry words were expressed, and as Tippits got out of his car, Oswald shot him with the gun he had hidden under his coat.
Oswald then fled into a busy shopping area close by. He discarded his coat and began darting in and out of storefronts, hiding from police cars he heard driving by with their sirens wailing. Johnny Calvin Brewer, the manager of a shoe store, noticed Oswald’s suspicious behavior and began following him for several blocks. He saw Oswald duck into a vintage movie theater called the Texas Theatre, once owned by Howard Hughes.
Oswald slipped by a distracted ticket taker, who was listening to the radio, and disappeared into the darkness. Brewer hailed a police officer, Nick McDonald, who entered the theater accompanied by another officer. The movie that was playing was “War is Hell,” starring Audie Murphy. It was a fitting movie title for the capture of Oswald, whose whole life had been a kind of war against himself and the world.
Soon enough, the movie was stopped, and the lights came up. As McDonald came up the aisle, the manager of the theater pointed out Oswald as the one who had just come in.
When the officers approached him, Oswald stood up and shouted, “This is it!” and pulled out his revolver. But McDonald leapt on him, getting his finger between the pistol’s hammer and the bullet, and the gun did not go off. A scuffle ensued. Oswald punched one of the officers, and the officer punched him back, giving Oswald a black eye and a cut. They handcuffed him and took him to the Dallas jail.
At least a dozen people witnessed Oswald’s killing of Officer J.D. Tippits and easily identified him at police headquarters. It wasn’t until a few hours later that he was accused of also killing JFK.
Oswald denied having killed anyone. In fact, he called himself a “patsy,” meaning someone else had done the killing and had given him the rap for it.
Death of Oswald
We were never able to find out more, since Oswald did not live long enough to come to trial. Two days after the JFK assassination, on Nov. 24, a crowd of police and press were gathered in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters with television cameras filming as Oswald was being transferred from the local jail to a more secure facility. Suddenly, from the midst of the crowd, a man emerged, armed also with a 38 revolver, and shot Oswald point blank.The man was Jack Ruby, the owner of a local nightclub and strip joint. He claimed that his rage at Oswald over the death of Kennedy was the motive for the killing and he didn’t want Kennedy’s wife, Jackie, to have to endure the emotional trauma of the trial of Oswald.
The Official Warren Commission Report
Ruth Paine was one of the witnesses before the Warren Commission. She testified that Oswald acted alone, both in the attempted killing of Major General Walker and in the assassination of JFK. Many other witnesses testified the same. The Warren Commission concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy.Why Are the Files Still Secret?
If the Warren Commission’s conclusions are final, why are so many key JFK files still being kept secret? In 2017, President Trump was the only U.S. president to finally release some of the files—2,800 of them—but kept back 300 files as still classified.Conspiracy Theories Abound
Of course, with so much secrecy, conspiracy theories still surround the event. Even the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that JFK was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be disputed by some.Statement by Frazier
Oswald’s fellow worker Buell Frazier used to drive Oswald to work at the TSBD and back. He does not believe Oswald is guilty of the killing. He even saw the long gun wrapped in brown paper that Oswald put in the back seat of his car. He thought it was the curtain rods that Oswald had mentioned he was going to get to cover the window in his work area.In an interview with the Daily Mail on Nov. 20, 2015, Frazier testified that he did not believe that the quiet, gentle young man Lee Oswald was capable of the shootings. He is sure that it was members of a cabal that were putting the blame on him, while the real killers were those who fired shots from the grassy knoll. It was those bullets that hit Kennedy from behind and killed him.
Statement by Kerry
There was also a statement by John Kerry, who is a second cousin to Michael Paine, Ruth’s husband. According to the Daily Mail, when Mr. Kerry was serving as Secretary of State to President Obama, he was interviewed by Tom Brokaw, Nov. 11, 2013. When asked about the JFK assassination, he said, “To this day, I have serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.”Mr. Brokaw replied, “Really?”
Mr. Kerry expounded: “I certainly have doubts that he was motivated by himself. I mean, I’m not sure if anybody else is involved—I won’t go down that road with respect to the Grassy Knoll theory and all that—but I have serious questions about whether they got to the bottom of Lee Harvey Oswald’s time and influence from Cuba and Russia.”
Motives and Other Questions
Why would Oswald want to kill JFK, one of the most beloved presidents? Ruth Paine believes that Oswald was just trying to make a name for himself, the same reason that he was trying to kill Walker. He had failed at so many things that he had tried to do in life, and he wanted to be recognized as doing something spectacular, even if it was something so evil.However, if that is the case, then why did Oswald continue to deny that he did it and say that he was just a patsy?
The Warren Commission’s conclusions that all three bullets fired were from the same person and from the same window with such accuracy does not hold water for two main reasons: 1) The bullet holes in President Kennedy’s suit jacket and shirt that corresponded to his neck wound were too low to have come from the sixth floor of the TSBD building. Documentation from both the autopsy and the death certificate state this. 2) Several of the witnesses to the assassination stated that another bullet hit Governor John Connally after Kennedy had already been shot, disproving the single-bullet theory’s assertion that the same bullet hit Kennedy and Connally. Connally himself and his wife both testified before the commission that they saw Kennedy get hit by a separate bullet before Connally himself was struck.
Oswald’s records in shooting as a Marine compared favorably with the average U.S. citizen but were not that high for a Marine. And by Nov. 22, 1963, he had been away from the Marines for several years. His attempted but failed killing of Major General Walker, when Walker was quietly sitting down and not a moving target, makes one again question Oswald’s skill as a sharpshooter.
Although Oswald was only about 90 yards away from the presidential limousine, a reasonable distance for a skilled marksman, it was a moving target and had to be shot at an angle, all while under intense pressure. Further complicating the shot was that a traffic light pole and an oak tree temporarily obstructed the target at different points.
Conspiracy Motivation?
If it is true that there was a group of conspiring men who wanted to have JFK killed and some of them were on the grassy knoll doing the shooting, what would be their motivation? There could be a number of things:1) JFK wanted to do away with the Federal Reserve. He had actually passed an executive order to disband the Federal Reserve and to put our country back on the silver standard. It was called Executive Order 11110 and was signed on June 4, 1963. It returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency without going through the Federal Reserve, as it used to be before the Fed was created in 1913. It gave back to the U.S. treasurer the control over the currency. It also created $4 billion of currency backed by silver.
After the death of JFK, when VP Lyndon Bane Johnson came into office as the new president, one of the first things he did was remove JFK’s 11110 executive order. It became a rumor that “no one in office can touch the Fed because if you do you’ll end up like JFK.”
I wrote about the sneaky way in which the Fed came into being in 1913 and how powerful it is in a book that was published in 2010 called “By Stealth and Deception.”
2) JFK wanted to pull our troops out of the Vietnam War and bring them home. He instructed Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to develop an appropriate withdrawal plan. Officially, Kennedy’s policy for Vietnam centered on a tentative withdrawal of 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963 and a complete withdrawal of all U.S. special assistance personnel by the end of 1965.
This was totally contrary to the “War Hawks” in the U.S. government who wanted to escalate the war and also the mighty international bankers who make so much money off the debt that nations go into as they fund their wars. There are also the powerful industries and corporations who make so much money selling their war equipment vehicles. This is all part of the “military industrial complex” that President Ike Eisenhower warned us about.
Sure enough, following Kennedy’s assassination, when Lyndon B. Johnson took over as president, America’s involvement in Vietnam escalated, shifting to a large-scale conflict by 1968 when nearly 550,000 American troops were involved.
3) JFK wanted to crack down on organized crime. The Kennedy family allegedly had many links to organized crime, starting with Joe Kennedy, Jack’s father. In fact, it is believed that the Mafia mob boss Sam Giancana was instrumental in Kennedy winning the presidential election. Giancana held considerable sway in Chicago politics, and rumors persist that he was instrumental in handing the crucial swing state of Illinois to Kennedy.
However, the Kennedy administration soon alienated much of the mafia by cracking down on organized crime, spearheaded by the work of Kennedy’s brother, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy sought to eliminate the mafia’s influence over powerful labor unions, such as the Teamsters Union led by Jimmy Hoffa. Many mob bosses were infuriated by the supposed betrayal by John F. Kennedy, who they thought would turn a blind eye to most of their activities.
There is much support for the view that the assassination of Kennedy was the work of the mafia, who felt threatened by the policies of Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. Frank Ragano, attorney of Jimmy Hoffa, claimed that mob boss Santos Trafficante admitted to him that he had played a role in Kennedy’s assassination. The organized crime theory is relevant because nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald two days later, also had ties to organized crime.
4) JFK adamantly opposed Israel’s plan to develop nuclear weapons. His uncompromising posture enraged Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and brought upon him the wrath of the MOSSAD, Israeli’s equivalent to the CIA.
5) There are other theories and possible motives, such as the theory that Vice President Johnson wanted JFK dead. Kennedy was too popular, and so was his brother Bobby. Johnson felt that JFK was grooming Bobby to be the president after him, but Johnson wanted that position, and so did the conspiring men behind him, so if JFK was killed, Johnson could take over without having to run for office and could then do all the socialist things that he was able to accomplish.
Conclusion
I am grateful to Ruth Paine for her interview, which whet my curiosity to do more research and learn more. After my research, I am also of the opinion that there is much in the Warren Commission that is being kept hidden and in the many JFK files that are still not allowed to be open.Hopefully someday the total truth will be able to be revealed. Until that day, one can understand why conspiracy theories are flourishing and more people are beginning to believe that a very dark, deep state is running our nation and government.
