Ruth and Michael Paine
By Bill Simpich [Originally published 6/3/2012]
Oswald returned from the Soviet Union speaking Russian with a Polish accent
When Oswald and his family returned to the Dallas-Fort Worth area from the Soviet Union, they knew that they had make contacts if they were going to put food on the table. Oswald sought out Peter Gregory shortly after his arrival. Peter Gregory described himself as an “oil consultant” who came from Russia in 1923. He was also a translator who had his son Paul take Russian lessons from Oswald’s wife Marina. Gregory provided Oswald with a letter certifying Oswald’s ability to serve as a translator. Gregory commented on Oswald’s pronounced Polish accent, which was a result of Oswald’s extended time with Legend Maker #8 Alexander Ziger and the entire Ziger family.
Dallas oilman/spy George de Mohrenschildt became a benefactor to the Oswald family, providing them with money and contacts after their return to the US from the Soviet Union. As discussed earlier, de Mohrenschildt’s lawyer Max Clark was also General Dynamics’ industrial security consultant and a leader within the White Russian community. Oswald contacted Max Clark’s wife shortly after his return, explaining that the Texas Employment Commission had referred her to him as a Russian-speaker and that his wife would like to spend time with another Russian-speaker.
Both Peter Gregory and Max Clark displayed furtiveness and unclean hands after JFK was killed. On 11/28/63, Gregory assisted the Secret Service in translating a lengthy interrogation of Marina Oswald. On 11/29/63, both Gregory and Clark told FBI agent Earle Haley that Oswald had obtained their names from the Fort Worth Public Library, where Gregory worked. When Clark testified before the Warren panel, he changed his story to say that Oswald was referred to his wife by the Texas Employment Commission (TEC). Clearly, both men had initially tried to keep their TEC contacts away from public view. The TEC – better known as the state unemployment agency – kept extensive records on Oswald that are now available and open up all sorts of questions. After a complaint by the Warren Commission staff that these earlier reports contradicted the Warren Commission testimony, Hoover ordered Legend Maker #6 FBI supervisor Marvin Gheesling to confront them on these contradictions.
When Gheesling re-assigned the case to the Dallas FBI office, agent Earle Haley went back and re-interviewed Clark and Gregory. Haley was a personal acquaintance of Max Clark, who used to work with “Earle“. Gregory wouldn’t change his story and blamed it on Oswald, while Clark said he heard about the whole issue second-hand from his wife, who always knew Oswald got her name from the Texas Employment Commission. Max’s wife Gali Clark was treated with kid gloves. There’s no indication that Haley or anyone else ever followed up with her.
Oswald had legend makers precisely because he and his wife presented a perceived threat to national security
De Mohrenschildt visited and exchanged cards and letters with CIA official J. Walton Moore on a regular basis during the fifties and sixties. Moore wrote a memo in 1977 claiming that he only met de Mohrenschildt twice, in 1958 and in 1961. Moore’s hazy memory on the number of visits was exposed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In 1964, a similar memo by Moore admitted that he met de Mohrenschildt in 1957, “several times” in 1958 and 1959, and the last time in 1961. There was more than just that. De Mohrenschildt sent Moore a stack of contact reports in 1957 and 1958. In 1958, Moore used de Mohrenschildt as a “contact” with a Polish official. In 1960, Moore referred to de Mohrenschildt as a “cleared contact” for a copy of a memo on the USSR’s use of petroleum.
Moore visited the De Mohrenschildts’ home in late 1961 to see a movie of their “walking tour” from Mexico to Panama. HSCA Report, Volume 12, p. 54. Although the de Mohrenschildts said that they were tracking the mining trails of the old Spanish conquistadors, they found themselves with hundreds of Cuban exiles in Guatemala City, a staging area for the Bay of Pigs invasion that was about to begin. De Mohrenschildt revealed a few hours before his death that Moore took him to lunch in late 1961, and described to him an ex-Marine in Minsk in whom the CIA had “interest”. In the summer of 1962, an associate of Moore suggested that de Mohrenschildt might want to meet Oswald. De Mohrenschildt then called Moore, suggesting that suitable payback would be a little help by the State Department with an oil exploration deal in Haiti.
After the assassination, R.S. Travis at the Domestic Contact Division identified ten separate domestic contact reports prepared by de Mohrenschildt, and tipped off the staff of Legend Maker #1 Jim Angleton at the counterintelligence office. Travis referred to De Mohrenschildt as Moore’s “source,” and asked Moore to provide his personal evaluation of George for the CI Staff. Moore wrote an intriguing evaluation that admitted that he had sought out de Mohrenschildt as “the result of a source lead from Headquarters” in 1957, but scrambled to avoid any direct admissions of the role he played in bringing de Mohrenschildt and Oswald together. Moore’s evaluation was so carefully prepared that the file includes what appears to be a far-different rough draft.
Moore’s poor memory triggered internal scrutiny by the CIA’s Reinvestigation Program. Moore went so far as to tell the CI staffer for Angleton “there is no White Russian ‘community’ in Dallas. He knows of only a couple of Russian linguists who are used by the Socony labs for translation. Jim feels the word ‘community’ is inapplicable. In any event he has had no contact with any such group”. This memo is one of several indications that the task for Angleton’s staff was to sanitize de Mohrenschildt’s checkered history. Moore was a former FBI agent and college roommate of Wallace Heitman, a Soviet language specialist who played the lead role for the FBI in controlling the first-day evidence.
Although US intelligence records on de Mohrenschildt go back to at least World War II, CIA Director Richard Helms said that the agency’s “initial interest” in George de Mohrenschildt was because he had been a petrochemical consultant with the International Cooperation Administration (ICA). De Mohrenschildt was appointed by the State Department as the “petroleum adviser” for the independent communist Yugoslavian government in 1957, and testified to the Warren Commission that ICA was the only US government agency that ever paid him. The ICA became part of the Agency for International Development (AID) in 1961. The AID has been cited by its former director John Gilligan as being filled with CIA agents “from top to bottom…the idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas, government, volunteer, religious, every kind”.
In early 1963, de Mohrenschildt passed on his “babysitting duties” for the Oswald family to Ruth and Legend Maker #12 Michael Paine. Ruth’s father Bill Hyde was regional director of the Nationwide Insurance Company, part of the International Cooperative Alliance founded in 1922 and still active today. This similiarity between these two ICAs is not accidental – the contracts for both groups were coordinated through AID and the State Department. Both de Mohrenschildt and Hyde were business consultants that traveled abroad working on cooperative ventures and provided reports used by the CIA.
The covert action division of Legend Maker #2 Cord Meyer sought to use Hyde as a security consultant in Vietnam back in 1957, but CI-SIG’s information on Hyde resulted in the denial of any security clearance. Hyde’s problem, like Legend Maker #3 Priscilla Johnson, was that he was active with progressive causes and had family members involved with the United World Federalists. Meyer, the CIA covert action chief in 1963, had got into trouble with the FBI during the 1950s for his former role as president of the United World Federalists.
Keep in mind that the CIA was not supposed to have officers handling domestic agents tracking US citizens inside the country. That job was the FBI’s turf. Routing slips show that interactions between Oswald and the FBI after his return were carefully scrutinized. The rivalry between the CIA and the FBI led to CIA officers trying to work around the system. In this setting Ideal babysitters for the Oswald family were trusted people that were denied security clearances – such as de Mohrenschildt or Ruth’s father. Whether or not the babysitter knew that they were being monitored by intelligence, the operation could be kept in an officer’s vest pocket and never reduced to writing.
Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald became housemates after the Magnolia party
Ruth Paine met the Oswalds and George de Mohrenschildt at the party of Everett Glover on February 22, 1963. This is known as the “Magnolia party”. Glover was a chemist with Magnolia Labs, a geology lab for Socony Mobil Oil — the same “Socony labs” that Moore referred to when he argued that there was no White Russian community in Dallas. Glover and four other Magnolia employees approached Oswald and got him to talk for several hours about life in the Soviet Union. One of these employees, Norman Fredericksen, was the son of the former director of Radio Free Europe. As discussed in the previous chapter, de Mohrenschildt had many close ties with Radio Free Europe.
The Paines have been described by researcher Greg Parker as pragmatic pacifists. In an amazing coincidence, they moved from Pennsylvania to Oswald’s mother’s community of Irving, Texas during the second week of September 1959, the very week that Oswald abruptly left his mother and went off to defect to the USSR. They had made the move so that Michael could take a job with the military contractor Bell Helicopter. Michael said that Bell manufactured 40% of all of the helicopters used in the Vietnam War. Bell Helicopter was begun and run by Michael’s stepfather, Arthur Young, the most recent husband of Michael’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine.
They had made the move so that Michael could take a job with the military contractor Bell Helicopter. Michael said that Bell manufactured 40% of all of the helicopters used in the Vietnam War. Bell Helicopter was begun and run by Michael’s stepfather, Arthur Young, the most recent husband of Michael’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine.
Helicopters on the attack.
The Paines probably had a handler within the intelligence community in 1959, whether they knew it or not. Based on their background with the World Federalists and Ruth’s work with the Quakers and Soviet-American friendship committees, Cord Meyer is the logical candidate. By 1963, Meyer was the chief of the covert action division.
Frederick Merrill at the State Department put his stamp of approval on the East-West Contact Committee program organized by the Quakers that Ruth had worked on – the following year, Merrill worked on the Robert Webster defector case that was linked to the Oswald defector case. Did some combination of Meyer, AID and the State Department somehow persuade the Paines to keep an eye on this defector family, or were they simply manipulated into position? Ruth had other intelligence operatives in her family – such as her sister Sylvia Hoke and her brother-in-law John Hoke – who could play a role in helping to convince her. Michael Paine’s family also had access to talent in the intelligence arena. Michael’s mother had a close friend named Mary Bancroft who was an OSS spy that slept with Allen Dulles.
After the Magnolia party, Ruth asked Marina Oswald if she would like to live with her so that she could improve her Russian. Lee was about to leave Marina for awhile while he went to his home town of New Orleans and looked for more steady work. Michael and Ruth had ostensibly split up, and were living in different houses.
Part 8: The fiery Cuban dance steps of the CIA-Army Intelligence Mambo
Thanks to Barbara LaMonica, Greg Parker, Bill Kelly, and many other researchers for their insights on de Mohrenschildt and the Paines.
Endnotes:
Peter Gregory…was also a translator who had his son Paul take Russian lessons from Oswald’s wife Marina. Gregory provided Oswald with a letter certifying Oswald’s ability to serve as a translator: Warren Commission Document 5, p.l 290; SA Earle Haley interview with Peter Gregory, 11/29/63. Also see Secret Service report, below.
Gregory commented on Oswald’s pronounced Polish accent: Secret Service report of Leon Gopadze, 11/29/63, p. 3, FBI – HSCA Administrative Folders/NARA Record Number: 124-10369-10062.
Oswald contacted Max Clark’s wife shortly after his return: Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Max Clark, Volume 8, p. 344.
On 11/28/63, Gregory assisted the Secret Service in translating a lengthy interrogation of Marina Oswald: Secret Service report of Leon Gopadze, 11/29/63, p. 3, FBI – HSCA Administrative Folders/NARA Record Number: 124-10369-10062.
On 11/29/63, Clark and Gregory told FBI agent Earle Haley that Oswald had obtained their names from the Fort Worth ublic Library, where Gregory worked: Warren Commission Document 5, p. 262, SA Earle Haley interview with Max Clark, 11/29/63; p. 290, SA Earl Haley interview with Peter Gregory, 11/29/63.
After a complaint by the Warren Commission that these these earlier reports contradicted the witnesses’ Warren Commission testimony, Legend Maker #6 FBI supervisor Marvin Gheesling was forced to confront them on these contradictions: Memo from Warren Commission counsel J. Lee Rankin to FBI Director, 5/7/64; Memo from Gheesling to SAC, Dallas, FBI, 5/11/64, 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 151, p. 49.
After Gheesling re-assigned the case to the Dallas FBI office, agent Earle Haley went back and re-interviewed Clark and Gregory: Warren Commission Exhibits 1888, 1889, 5/14/64.
Haley was a personal acquaintance of Max Clark, who used to work with “ Earle “: Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Max Clark, Volume 8, pp. 349, 352.
Gregory wouldn’t change his story and blamed it on Oswald, while Clark said he heard about the whole issue second-hand from his wife: Warren Commission Exhibits 1888, 1889, 5/14/64.
The Washington Post and other papers ran a UPI article on 6/9/62 announcing the Oswalds’ impending arrival to Dallas: “Third American in 2 Months Leaves Soviet ‘Home'”, Washington Post, 6/9/62.
The FBI has got him tagged and is watching his movements: Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Max Clark, Volume 8, pp. 351.
Marina’s uncle and surrogate father Colonel Ilya Prusakov was with the MVD, the parent intelligence organization to the KGB…: William Hood, Mole, (W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1982) p. 305. See memo of Richard Helms to Warren Commission staffer J. Lee Rankin, 1/25/64, for the time period “18-31 March 1961”.
…stationed in the Soviet embassy in New Delhi: Reel 13, Folder R – Marina Oswald, pp. 97-98.
De Mohrenschildt visited with CIA official J. Walton Moore and exchanged cards and letters, on a regular basis in the 1950s and 1960s: FBI memo by W. James Wood re meeting with George De Mohrenschildt, 3/7/64, Russ Holmes Work File/NARA Record Number: 104-10414-10179.
In 1964, a similar memo by Moore admitted that he met de Mohrenschildt in 1957, “several times” in 1958 and 1959, and the last time in 1961: Memo by J. Walton Moore, 5/1/64, Russ Holmes Work File/NARA Record Number: 104-10406-10105.
De Mohrenschildt sent Moore a stack of contact reports in 1957 and 1958: Contact reports, Reel 5, Folder L – George de Mohrenschildt, pp. 88-98, 100, 102, NARA Record Number: 1994.04.25.14:01:26:660005.
In 1958, Moore used de Mohrenschildt as a “contact” with a Polish official: J. Walton Moore, Process Sheet for OO/C Collections, 2/11/58, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm – reel 5: Conte – De Mohrenschildt)/NARA Record Number: 104-10244-10184.
In 1960, Moore referred to de Mohrenschildt as a “cleared contact” for a copy of a memo on the USSR’s use of petroleum: Memo from J. Walton Moore to Acting Chief, Contact Division, Houston, 4/28/60, Reel 5, Folder L — George de Mohrenschildt, NARA Record Number: 1994.04.25.14:01:26:660005.
Moore visited the De Mohrenschildts’ home in late 1961 to see a movie of their “walking tour” from Mexico to Panama: HSCA Report, Volume 12, p. 54.
Although the de Mohrenschildts said that they were tracking the mining trails of the old Spanish conquistadors, they found themselves with hundreds of Cuban exiles in Guatemala City, a staging area for the Bay of Pigs invasion that was about to begin: Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 9, Testimony of George de Mohrenschildt, pp. 213-217.
De Mohrenschildt revealed a few hours before his death that Moore took him to lunch in late 1961, and described to him an ex-Marine in Minsk in whom the CIA had “interest”…: Dick Russell, The Man who Knew Too Much (1992), p. 274.
After the assassination, R.S. Travis at the Domestic Contact Division identified the file numbers of ten separate domestic contact reports prepared by de Mohrenschildt , and sent a copy to the staff of Legend Maker #1 Jim Angleton at the counterintelligence office : Memo by R.S. Travis, Contact Division, to Paul Hartman, CI Division, 4/20/64, Reel 52, Folder C – George de Mohrenschildt, pp. 32-33, NARA Record Number: 1994.04.26.09:19:10:570005.
Travis referred to De Mohrenschildt as Moore’s “source,” and asked Moore to provide his personal evaluation of George for the CI Staff: Id., at p. 31.
Moore wrote an intriguing evaluation that admitted that he had sought out de Mohrenschildt as “the result of a source lead from Headquarters” in 1957, but scrambled to avoid any direct admissions of the role he played in bringing de Mohrenschildt and Oswald together: Memo by J. Walton Moore, 5/1/64, pp. 1-2, Russ Holmes Working File/NARA No. 104-10406-10105.
Moore’s evaluation was so carefully prepared that the file includes what appears to be a far-different rough draft. Id. pp. 3-4.
Moore’s poor memory triggered internal scrutiny by the CIA’s Reinvestigation Program: Investigative Transmittal Sheet for Moore, 4/29/64, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 44 / NARA Record Number: 104-10124-10286; Processing Sheet, NARA Record Number: 104-10124-10284.
Moore went so far as to tell the CI staffer for Legend Maker #1 James Angleton that “there is no White Russian ‘community’ in Dallas. He knows of only a couple of Russian linguists who are used by the Socony labs for translation: Handwritten note by R.S. Travis, 5/27/64, Reel 52, Folder C – George de Mohrenschildt, p. 10.
Moore was a former FBI agent and college roommate of Wallace Heitman, a Soviet language specialist who played the lead role for the FBI in controlling the first-day evidence: Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked (2010 edition), p. 326.
Although US intelligence records on de Mohrenschildt go back to at least World War II, CIA Director Richard Helms said that the agency’s “initial interest” in George de Mohrenschildt was because he had been a petrochemical consultant with the International Cooperation Administration: Memo by Richard Helms to Warren Commission counsel J. Lee Rankin, 6/3/64, Warren Commission Exhibit 1012.
De Mohrenschildt was appointed by the State Department as the “petroleum adviser” for the independent communist Yugoslavian government in 1957…: Memo of SA Raymond Yelchak, 3/4/64, documenting receipt of de Mohrenschildt resume in 1958.
…and testified to the Warren Commission that ICA was the only US government agency that ever paid him: Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of George de Mohrenschildt, Volume 9, p. 212.
The AID has been cited by its former director John Gilligan as being filled with CIA agents “from top to bottom…the idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas, government, volunteer, religious, every kind”: George Cotter, “Spies, Strings, and Missionaries”, The Christian Century (Chicago), March 25, 1981, p. 321, cited in William Blum’s Killing Hope (2003), p. 235.
Ruth’s father Bill Hyde was regional director of the Nationwide Insurance Company, part of the International Cooperative Alliance founded in 1922 and still active today: See this linked website of the International Cooperative Alliance.
The ICA has had an insurance sector for the last one hundred years: See this linked website for the International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation.
This similiarity between these two ICAs is not accidental – the contracts for both groups were coordinated through AID and the State Department. Both de Mohrenschildt and Hyde were business consultants that traveled abroad working on cooperative ventures and provided reports used by the CIA: See Barbara LaMonica, “William Avery Hyde”, Fourth Decade (November 1997), pp. 8, 11.
Meyer’s covert action division had considered using Hyde as a security consultant in Vietnam back in 1957 , but CI-SIG’s information about Hyde led to denial of any security clearance: 4/8/64 memo by Elizabeth Mendoza, Re: LHO Address Book (FBI Report 12/31/63) Oswald 201 File (201-289248)/NARA Record Number: 104-10300-10025. On the role of CI-SIG, see 12/5/63 memo by Chief, Research Branch/OS/SRS to Files, re William Avery Hyde.
Hyde’s problem, like Legend Maker #3 Priscilla Johnson, was that he was active with progressive causes and had family members involved with the United World Federalists: Ruth Forbes Paine Young (Michael Paine’s mother) was an influential member of the United World Federalists. George Michael Evica, A Certain Arrogance (Xlibris, 2006), p. 234. Also see the Arthur M. Young website section for Ruth Forbes Paine Young.
Glover was a chemist with Magnolia Labs, a geology lab for Mobil. Glover and four other Magnolia employees encircled Oswald and asked him to tell them about life in the Soviet Union for several hours. One of these employees, Norman Fredericksen, was the son of the former director of Radio Free Europe: This circle was described to Edward Epstein in his book Legend (1977), pp. 206-207, in interviews with participants Betty MacDonald, Norman and Elke Fredricksen, and Richard Pierce. This meeting was corroborated by Richard Helms, based on a report by J. Walton Moore. Memo of March 1964 by Richard Helms to J. Lee Rankin, Reel 44, Folder J, Lee Harvey Oswald Soft File, NARA Record Number: 1994.04.13.14:58:27:500005.
In an amazing coincidence, they moved from Pennsylvania to Oswald’s mother’s community of Irving, Texas during the second week of September 1959, the very week that Oswald abruptly left his mother and went off to defect to the USSR: Memorandum for file by SA Raymond C. Eckenrode, on March 25, 1964, p. 2, CD 849, p. 6.
They had made the move so that Michael could take a job with the military contractor Bell Helicopter. Michael said that Bell manufactured 40% of all of the helicopters used in the Vietnam War: A.J. Weberman interview with Michael Paine, circa 1993.
Bell Helicopter was begun and run by Michael’s stepfather, Arthur Young, the most recent husband of Michael’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine:
“Model helicopter with Arthur Young”, JFKCountercoup, 12/20/09.
By 1963, Meyer was the chief of the Covert Action staff: Cord Meyer, Memorandum for the Record, 4/17/63, pp. 1-4, Miscellaneous CIA Series/NARA Record Number: 104-10302-10000.
Frederick Merrill at the State Department provided his stamp of approval to the 1957-68 East West Contacts Committee work done by the Quakers that Ruth was part of…:
CIEE History: 1947-1960. (Council for International Educational Exchange), pp. 11-12 . Ruth reluctantly admitted that she was active with the East-West Committee: Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Ruth Hyde Paine, Volume 3, pp. 134-136.
…and had worked on the Robert Webster case: Memorandum for the Record, by REDACTED, SR/COP/FI, 10/8/59, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm – reel 17: Ruiz – Webster) / NARA Record Number: 104-10181-10128.
Note: The author of this Webster memo, still only known to us as SR/COP/FI, is the same individual who helped stop the second known effort to make Priscilla Johnson a CIA officer: See Memo from Director to REDACTED, 6/19/58, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 43 / NARA Record Number: 104-10119-10287.
In a heavily redacted document, the FBI was informed by a “reliable” source that Ruth’s sister Sylvia Hyde Hoke was Naval Intelligence and was trying to obtain a top secret clearance: Commission Document 508 – FBI Mansfield Report of 06 Feb 1957 re: Hoke.
A CIA memorandum indicated that Sylvia Hoke was a CIA employee in 1961: Security File on Sylvia Hoke Hyde, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 43 / NARA Record Number: 1993.07.24.08:39:37:560310.
Washington Post obituary for John Hoke states that he was fired from AID in 1962: Emma Brown, “A Local Life”, 3/19/11
Ruth Paine testified to the Orleans Grand Jury that Hoke was working for AID in 1963: Ruth Paine’s testimony to the Orleans Grand Jury, 4/18/68, p. 57 , Orleans Parish Grand Jury Transcripts .
These documents show Hoke was working for AID in 1963 and 1964: Request for Approval of Liaison, re John Hoke, 8/22/63, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 43 / NARA Record Number: 104-10120-10304; 8/13/64, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 43 / NARA Record Number: 104-10120-10303.
Michael Paine’s family also had contact talent in the intelligence arena. Michael’s mother had a close friend named Mary Bancroft who was an OSS spy that slept with Allen Dulles: Mary Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1983); also see Evica, A Certain Arrogance , p. 248.
Michael and Ruth had ostensibly split up, and were living in different houses: Memo by SA James Hosty, 4/1/64, FBI – Ruth and Michael Paine Files / NARA Record Number: 124-10065-10356