When
investigating Priscilla Johnson in 1958, CIA security focused on Johnson's
study of Russian at Middlebury College in Vermont during the summers of 1948
and 1950: "The Russian Language Summer
School at Middlebury College is staffed almost entirely by teachers from the
American-Russian Institute which has been cited by the Attorney General under
E.O. 10450."[xxxiii]
Ruth testified that she took a summer course at the University of Pennsylvania in 1957, two Berlitz courses in Philadelphia in 1958 and 1960, some private lessons with Mrs. Dorothy Gravitis, and the 1959 summer course at Middlebury. [xxxiv] Ruth's mother-in-law claimed that Ruth had spent four or five summers studying Russian at Middlebury, which looks like puffing based on the record. [xxxv] We do know that Ruth had taken 42 Berlitz lessons when she transferred her classes from Philadelphia to Dallas on September 9, 1959, indicating that she was trying to learn it in a hurry. [xxxvi]
The Paines moved to Irving, Texas on or about September
13, 1959, at the same time that Oswald was making his move from the area to the
USSR. [xxxvii] The ostensible reason was to work at Bell
Helicopter, but the timing was remarkable.
To my knowledge, it was the only weekend that Oswald spent in Irving between
1956 to 1962. Wittingly or not, the
Paines were now in an ideal physical locale to assist Oswald if his trip to the
USSR was unsuccessful.
If anyone in the CIA played a role to entice the Paines to move to Texas during September 1959, Cord Meyer (Legend Maker #2) would be the ideal candidate. As discussed at the beginning of this series, Meyer could play the anti-Communist Left in America like a violin. His years as an activist for the United World Federalists brought him in contact with the various skeins of the Unitarian and Quaker communities. In the fifties, Meyer worked with the CIA's International Organizations division. By 1963, Meyer was the chief of the Covert Action staff. [xxxviii]
Oswald was discharged from the Army on Sept. 11, 1959. The next day, he visited his brother Robert in Fort Worth. His mother testified that he visited with her on or about Sept. 14 for about three days before he went to New Orleans to take a freighter to Europe on the 16th. [xxxix]
Hoover states near the close of the Warren Commission that extensive investigation was done of de Mohrenschildt and the Paines, and found that they were not communists, fascists, or subversives. Hoover did not address the evidence of their intelligence connections, which is extensive and wide-ranging. [xl]
Ruth Hyde Paine's interest in Russian was never very great, despite her years of study, but it was good enough to qualify her as Marina's legend maker and help quell any suspicions that Marina could speak English
Despite Ruth's years of Russian
study, and her claim that she had Marina to move in so that she could improve
her skills, she was forced to admit that "my actual skill didn't progress fast
enough to be of any real use."[xli] Her Middlebury roommate Helen Mamikonian
described Ruth's Russian as "very poor". [xlii]
Ruth was introduced to Marina Oswald because geologist Everett Glover knew that she was studying Russian with the hopes of becoming a teacher. [xliii] Ruth went so far as to tutor one young student in Russian during 1963. [xliv] There is no evidence that she continued her study of Russian after Lee Oswald's death.
In the moments after JFK's assassination, Ruth Paine pitched in and
helped the law enforcement officers with translation until Ilya Mamantov came
on the scene. Mamantov was a Dallas
White Russian. Mamantov's mother-in-law was the aforementioned Dorothy Gravitis who had given Paine
some private Russian lessons.
Gravitis heard Ruth Paine speak Russian and was frank in
assessing her command of the language as "very poor", even for an American. [xlv]
Wittingly or unwittingly, Ruth knew enough
Russian to provide protective cover for Marina, who needed to hide her
knowledge of English. Robert Webster told writer Dick Russell that Marina only spoke English to him when he was in the USSR. (John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee, p. 267).
A "spot report" from Dallas says that Mamantov came on the scene only after Army Reserve officer contacts was contacted and asked for assistance. [xlvi] Was the Paine family the link?
Gravitis also had met Marina, and testified that Marina told her that Oswald was "ideinyi", a not easily translatable Russian word. Mamantov, who was translating, explained that it meant "a person who believes in Communist movement, Communist ideals, but doesn't yet hold a ticket or membership in the Communist Party". [xlvii]
Marina's statement to Gravitis was
mere cover for Lee. Marina knew that Lee
was at least a wannabe spy, because of his reluctance to publicly speak Russian
in the Soviet Union. Lee knew that
Marina owed Soviet intelligence some favors.
Otherwise, she probably would not have been allowed to leave, and would
not have hid her knowledge of English to the general public.
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