Answering Mrs. Paine's Challenge

 “Truth Is Our Only Client” film - Ruth Paine’s Challenge

JFK Rapid Response Network 

One of the benefits of living in a free and open society is the ability to respond to any and all published, posted, broadcast, streamed or recorded report – and in regards to the assassination of President Kennedy both the Citizens Against Political Assassination (CAPA) and the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) are cooperating in organizing concerted responses to any story on the assassination, especially in the mainstream media.

This is not a CAPA/TRC response to this film, it is my response to Mrs. Paine's Challenge.

While Dr. Cyril Wecht has been writing unpublished letters to the editors of the New York Times for years now, and I have responded with book reviews and blog posts, the CAPA/TRC will be more organized and targeted, with the first being a response to the documentary film “Truth Is Our Only Client,” which premiered at the Texas Theater in Oak Cliff in Dallas on Sunday, September 22.

Just as Oliver Stone’s movie “JFK” was panned and criticized even before it was released; a cursory review of “Truth Is Our Only Client” certainly indicates that truth is not being well served. 

Produced and directed by an associate of Burt Griffin, the film includes interviews with Griffin, Warren Commission lawyers Howard Willens, Richard Mosk and Sam Stern. 

It seems hard to believe that Sam Stern, a still-living witness who practices law in D.C., could say something different than what he told the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) – that if the Warren Commission had known about the note Oswald wrote to Hosty that the FBI destroyed, and that the CIA had conspired with the Mafia to kill Fidel Castro, they would have conducted a different investigation.

[Sam Stern HSCA: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/A Disk/Agent Oswald Office Files/Agent Oswald Office Official Records Subject File/Item 07.pdf    -  /  -http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/02/hsca-sam-stern-interview-smoking-doc2.html ]

Sam Stern: “I am less certain now that at the time we wrote the Report. Less certain that Oswald acted alone. Actually, I wasn't all that certain at the time. I thought the best evidence supported the final findings, and I agreed with them, but I wasn't tremendously firm or immovable in that, in my own mind. I just thought there were a lot of straws left.....I have become more skeptical about the Warren Commission findings and everything else that is a part of official life, I suppose. Everything has become discredited over the years since 1963. You don’t really believe in things the way you did back then"

Stern stated that if the staff of the Commission had discovered that the Hosty note had existed and had been destroyed by the FBI in Dallas, that “if we had found out that happened, we would have gone to a full Commission meeting immediately, and would have made the big decision regarding any future relationship between the Commission and the FBI. It just would have gone to the heart of the whole relationship and the Bureau’s motivation. The destruction of that note would have resulted in the ultimate brouhaha.”

Stern stated that had the Commission learned of the CIA-Mafia conspiracies to assassinate Fidel Castro, “we would have gone much more into Cuba, the CIA, and the Mafia. We would have had a whole host of new avenues calling for investigation. And we would have obviously had to develop some new sources of information – other than the agency.”

Now how can Sam Stern say anything different to those producing this film?

“Truth Is Our Only Client” is narrated  by Ohio Judge Brendan Sheehan, who apparently questions some of those interviewed in the two hour and fifteen minute long film also includes Priscilla Johnson McMillan, Bernie Weissman and Ruth Paine.

Although I have important questions for all of these people I want to focus here on Ruth Paine.

MRS. RUTH HYDE PAINE’S  CHALLENGE


Mrs. Ruth Hyde Paine 

While I haven’t yet seen the film I will see it and write a review when I get the chance. 

In the meantime I want to respond to Ruth Paine’s challenge – “Given the chance, Paine would ask this of everyone who doubts that Oswald killed President Kennedy, or that he acted alone.”

Well I think Oswald acted alone all right, I just don’t think he killed anybody.

[JFKCountercoup2: Mrs. Paine Talks!]

“What do you make of the murder attempt in Dallas seven months earlier on former Army Major General Edwin “Ted” Walker?”

Then there’s mention of the “bombshell” note Oswald wrote instructing his wife Marina on what to do if Oswald “did not return from his mission.”

As for the Walker “mission,” it certainly was a “mission,” – and carried out like a military mission – survey of the area, photos of the house and alley, instructions to his wife, but there are a lot of holes in the official story. 

It’s highly unlikely, as the Warren Commission attests, that Oswald took his rifle to Walker’s house by bus, hidding the rifle under his raincoat. Where did he get the bullet that couldn’t be positively matched to the rifle? And if Oswald was the shooter, who was the other fellow seen leaving the scene with him? And did Oswald really bury the rifle in the ground and go back to retrieve it a few days later?And when he returned home, Marina said he was still breathing heavy and hyperventilated for hours afterwards, just the opposite of his cool, calm and collected demeanor described by three witnesses within minutes of the Dealey Plaza shooting, where he is accused of shooting the President’s brains out.

Ruth Paine wants to know -what do I make of the murder attempt on General Walker? 

I think it’s really important, especially since FBI Agent Hosty was assigned to the case, and that the Secret Service knew there was a sniper on the loose when JFK came to town, but didn’t do anything about it.

In order to understand the Walker shooting and its relationship to Oswald you have to go back to the February 22, 1963 house party that was set up by George deMohrenschildt at the home of some Magnolia Oil employees – for the expressed purpose of introducing the Oswalds to Michael Paine, who deMohrenschildt thought would be interesting because of their similar ideological beliefs. 

Some say that deMohrenschildt was Oswald’s “babysitter,” until he got a job in Haiti, when he passed the Oswalds on to the Paines, which was done by way of the house party arranged for them to meet.

Volkmar Schmidt lived at the house and was room mates with Frederick Pierce, Everett Glover, and Norman Fredrickson, whose father worked for Radio Free Europe.

Although Michael Paine didn’t show up for the party, Marina Oswald did meet Michael’s wife Ruth Hyde Paine and they became fast friends – until the day of the assassination, after which they would never speak again.

When Marina testified in New Orleans she was asked why she refused to associate with Ruth Paine after the assassination she said the Secret Service advised her not to because of Ruth Paine’s associations with the CIA. 

At the party where they met, while Marina and Ruth Paine talked Russian in the kitchen, Oswald sat down for a nearly three hour conversation with Volkmar Schmidt, a German who was recruited by Magnolia in Europe. 

He is not to be confused with or related to Larry Schmidt, a former Walker soldier in Germany who relocated to Dallas, knew Bernard Weissman, and “infiltrated” Walker’s group.  

[http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/volkmar-schmidt-interview.html ]

Schmidt explained to me that he was raised by the family of a close friend, whose father was a Heidelberg Professor – Whilhelm Kuetemeyer – and he used a “reverse psychology” technique on Oswald that was taught to him by Kuetemeyer.

As Schmidt told me Kuetemeyer “was certainly, and many of his friends were in the circle of those who tried to kill Hitler, Stauffenberg, and several of his close friends were executed.”

I asked Schmidt if he mentioned General Walker when he talked with Oswald.

Schmidt: “Yes, Professor Kuetemeyer told me you know, to deal with people like this who are disturbed, you have to use empathy, be slightly over zealous yourself to like up with them and that total insanity, towards reality. When I heard how hateful he was towards Kennedy and Cuba, which was kind of irrational, I tried to say ‘hey, there’s something much more real to be concerned about,’ because I don’t know about Castro, but I know about this Walker, he’s kind of a Nazi, yea? Not so bad as those Nazis in Germany, but I had specifically mentioned to Lee Harvey Oswald, that Walker had given a speech to the students at the Mississippi campus and those guys went off and killed a couple of journalists.”

Schmidt told Oswald that Walker should be killed like Hitler should have been killed before he got too powerful.

“Do you think your conversation with Oswald about Walker may have instigated him to take a pot shot at him?” I asked.

Schmidt: “Yes, he did, and naturally it was a terrible responsibility, and for years when I drove past the underpass I literally had to cry because, you know. But I exonerate myself completely because I had the best intent, embarrass Kennedy, and I certainly didn’t tell him to take a pot shot at him….I may have triggered it. Actually, a few days after I talked with him, he bought his weapons.”

So Phil Shenon can write an entire book around a "Twist Party" in Mexico that Oswald didn't attend, and where he was not encouraged by Cubans to kill Kennedy, but nobody is interested in the real party where Oswald was encouraged to commit a political assassination - one that he is actually accused of doing. 

That was just the first mention of the July 20, 1944 Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, a recurring theme in the JFK assassination narrative.

The April 10, 1963 date of the Walker shooting coincides with a major news event that took place that morning – the accidental sinking of the nuclear submarine USS Thresher, a subject that is also worth elaborating on, as I will do. 

Shortly thereafter Ruth Paine gave Oswald a ride to the bus station and then drove Marina and the Oswald’s belongings including the rifle to New Orleans, though continued to correspond with Marina by mail throughout the summer of 1963.

In one letter, the only record of which I can find is in Gerald Ford’s book “Portrait of the Assassin,” Ruth Paine asks the pregnant Marina if she would like to move in with her at her home in Irving until she has the baby. To respond, Ruth instructs Marina - to write to her in care of c/o Arthur Young - Paoli, Pennsylvania.

[Now the only other reference to Paoli, Pa. I have in my files is the fact Paoli is the Main Line town that is home to the CIA front Catherwood Foundation, which a Philadelphia Magazine article (by Michael Malowe) implied was somehow linked to Ruth Paine when she lived in Philadelphia, though I have yet to find that link. It may have something to do with the Catherwood Fund's financing of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which had a parish in Dallas that the Texas Russians were affiliated with. For more see: JFKcountercoup: Catherwood Fund ]

"C/O Arthur Young" - When I read that I wondered who was Arthur Young? Was he a another pawn or a major player?  Actually it was both, as I learned that he was the eccentric inventor of the Bell Helicopter and third husband of Ruth Forbes Paine Young – Michael Paine’s mother.

JFKcountercoup: The Last Interview with ARTHUR MIDDLETON YOUNG

While Arthur Young is one of the most interesting people I have ever met – and I’ve met my share – it is Michael’s mother who is a key to understanding what we want to know.

Ruth Forbes Paine was married to Lyman Paine – Michael’s father – a founder of the Trotskyite Communist Party in the USA, a significant fact since Oswald subscribed to the Trotskyite Militant newspaper, which he is seen holding in the backyard photo, along with the rifle and pistol. Before George deMohrenschildt left for Haiti Oswald gave him a copy of the photo inscribed with the notation: "Hunter of Fascists! Ha Ha." 

In addition, Michael’s mother was a big supporter of Cord Meyer, Jr.’s World Federalists, a United Nations support organization that also included Priscilla Johnson (McMillan), who attended college near Arthur Young’s farm in suburban Philadelphia, and CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite.

But most significantly, Ruth Forbes Paine Young was a close personal friend and European traveling companion to Mary Bancroft. On a steamship voyage with Ruth Forbes Paine, Bancroft met a Swiss businessman who she married. In Berne, Bancroft met OSS officer Allen Dulles, became his personal secretary, paramour, and principal contact with German Gestapo officer Hans Bernd Gisivious, a principal participant in the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler. (See: Bancroft's "Autobio of a Spy." 

On her late summer vacation road trip, which Ruth H. Paine apparently took every year visiting relatives, she visited Michael’s mom at the Forbes family Naushon Island off Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and then Arthur Young’s farm outside Philadelphia. Others known to visit Naushon Island include Mary Bancroft and Walter Cronkite, who had standing permission to put his sailing yacht into the cove there. 

We know Mrs. Paine visited the Young farm near Paoli because she apparently received Marina’s letter there agreeing to the new living arrangements. After leaving the Youngs’ Mrs. Paine drove to New Orleans, where she spent the night before driving Marina, the daughter and the Oswald’s belongings, including the rifle, to Texas, while Oswald ostensibly went to Mexico.

The date – September 24-25, was a busy day on what David Talbot calls “The Devil’s Chessboard,” as a number of pawns were being moved around the board. Besides Mrs. Paine driving Marina to Texas and Oswald leaving New Orleans for Mexico, a few days before Richard Case Nagell went into a Texas bank, shot a bullet into the ceiling and waited to be arrested. 

Meanwhile on September 25th in Washington D.C., the CIA’s chief of the Cuban Task Force W. – Desmond FitzGerald briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on CIA covert operations against Cuba that could require military assistance. 

FitzGerald was not a pawn, but rather a rook, bishop or knight - somebody who could move around quickly and retreat easily. 

[ http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-significance-of-higgins-memo.html   ]

U.S. Marine General Victor “Brute” Krulak was responsible for any such military assistance to the CIA, so his adjunct Colonel Walter Higgins attended the meeting and kept notes, which include the key paragraph:

 “He (FitzGerald) commented that there was nothing new in the propaganda field. However, he felt that there had been great success in getting closer to the military personnel who might break with Castro, and stated that there were at least ten high-level military personnel who are talking with CIA but as yet are not talking to each other, since that degree of confidence has not yet developed. He considers it as a parallel in history; i.e., the plot to kill Hitler; and this plot is being studied in detail to develop an approach.”

Keeping tabs on this, besides Volkmar Schmidt mentioning the July 20, 1944 German military Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler during his “reverse psychology” talk with Oswald, saying how General Walker should be killed as Hitler should have been, and Michael Paine’s mother being a close personal friend and traveling companion with Mary Bancroft, a principal agent in the Valkyrie plot, we now have the CIA engaged in a “detailed study” of the plot in order to “develop an approach” to use against Castro.

To paraphrase Ian Fleming, who once mentioned in a James Bond novel - that if something happens once it could be happenstance, twice could be a coincidence, but three times is determined action. 

In response to Mrs. Paine’s challenge – to resolve the fact that Oswald was involved in the Walker shooting – it does not simply mean that because he tried to kill someone else that he is responsible for killing the president, but rather it is clear the Walker shooting was just one of a number of related operational “missions,” that are intertwined and must be understood that way.

The Walker shooting, the Houma Bunker raid, Oswald's defection, the Bay of Pigs, Gary Power's U2, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Oswald's report to the Seminary, the New Orleans FPCC, Odio visit, Mexico City, and looking backwards - the Civil Air Patrol and learning Russian in the USMC, were all operational missions that provide context to the Dealey Plaza Operation that resulted in the death of the President. 

While I can’t imagine Ruth Paine sitting around Naushon Island sipping tea with Michael’s mom and Mary Bancroft and discussing the plot to kill Hitler, that's what we are expected to believe how she learned of the job opening at the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) at a morning coffee klatch with neighbors.

It just so happens that D. H. Byrd, the owner of the TSBD, was a founder of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) with Cord Meyer, Sr., an organization that Oswald and David Ferrie were affiliated with in New Orleans. 

And at the time of the assassination, Byrd was on an African safari with a German who was also associated with the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler.

What is also surprising is the fact that shortly after the murder of President Kennedy, while every news media in the United States was concentrating on stories about the assassination, an obscure German newspaper scooped all of them with the fact that Oswald was suspected of being involved in the Walker shooting. How did that happen?

There are other references to the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler in the course of the JFK assassination narrative, but in response to Jim Lesar’s FOIA request for the CIA’s “detailed study” of the Valkyrie plot to be used against Castro – the CIA claimed it not only could not find that study, but it has no records of the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler among any of its files, a court case that is continuing today.

As Max Holland's wife - a distinguished American University professor once advised, "look for patterns," and we can certainly see a pattern developing here. 

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