(Testimony of Ruth Hyde Paine)
Mrs. Paine.
my offering a place for Marina, and what she said would do a good deal to raise resentment in him, I would think.
Mr. Liebeler.
Marina, of course, was aware of the fact that you did not want to conduct yourself in such a manner as to breed resentment on Oswald's part with respect to his relations with Marina?
Mrs. Paine.
We never discussed it explicitly. I probably would have if my Russian had been better. She at one point said to him on a weekend when he came out that my Russian was improving while his was getting worse, and I was embarrassed to have her say this. I may have testified to this, and just pointed out that I was getting more practice than he at that time was, but my feeling was that this was a mistake on her part in terms of his feelings to say that.
Mr. Liebeler.
Did she say that in front of him?
Mrs. Paine.
Yes; that's why I spoke up immediately and said, "Well, you know a lot more vocabulary than I did."
Mr. Liebeler.
Other witnesses have testified that Marina was not always entirely considerate of Oswald's feelings in the presence of others. Would you think that would be a fair statement?
Mrs. Paine.
Well, I seldom saw them in the presence of others.
Mr. Liebeler.
In the presence of others--I mean yourself.
Mrs. Paine.
Yes.
Mr. Liebeler.
In the incident you have Just related, of course, is an example.
Mrs. Paine.
I would say that it is an example and I am trying to think of others that I can make a generalization. I can't make a real generalization like that, and the reason I said, "In front of others," is because I do recall also, and I testified to this, that when they first went down to New Orleans he got an apartment for her and I felt he was very anxious that she like it, and her responses to him were just simply not as enthusiastic as it was clear he had hoped. This was not embarrassing in front of someone else in a sense it wasn't that noticeable a thing, but I did feel that she wasn't trying very hard to understand his hope to please her.
Mr. Liebeler.
Would it be a fair statement in your opinion that in point of fact both of these people were more interested in tearing each other down than they were in complementing each other or in trying to accommodate themselves to each other or to work out some sort of sincere relationship between themselves?
Mrs. Paine.
I don't think you can be that curt about it. Marina never did speak to me about wanting to leave him. She spoke, and this appears in her letters too, of wishing to get along and spoke and wrote that she was encouraged that relations seemed better. It seemed to me that she accepted this as a situation a good deal short of ideal but nonetheless the one she was in and one she was to work with.
Mr. Liebeler.
My characterization assumed a continuance of the relationship. A simple solution perhaps to many situations like this, of course, is for people to leave each other. But while they were together--I'm not trying to get you to say that this is so--I have never seen them together, of course.
Mrs. Paine.
Yes.
Mr. Liebeler.
But I have seen other people in whose behavior I might find some similarities to the Oswalds or what I think the Oswalds' situation might have been on the basis of the testimony we have had. But also, you said before there was a general coolness between them--Oswald would argue about the ketchup. You indicated something about the ketchup.
Mrs. Paine.
Yes.
Mr. Liebeler.
Little things like this: Marina made a statement in front of you that your Russian was getting better and Oswald's was getting worse, and of course, the testimony that Marina gave herself about what happened between them--I am wondering if you know Marina Oswald or Oswald well enough to make a judgment about this sort of thing.
Mrs. Paine.
Well, I think I don't, and it's my guess that there was a lot more argument and contention between them than what I saw, just judging from what I have heard other people have said about it. I did see them trade barbs or comments and in that sense the answer was "yes" to your question of did they seem willing or out to hurt one another. I can't remember just how you phrased it. They were certainly not proceeding toward a mature relationship though--
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