(Testimony of Ruth Hyde Paine Resumed)
Mrs. Paine.
was or how I reacted to the kind of person he was. He seemed to me prickly, all sharp points and edgy, and I wished he could be more relaxed and more at ease. I didn't want to confront him with a statement of, "Lee, I didn't want you to start this car and take it yourself", so I simply said, "my father is an insurance man and he certainly would not want me to be permitting you to drive in the street when you don't even have a learner's permit yet, and I will certainly drive it home."
From the time I had first known him he had changed in his attitude toward me, I felt. I felt in the spring he expected to be disliked, that he carried a shell of proud disdain around him to protect himself from human contact, and this was falling away from him at my home.
Mr. Jenner.
In the fall you mean?
Mrs. Paine.
In the fall of the year, in October and November. He began to appear much more at ease, and as if he had some confidence in how he would be treated. It is a whole subject really.
Representative Ford.
Can you give us a little more information on what you said to him and what he, or how he responded in this incident involving the car?
Mrs. Paine.
I would say he clearly wanted to do the driving and to drive in the street. I felt that this, my not permitting him to, was one of the things that was helping to get him to the office where he could get a learner's permit, and he was eager to be driving, and to learn to drive on the street.
Representative Ford.
Did he just slough off, so to speak, your admonition that he shouldn't drive?
Mrs. Paine.
I didn't make it a requirement that he stop right there so he didn't have to stop.
Representative Ford.
You just suggested it might be better?
Mrs. Paine.
I just made it clear I was uncomfortable and on the way home I would drive.
Mr. Mccloy.
There is one thing we haven't had testimony about, I imagine, except implicitly.
It is alleged that Lee possessed a .38 caliber revolver. Do you, in the light of hindsight, perhaps, do you have any feeling now that he was secreting that weapon on your premises?
Mrs. Paine.
I had no idea that it was there or ever was there.
Mr. Mccloy.
Nothing now makes you feel that it was there other than the finding of the rifle?
Mrs. Paine.
That is right.
Representative Ford.
Thank you very much, Mrs. Paine.
Senator Cooper.
The Commission will recess until 2 o'clock today.
(Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the Commission recessed.)
Representative Ford.
Afternoon Session
Testimony of Ruth Hyde Paine Resumed
Representative Ford.
The President's Commission reconvened at 2 p.m.
The Chairman.
We will start now. We will continue until Senator Cooper comes and then he will preside the rest of the afternoon. I will be busy with Mr. Rankin some of the time.
Mr. Jenner.
Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice.
Mrs. Paine, this morning I was seeking to qualify and introduce in evidence Commission Exhibit 425, which, at the time I had it in my hand, consisted of one page. You called my attention to the fact that it was a letter dated October 14, 1963, to your mother by you in your handwriting, but that you had only given me the first page or sheet, which consists front and reverse of two pages. Then you tendered me the second page or sheet, and indicated some reluctance about the need for its use in this connection.
During the noon recess you have afforded me the possession of the second page, and my recollection is you have voiced no objection to its introduction in evidence.
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