Mrs. Paine.

say, also, I felt that he was primarily an emotional person, though he talked of ideology and philosophy, that what moved him and what reached him were the more emotional qualities of life, and that he was really unusually sensitive to hurt.
Now, some of this is hindsight, and I would like to label it as such, but I want to say that I was not at all surprised reading after the assassination that he took a little puppy to his favorite teacher as a gift, and then came over to see this puppy very often. This was in the fourth grade or so. As an effort to make a warm contact and show feeling.

Mr. Jenner.

That is, if this incident did in fact take place, it was something that you could understand?

Mrs. Paine.

Yes.

Mr. Jenner.

Understand in the sense that it might be something----

Mrs. Paine.

In terms of what I saw.

Mr. Jenner.

That Lee Oswald would have done, is that correct?

Mrs. Paine.

As a child.
I did feel that very likely he took fewer and fewer risks making friends as he grew up than he perhaps had as a child, but I was guessing at that, the risk of being close, in other words.

Mr. Jenner.

Took fewer and fewer risks?

Mrs. Paine.

I think he was fearful of being close to anyone.

Mr. Jenner.

Or being hurt?

Mrs. Paine.

Because he could, therefore, be hurt, right.

Mr. Jenner.

Not being accepted?

Mrs. Paine.

If he allowed himself to be friends or be close, then he opened the possibility of the friend hurting him, and I had this feeling about him, that he couldn't permit or stand such hurt.

Mr. Jenner.

Would you tell us of your feelings toward Marina? You liked her? That is what I am getting at.

Mrs. Paine.

Yes; I like her very much. I felt always that what I wanted to say and what I was able to understand of what she said was hampered by my poor Russian. It improved a good deal while with her, and we did have very personal talks about our respective marriages.
But I felt this was just a developing friendship, not one in full bloom, by any means. I respected what I saw in her, her pride, her wish to be independent, her habit of hard work, and expecting to work, her devotion to her children, first to June and then to both of the little girls, and the concentration of her attention upon this job of mother, and of raising these children.
I also respected her willingness and effort to get on with Lee, and to try to make the best of what apparently was not a particularly good marriage, but yet she had made that commitment and she expected to do her best for it.

Mr. Jenner.

What is your present reaction, and even as you went along, of her feeling or regard for or with respect to you?

Mrs. Paine.

I felt she liked me. I felt she tended to put me in a position of Aunt Ruth, as she called me, I have already said, to Junie, almost as aunt to her rather than a mother as she was equal, in other words, she was a young mother and I was a young mother equal in age and stage in life.

Mr. Jenner.

By the way, you were of her age, were you?

Mrs. Paine.

No; I am older than she. I am 31.

Mr. Jenner.

You are 31 and she is what?

Mrs. Paine.

Twenty-two. But our children were fairly close in age, and our immediate problems were fairly similar therefore.

Mr. Jenner.

Now; would you give me your reaction to Robert?

Mrs. Paine.

I have very little reaction to Robert, of course, having met him only at the police station and said very little to him there, and equally little when he came with Mr. Thorne and Mr. Martin to pick up Marina's things at my house a few weeks after the assassination. That is the sum total of my contact, so that what impressions I have have been formed from what people said and not directly formed.

Mr. Jenner.

In other words, you had so little contact with him that you really have formed no particular opinion with respect to him?

Mrs. Paine.

That is right.