Monday, January 5, 2015

Hyde Family in the CIA and USAID

In attempting to determine what role, if any, Ruth Paine's Hyde family may have had in steering her toward developing a relationship with wife of the returning former defector, Lee Harvey Oswald, a month before his departure from Texas to New Orleans in the spring of 1963, I reviewed research performed several years ago which had been posted on the internet.

Martin Shackelford once posted the following at an internet group, alt.conspiracy.jfk:
More from Evica's book, [A Certain Arrogance, republished by TrineDay]:
  •  Evica noticed that the HSCA never called Ruth Paine as a witness.
  • Ruth Paine's parents: Unitarians; associated with a CIA agent. (Though Quakers, and though Dallas had a significant Quaker community, Ruth and Michael Paine became involved with the Unitarians there, claiming there was no Quaker community in Dallas)
  •  Ruth Paine's mother: denounced by Oswald's hero Herbert Philbrick; became a Unitarian minister.
  • Ruth Paine's sister: CIA employee, also involved with Naval Intelligence; her husband was also involved with the CIA and Naval Intelligence, and worked under a USAID cover.
  • Ruth Paine arranged with William Lacy, a colleague of Edward Lansdale, to create a U.S.-Soviet student exchange program. [This is not exactly what Evica said. Ruth was on a Young Friends Committee trying to get contacts between East and West for exchange program, for which Ambassador Lacy was in charge. He had previously been close to Lansdale in the Philippines.]
  • Ruth and Michael Paine both described Oswald as a Trotskyite Communist. Michael Paine's father: Long-time Trotskyite, suspected of being a government plant in the Socialist Worker's Party, parent group of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. On the phone with Michael after the assassination, he said "we both know who was responsible" for the assassination. Michael Paine's mother: a close friend of Mary Bancroft, OSS spy and the lover of Allen Dulles. Dulles told a friend that conspiracy theorists would have a field day if they knew he had been in Dallas three weeks before the assassination, as well as being linked to the Paines.
  • Michael Paine had worked for the Franklin Institute [in Philadelphia], a conduit for CIA funds. He then worked for defense contractor, Bell Helicopter.
  • George De Mohrenschildt  was the subject of a seven-year FBI investigation, opened in April 1963, shortly before he went to Haiti. He was close to J.Walton Moore, the Dallas chief of the CIA's Domestic Contacts Division, and provided him with copies of material loaned to him by Oswald. He was also close to CIA asset Joseph Dryer. In May 1963, he met with Dorothe Matlock, an Army Intelligence employee who acted as a liaison with the CIA.
  • After the assassination, an Army Intelligence agent selected Ilya Mamantov as the first translator for Marina Oswald.
  • In Mexico City, Oswald was reported seen riding on the back of a motorcycle with a young American Quaker. The young man was a CIA double agent. There was an initial attempt to identify the motorcyclist as another young man, but that fellow hadn't arrived in Mexico City until after Oswald had left--he mentioned that the Quakers there were talking about Oswald, and after the assassination were very worried that he had been there.
  • In Dallas, Oswald attended a meeting [of the American Civil Liberties Union] at a Unitarian church, and had a long talk with the minister, who later mentioned his impressions to a reporter. When the FBI contacted the minister, he denied knowing anything about Oswald. After the assassination, the FBI conducted an extensive investigation nationwide among Unitarians, but no records resulting from it have been released. [See  John Kelin, "Pictures of the Paines;" Letter from Greg Olds.]
[What follows was possibly taken from excerpts of A.J. Weberman's research posted online. See NODULEX16.]

QUAKER

When Ruth Paine was 15 years old, she preached [sic] with a traveling Bible school. Ruth Paine told the Warren Commission: "I was asked to be a leader, a teacher with a traveling Bible school. We went to three different small towns in Indiana and Ohio, and taught young children. I led songs and games and read stories." Ruth Paine became a Quaker while attending Antioch College in 1951 and was a delegate to two conferences of the Friends World Committee in England in 1952. She graduated from Antioch College in 1955. In 1993 Ruth Paine described herself as a financial contributor to the Friends World Committee.

RUSSIA/UNITED STATES EXCHANGE PROGRAMS

According to the Warren Report:
"In 1955 Mrs. Paine was active in the work of the North American Young Friends Committee, which, with State Department cooperation, was making an effort to lessen the tensions between Soviet Russia and the United States by means of ...exchanges of young Russians and Americans. It was during this period that Mrs. Paine became interested in the Russian language. Mrs. Paine participated in [and arranged] a Russian-American student exchange program...Ruth Paine was the "convener or clerk" of the East-West Contacts Group of the North American Young Friends Committee which was established in 1955. She has corresponded, until recently, with a Russian schoolteacher." [WR p285]

Ruth Paine told the Warren Commission:
Paine: It was at this conference, toward the later part, arising out of a discussion of the need for communication and more of it between the United States and the Soviet Union, by no means the bulk of business of this conference, but a small committee of interested people, was working on this matter.

Jenner: Are these interested young people?

Paine: These are all young Friends.

Jenner: And you were then of what age, 1955. Twenty-three?

Paine: Yes...This was at the time that plans first began for encouraging an exchange of young people between the Soviet Union and the United States, and I became active with the committee planning
that, and from the planning there was an exchange, three Soviet young people came to this country and four young Quakers went to the Soviet Union... The Committee worked on: "Organization of pen pal correspondence between American and Soviet young people." In 1958 Ruth Paine was involved in a Russian/American exchange program on a leadership level. [Friends Journal 4.26.58]

ANALYSIS

Another Quaker group, the American Friends Service Committee, sent a delegation to the Soviet Union in 1955. The American Friends Service Committee was very much on the Left. The Friends World Committee soon sent a delegation to the Soviet Union. The CIA had an interest in "cultural exchange programs."

CIA DD/P Richard Bissell stated:
"Exchange of person programs...are more effective if carried out by private auspices than if officially supported by the United States Government." [Marchetti Cult of Intell. p52]
The SSCIA reported that from 1964 to 1974
"the FBI identified over 100 intelligence officers among the approximately 400 Soviet students who attended universities as part of an East-West student exchange program. Also, in this program's 14-year history, more than 100 American students were the target of Soviet recruitment approaches in the USSR." [SSCIA For. & Mil. Intell. V1 p164]
What was the story behind the Friends World Committee?

Ruth Paine answered negatively when she was asked if she had been aware of any intelligence community interest in student exchange programs. She stated:
"The Soviets that came over were real party-line types, very doctrinaire."
Ruth Paine was asked to name the State Department official who was involved with her program. She responded, "I haven't a clue, but you know they were working on cultural exchange at that point. Trying to make a crack in the Iron Curtain." Michael Paine stated, "I remember reading about that kind of thing in The Times and finding it so frustrating that a genuine effort to try to get person-to-person contact was being subverted by the government there."

MANY DOCUMENTS STILL WITHHELD

Neither CIA Headquarters, nor the CIA's Office of Security traces on Ruth Paine have been released as of 1996, and she was mentioned only tangentially in the HSCA Report -
"They never even called me. Someone called - to be sure where I was - if they wanted to call me."
Despite much correspondence with the USSR, Ruth Paine did not show up on [James J. Angleton's secret CIA project to intercept mail destined for the Soviet Union and China begun in 1952HT LINGUAL indices before 1966. (That year an American sent a letter to her from Moscow.) Withheld documents on the Paines included USSS 179-10001-10034, 10036; FBI NARA 179-10001-10091, 10094, 10101, FBI 179-10002-10084, 10244, 10251; HSCA 180-10116-10150; HSCA 180-10112-10450.

WILLIAM AVERY HYDE AND ANGLETON

The father of Ruth Paine, William Hyde, had contact with the CIA, and the CIA's Office of Security [presumably Sheffield Edwards (OS)?] had traces on him:
"Files of the Office of Security reflect that Ruth Paine is the daughter of William Avery Hyde, OS C-157,435, (deleted)."
William Avery Hyde [CIA SSD-157,435] was an anti-Communist who supported Socialist Party candidate Norman Thomas. Norman Thomas received millions of dollars in CIA subsidies because of his anti-Communist views. [NOTE by this Blogger: Apparently Ruth's parents took her to a rally for Norman Thomas in 1940. Could W.A. Hyde have been infiltrating the Socialists in 1940, much as Oswald was apparently doing in 1962-63? Was that the reason Ruth Hyde Paine was really attempting to learn to speak Russian?]

William Avery Hyde related :
"Our introduction [to the Communists] came at the 1929 annual meeting of the Eastern Cooperative League. There were a number of Communist delegates to the convention. When they found out they did not have enough votes to control the meeting, they set out to obstruct it, and succeeding in preventing it from doing any business worth mentioning. [See a Bureau of Labor Statistics study which mentions political discord in the Cooperative Movement in 1930. The Bureau had been doing such studies on co-ops for a number of years by this date and seemed to indicate their increase was a positive step.]
"Mother and I entered the meeting knowing very little about Communists, and left as their enemies, which we have been ever since 1948."
Voorhis
[NOTE by this Blogger: It is unknown to whom Hyde made the above statement. There is a strong possibility the quote was taken from a 1957 letter written by Hyde to former Congressman Jerry Voorhis (referred to in footnote 6 of the Barbara LaMonica paper published in The Fourth Decade). Following his defeat by Richard Nixon in the 1946 Congressional election, Voorhis became executive director of the Cooperative League of the USA (CLUSA). Perhaps the letter cited in LaMonica's paper can be found amongst Jerry Voorhis' Papers at Claremont College.
Hyde's job in 1932 - CLUSA
[NOTE continued: After Voorhis gave up his Congressional seat to Richard Nixon in January 1947, he was immediately hired by CLUSA. William Avery Hyde had by then been selling CLUSA Service, Inc. insurance and fidelity bonds for years, at least as early as 1932, according to clipping to the left. In October 932 Hyde spoke to the Sunnyside Consumers' Co-operative League, a neighborhood in the western part of Queens, NY. When Voorhis was hired by CLUSA, he moved to Winnetka, Ill. to be near the headquarters at 343 S. Dearborn Street in Chicago. The organization had been founded in the U.S. in 1916 by a medical doctor named James Peter Warbasse, who was president of CLUSA until 1941, when Murray Lincoln replaced him. The name would be changed to National Cooperative Business Association in 1986. Warbasse died in 1957 at his summer home in Woods Hole, MA, located not far from Naushon Island (owned in trust by lineal descendants of the late J.M. Forbes). Warbasse's winter home was in Queens, where he created the community known as Rochdale Village, about 15 miles southeast of Sunnyside, where Hyde spoke in 1932.]
[Second NOTE: If William and Carol Hyde left the annual meeting of the Eastern Coop League in 1929 as enemies of the Communists, why did he then say they had been enemies only since 1948? What exactly happened in 1948? Why was he even aware of the Eastern Coop League in 1929? Recall that the census of 1930 shows William Hyde was working at Bell Labs in New York City, which is not part of the Eastern Cooperative district based in Boston, and the Hydes did not move to New Jersey until after Ruth was born in New York in 1932.]
"From 1930 to 1942 I worked for, and with, various New York metropolitan area consumer cooperatives. [NOTE: Why did he change jobs in 1930, after the census was taken?]
"They [coops] were subject to attempts at communist infiltration almost continuously. Both Mrs. Hyde and I took our part in trying to block this. From 1939 to 1941 I was the District Sales Manager of Greater New York for the Farm Bureau Insurance Companies of Ohio (now Nationwide). No one could get an agent's contract from the companies in my district except through me. Apparently the Comrades were anxious to infiltrate the outfit because a continuous stream applied for contracts. The fact that we had no specifically Communist type trouble from any agent I appointed leads me to think that my screening was successful. In our first few years in Columbus we met a few people we suspected of Communist leanings, but we have not been aware of such since the end to the Wallace campaign." [No source given for this quotation; see above note relative to Jerry Voorhis.]
A report by Bruce Solie of the CIA generated on December 5, 1963, stated:

To:         Files
From:    Chief, Research Branch/OS/SRS
Subject: PAINE, RUTH
              nee: HYDE
              aka: Mrs. Ruth Paine
  1. FBI S.A. Cregar on December 4, 1963, confirmed that the Subject is the daughter of William Avery Hyde, SSD-157435. Cregar was furnished a copy of two 1957 investigative reports on William Avery Hyde, for lead purposes only, and was informed that Hyde was under consideration for a covert use by this Agency in Vietnam in 1957, but was not used. This information had previously been obtained from (deleted) CI/SIG.
  2. Subject is the individual who is taking care of the widow of LEE HARVEY OSWALD and has apparently been quite well known to the widow of LEE HARVEY OSWALD for an undetermined period of time. The possibility that William Avery Hyde was the father of Ruth Paine was previously brought to the attention of Mr. Papich through Mr. O'Neal, CI/SIG. The Security File of William Hyde contains a copy of a 1956 FBI investigative report (Security of Government Employees) on Sylvia Ludlow Hyde aka Mrs. John Hoke who is the sister of Ruth Paine. The file of William Hyde also contains a 1956 OSI report on Sylvia Hoke.
  3. In addition to the above, it was previously known that William Avery Hyde and wife Carol Hyde were associates in the late 1920's and later of Talbot Bielefeldt, #29931, who is currently employed by this agency in FDD. A certain amount of information concerning William Hyde, Carol Hyde, and other associates of Hyde and Bielefeldt during the latter 1920's was furnished by Talbot Bielefeldt during interviews several years ago. At that time the Bielefeldt case was under extensive investigation. 
                                                                   Bruce Solie
On April 30, 1964, Birch O'Neal generated the following document:
MEMORANDUM FOR FILE (CI/OA File 59751)
SUBJECT: Mrs. Ruth Paine nee Hyde

Shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy the press carried information concerning a Mrs. Ruth Paine who had befriended the OSWALD family. Mr. Bruce Solie, of the Office of Security, called to my attention that the Office of Security has information of possible interest concerning William A. Hyde, who had three children; namely Ruth Hyde, Sylvia Hyde Hoke and Carl Hyde. Mrs. Ruth Paine was known to have had the name Hyde prior to her marriage. On November 29, 1963, I advised Sam Papich to contact Mr. Solie of the Office of Security for information of possible interest in connection with Mrs. Ruth Paine. I indicated to Mr. Papich that the Office of Security information was of possible security significance and consideration and I was subsequently informed that the Bureau had been in touch with Mr. Solie for its information. Birch D. O'Neal Chief, CI/SIG.
[NARA CIA 1993.07.08.09.:07:31:900520]
On March 1, 1964, FBI S.A. Charles M. Beall, Jr., ascertained at CIA that its security and foreign indices did not contain any references identifiable with Michael Ralph Paine. CIA advised its only reference to Ruth Avery Hyde, nee Hyde, was set out in CIA Report prepared in 1957 on William Avery Hyde, father of Ruth. This CIA material was furnished the Bureau via Liaison on December 4, 1963, with request the CIA material not be inserted in the Bureau reports. Dallas is cognizant. [FBI 105-1717-225 -- Hosty's name on the "Searched, Indexed, Serialized and Filed April 19, 1964, FBI - Dallas" stamp on this document.]
NOTE: Birch D. O'Neal was referred to by John Newman in a 1999 presentation at JFK Lancer Conference as "the head of the mole hunting unit, CI/SIG." Searching the Mary Ferrell website for "bureau liaison" turns up one interesting connection with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in 1960. In a memo from J. Edgar Hoover to Allen Dulles, dated April 14, 1960, Hoover referenced a previous memorandum from Dulles with an attachment signed by William K. Harvey. Hoover stated that the FBI had opened an investigation in March 1960, prior to Dulles' correspondence, on the "Committee of Friends of Cuba," which the FBI thought might be identical to Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He then mentioned the New York Times advertisement, headed "What's Really Happening in Cuba?," which listed the names of numerous people in support of Cuba's revolution, requesting "derogatory information" the CIA had on the individuals named in the ad.

Hoover's letter, which was addressed to the CIA's Deputy Director of Plans (Richard Bissell was in this post until he was fired by JFK and replaced by Richard Helms after the Bay of Pigs fiasco), contains a note that it "is being sent by Liaison at request of Bureau Liaison representative." The FBI's liaison representative to the CIA was Sam Papich.

John Newman's book, Oswald and the CIA, also mentioned this advertisement. According to H.P. Albarelli, Jr. in A Secret Order: Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity in the JFK Assassination (Trine Day, 2013), the ad had been placed in the Times by Robert Bruce Taber and Richard Gibson, both former CBS news journalists. Some researchers believe that Taber's admission that he met with Oswald in Cuba in 1961 discounts Oswald's being in the USSR the entire time he claims to have been there, while others, such as Jim Hargrove, believe Taber's statement furnishes evidence that there were two Oswalds--Harvey and Lee.

Bill Simpich makes the case, however, that shortly after the Bag of Pigs failed invasion of Cuba, the FBI began a
"campaign of disruption against the FPCC.... During June, 1960, a few months after Oswald’s defection to the USSR in late 1959, J. Edgar Hoover himself sent a memo to the State Department alerting it to the possibility that an imposter was using Oswald’s identity. Hoover was tipped to the problem by a telegram from Harold F. Good at the New York field office. Former Cuban Prime Minister Tony Varona testified to a House committee that he believed Oswald was in Cuba during 1961." In his Counterpunch article, Simpich cited Athan G. Theoharis for the statement that the FBI engaged in eight separate break-ins of FPCC offices to gain evidence to use against Taber and/or his CBS colleague, Richard Thomas Gibson, a black journalist from San Francisco, who refused to furnish to the FBI the membership list of the FPCC. Therefore, operatives broke into the office to photograph a list made available by a confidential political informant whom Simpich identifies as Victor Thomas Vicente. In his 2009 book, The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy, David Kaiser states that in July 1963 the FBI had "infiltrated an informer from the New York chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a Puerto Rican named Victor Thomas Vicente, into Cuba, probably through Mexico City."
This ongoing campaign would have been reaching its culmination then within two months after Oswald arrival in New Orleans to work (possibly on instructions from Bobby Kennedy) with David Ferrie and Judyth Vary Baker on the bioweapon intended to give cancer to Castro, according to Baker's book, Me and Lee.

Kaiser says, however, that although Vicente met both Fidel and Che Guevara, he returned from Cuba and was debriefed by the CIA upon his return. He then set about planning a speech to be given in New York City on September 23, 1963, working with Vincent Theodore Lee, to whom Oswald had sent two letters. The first letter dated May 26, 1963, was designated Commission Exhibit #2, and the second written in reply to V.T. Lee's response, was labeled Commission Exhibit #4. This correspondence occurred only a month after Judyth met Lee in line at the New Orleans Post Office. She relates in Me and Lee (page 316) that she paid for the money order for Lee to rent the office for FPCC on May 27, and Lee explained his motives for joining FPCC and setting up a branch of the pro-Castro organization.

What is not clear is by whom Lee was being directed in this activity. It seems possible his work for the FBI could easily have been of great use by former FBI agent, Louis J. Russell, HUAC's chief investigator after 1949, to undermine the group by proving it to be a front for Communists.

Ayn Rand and Song of Russia: Communism and Anti-Communism in 1940s Hollywood

From HSCA file
Though Russell's name appeared frequently in newspapers throughout the McCarthy era, he is best recognized by Watergate researchers because of the fact he was mentioned in Jim Hougan's books, Spooks and Secret Agenda, as well as in the Anthony Summers book, The Arrogance of Power. According to Summers, in fact, Richard Nixon had worked so closely with Russell prior to the 1948 HUAC hearings in exposing Alger Hiss as a Communist, that the investigator was hired by the Nixon White House during the first term and then moved in 1972 onto the payroll of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP).




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