Michael Paine

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported that Paine died March 1, 2018, in Sebastopol, California.

In 1964, Paine testified that he was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

On February 22, 1963, Ruth Paine attended a party held at the home of her fellow madrigal singer, Everett Glover, who knew that Ruth was learning to speak Russian and thought she might be interested in meeting a couple he knew, Marina and Lee Harvey Oswald.

As April 1963 began, Ruth planned to cook dinner for the Oswalds at her home, and she asked Michael to pick them up and drive them to her house. (The Oswalds had no car.) Michael met the Oswalds for the first time on April 2, 1963. when he picked up Lee, Marina, and their baby daughter, June at their apartment at 214 West Neely Street in Dallas. Before he drove them to Ruth's house, he had to endure a long wait as Marina got ready.

On the contrary, Michael swore to the Warren Commission that he had 'no idea' that Lee Harvey Oswald ever had a rifle. In 1993, however, Michael Paine told Gus Russo, author of 'Live by the Sword' (1998) that Lee Oswald showed him this famous Backyard Photograph at their first meeting on April 2, 1963.

In late September 1962, Paine and his wife Ruth separated, Ruth asked him to have his personal belongings moved out of the house by the time she got back home from traveling around the United States that summer. According to Michael, it was not he, but Ruth who pushed to legally end their marriage. As their divorce made its way through the legal system until it ended in 1970, the Paines continued to see films at the theater together, and their Madrigal singing as a couple continued. Michael kept his own apartment in Arlington, Texas, while Ruth remained with Lynn and Christopher in the Irving home. In the end, the divorce was amicable, and Michael kept a very favorable view of Ruth.

But Michael did not emphasize for the Warren Commission the several talks that he had with Lee Oswald about the radical right wing and resigned General Edwin Walker, who had been making trouble for JFK since October 1962. All he knew was that he and Lee Oswald 'agreed' about General Walker.

In 1958, Paine became employed at Bell Helicopter through Young, his stepfather and designer of the first commercial helicopter, Bell 47.

In 1957, he married Ruth Avery Hyde in Pennsylvania. They had two children: Lynn (b. 1959) and Christopher (b. 1961). In 1959, they relocated to 2525 West Fifth Street in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. when Paine began work at a Bell Helicopter facility in Fort Worth. One issue is whether the Minox camera found in the Paine garage belonged to Lee Oswald or to Michael Paine. Another issue is what activities Lee Oswald and Michael Paine had in common, given Michael Paine's statement to Frontline (Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?, PBS) that he and Lee Oswald shared unspecified interests.

Paine graduated from high school in New York in 1947. He attended Harvard University for two years in 1947-1949 and Swarthmore College for a year, but did not graduate.

Michael Ralph Paine (June 25, 1928 – March 1, 2018) was an American engineer. He became notable after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, because he was an acquaintance of the President's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. His wife, Ruth Hyde Paine, housed Lee's estranged wife, Marina Oswald, in her home for several months before the assassination until the day after it.