[Photograph: Side view of the home of Everett Glover at 5723 Southwestern Boulevard in Dallas, rented with two fellow workers at Mobile Oil, Richard Pierce and Volkmar Schmidt. This is the site of the famous party
of February 22, 1963. Despite effort, we were unable to find a photograph of Everett Glover.]
As we saw, Glover’s interaction with the Oswalds began sometime in September 1962 when Glover met Marina Oswald at the home of George and Jeanne DeMohrenschildt (hereafter DM). George DM had invited Glover a few times to his house to meet Marina. She was the intriguing, young Russian wife of a bizarre defector to Russia. He was a was a talented ex-Marine who taught himself to speak fairly fluent Russian yet could not find a decent job in Texas, so they were as poor as church-mice. They were continually fighting, said George and Jeanne, so the DM’s stepped up to help Marina make a new start.
Glover, a northerner perhaps bored in the south, enjoyed being part of George DM’s liberal circle in Dallas. Glover met Marina at the DM’s home numerous times. We can date these meetings because Glover described a time when he drove Marina home to Forth Worth one evening. Well, the Oswalds had moved out of Fort Worth in early October 1962. So, the date of Glover’s drive of Marina was probably September 1962.
Yet when he was asked to date his encounter with the Oswalds, Glover claims he could not remember exactly, but guessed that it must have been early 1963. Let’s look at that testimony:
Mr. JENNER. Did she speak any English on that occasion?
Mr. GLOVER. She spoke practically none. No English…
Mr. JENNER. Let’s say this is February of 1963, did you say that was, or March?
Mr. GLOVER. This was sometime in the first part of the year.
Mr. JENNER. Of 1963?
Mr. GLOVER. Yes; it was probably in January. That would be my best recollection. It was during that time. It might have been later than that. I am hazy. The only thing I have to go by is, I learned later after discussion of the visit of Oswald and his wife to our house, I learned pretty much from the conversation that that meeting took place in the latter part of February.
Hazy? Really? But nobody can confuse September 1962 with February 1963 – nearly a half-year later. Glover kept shifting the context back and forth and he contradicted his own testimony. He drove Marina home to Fort Worth one evening, yet she no longer lived in Fort Worth after September 1962. Now Glover vaguely suggests that he might have met her in early 1963. Why all this haziness? It seems clear that Glover wished to minimize his involvement with the Oswalds in 1962.
However, the first time that Glover met Lee Harvey Oswald (hereafter LHO) was likely in February 1963. It was also at the DM home – at a large dinner party. George and Jeanne had invited several Russian friends over to meet both of the Oswalds. They also included two non-Russians, namely Everett Glover and Volkmar Schmidt. This was Volkmar’s first meeting Marina and Lee. (Their Mobil Oil co-workers were not invited to this particular party, which was substantially Russian speaking.)
At this party, several guests interviewed LHO. Glover talked only a little, while Volkmar Schmidt talked with LHO “considerably,” testified Glover. They did not regard LHO as dangerous, since they presumed that the FBI would constantly watch anybody who had defected to Russia and returned to the US. A few Russians worried that the Oswalds might be Red spies, so George assured them that he had already asked the FBI about LHO in Fort Worth – and the FBI said that LHO was “harmless.”
As Glover watched other people converse with LHO, he saw a youth dissatisfied with everything. LHO didn’t like America in 1959. He didn’t like Russia in 1962. He didn’t like America in 1963. LHO didn’t fit in with any social or political group and he didn’t even get along with his own wife. LHO was a maladjusted “ne’er-do-well.” That was Everett’s lasting impression of LHO.
Though unimpressed by LHO, evidently Everett and Volkmar were impressed with the concept of George DM’s party, where George presented the Oswalds to their well-to-do friends as a sort of social sideshow. Glover and Volkmar enjoyed that sideshow so much that only a few days later, Glover organized his own sideshow party at his own home for his co-workers at Mobil Oil and their guests, including Michael and Ruth Paine. He scheduled it for February 22, 1963.
On the night of that party, Glover himself drove to the roach-infested apartment of the Oswalds on Elsbeth Street in Dallas to give them a ride. Glover felt certain that Michael Paine came to his party (though Michael Paine denied that he was there). Ruth admitted going there. The DM’s came late and left early – perhaps only to see how Glover’s sideshow party compared with their own.
LHO was a common malcontent – happy nowhere. Yet LHO was also uncommon since he was a Marine who defected to Russia during the Cold War. So, he was worth exhibiting at a Dallas party of young engineers. LHO beamed at all the attention. Remember that LHO had written his memoirs of his Russian years, and he paid to have them typed up for publication. Yet LHO was a mediocre writer and could find no interested publishers. But maybe there was still hope – maybe some of these well-to-do Dallas engineers would sponsor him. So, LHO nurtured his mystique for all it was worth.
Thanks to the PBS series, Frontline (1990), we have Volkmar Schmidt on video tape explaining that at this party he challenged Lee’s typical Marine griping over the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. LHO was particularly animate, said Volkmar. So Volkmar chose to divert LHO’s rage toward a new target – toward the resigned General Edwin Walker who just happened to live down the street from Glover and George DM.
The guests at Glover’s party circled around to watch. They all knew that only a few weeks before, General Walker had been acquitted by a Mississippi Grand Jury for his role in the Ole Miss University racial riots of September 30, 1962. This was fresh news in late February 1963. Volkmar worked for more than an hour to convince LHO that Walker was a fascist “like Hitler.”
George DM relates that Marina was “bored out of her mind” at that party, and she spent most of her time a bedroom with her baby June, and Jeanne DM, and Ruth Paine, speaking Russian. This was perfect for Ruth, who didn’t care two cents for LHO.
That was the last that Glover ever saw the Oswalds – although he heard about them occasionally through Michael and Ruth Paine. George DM had asked Glover to be caretaker of this storage room in Dallas while he relocated in Haiti. George had also asked Glover to lend his record player to Marina Oswald. Glover did that in March 1963. After the Oswald’s moved to New Orleans in April 1963, the Paines called Glover saying that they now had that record player. Glover asked Michael Paine to return it, and when he did, Michael told Glover the latest about the Oswalds.
Six months later, in late September 1963, Glover got another call from the Paines saying that they now had phonograph records teaching English to Russians which the DM’s had also loaned to Marina. Glover asked Michael to return them, and Michael did, and again brought Glover up-to-date about the Oswalds. LHO was out of work again, and Marina was living with Ruth Paine because Marina was eight months pregnant and needed to register with a hospital.
The next time that Glover would hear about LHO was in the context of the world-shocking JFK assassination. He could hardly believe that he had been connected to this monster!
GLOVER’S WC TESTIMONY ON GEORGE DM
We first notice that Everett Glover’s Warren Commission (hereafter WC) testimony is riddled with the phrase, “I don’t remember” (usually in direct or indirect reference to General Walker). But there are other problems, too.
It seems to us that in his Glover’s WC testimony attempted to minimize his long friendship with George and Jeanne DM. Glover admits having known the DM’s as early as 1956 as ice-skating partners. He admits speaking with Jeanne DM at the Dallas skating rink during those early years. We cannot believe that Glover, an oil geology professional in Dallas, was really ignorant of the fact that George DM was a well-known oil geology professor at the University of Texas at Dallas since 1951.
Yet Glover now claims that he was first introduced with George DM in 1962, by Sam Ballen at a country club tennis court, with Jeanne as doubles. Instantly Glover could be found at the DM home drinking beer and eating supper. Instantly he learned about George and Jeanne’s personal lives, their families, their children, their foibles, their professional lives, and so on. It doesn’t sound like a new relationship to us.
It is more likely, we consider, that the tremendous shock of the JFK Assassination stunned Glover into breaking his friendship with the DM’s. George deeply resented that George DM had introduced Glover to LHO in 1962! Glover now minimized his relationship with the DM’s – he met them formally in early 1962, and George DM was cynical, capricious, arrogant, immature, rebellious, unsettled, selfish, insulting, an exaggerating boaster, overbold with women, vague on political stance, and very much against organized religion.
An unsavory character – we surmise. The WC reader gets no idea of a close, seven-year friendship. So, it’s odd that Glover would quickly introduce his favorite co-worker at Mobil Oil since 1961, Volkmar Schmidt (a German national) to this unsavory character. Yet George DM and Volkmar became lifelong friends after Glover had introduced them to each other.
We also get this impression from the HSCA testimony of George DM, when he relayed that after the JFK Assassination, our Glover suddenly cut off all communication with him. Let’s review that:
This remains a mystery to this day, because we lost track of Glover, a good guy who got so frightened of his very slight acquaintanceship with the “President’s assassin” that he moved out somewhere without leaving an address. (George DM, 1978, I Am a Patsy! I Am a Patsy!)
Clearly Everett Glover hoped to cut himself off from the JFK Assassination, as far as possible.
GLOVER’S WC TESTIMONY ON LEE HARVEY OSWALD
As we’ve seen, Glover’s WC testimony obscures the length of time that he personally knew Marina Oswald. Glover had enjoyed dinner with Marina Oswald at the home of George and Jeanne DM, by the DM’s invitation, way back in September 1962.
As for LHO, however, it seems that he met Glover only twice – once at the DM’s party for the Dallas Russian community, and once at a big party Glover’s own living room. LHO was the center of attention both times. The guests had many questions for this Marine who had defected to Russia. The theme was most entertaining.
One can imagine the dreams that thrilled LHO – Americans loved his story! Maybe he really could sell it for a fortune! Perhaps a ghostwriter or a famous writer would help him rewrite his memoirs! Maybe he could be the TV show, ‘This is Your Life!’
Then something unexpected occurred. A genuine intellectual – Volkmar Schmidt – an engineer by trade who had been raised in a house of professional psychologists, heard LHO’s anger over the Bay of Pigs. He knew that most American liberals of the day were angry over the resigned General Edwin Walker! The guests hushed as Volkmar stepped up to “transfer” LHO’s rage from the Bay of Pigs over to the General Walker. Some attendees (as we surmise from the literature on this topic) regarded Volkmar as a wizard in psychology. It was an widely remembered.
The guests at both parties eagerly watched Volkmar the amateur psychologist in action. George DM would have approved, calling General Walker, “General Fokker,” and Schmidt, “Messerschmidt.” LHO was encircled by this liberal agenda at these two parties and heard a common message: “General Walker was as bad as Hitler.”
So, it was no accident that around midnight on April 10, 1963, when Marina asked a shivering LHO why he had used his rifle to shoot at General Walker, LHO repeated those same words. Let’s look at her WC testimony from September 6, 1964:
Mr. RANKIN. Did he tell you why he had shot at General Walker?
Mrs. OSWALD. I told him that he had no right to kill people in peacetime, he had no right to take their life because not everybody has the same ideas as he has. People cannot be all alike. He said that this was a very bad man, that he was a fascist, that he was the leader of a fascist organization, and when I said that even though all of that night be true, just the same he had no right to take his life, he said if someone had killed Hitler in time it would have saved many lives...
It seems to us that Volkmar Schmidt’s psychology had made a major impact on LHO’s youthful mind. Volkmar even admitted this to PBS Frontline in 1993, and to journalist William Kelly in 1995. Readers unfamiliar with these sources can find them here:
Start at minute 35:45 and watch for 90 seconds
With this perspective, we can propose that Everett Glover took a leading role (even if unintentional) in motivating LHO to murder General Walker on April 10, 1963. If so, then Volkmar was not alone in attempting to persuade LHO to join the Dallas liberals in despising General Walker. Everett Glover was one of these liberals, and George DM was another. What about Michael Paine?
GLOVER SAID MICHAEL PAINE WAS AT HIS PARTY – MICHAEL DENIED IT
Everett Glover was confident that Michael Paine was at his party although Michael denied being there. . Yet if Glover testified correctly then that would place Michael’s first meeting with LHO on February 22, 1963, instead of April 2, 1963, as Michael testified. (This would not be the first time that another WC witness challenged Michael’s testimony, as we’ll see.)
If Michael Paine met LHO in February 1963, then why did he tell the WC that he met LHO in April 1963? Was Michael hiding something self-incriminating? Perhaps Michael knew about these Dallas liberals pushing LHO to despise General Walker. Perhaps Michael was one of them. If so, then Michael could have easily guessed who shot at General Walker. If so, then every one of those Dallas liberals could have easily guessed -- and they would all have been guilty of failing to tell the Dallas authorities about it.
Let’s review Marina Oswald’s WC testimony of June 11, 1964 on this very topic:
Mr. McKENZIE: Mrs. Oswald, you say, or you said a few minutes ago, that Mr. Paine knew or knows more about your husband’s attitude about the United States than you do. Why did you say that?
Mrs. OSWALD: Because my husband’s favorite topic of discussion was politics, and whoever he was with he talked to them politics, and Mr. Paine was with him a fair amount. I am not sure that they talked about politics…they went to meetings of some kind together; I don’t know what kind of meetings.
Mr. McKENZIE: Do you know where the meetings were?
Mrs. OSWALD: In Dallas. After they came back from some meeting my husband said to me something about Walker being at this meeting, and he said, “Paine knows that I shot him.” I don’t know whether this was…true or not, but this is what he told me.
This is interesting. The date is October 23, 1963, when General Walker spoke for “US Day.” Michael Paine admitted to the WC that he drove LHO to hear that speech. Later that night, as Marina testified, LHO told her, “Paine knows that I shot [at] him.”
This fresh news contradicted Michael’s WC testimony, so the WC attorneys recalled Michael Paine to the witness stand on July 23, 1964. Michael denied Marina’s story. Let’s review that part of his WC testimony, noting that like his good friend, Everett Glover, Michael Paine suddenly forgets events when speaking of General Walker. Let’s begin.
Mr. LIEBELER: You testified previously that when you first met Lee Oswald in April 1963, that you discussed to some extent Gen. Edwin A. Walker?
PAINE: Yes; I think we did discuss him [but only] in passing.
Mr. LIEBELER: Did Oswald ever indicate to you in any way that he had been involved in the attempt on General Walker's life?
Mr. PAINE: Not that I remember -- at all, nothing whatsoever. I think the only thing he did – the only thing that I can remember now -- was that he seemed to have a smile in regard to that person. It was inscrutable. I didn't know what he was smiling about -- I just thought perhaps it was -- the guy assumed it was rapport for a person who was an extreme proponent of a certain kind of patriotism or something…
It seems to us that Michael was already squirming – already trying to evade the question and to change the topic if he possibly could. Let’s go on.
Mr. LIEBELER: Now, when you first met Oswald, as I recall, on April 2, I believe it was, of 1963?
Mr. PAINE: You have been keeping up with this – I haven't been thinking about Oswald for a year.
Mr. LIEBELER: You don't have any recollection as to the date at this point?
Mr. PAINE: No.
Michael evades the dating of his interactions with LHO. “You know more than I do,” he quips.
Mr. LIEBELER: In any event, you did meet Oswald sometime in April, for the first time; do you recall whether it was before or after that Walker had been attacked?
Mr. PAINE: I don't recall now; and as I remember – back in the fall – I wasn't aware then whether it was before or after. It isn't just a lapse of memory now.
Michael claims he cannot recall. Perhaps the memories are too painful. Usually Michael was a clear-speaking, confident, and articulate WC witness. Yet now that the questions are about General Walker, he loses his composure. Let’s continue, observing that Michael does not regain his usual composure in the following.
Mr. LIEBELER: Do you remember discussing with Oswald the fact that someone had shot at General Walker?
Mr. PAINE: No – I don't. That would have led me to think it was prior to his being shot at.
That would what? The answer makes no sense.
Mr. LIEBELER: You are referring to this specific date. Now, my question means to comprehend any time do you remember discussing at any time with Oswald the fact that General Walker had been attacked?
Mr. PAINE: No; I did not. I didn't see him – I saw him that one evening, you see, and then I didn't see him for a space of some time.
Mr. LIEBELER: You didn't see him after that one time in April until after he had returned from New Orleans?
Mr. PAINE: I guess that's right.
Michael guesses it's right? Or perhaps Michael might have seen LHO before that one time in April, 1963.
Mr. LIEBELER: So, that would have been in October 1963?
Mr. PAINE: Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER: On June 11, 1964, Marina Oswald testified before the Commission at which time she said: [Here Liebeler reads Marina’s answers to Mr. McKenzie above]. Do you remember going at any meeting with Lee Oswald at which Mr. Walker was present?
Mr. PAINE: No. The only meeting I went to was the ACLU meeting, that I recall.
Mr. LIEBELER: Do you recall going to any meeting yourself in October 1963, with or without Oswald, at which General Walker was present?
Mr. PAINE: General Walker was present at the… Oswald mentioned the U.N. and U.S. Day meeting held by the rightists, which occurred a day or two or two nights before the ACLU meeting. He had been to that by himself. I had gone that same evening to a John Birch meeting. We were not together, but they were two things that occurred simultaneously, and that's where Lee, by his report at the ACLU meeting said he was, and Walker was there. Maybe that's what Marina had in mind.
Let’s interject here. On the same evening (October 23, 1963) Michael drove LHO to hear a speech by General Walker, while Michael went to a “John Birch meeting.” That’s quite odd, since Michael was no member of this extreme right-wing group – yet General Walker was a well-known member. We now see Michael exploring Walker's John Birch Society in Dallas on the same night that LHO was listening to General Walker in Dallas! This develops a picture that Michael and LHO had collaborated to investigate the operations of General Walker! Let’s return to his WC testimony.
Mr. LIEBELER: But you, yourself, don't have any recollection of your ever being at a meeting when he was there?
Mr. PAINE: No; I have never seen General Walker – that I can recall.
Mr. LIEBELER: You have never seen Walker?
Mr. PAINE: Unless he was – in a year previous to that I had been to the Indignation Committee meeting – no – that is the answer to your previous question.
Mr. LIEBELER: To the best of your recollection, you don’t ever remember seeing General Walker present?
Mr. PAINE: That's right.
To the best of his recollection? Well, anybody can always say ‘I don’t remember’ any old time that they choose! Nobody can prove otherwise, and it certainly isn’t perjury to say it – nor is it the same as taking the 5th Amendment. Okay, we’ve wandered off track. We’ll return to a fulsome analysis of Michael Paine’s WC testimony in coming weeks, but for now we simply want to clarify a plausible portrait in Dallas in early 1963, that several Dallas liberals worked on LHO for several weeks in February 1963, to motivate him to despise General Walker.
Let’s pause here to let this new perspective sink in.
Regards,
--Paul
Copyright (c) 2021 by Paul Trejo. All Rights Reserved.
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