JOHN BECKHAM SAID:
Did Lee [Oswald] know how to drive and have a license? When everyone around him never saw him drive except for Ruth [Paine], who was instructing him?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Lee Harvey Oswald positively did not have a driver's license as of 11/22/63.
If you read Ruth Paine's testimony, this fact is confirmed:
MRS. PAINE -- "I knew that he [LHO] had not even a learner's permit to drive. I wasn't interested in his driving on the street with my car until he had such. But on Sunday [October 13, 1963] the parking lot of a neighboring shopping center was empty, and I am quite certain that is where the driving lesson took place."
[Also in Paine's testimony....]
MRS. PAINE -- "I learned Lee was not able to drive and didn't have a license."
ALBERT JENNER -- "How did you learn he was not able to drive?"
MRS. PAINE -- "I think it was related to his looking for work the first time in the middle of April, and I had learned he had looked in the Dallas area for work."
MR. JENNER -- "How did you learn it?"
MRS. PAINE -- "We were talking about it."
MR. JENNER -- "You were talking with Lee?"
MRS. PAINE -- "Yes."
MR. JENNER -- "Did he tell you that he was not able to drive a car?"
MRS. PAINE -- "That he had never learned how."
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There's also testimony from Ruth Paine that indicates that Oswald was attempting to get his learner's permit to learn how to drive just after Veteran's Day in early to mid November 1963, but the lines at the license branch were too long and there wasn't enough time that day for Lee to wait through the long lines and take his driving test, and therefore he never did get his permit.
And you can't get a state driver's license until you first get an initial permit to drive...and LHO didn't even have a learner's permit yet (as of the day of the assassination).
More on this topic came out during the following section of Ruth Paine's WC testimony:
MRS. PAINE -- "[Lee Oswald] suggested that he go from Dallas himself to take this test [for getting his learner's permit]. Then he called us Saturday afternoon of the 16th to say he had been and tried to get his driver's permit, but that he had arrived before closing time, but still too late to get in because there was a long line ahead of him, the place having been closed both the previous Saturday for election day and the following Monday, the 11th, Veterans Day. There were a lot of people who wanted to get permits and he was advised that it wouldn't pay him to wait in line. He didn't have time to be tested."
WILLIAM KANE SAID:
Well David, what do you say to Frankie Vegas about Lee having a license. Lots of people seemed to think he could drive and Aletha Frair gave her statement of having seen his license. I say again, if he did not have a license but one turned up, then we have a proven conspiracy. What do you think?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You think that a driver's license of Oswald's would "prove" a conspiracy existed in the murder of the President?
That's a huge non sequitur there.
Also -- Any idea why Oswald would want to play a silly little "I can drive but I'll pretend I can't" game with Ruth Paine?
And why would he just pretend to go to the license branch in November of '63 to get a learner's permit....even though he already has a driver's license?
In any event....Oswald's "driver's license status" proves NOTHING with respect to whether LHO acted alone in killing JFK on 11/22/63.
David Von Pein
July 22, 2009
