The Death of JFK: More on George De Mohrenschildt

Born on April 17, 1911 ( his passports say different things), George DeMohrenschildt came to the United States from Russia in 1938. His father was a baron, czarist governor, a member of the Russian Duma when he was born. . His family feared and hated the Bolsheviks and was helped to escape by the Nazis. British intelligence believed he was a German intelligence asset. Before coming to the US, he acquired a doctorate in commerce from the University of Liege. He entered the US in May, 1938 on the Belgian quota. He may have been a German Abwer agent, and he subsequently penetrated French intelligence.

While an employee of Shumaker Company in New York, he worked for French intelligence and later went to work for Humble Oil. In 1941, the OSS refused to hire him due to his asso C.I.A.tion with Nazi intelligence agents. He would later do intelligence work for the US State Department, going to Yugoslavia in 1957 to search for oil . He did “favors” for the C.I.A. but told Epstein that he was never a paid employee. For example he traveled Latin America for the agency in 1961. His travels took him to Guatemala City at a time when anti-Castro rebels were nearby preparing for the Bay of Pigs. Later Jerry Hemming placed De Mohrenschildt at a 1962 meeting where the assassination of Castro was discussed. He brought piles of $100 bills to pay the assassins. When George flew from Haiti to Washington to testify before the Warren Commission, he was met by Dorothy Matlack of US Army Intelligence. She had long been one of General Lansdale’s top aids. George claimed he was not an intelligence agent but indications are he had been part of that world since his early days with the German Abwehr.

Janet Auchincloss almost married him, and her daughter Jackie grew up calling him “Uncle George.” He was also once engaged to Jackie’s aunt Michelle. In Dallas, he functioned as an oil geologist and knew many important people including George H.W. Bush, whose name was in his address book. He also knew H.L. Hunt and worked for Clint Murchison’ s Three States Oil and Gas Company. Investigator Richard Sprague, who has done an enormous amount of work on the assassination, claimed that the assassination was financed by Carlos Prio Socarras, and Texas oilmen Clint Murchison and Jean DeMenil. Sprague seems right on many details, but the overall story remains an interesting hypothesis.

George H.W. Bush acknowledged knowing De Mohrenschildt since Andover days, as he was the uncle of Bush’s roommate, Edward Gordon Hooker George De Mohrenschildt knew LBJ and sent him a letter on April 17, 1963, and he worked for LBJ backer and oilman John Mecom. Abram Zapruder, another White Russian, also traveled in this circle of Texas oil barons. In 1964, some of De Mohrenschildt’s C.I.A. files were destroyed and James Angleton started monitoring his mail, even though the agency subsidized a periodical published by George’s brother Dimitry , a college professor. The White Russian Solidarists helped the Oswalds settle in and it was connected to US intelligence and most probably to the Gehlen intelligence network. George De Mohrenschildt knew well the Solidarists in Dallas but was careful not to join their organization. Later, he came to fear that these people were scheming to make it appear that he was Oswald’s controller.

In late 1961, J. Walter Moore, who in the C.I.A.’s Domestic Contact Service, asked De Mohrenschildt to befriend Oswald when he returned to Dallas from Minsk. Moore said the agency wanted to learn about his experience in Minsk. George was then a leader of the Dallas White Russian community, and he introduced Oswald to Ruth Paine, another who was tied to the White Russian community due to her travels. Michael Paine, her husband, was an engineer who had been with ONI. He was working for Bell Aircraft and had a security clearance. It is odd that he would have risked his clearance by mixing with a defector—unless he was doing so on orders of the CIS. Mrs. Paine’s sister, Sylvia Hyde Hoke, was a C.I.A. officer operating under Air Force cover. Documents on Mrs. Paine have never been released.

According to whistleblower Bill Tyree’s litigation, Ruth Paine had been a C.I.A. agent from at least 1956, when Colonel Al Carone, C.I.A. paymaster, brought her money on behalf of Bill Casey. In 1963, her contact was De Mohrenschildt , who , in turn, answered to George H.W. Bush. Paine’s mother-in-law Ruth Forbes Paine, was a close friend of Mary Bancroft, a former OSS agent who had been mistress to Henry Luce and Allan Dulles. The Tyree litigation did not focus on the assassination of JFK; it dealt with other C.I.A. operations. When the F.B.I. and Dallas police searched Paine’s house they found file cards on pro-Castro Cubans, suggesting the Paine’s were agents charged with keeping track of pro-Communist elements. It was an anonymous telephone call traced to Bell Helicopter, where Mr. Paine worked, that informed the Dallas police that Marina Oswald lived with Ruth Paine. Mrs. Paine furnished a great deal of information that incriminated Lee Harvey Oswald.

At the time George H.W. Bush was head of Zapata Oil, a firm that may have been partly owned by the C.I.A.. His partner in the venture was retired C.I.A. officer Thomas J. Devine, who resumed affiliation with the agency in 1963. The Bush family had strong business ties to the former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, and Jeb ( John Ellis Bush) Bush would name Raoul Cantero, Batista’s grandson, to the Florida Supreme Court. It might be recalled that the Bay of Pigs invasion had been named Operation Zapata.

Marina Oswald gave George an autographed photograph of Lee holding a rifle, with the inscription " For George. Lee Harvey Oswald. Hunter of Fascists, Ha. Ha. ” When he heard that someone tried to kill General Walker, he assumed it had been Oswald and went to their house to see if Oswald had disposed of the rifle. Marina Oswald told the Warren Commission that she heard him rush up the Oswald’s stairs saying: "Lee, how did you miss General Walker?” Oswald was said to have attempted to kill General Edwin Walker, a known rightist. Oswald had with him the addresses of Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazis, and General Walker. On the day of the4 assassination, Walker called a German news source to say that Oswald had tried to kill him. Then ruth Ruth Paine gave Marina Oswald a postdated lettere in which Lee says he tried to kill Walker.

De Mohrenschildt was afraid of becoming implicated. In Haiti, George worked for Clint Murchison and was also a business partner of Mohammed al Fayed and Clamar J. Charles. A man who knew him in Haiti said “I could never figure out what he did” and just assumed he was an intelligence agent. At the time Al Fayed, an Egyptian intelligence officer, ws representing El-Amir Atta and was sleeping with De Mohrenschildt’s S daughter, Aalexandra. He was also De Mohrendschioldt’s business partner, and had ties to Adnan Kheshoggi. El Amir’s son, Mohamed Atta, a lead hihacker in 911, had not even been born yet.

George said Oswald was a patsy. In 1969, gun-runner Lauren Hall told De Mohrenschildt that he was offered $50,000 to participate in the assassination. In the same year, George told a friend he thought H.L. Hunt was behind the assassination and added that he was the link between Hunt and Oswald. Haroldson L. Hunt had run paramilitary operations before, using C.I.A. men. His assistants heard him say he would like to see Kennedy shot and that the country would be better off without JFK.

Before Kennedy’s inauguration, H.L. Hunt’s “Facts Forum” was putting out religious appeals as to why Kennedy should not be permitted to enter the White House. The program had previously attacked Jews and supported Joseph McCarthy. On the eve of the assassination, Hunts various outlets were spewing hateful material about the president. He thought Kennedy was weak on communism and knew Kennedy wanted to tax oil wealth, almost like other forms of wealth. He also viewed democracy as the devil’s work. One of his sons helped pay for a large Dallas newspaper ad attacking Kennedy that prompted the president to say the were entering “nut country.” Some of Hunt’s literature was found in Ruby’s pocket after he shot Oswald.

After the assassination, the F.B.I. briefly provided agents to protect Hunt while he and General Edwin Walker repaired to a Hunt hide-away in Mexico. Hunt was an admirer of LBJ and had strong ties to the Cuban exile community. Hunt had connections with the Chicago mob, and Murchison had a joint business venture with Louisiana mobster Carlos Marcello.Mafia messenger Eugene Hale Brading visited H.L. Hunt’s office on the morning of November 21. He was arrested in Dealey Plaza on November 22 and later released. John Curington, Hunt’s former chief aid, said Ruby also visited Hunt on the 21st.and that Marina Oswald met with Hunt on the 20th. On the 23rd, Hunt instructed Curington to look into the kind of security the police had for Oswald.

In 1975, Exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald by English lawyer Michael Eddowes appeared. It claimed that a Soviet double for Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy. Some investigative writers claim to have established that H.L. Hunt financed the book. Hunt was known for his extreme political views and great wealth, taking in about $30,000,000 a year. He spent large sums on political propaganda, and John F. Kennedy was concerned that men like him were using largely tax sheltered money for political purposes. Kennedy produced a plan to raise more revenue by changing tax treatment accorded the oil and gas industry.

In his last years, De Mohrenschildt became fearful that he was being watched and was in trouble with the C.I.A. and F.B.I.. On September 7, 1976, he sent a handwritten note to his old friend George H.W. Bush, Director of the C.I.A.

I have been acting like a damn fool.....I tried to write, stupidly and unsuccessfully about Lee H. Oswald and must have angered a lot of people. But to punish an elderly man like myself and my highly nervous and sick wife is really too much. Could you do something to remove this net [of surveillance] around us?

Soon thereafter, in the same month, he taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital for “mental problems” and was given nine electric shock treatments by Dr. Deloach, first cousin to Cartha D. "Deke" DeLoach , an assistant director of the F.B.I.

Later that year, he and long-time friend and Dutch investigative journalist Willem Oltmans went to the campus of Bishop College in Dallas. George told Dutch TV journalist that he was afraid of going to jail because he was responsible for guiding the behavior of Oswald; he’set it up.” De Mohrenschildt wanted to get out of the country and that “the interests” –meaning the F.B.I. and C.I.A. were out to get him. He added that so was the “Jewish mafia” because they considered him pro-Nazi.

George talked in circles with Oltmans in this and other conversations, adding little to his initial admission. He never admitted to doing intelligence work for the F.B.I. or C.I.A. but said he did some work for the State Department in Yugoslavia and Cuba. He also disclosed that he had written an account of what happened on November 22, 1963. He seemed to have a compulsion to tell what he knew, but was also weighing suicide: “Either I talk or I go; they will drive me mad, or I will kill myself.” He often recoiled from telling what he knew because of what his family would then think of him. Oltmans wanted to buy De Mohrenschildt for Dutch National Television and also get the book published.

When De Mohrenschildt finally agreed to accompany his friend to Holland, he added that he knew Jack Ruby and that he had known H.L. Hunt for twenty years and was “very close to him.” He knew that the F.B.I. released a letter Oswald wrote to Hunt and expressed puzzlement that Oswald had addressed H.L. Hunt. However, this November 8, 1963 note was addressed to “Mr. Hunt” and that could have been E. Howard Hunt or someone else. He said the money came from Hunt to him and that he, De Mohrenschildt, then gave directions to Oswald. In 1999, a former KGB agent said it was forged by his old employer.

In Amsterdam, George seemed depressed and troubled, so Oltmans took him to Brussels, where De Mohrenschildt disappeared. He next turned up in Palm Beach at the home of his daughter, Alexandra. When De Mohrenschildt was interviewed by Epstein there they broke for lunch, and DE Mohrenschildt went off and shot himself. (March 29, 1977)

Before going to Amsterdam, De Mohrdenschschildt was commiotted to a mental hospital, where his former wife—herself a former intelligence agent who had worked with Richard Helms, claimed he got worse. She claimed that a mysterious doctor came from out of nowhere, gave George different drugs, and disappeared. On May 11, 1978, she told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that she did not think he committed suicide. Later, De Mohrenschildt’s lawyer sent Epstein the photograph of Oswald holding the rifle, which he established did bear Oswald’s handwriting.

Alexandra had had an affair with Mohammed al Fayed. The C.I.A.’s 41 page report on the affair was signed by James Jesus Angleton and Jane Roman. Roman was the agent who had monitored Oswald for two months before the assassination. Gary Taylor, had been Alexandra’s husband, told the Warren Commission that it was likely that De Mohrenschildt could have been involved in a plot to kill; the president.

Oltman gave testimony to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in executive session, and it was not released until December 2, 1996. It appears that the committee acquired his notes, but they were not released. It is unclear whether De Mohrenschildt’s manuscript was found and acquired.