George de Mohrenschildt

George Sergius de Mohrenschildt (Russian: Георгий Сергеевич де Мореншильд; April 17, 1911 – March 29, 1977) was a petroleum geologist and professor who befriended Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1962 and maintained that friendship until Oswald's death, two days after the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. His testimony before the Warren Commission investigating the assassination was one of the longest of any witness.^[1][2]

Early life

Mohrenschildt began life as Jerzy Sergius von Mohrenschildt in Mozyr, in the Russian Empire, now in Belarus, born on April 4 in the old style Russian Julian calendar.^[3] He had an older brother, Dimitri. His wealthy father, Sergey Alexandrovich von Mohrenschildt, was of German, Swedish, and Russian descent. Mohrenschildt's mother, Alexandra, was of Polish, Russian, and Hungarian descent.^[3] Sergey von Mohrenschildt was claimed by his son to have been a Marshal of Nobility of the Minsk Governorate^[4][5] from 1913-1917, and a civil rank of Actual Civil Councilor corresponding to Major General. In 1920, some years after the Russian Revolution, Sergey von Mohrenschildt was arrested by the Bolsheviks for anti-Communist activities.^[6] He was sentenced to exile for life in Veliky Ustyug, a town in the north of Russia. Mohrenschildt later testified to the Warren Commission that while awaiting transport to Veliky Ustyug, his father had become ill. Two Jewish doctors who treated him in jail advised him to stop eating so he would appear more sickly. The doctors then told the Soviet government that Sergey was too ill to survive the trip to Veliky Ustyug and he should be allowed to stay at home to recover, under the condition that he check in weekly until he was well enough to be sent to Veliky Ustyug. The Soviet government agreed. After his release, Sergey, his wife and the young Mohrenschildt then fled to Poland in a hay wagon (Mohrenschildt's older brother Dimitri was awaiting execution, but was later released in a prisoner exchange in Poland).^[7][8] During their journey, Mohrenschildt, his father and mother Alexandra contracted typhoid fever. Alexandra died of the disease shortly after the family entered Poland.^[3]

After the death of his mother, Mohrenschildt and his father made their way to Wilno, where the family had a six acre property. Mohrenschildt graduated from the Wilno gymnasium in 1929 and later graduated from the Polish Cavalry Academy in 1931.^[9] He went on to earn a Master's degree at the Institute of Higher Commercial Studies.^[10] Having completed a dissertation on the economic influence of the U.S. on Latin America, he received a doctor of science degree in international commerce from the University of Liège in Belgium in 1938.^[11]

George von Mohrenschildt migrated to the United States in May 1938, after which he changed the nobiliary particle in his name from the German "von" to the French "de".^[12] Upon his arrival in the U. S., British intelligence reportedly told the U.S. government that they suspected he was working for German intelligence. Documents indicate he was under FBI surveillance for much of the 1940s. Mohrenschildt was hired by the Shumaker company in New York City, which also employed a man named Pierre Fraiss who had connections with French intelligence. According to Mohrenschildt, he and Fraiss, among their other duties, gathered information about people involved in "pro-German" activities, such as those bidding for U.S. oil leases on behalf of Germany before the U.S. became involved in World War II.^[13] Mohrenschildt testified that the purpose of their data-collection was to help the French out-bid the Germans.^[14]

Mohrenschildt spent the summer of 1938 with his older brother Dimitri von Mohrenschildt on Long Island, New York. Dimitri was a staunch anti-Communist^[15] and member of the OSS and one of the founders of the CIA's Radio Free Europe and Amcomlib (a.k.a., Radio Liberty) stations.^[16] His contacts included top officials of the CIA. (Dimitri died at the age of 100 in 2002.)

While in New York, Mohrenschildt became acquainted with the Bouvier family, including the young Jacqueline Bouvier, the future wife of John F. Kennedy. Jacqueline grew up calling Mohrenschildt "Uncle George" and would sit on his knee.^[17] He became a close friend of Jacqueline's aunt Edith Bouvier Beale.^[18]

Mohrenschildt dabbled in the insurance business from 1939 to 1941, but failed to pass his broker's examination.^[19] In 1941, he became associated with Film Facts in New York, a production company owned by his cousin Baron Maydell, who was said to have pro-Nazi sympathies. (Mohrenschildt denied any Nazi sympathies of his own, claiming he helped raise money for the Polish resistance.) Mohrenschildt made a documentary film about resistance fighters in Poland.^[20] However, when the United States entered World War II, his application to join the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was rejected. According to a memo by former CIA director Richard Helms, Mohrenschildt "was alleged to be a Nazi espionage agent."^[21]

In 1942, Mohrenschildt married an American teenager named Dorothy Pierson. They had a daughter, Alexandra (known as "Alexis") and divorced in early 1944.^[22] In 1945, Mohrenschildt received a master's degree in petroleum geology from the University of Texas.^[23]

Dallas, Oswald and Haiti

After the end of World War II, Mohrenschildt moved to Venezuela, where he worked for Pantepec Oil, a company owned by the family of William F. Buckley.^[24] In 1947, he married Phyllis Washington, the daughter of a diplomat with the State Department. They divorced in 1949.^[25] That same year, Mohrenschildt became a U.S. citizen. In 1950, he launched an oil investment firm with his step-nephew Edward Hooker, with offices in New York City, Denver, and Abilene.^[24] In 1951, Mohrenschildt married thirdly the physician Wynne "Didi" Sharples. The following year, the couple settled in Dallas, Texas, where Mohrenschildt took a job with oilman Clint Murchison as a petroleum geologist.^[26] Mohrenschildt and his third wife had two children, a son and a daughter, both of whom were born with cystic fibrosis (the couple's son died of the disease in 1960, as did their daughter in 1973).^[27][28] Mohrenschildt and Sharples were divorced in 1957.^[28]

Mohrenschildt joined the Dallas Petroleum Club,^[29] was a member of the Dallas Council on World Affairs,^[30][31] and taught at a local college. One of his longtime friends, offshore oil engineer George Kitchel, told the FBI that Mohrenschildt counted among his good friends oil barons Clint Murchison, H.L. Hunt, John W. Mecom, Sr., and Sid Richardson.^[32] Mohrenschildt also joined the right-wing Texas Crusade for Freedom, whose members included Earle Cabell, Everette DeGolyer, Harold Byrd, and Ted Dealey.^[33]

In 1957, Mohrenschildt went to Yugoslavia to conduct a geological field survey for the U.S. State Department sponsored International Cooperation Administration. While in Yugoslavia, he was accused by the authorities there of making drawings of military fortifications. After returning to the United States, Mohrenschildt was debriefed by the CIA, both in Washington and in Dallas.^[34]

Following his divorce in 1957, Mohrenschildt married his fourth wife, former dancer and model Jeanne LeGon, in 1959. LeGon (born Eugenia Fomenko) was the daughter of a director of the Chinese Far East Railway who was later killed by Communists.^[35] From late 1960 and into 1961, he and his wife toured Central America and the Caribbean.^[36] His "walking trip" through Central America was made to recover from the grief of his only son having died in 1960 of Cystic Fibrosis. However, Mohrenschildt did submit a written report of his trip to the U.S. State Department, and a photograph shows him meeting the American ambassador to Costa Rica.^[34]

Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian-born wife Marina Oswald were introduced to Mohrenschildt in the summer of 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas. Mohrenschildt testified to the Warren Commission in 1964 that he had met the Oswalds through George Bouhe. When he asked “Do you think it is safe for us to help Oswald”, Bouhe said he had checked with the FBI. Mohrenschildt also stated that he believed he had discussed Oswald with Max Clark, whom he believed was connected with the FBI, and with J. Walton Moore, whom Mohrenschildt described as "a Government man — either FBI or Central Intelligence",^[37][38] and who had debriefed Mohrenschildt several times following his travels abroad, starting in 1957.^[38][39] (According to a CIA classified document, obtained by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, J. Walton Moore was an agent of the CIA's Domestic Contacts Division in Dallas.)^[38] Mohrenschildt asserted that shortly after meeting Oswald, he asked Moore and Fort Worth attorney Max E. Clark about Oswald to reassure himself that it was "safe" for the Mohrenschildts to assist Oswald. Mohrenschildt testified that one of the persons he talked to about Oswald told him that Oswald "seems to be OK," and that "he is a harmless lunatic." However, Mohrenschildt was not exactly sure who it was who told him this.^[40] (When interviewed in 1978 by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, J. Walton Moore said that he had no recollection of any conversation with Mohrenschildt concerning Oswald.^[38] During this period, tens of thousands of American citizens were routinely debriefed by the CIA after traveling to communist countries such as Yugoslavia, as Mohrenschildt was.)^[39] After returning home from a weekend trip to Houston, Mohrenschildt became aware that someone had broken into his home and copied his personal papers and other documents. At the time, he also had a manuscript that Lee Harvey Oswald had given him to read and realized this document might also have been photocopied in the search. His primary concern was that the CIA was behind the break-in. According to Mohrenschildt, J. Walton Moore flatly denied that the CIA was involved in any way.^[41]

In October 1962, Mohrenschildt told Oswald that he would have a better chance of finding work in Dallas, after Oswald informed Mohrenschildt that he had lost his job in nearby Fort Worth, Texas. Oswald was soon hired by the Dallas photographic firm of Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. George de Mohrenschildt's wife and daughter would later say that it had been Mohrenschildt who secured the job at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall for Oswald.^[42]

On April 14, 1963, George de Mohrenschildt and his wife, Jeanne, visited the Oswalds' apartment. As Oswald's wife, Marina was showing Jeanne around the apartment, they discovered Oswald's rifle leaning against the wall inside a closet. Jeanne told George that Oswald had a rifle, and George joked to Oswald, "Were you the one who took a pot-shot at General Walker?" (General Edwin Walker was a conservative activist whom George de Mohrenschildt said he "knew that Oswald disliked.")^[43] When later asked by the Warren Commission about Oswald's reaction to his question, George de Mohrenschildt said that Oswald "smiled at that."^[44] In an interview with Edward Jay Epstein, Mohrenschildt claimed to have been in touch with the CIA about Oswald’s attempted assassination of General Walker. "I spoke to the CIA both before and afterwards. It was what ruined me." ^[41] The Warren Commission concluded that on April 10, 1963, Oswald had attempted to kill General Walker.^[45][46]

In June, 1963, Mohrenschildt moved to Haiti. He never saw Oswald again.

After Kennedy was assassinated, Mohrenschildt testified before the Warren Commission in April 1964. According to Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, then chief Pentagon-to-CIA liaison officer, Mohrenschildt had several private lunches with former CIA Director and Warren Commission member Allen Dulles while testifying before the Warren Commission.^[47] In November 1966, Mohrenschildt left Haiti and returned to Dallas. During 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison interviewed Jeanne and George de Mohrenschildt as part of Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw. Garrison said that both of the Mohrenschildts insisted that Oswald had been the scapegoat in the assassination of President Kennedy. Garrison concluded from his conversation with them that George de Mohrenschildt had been one of Oswald's unwitting "baby-sitters... assigned to protect or otherwise see to the general welfare of [Oswald]."^[48]

Later life and death

George and Jeanne de Mohrenschildt obtained a divorce in Dallas, Texas on April 3, 1973, after nearly fourteen years of marriage.^[49] It was not reported in the local newspapers, and the couple continued to present themselves as husband and wife.^{[lower-alpha 1]}

On September 17, 1976, the CIA requested that the FBI locate Mohrenschildt, because he had "attempted to get in touch with the CIA Director."^[50] On September 5, 1976, Mohrenschildt had written a letter to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George H. W. Bush, asking for his assistance. He was acquainted with the Bush family; George H.W. Bush had roomed with Mohrenschildt's nephew, Edward G. Hooker, at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.^[51] The letter said:

You will excuse this hand-written letter. Maybe you will be able to bring a solution to the hopeless situation I find myself in. My wife and I find ourselves surrounded by some vigilantes; our phone bugged; and we are being followed everywhere. Either FBI is involved in this or they do not want to accept my complaints. We are driven to insanity by the situation. I have been behaving like a damn fool ever since my daughter Nadya died from [cystic fibrosis] over three years ago. I tried to write, stupidly and unsuccessfully, about Lee H Oswald and must have angered a lot of people — I do not know. 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 the net around us? This will be my last request for help and I will not annoy you any more. Good luck in your important job. Thank you so much.^[52][53]

George H. W. Bush responded:

Let me say first that I know it must have been difficult for you to seek my help in the situation outlined in your letter. I believe I can appreciate your state of mind in view of your daughter's tragic death a few years ago, and the current poor state of your wife's health. I was extremely sorry to hear of these circumstances. In your situation I can well imagine how the attentions you described in your letter affect both you and your wife. However, my staff has been unable to find any indication of interest in your activities on the part of Federal authorities in recent years. The flurry of interest that attended your testimony before the Warren Commission has long subsided. I can only speculate that you may have become "newsworthy" again in view of the renewed interest in the Kennedy assassination, and thus may be attracting the attention of people in the media. I hope this letter had been of some comfort to you, George, although I realize I am unable to answer your question completely.

— George Bush, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. [CIA Exec Reg. # 76,51571 9.28.76]^{[lower-alpha 2]}

On November 9, 1976, Jeanne had Mohrenschildt committed to a mental institution in Texas for three months, and listed in a notarized affidavit four previous suicide attempts while he was in the Dallas area. In the affidavit she stated that Mohrenschildt suffered from depression, heard voices, saw visions, and believed that the CIA and the Jewish Mafia were persecuting him. He was released at the end of the year, however.

According to the Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans, in 1967 a "serious and famous Dutch clairvoyant" named Gerard Croiset had a vision of a conspirator who had manipulated Oswald;^[54] his description led Oltmans to Mohrenschildt, and the two stayed in touch. In 1977, Oltmans went to Texas and brought Mohrenschildt to the Netherlands.^[54] Oltmans claimed that he had rescued Mohrenschildt from a mental institution to bring him to the "famous" clairvoyant, Croiset. According to Oltmans, Croiset agreed that Mohrenschildt was the man he saw in his vision.

Oltmans says that after Mohrenschildt arrived in the Netherlands, he invited him out with some Russian friends. They went to Brussels and had plans to go to Liège, a city in the French-speaking part of Belgium. Oltmans owned a house in the countryside not far from Liège. Upon returning to Brussels, Mohrenschildt went for a short walk from which he failed to return. He had earlier agreed to meet Oltmans and his friends for lunch. Oltmans waited for him but he did not come back.^[55]

On March 16, 1977, Mohrenschildt returned to the United States from his trip. His daughter talked with him at length and found him to be deeply disturbed about certain matters, reporting that he had expressed a desire to kill himself. On March 29, Mohrenschildt gave an interview to author Edward Jay Epstein, during which he claimed that in 1962, Dallas CIA operative J. Walton Moore and one of Moore’s associates had handed him the address of Lee Harvey Oswald in nearby Fort Worth and then suggested that Mohrenschildt might like to meet him. Some help from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti would be greatly appreciated by him, he suggested to Moore. "I would never have contacted Oswald in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it," Mohrenschildt said. "Too much was at stake."^[41][56] On the same day as the Epstein interview, Mohrenschildt received a business card from Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, telling him that he would like to see him.^[57] The HSCA considered him a "crucial witness".^[58] That afternoon, Mohrenschildt was found dead from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head in a house where he was staying in Manalapan, Florida.^[59] The coroner's verdict was suicide.^[60]

In the book Killing Kennedy (2012), reporter Bill O'Reilly claimed he had been knocking at George de Mohrenschild's front door when he heard a shotgun blast that marked the suicide. This claim, however, has since been proven false.^[61] A contemporaneously made phone call recording between O'Reilly and Fonzi confirms the inaccuracy of O'Reilly's claim.^[62][63]

House Select Committee on Assassinations

On April 2, 1977, Willem Oltmans told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that Mohrenschildt had implicated himself in the conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. And Pat S. Russell, who was Mohrenschildt's attorney, said "I definitely feel there was a conspiracy and that definitely was the opinion of George." ^[64] Oltmans testified for three hours behind closed doors and told the committee that Mohrenschildt had told him he had discussed the assassination of Kennedy with Oswald from A to Z. "De Mohrenschildt told me that Oswald acted at his (De Mohrenschildt's) instructions and that he knew Oswald was going to kill Kennedy," Oltmans said.^[65]

On July 6, 1978, Joseph Dryer told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that he and Mohrenschildt were associated with a woman named Jacqueline Lancelot. Dryer's relationship with Lancelot included passing messages for her to people in the United States whom Dryer assumed were connected in some way to the CIA. Dryer said in the interview that Lancelot told him shortly after the Kennedy assassination that a "substantial" sum of money, $200,000 or $250,000, had been deposited in Mohrenschildt's account. Dryer said that Mohrenschildt had claimed he came to Haiti to scout for oil, but Dryer stated that "I could never figure out what he did." Dryer expressed the belief that Mohrenschildt had "some intelligence connection".^[66]

Congressional researcher Gaeton Fonzi noted that in late 1963 "several large deposits popped up in de Mohrenschildt's Haitian bank account including one for two hundred thousand dollars from a Bahamian bank. This occurred when de Mohrenschildt and Charles were 'supposedly' running a sisal plantation, a derelict operation they never went near."^[67]

In a 1976 CIA internal memo regarding Mohrenschildt, Director George H. W. Bush stated: "At one time he had/or spent plenty of money."^[68]

Another backyard photo

Image CE-133A, one of three known "backyard photos". This is the same image sent by Oswald (as a first generation copy) to his friend George de Mohrenschildt in April 1963, dated and signed by Oswald on the back of the photo. In the image, Oswald holds a Carcano rifle in one hand, with markings which have been matched to the Carcano rifle that was found in the book depository and used in the assassination. Furthermore he holds two Marxist newspapers in the other hand: The Worker, which followed closely a Moscow party line (and up to being pro-Stalinist until the death of Stalin), and The Militant, a Trotskyist newspaper which followed an anti-Stalinist and anti-Moscow line.

On April 1, 1977, Jeanne de Mohrenschildt gave the House Select Committee on Assassinations a print of a photograph showing Lee Harvey Oswald standing in his Dallas backyard holding two newspapers and a rifle, and with a pistol on his hip – a photograph taken by Oswald's wife Marina. While similar to other prints which had been found among Oswald's effects on November 23, 1963, the existence of this particular print was previously unknown. On the back was written To my friend George from Lee Oswald, and the date “5/IV/63” (5 April 1963).^[69] along with the words “Copyright Geo de M”' and a Russian phrase translated as “'Hunter of fascists, ha-ha-ha!” Handwriting specialists later concluded that the words “To my friend George…” and Oswald's signature were written by Lee Harvey Oswald, but could not determine whether the rest was the writing of Lee Oswald, Mohrenschildt, or Marina Oswald.^[70] Mohrenschildt assumed that Marina had written it sarcastically.^[70]

Mohrenschildt wrote in his manuscript (reference and pages cited above) that he had missed Oswald's photograph in packing for the move to Haiti in May, 1963, and this was why he had not mentioned it to the Warren Commission (though he had noted in his manuscript that Oswald had a rifle in April 1963, and scoffed to Oswald that he had missed General Walker, remembering that Oswald had blanched at the joke). According to Mohrenschildt, the photograph was not found among his stored papers until he and his wife found it in February 1967. When analyzed by the HSCA in 1977, this photo turned out to be a first generation print of the backyard photo already known to the Warren Commission as "CE-133A" and which had probably been taken on March 31, 1963.^[71]

Memoir

Jeanne de Mohrenschildt also gave the HSCA committee a copy of a draft manuscript called I Am a Patsy! I Am a Patsy! which George de Mohrenschildt had completed in the summer of 1976 about his relationship with his "dear, dead friend" Oswald, wherein he said that the Oswald he knew was rarely ever violent and would not have been the sort of person to have killed John F. Kennedy. In part this judgment was based on Mohrenschildt's estimation of Oswald's political views and Kennedy's liberal ideas. Until 2014 the memoir had never been published as a stand-alone book, but the entire typescript was published as an appendix in the HSCA report.^[66]

The primary focus of Mohrenschildt’s text is a series of recollections about the brief time period between September 1962 and April 1963 that he and Jeanne were acquainted with the Oswalds. A secondary focus consists of a number of meditations on the corrosive effects knowing the Oswalds had on the professional and personal lives of the Mohrenschildts. "It must be acknowledged that our brief friendship with the Oswalds had strange and adverse effects on our lives." Only in a tertiary sense is the manuscript concerned with Oswald’s guilt or innocence and who the “real criminals” might be. Stating Oswald was a "patsy not involved in any revenge", and referencing articles describing "organized murder for profit", readers are challenged to make up their own minds. This memoir by Mohrenschildt was edited and annotated as Lee Harvey Oswald As I Knew Him, by Michael A. Rinella. It was released in November 2014 by the University Press of Kansas.^[72]

Depictions in the popular media

Mohrenschildt was played by Willem Oltmans in the 1991 film, JFK, and by Bill Bolender in the 1993 TV movie, Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald. He is also mentioned at length in the Stephen King novel, 11/22/63, a time travel novel about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and appears in the 2016 television adaptation, 11.22.63, played by Jonny Coyne. His Haitian experience is depicted in Hans Christoph Buch's novel Haïti Chérie (Suhrkamp, 1990).

Mohrenschildt was discussed at length in the TruTV series, Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. The episode claims that George de Mohrenschildt was in fact a CIA handler for Lee Harvey Oswald.

In 1997, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh released the film Willem Oltmans, De Eenmotorige Mug. In the film, journalist Willem Oltmans makes claims about his contacts with Mohrenschildt (and the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, Marguerite Oswald) until George de Mohrenschildt's death in 1977.^[73]

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Bugliosi, Vincent (2007), Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F Kennedy, WW Norton & Co, ISBN 0-393-07212-6 

External links

• Genealogisches Handbuch der baltischen Ritterschaften: Estland - Genealogy handbook of Baltic nobility (German)
• I Am A Patsy! I Am a Patsy, de Mohrenschildt’s draft memoir. This is a simple retyped version of roughly the first third of the manuscript appended to the HSCA report on de Mohrenschildt.
• Testimony of George S. DeMohrenshildt, Warren Commission Hearings Vol.IX p.166ff. HTML De Mohrenschildt's 118-page Warren Commission testimony, taken over two days, provides a great deal of biographical information on him, starting from earliest memories and aided in specifics and dates by many public documents available to the commission. (Also downloadable in PDF at WH9 Contents.)
• HSCA Vol.12 deMohrenschildt The HSCA staff report on the by then deceased de Mohrenschildt. This includes analysis of his politics and useful insight into his government contacts. Appended is a photocopy of the full typescript of I Am a Patsy! I Am a Patsy!