(1) The Warren Commission Report (September, 1964)

Apart from his relatives, Oswald had no friends or close associates in Texas when he returned there in June of 1962, and he did not establish any close friendships or associations, although it appears that he came to respect George De Mohrenschildt. Somewhat of a nonconformist, De Mohrenschildt was a peripheral member of the so-called Russian community, with which Oswald made contact through Mr. Peter Gregory, a Russian-speaking petroleum engineer whom Oswald met as a result of his contact with the Texas Employment Commission office in Fort Worth...

While the exact sequence of events is not clear because of conflicting testimony, it appears that De Mohrenschildt and his wife actually went to Oswald's apartment early in November of 1962 and helped to move the personal effects of Marina Oswald and the baby. Even though it appears that they may have left Oswald a few days before, it seems that he resisted the move as best he could. He even threatened to tear up his wife's dresses and break all the baby things. According to De Mohrenschildt, Oswald submitted to the inevitable, presumably because he was "small, you know, and he was rather a puny individual." De Mohrenschildt said that the whole affair made him nervous since he was "interfering in other people's affairs, after all."

 

(2) House Select Committee on Assassinations (March 1979)

Despite this disclaimer of any subversive or disloyal activity on the part of de Mohrenschildt by the Warren Commission, de Mohrenschildt was rumored to have had ties with the intelligence communities of several countries. Indeed de Mohrenschildt himself admitted some involvement with French intelligence, but his actual role with them was never fully disclosed, and he emphatically denied any other intelligence associations. He explained his travels to Haiti with the cooperation of the Haitian Government as innocuous business deals with no political overtones.

Speculation also continued about Oswald's relationship to de Mohrenschildt because of the contrast between the backgrounds of the two men. De Mohrenschildt was described as sophisticated and well educated, moving easily in the social and professional circles of oilmen and the so-called "White Russian" community, many of whom were avowed rightwingers. Oswald's "lowly" background did not include much education or influence, and he was in fact shunned by the same Dallas Russian community that embraced de Mohrenschildt.

The committee undertook to probe more into the background as associations of de Mohrenschildt to determine if more light could be shed to either explain the relationship between Oswald and de Mohrenschildt or to determine if any new information contradicts that which was available to the Warren Commission. This probe seemed justified in view of the controversy that continues to surround the relationship, and the additional speculation that was caused by the apparent suicide of de Mohrenschildt in 1977 on the day he was contacted by both an investigator from the committee and a writer about Oswald.

 

(3) House Select Committee on Assassinations (March 1979)

In his Warren commission testimony de Mohrenschildt stated that he believed he had discussed Lee Harvey Oswald with J. Walton Moore, whom de Mohrenschildt described as "a Government man-either FBI or Central Intelligence." This admitted association with J. Walton Moore fed the rumors of some involvement by de Mohrenschildt in intelligence activities.

In 1963 J. Walton Moore was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency in Dallas, Texas, in the Domestic Contacts Division. According to Moore's CIA personnel file, he was assigned to the Domestic Contacts Division in 1948. Moore's duties in the Dallas office were contacting individuals in the area who had information on foreign topics.

In an Agency memorandum dated April 13, 1977, contained in George de Mohrenschildt's CIA file, Moore set forth facts to counter a claim which had been recently make by WFAA-TV in Dallas that Lee Harvey Oswald was employed by the CIA and that Moore know Oswald. In that memo, Moore is quoted as saying that according to his records the last time he talked to George de Mohrenschildt was in the fall of 1961. Moore said that he had no recollection of any conversation with the de Mohrenschildt concerning Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

(4) House Select Committee on Assassinations (March 1979)

An April 1, 1977, the committee received from Jeanne de Mohrenschildt, the widow of George de Mohrenschildt, a photograph of Oswald standing in a yard and holding a rifle in one hand and two newspapers in the other hand. A gun was strapped in a holster on his hip. This photograph, which was similar to other photographs recovered in a search of Oswald's property on November 23, 1963, had never been seen by the Warren Commission or law enforcement official.

On the rear of the photograph was the notation "To my friend George from Lee Oswald," with the date "5/4/63" and another notation "Copyright Geo do M", and an inscription in Russian reading "Hunter of fascists, ha-ha-ha!" a handwriting panel engaged by the committee determined that the writing "To my friend George" and the Oswald signature were the writing of Lee Harvey Oswald. The panel was not able to conclude whether the other writing was written by Lee Harvey Oswald, Marina Oswald, or George de Mohrenschildt.

On April 1, 1977, the committee also received from Jeanne de Mohrenschildt a copy of the manuscript of the book, "I Am A Patsy, I am A Patsy," which George de Mohrenschildt was writing about his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald at the time of de Mohrenschildt's suicide on March 29, 1977.

 

(5) Gaeton Fonzi, interviewed on 8th October, 1994.

Q: Do you think that de Mohrenschildt committed suicide because you were going to see him? What was your reaction upon hearing of his suicide?

A: Yeah. Again, this is my opinion. At the time de Mohrenschildt committed suicide, there were a number of things taking place, and a number of specific factors that put a lot of pressure on him. The House Committee was getting started again. He was being asked, I believe, to begin another role in his relationship to the assassination and his testimony before the Warren Commission. He was taken, just before he committed suicide, he was taken to Belgium by a foreign journalist. He was, I believe he felt he was, being set up. He was supposed to have a meeting with a KGB official, I believe, but he ran away. He came back to Florida. He believed he was being set up to make it appear that there was a link between him and the KGB. And then obviously a link between Oswald and the KGB because of his link to the KGB. And then, Epstein shows up. And once again, spends a whole afternoon with him at a hotel in Palm Beach. And, I think, he's under a lot of pressure. He comes back home and his daughter hands him my card. I had been there in the morning and I told his daughter that I wanted to talk to him and that I would be back in touch. He puts the card in his shirt pocket and goes upstairs and blows his head off. And so, I think you have a whole series of linkages there. He hadn't been a well man, mentally. Just months prior to that he had been treated for mental problems. So I think the linkage is there in terms of the pressures being put on him. And I do believe he committed suicide. I don't think there's enough evidence to indicate that he didn't.

 

(6) Edward Jay Epstein, diary entry (29th March, 1977)

David Bludworth, The State's Attorney, was a folksy, charming and savvy interrogator. He began by telling me that De Mohrenschildt had put a shotgun in his mouth and killed himself at 3:45 p.m. There were no witnesses - and no one home at the time of the shooting. The precise time of his death was established by a tape-recorder, left running that afternoon to record the soap operas for the absent Mrs. Tilton, and which recorded a single set of footfalls in the room and the blast of the shotgun, which was found on the Persian carpet next to him. No suicide note or other clue was found. He said I was probably the last person to talk to him. Then, he asked whether I had in my possession De Mohrenschildt's black address book. I replied "No." He politely rephrased the question, and asked me again - about a half-dozen times, whether I had the black book.

 

(7) G. Robert Blakey was interviewed by Frontline in 1993.

Q: There's a thesis that Lee Harvey Oswald was befriended by a wealthy man, George de Mohrenschildt in Texas, who could have had CIA connections and could effectively have been debriefing Oswald without Oswald knowing it. What do you make of that theory?

A: We looked very carefully into the activity of a man named George de Mohrenschildt, a Russian, like Lee Harvey Oswald. He was a sophisticated man, a very articulate man, a world traveler, and George de Mohrenschildt and his wife befriended Oswald and Marina in this country and we explored very carefully whether he could have been a contact, an indirect contact, between the agency and one of its own agents, Lee Harvey Oswald. After a careful study, we were not able to establish that George de Mohrenschildt was connected to the CIA.

 

(8) Pete Brewton, The Mafia, CIA and George Bush (1992)

Clemard Joseph Charles was recruited by the CIA in 1963, the same year the agency was sponsoring and paying exile and rebel groups to try to overthrow Papa Doc. We know Charles was recruited by the CIA then because of the findings in the late 1970s of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

The committee was investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy and tracking a man named George DeMohrenschildt, a White Russian count with extensive ties to the CIA. DeMohrenschildt had moved to Texas, worked in the oil business and befriended Lee Harvey Oswald. In fact, there is some evidence that DeMohrenschildt was used by the CIA to keep an eye on Oswald. DeMohrenschildt had met Charles in Haiti, where he had business interests, including a share in the government sisal hemp operation. DeMohrenschildt was also keeping an eye on Clint Murchison's meat-packing business and cattle ranches there. At one time he had worked for Three States Oil and Gas, one of Murchison's oil companies.

DeMohrenschildt was also on close, friendly terms with Houston oilman John Mecom, Sr., according to a Houston private eye familiar with the Russian count. And the count and George Bush apparently knew each other. Bush's name and his Midland, Texas, address were in DeMohrenschildt's address book.

One CIA contract agent, Herbert Atkin, has reported that DeMohrenschildt's real job in Haiti in 1963 was to supervise a CIA-sponsored plan to overthrow Duvalier.

In May 1963, DeMohrenschildt arranged a meeting between Clemard Charles and Dorothy Matlack, who was Assistant Director of the Army Office of Intelligence, the U.S. Army's liaison with the CIA. According to DeMohrenschildt's CIA files, which the assassination committee obtained, the purpose of the meeting with Matlack was to arrange a rendezvous between Charles and a CIA representative. DeMohrenschildt attended the meeting with the CIA, to Matlack's surprise. "She did not know what role DeMohrenschildt was serving, but felt he 'dominated' Charles in some way," reads the committee's CIA memo, which then reported that Matlack stated, "I knew the Texan [DeMohrenschildt] wasn't there to sell hemp."

Finally, the kicker in the CIA memo: "Because of the potential political information Charles could give about the current situation in Haiti, the CIA became the primary contact with Charles."

That puts Charles's ability to obtain two aircraft from the United States in 1964 during an embargo and his subsequent 1967 jailing by Duvalier in a whole new light. For it was in 1967 that Mitch WerBell, along with some Haitians and Cuban exiles, were caught planning an invasion of Haiti from Florida.

WerBell was a veteran of the OSS office in China during World War II along with E. Howard Hunt, Paul Helliwell and John Singlaub. He told author Jonathan Kwitny that he did not work "for" the CIA, but "with" the CIA. He said the distinction was that he got paid by private groups and not by the CIA.