Gary
Underhill was born in Brooklyn on 7th August, 1915. He graduated from
Harvard in 1937 and during the Second World War
he served
with the Military Intelligence Service (6 July 1943 to May 1946).
After leaving the Office
of Strategic Services (OSS) he
worked on specific projects for the Central
Intelligence Agency.
He was also military affairs editor for Life Magazine.
After the assassination
of President John
F. Kennedy,
Underhill told
his friend, Charlene
Fitsimmons, that
he was convinced that he had been killed by members of the CIA. He
also said: "Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much.
The bastards have done something outrageous. They've killed the President!
I've been listening and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd
get away with it, but they did!"
Underhill
believed there was a connection between Executive
Action,
Fidel
Castro
and
the death of Kennedy: "They tried it in Cuba and they couldn't
get away with it. Right after the Bay of Pigs. But Kennedy wouldn't
let them do it. And now he'd gotten wind of this and he was really
going to blow the whistle on them. And they killed him!"
Underhill
told friends that he feared for his life: "I know who they are.
That's the problem. They know I know. That's why I'm here. I can't
stay in New York."
Gary
Underhill was
found dead on 8th May 1964. He had been shot in the head and it was
officially ruled that he had committed suicide. However, in his book,
Destiny Betrayed, James DiEugenio
claimed that the bullet entered the right-handed Underhill's head
behind the left ear.
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed (1963)
On that evening
of November 22, 1963, Gary Underhill was a deeply troubled man. What
he had learned, and the fact that they knew he had learned it, were
too much for him. He had to escape. Once he was out of Washington,
he could regain his equilibrium. Then he would decide what to do.
He had friends in New York he could talk to without fear of the word
getting back to Washington.
(2)
Paul Golais, The Citizen's
Voice (8th April, 2001)
Only hours
after Kennedy was shot, CIA agent Gary Underhill left Washington,
D.C., and drove to the home of friends on Long Island, N.Y. Underhill
says he fears for his life and he must leave the country. "This
country is too dangerous for me. I've got to get on a boat. Oswald
is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done
something outrageous. They've killed the president! I've been listening
and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but
they did. They've gone made! They're a bunch of drug runners and gun
runners - a real violence group.I know who they are. That's the problem.
They know I know. That's why I'm here.''
(3)
James DiEugenio,
review of Gerald Posner's book Case Closed (1993)
Posner writes
that there is no source for the claim that Gary Underhill was a former
CIA agent, and "no corroboration that he ever said there was
CIA complicity in the assassination." I hate to plug my own work,
but in Destiny Betrayed, Posner would have learned there are several
sources for Underhill's wartime OSS career and his later CIA consulting
status, including Underhill himself. As for his accusations about
the CIA and the murder of JFK, he related them quite vividly to his
friend Charlene Fitsimmons within 24 hours of the shooting. She then
forwarded a letter to Jim Garrison relating the incident in detail.
(4)
Gary
Richard Schoener, Fair
Play Magazine, A
Legacy of Fear (May,
2000)
Gary Underhill was a writer and researcher in the area of military
affairs who is alleged to have had high-level Pentagon connections.
Friends say that he did assignments for the CIA. A close friend was
shocked when he barged into her home the day after the assassination
in a highly agitated state. He had just come from Washington, D.C.
Underhill allegedly said
"that the Kennedy murder wasn't as cut and dried as it might
appear." According to the friend, "Underhill said that he
knew the people involved (and that they knew he knew) and he fled
Washington for his life." He indicated that "A small clique
in the C.I.A. were responsible" who "were conducting a lucrative
business in the Far East" in "gunrunning and other contraband,
manipulating political intrigue to serve their ends." Underhill
told his friend "Kennedy had gotten wind of something going on
so he was killed before he could blow the whistle." The friends
at first did not believe this fantastic story and assumed that "he
had gone completely mad," despite their respect for his credentials
and intelligence.
On May 8, 1964 Gary Underhill
was discovered dead, shot through the head. The death was ruled a
suicide by District of Columbia police. Some friends wondered if his
death was really a suicide since two people who first examined the
body indicated that he had been shot behind the left ear but was right-handed.
Several friends began to wonder about the frightened claims he had
made about the assassination less than six months earlier. Other friends
however accepted the death as a suicide indicating their belief that
he had been troubled by personal problems and under the care of a
psychiatrist. In any event he is dead, and without Gary Underhill
to question it is impossible to know if his claims are pure fantasy
or based in fact.
Available from Amazon
Books (order below)
