George de Mohrenschildt
George Sergius de Mohrenschildt[a] (April 17, 1911 – March 29, 1977) was an American petroleum geologist, anti-communist political refugee, professor, and occasional CIA field agent.
[2][3] Since his testimony and subsequent death years later, de Mohrenschildt has been a popular figure in conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
On the other hand, Ion Mihai Pacepa, a high level defector from Communist Romania and occasional CIA asset, has alleged that de Mohrenschildt, despite his claims to be a descendant of the Russian nobility and an anti-communist political refugee from the Red Terror, was in reality a KGB First Chief Directorate illegal field agent, who focused on collecting military intelligence and who acted as Oswald's Soviet intelligence handler.
In 1920, during the Red Terror and the Russian Civil War, Sergey von Mohrenschildt was arrested by the Bolshevik secret police, or CHEKA, for alleged anti-Soviet agitation.
De Mohrenschildt later testified before the Warren Commission that, while awaiting transport to Veliky Ustyug, his father became ill. Two 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 recover at home.
[6] After the death of his wife, Sergey von Mohrenschildt and his sons made their way to Wilno (Vilnius), where the family owned a six-acre estate.
[13] 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.
[citation needed] According to a memo by former CIA director Richard Helms, de Mohrenschildt "was alleged to be a Nazi espionage agent.
The following year, the couple settled in Dallas, Texas, where de Mohrenschildt took a job with oilman Clint Murchison as a petroleum geologist.
[37] De Mohrenschildt also joined the right-wing Texas Crusade for Freedom, whose members included Earle Cabell, Everette DeGolyer, David Harold Byrd and Ted Dealey.
[38] In 1957, de Mohrenschildt went to Communist Yugoslavia to conduct a geological field survey for the U.S. State Department-sponsored International Cooperation Administration.
[39] Following his divorce in 1957, de Mohrenschildt married his fourth wife, former dancer, model, and fellow Russian-American Jeanne LeGon, in June 1959.
De Mohrenschildt testified before the Warren Commission in 1964 that he met the Oswalds through a prominent member of Fort Worth's Russian-American community, oil accountant George Bouhe.
[50] (When interviewed in 1978 by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, J. Walton Moore said that while he "had 'periodic' contact with de Mohrenschildt", he had no recollection of any conversation with him concerning Oswald.
[56] In an interview with Edward Jay Epstein, de Mohrenschildt claimed to have told the CIA that he believed Oswald had attempted to murder General Walker.
According to Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, then chief Pentagon-to-CIA liaison officer, de Mohrenschildt also had several private lunches with former CIA director and Warren Commission member Allen Dulles while testifying.
I hope this letter had been of some comfort to you, George, although I realize I am unable to answer your question completely.On November 9, 1976, Jeanne had de 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 de Mohrenschildt suffered from depression, heard voices, saw visions, and believed that the CIA and the Jewish Mafia were persecuting him.
"[53][68] On the same day as the Epstein interview, de 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.
[70] That afternoon, de Mohrenschildt was found dead from a shotgun wound to the head in a house at which he was staying in Manalapan, Florida.
[72] In the book Killing Kennedy (2012), television personality Bill O'Reilly claimed he had been knocking on de Mohrenschildt's front door when he heard a shotgun blast that marked the suicide.
[74][75][76] On April 2, 1977, Willem Oltmans told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that de Mohrenschildt had implicated himself in the conspiracy to kill President Kennedy.
"[81] This occurred when de Mohrenschildt and Clemard Joseph Charles, an advisor to Haitian president Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, "were 'supposedly' running a sisal plantation, a derelict operation they never went near.
"[81] In a 1976 CIA internal memo regarding de Mohrenschildt, Director George H. W. Bush stated: "At one time he had/or spent plenty of money.
On the back was written "To my friend George from Lee Oswald" and the date "5/IV/63" (April 5, 1963),[83] along with the words "Copyright Geo de M" and a Russian phrase translated as "'Hunter after fascists, ha-ha-ha!!!"
[80] The primary focus of de Mohrenschildt's text is a series of recollections about the brief time period between September 1962 and April 1963 when he and his wife were acquainted with the Oswalds.
A secondary focus consists of a number of meditations on the corrosive effects the Oswalds had on the professional and personal lives of the de Mohrenschildts.
Stating that Oswald was a "patsy not involved in any revenge", and referencing articles describing "organized murder for profit", de Mohrenschildt challenges readers to make up their own minds.
[86] De Mohrenschildt was played by Willem Oltmans, the Dutch journalist who befriended him in the late 1960s, in the 1991 film JFK, and by Bill Bolender in the 1993 TV movie Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald.
