By Bill Simpich [Originally published 7/26/2013]

When it comes to working the Oswald legend, there’s no one quite like Ann Goodpasture, the station case officer at the CIA’s Mexico City station in 1963.   Although she received the highest rating as outstanding in her fitness report, she made several supposed mistakes that would humiliate a rookie. Let me offer a brief hypothesis of how Goodpasture used the Oswald file in a clever maneuver designed to see who had impersonated Oswald in a telephone call in Mexico City two months before the JFK assassination.

Anne Goodpasture

Goodpasture had good reason to believe that there might have been enemy spy in her immediate circles. I believe that Goodpasture used a photo of a KGB operative to create a pretense that the Mexico City station believed that that this KGB Mystery Man might be Lee Oswald.   Her objective was to kick off an operation designed to figure out who was trying to penetrate the CIA’s wiretap operations in Mexico City.

Oswald had twelve prominent legend makers who used him in various ways as an intelligence asset during the last years of his life. Goodpasture was legend maker #11 – she used Oswald’s biography for her own purposes.  What she wound up doing was causing even more confusion over who Oswald really was.   She may have had an idea, however, who was trying to penetrate the CIA’s wiretap operations.

I will stick my neck out and say that I believe that someone impersonated Oswald in a phone call precisely to convince the Mexico City and CIA HQ to conduct a molehunt to find the impersonator.

I’ll take this hypothesis further and say that the paper trail created by the molehunters was an effective way to blackmail the CIA and the FBI from conducting an effective investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

To me, the best way to analyze the JFK assassination is to focus on the cover-up. If you understand Goodpasture, you understand why the cover-up had to happen.

A little background on Goodpasture, Oswald, and Sylvia Duran

During the sixties, Ann Goodpasture was the chief aide to Mexico City station chief Win Scott.   Starting in August 1963, she picked up new tapes and simultaneously delivered new ones to a new agent in Mexico City, a Soviet analyst named Bill Bright.   Bright was with the counter-espionage unit that reviewed Oswald when his file was used in a molehunt during May 1960. [i]   (See Part 3 of this series.) Bright’s role is intriguing, still being studied, and will be addressed later on in this article.

She would review the summary of the transcripts from the LIENVOY wiretap operation on the Communist embassies at about 8 am every morning after the taps were picked up and transcribed.   She would process the take between 8-9 am, and have any items of unusual significance on Scott’s desk by nine . ^[ii]   Transcripts on the Cuban and Soviet wiretaps arrived every day. ^[iii]

Goodpasture also played a key role in the more old-fashioned – but more secure, as we shall see – LIFEAT wiretap operation.   During 1963, LIFEAT tapped individual locations rather than relying on the centralized telephone exchange like LIENVOY.   She would also disseminate the take from the three cameras trained on the Soviet embassy compound. [iv]   No one at the station knew the wiretaps and hidden cameras as well as Goodpasture.

When an American calling himself Lee Oswald appeared in Mexico City on Friday, September 27, he bounced between the Soviet and Cuban consulates in an effort to get himself an instant visa to visit these countries.   I’m going to put on ice for the moment whether this man was actually Lee Oswald – what I’m concerned about is the phone calls he made to the consulates, not the personal visits to the consulates.

In June 1963, Oswald applied and received a new passport.   His wife Marina was pregnant.   She wanted to return to the Soviet Union and spend time with her family while the baby was an infant. Oswald wanted to go with her.

However, the Oswalds had been unable to get the Soviets to issue them a visa for almost a year.    Their previous negotiations had all been with the Soviet consulate in Washington, DC.   Now Lee was trying his hand in Mexico City.    It’s hard to believe that he would have gone to the USSR without her.   Their second child was due in a few weeks.   Lee was a devoted father.

The smart way to get a Cuban visa was to make prior arrangements with the American Communist party or the Cuban Communist party prior to arrival in Mexico City.   Oswald had done none of those things, even though he had written a number of letters to various American Communist officials.

Oswald’s effort in shuttle diplomacy between the Soviet and Cuban consulates did him no good. All sides pretty much agree that he visited the Cuban consulate three times and the Soviet consulate once on Friday the 27^th.   He told the Cubans he got the visa OK from the Soviets, and told the Soviets that he already had a Cuban visa.   Cuban consulate secretary Sylvia Duran talked to the Soviets, and both sides determined that Oswald was lying.

By the end of the day, Oswald had struck out at both consulates.   Oswald made one final pitch to the Soviets at about 10 am on Saturday the 28^th, which also ended in failure. [v] The conversations between the Soviet and Cuban consulates about what to do with this unprepared man were all picked up on tape.   Mexico City chief Win Scott wanted to know if this man could be identified.

Oswald was identified, and quickly.   Shortly after Oswald left the Soviet consulate on Saturday the 28^th, a call came in from the Cuban consulate to the Soviet consulate.   Goodpasture reported that “Oswald came to the attention of the listening post operators from a tap on the Soviet line”.

The initial caller on the line identified herself as the Cuban consul’s secretary, a young Mexican woman named Sylvia Duran.   She told the Soviets that she was with a man had a question.   She then put a man on the phone, and insisted in speaking in what was described as “broken Russian”.   It was reported that two individuals who heard the tapes reported that the man was also speaking “broken English”.   The linguistically challenged man told the Soviet officer that he had a contact number that he wanted to pass on to the Soviets.   The Soviet officer told the man to come on over.

Three days later, the man called again, inquiring about the status of his visa that had been the purpose of his call on Saturday the 28^th.   He said his name was Lee Oswald.

The CIA’s translators reported that they received tapes of the Oswald phone calls right after they were made.   After JFK was killed, these translators were left strictly alone.

The CIA’s translators, the husband-and-wife team of Boris and Anna Tarasoff, listened to these tapes. Boris focused on Russian voices; Anna focused on English and Spanish voices. Boris reported that both of these tapes were rushed over to them right after the phone calls were made.

Boris’ testimony is consistent with the general procedure, which was to get tapes from the Soviet compound to the translator and pick them up all on the same day.    Boris was very clear that the voices on the September 28 tape and the October 1 tape were the same man.   Both the wiretap monitors and Tarasoff were trained to memorize the voices of the individuals who worked at the embassy compounds. When Tarasoff told Bill Bright that these tapes were of the same man who identified himself as Oswald, Bright got very excited.

On November 23, the day after JFK was killed, Goodpasture reported to HQ that Boris Tarasoff (also known as “Feinglass”) was the man who had translated and matched up these calls.   No one asked Boris or Anna any questions about these phone calls for thirteen years after the assassination — not until the assassination probe was reopened. The Tarasoffs held invaluable information about Oswald and his contacts.    Why in the world wouldn’t the officials want to interview the Tarasoffs?

Ann Goodpasture by John Simkin, Education Forum
The short answer is that certain high officials did not want the Tarasoffs interviewed.   Ann Goodpasture is still alive, and should be interviewed and asked why.

The long answer starts with an assumption driven by the facts.   Goodpasture and the other lead officers in Mexico City knew that there was a problem with the tapes that portrayed the voices of Duran, Oswald, and an unknown Soviet on September 28, as well as the tape of Oswald on October 1.   One enterprising CIA officer even made a chart of the supposed Oswald visits and the times that the CIA cameras trained on the embassies were in operation, trying to figure it all out.   He also created a very short and effective index of the alleged Oswald visits and phone calls.

The problems flowed from a few obvious questions.

How did Oswald get into the Cuban consulate on Saturday the 28th, when the consulate was generally closed?

How did Oswald convince Duran to call the Soviet consulate and put him on the line?

Especially after the Soviet and Cuban officials had compared notes on Oswald on the 27^th and had concluded that he had lied to both of them in his attempts to obtain an instant visa?

Why did Oswald try to speak in “broken Russian”?   And why would a native-born American like Oswald speak in “broken English”, according to two of the individuals who heard the tapes?

Another problem was the voice of Duran on the tape.   Duran had been working at the consulate all summer long.   Duran was identified by name in the station’s photo logs back in 1962 and as recently as September 30, 1963.   The monitors would have known her voice in late September.

A Cuban undercover agent, Luis Alberu, also known as LITAMIL-9, worked inside the Cuban embassy.   Alberu would regularly meet CIA officer Robert Shaw in his car and talk with him about the people who were working at and visiting the Cuban embassy.   Later, Robert Shaw said, I kept an eye on Duran. He knew who she was.   Alberu would look at the CIA’s photos of visitors to the Cuban compound and identify who they were.   If it wasn’t Duran’s voice on the tape, the wiretap monitors would have known it.   Goodpasture would have known it.   What would a reasonable CIA officer do in this situation?

There is no record of anyone identifying Duran’s voice on the September 28 tape.   Until 1976, no one ever asked either of the Tarasoffs about this call from Duran and Oswald.

Sylvia Duran has consistently said that she never saw Oswald again after the 27^th .   If she is telling the truth, then the callers on the 28th were not Duran and Oswald.    The day after the assassination, Duran was seized by Mexican authorities and held incommunicado until CIA officials figured out how to handle her story.   A few days later, CIA covert action chief Richard Helms went so far as to write that “we do not want any Americans to confront Silvia Duran or be in contact with her” . [vi]    Helms did not want it to get out that Duran never met with Oswald on the 28^th.   Until 1978, no American official ever asked Duran about this call.

Similarly, there was no effort to identify the Soviet officer that picked up the call from the Cuban consulate on the 28^th.   Boris Tarasoff prided himself on knowing the voices of the Soviets who worked in the embassy compound.   Tarasoff believed that the Soviet officer was probably a man named Konstantinov.   The Soviets say that the switchboard was closed that day to the public.   A review of the transcript of the 28^th reveals that this was the only call that was not made by friends or family of someone who worked at the station.  The calls for that day concerned social affairs like going on a picnic, grappling with the grippe, and taking care of the children and the chickens.

Goodpasture knew that the LIENVOY wiretap system could be penetrated by other spies 

Goodpasture, Scott and a few other insiders also knew that the LIENVOY wiretap system that had picked up the Cuban consulate call of the 28^th might have been penetrated by spies.   The problem was that LIENVOY was run by the DFS, one of the most corrupt agencies in the Mexican government.    Goodpasture knew that LIENVOY was insecure . [vii]

A CIA memo — almost certainly prepared by Goodpasture — describes the section of DFS working with the CIA in Mexico City as a “hip-pocket group run out of the Mexican Ministry of Government. This Ministry (Gobernacion) was principally occupied with political investigations and the control of foreigners.  Its employees were cruel and corrupt”. [viii]

After Win Scott saw the photos of Oswald on TV the night of the assassination, he wrote HQ saying that he suggested to Mexican presidential candidate Gustavo Ortiz (LITEMPO-2) that Duran be arrested and held incommunicado until she provided all details on Oswald, as she was on the Sept. 28 transcript with Oswald in her office at the Cuban consulate.   Scott added that
“LITEMPO-2 can say DFS coverage revealed call to him if he needs to explain.” ^[ix]   This is an indicator that DFS had its own set of tapes and transcripts from the Mexico City station, and was not forced to rely on CIA largesse.

So both the CIA and DFS had access to tapes from the Mexico City station — and they weren’t the only ones!   The FBI also had access to these tapes — one story is that the FBI got their tapes from the DFS! [x]    So, now, three agencies had access to these tapes.

The FBI’s Mexico City field office was considered to be a security problem by the CIA.   A key factor was a joint CIA-FBI operation in 1963 designed to convince Soviet military attache Valentin Bakulin to defect .   Both the CIA and the FBI were using double agents in this effort. ^[xi]   The aforementioned Bill Bright who had handled Oswald’s file in the Soviet Union was part of this operation.  Win Scott’s people concluded that the FBI Mexico City office had been penetrated by LAROB, an FBI double agent working on Bakulin.   After a meeting with another double agent on October 1, Bakulin was immediately placed under physical surveillance by the CIA.

Concern about this alleged penetration was the focus of discussion between CIA HQ and the Mexico City station from October 2 to October 5 . [xii]   On October 7 , twenty sets of reports about double agent LAROB were sent by the FBI Mexico City field office to the CIA’s Mexico City station and Headquarters.

The molehunt:   It looks like Goodpasture tried to smoke out a spy who was trying to penetrate CIA operations by pretending that the station believed that a photo of a KGB operative was really Oswald

Cuban covert action chief David Phillips left Mexico City for Washington and Miami right after the Duran-Oswald call was allegedly made on September 28.   It looks to me like he put his head together with Goodpasture as soon as he came back to Mexico City.

On October 8, after an unheard-of one week delay by the highly efficient Mexico City station, the Mexico City Soviet desk was finally given the go-ahead to prepare a memo to CIA HQ on the October 1 phone call from Lee Oswald.   CIA HQ now had a total heads-up as to what would be coming from Mexico City.   A molehunt designed to see who was trying to penetrate CIA operations by impersonating Oswald was about to begin.

Goodpasture got things started by referring to a Mystery Man photo for a memo sent out to HQ on October 8 .   The Soviet desk officer said that Goodpasture told her that the photo log portrayed a six-foot “Mystery Man” with an athletic build leaving the Soviet consulate on October 1 .   She figured that since he looked like an American, he might be Oswald.   Goodpasture admitted finding the photo, but refused to take responsibility to admit that she thought the Mystery Man might be Oswald, saying that she didn’t remember who suggested it.

It was not unusual for the station chief Win Scott to press the officers to match a report of a phone call with a corresponding photo.   It’s unusual, of course, for these two female Mexico City officers to disagree about such a fundamental issue involving Oswald.   It was also unusual for Goodpasture to refer to the exact date and time of a photo in a log created on October 2, while pretending that it was taken on October 1.

Goodpasture was supposedly relying on a photo log that separated the dates of October 1 & October 2 with a full line of red percentage marks . She claimed many years later that this was her mistake.   She was ordered to review the dates immediately after the assassination and didn’t catch the mistake.  In 1967, she was asked again and referred to “Log 145” when the actual photo and chronology for October 1 was in “Log 144“. This is not the kind of mistake that an exceptional officer like Goodpasture would make, who routinely received the highest rating of “outstanding” in her fitness reports .   The staff of the House Select Committee on Assassinations reviewed this evidence in the 1970s along with her explanation , and concluded that Goodpasture’s story was highly implausible.   Staffer Ed Lopez concluded that Goodpasture belonged in jail.

Much evidence indicates that CIA knew that the Mystery Man was a Soviet intelligence operative named Yuri Moskalev

There are strong indications that the Mystery Man was a Soviet intelligence operative named Yuri Moskalev, whose cover was that of a scientist in Mexico City whose papers “rarely, if ever, were specific, or presented new data.” ^[xiii]   A CIA source who used to work with Cuban intelligence identified him as “Yuri”, a KGB officer who he met in Moscow in 1964 while attending an intelligence course.    The CIA’s file card for Moskalev identified him as “35, medium height”. ^[xiv]   The photo shows he had an “athletic build”.   He fit the legend being told about Oswald.

Several identification experts from the Disguise and Identification Section reviewed photos and concluded that “Moskalev could very likely be identifiable with the unidentified man.” ^[xv]    A photo of Moskalev in 1971 is available and can be viewed within this endnote. ^[xvi] Moskalev’s dossier stated that the famed spy Oleg Penkovsky identified a 1961 photo as “Col. Yuriy Ivanovich Moskalevskiy, Air Force colonel and GRU officer”. ^[xvii]    As late as 1978, the Chief of the CIA’s Latin American Division protested that this finding was “entirely theoretical”. ^[xviii]   Nonetheless, the man who handled Oswald’s CI file in the 70s, Russ Holmes, came to the conclusion that the Mystery Man might be Moskalev.   Given the number of sources and the strength of the evidence, a strong argument can be made that the Mystery Man is Yuri Moskalev.

Headquarters went along with Goodpasture’s ruse

Ann Egerter at CIA HQ, the analyst from counterintelligence chief Jim Angleton’s “office that spied on spies”, was in on Goodpasture’s ruse.   Egerter came up with a response to the October 8 memo that Goodpasture helped put together. (See Part 3 — Angleton was legend maker #1, and Egerter was legend maker #5)   Egerter and Angleton were skilled in smoking out spies, also known as the art of the molehunt.  Egerter’s foray can be found in twin Oct 10 memos that were cleverly crafted.

One memo went to the national headquarters of the FBI, State, and Navy, and contained a description of Oswald as “6 feet tall, athletic build, age 35“.   This description was wholly inaccurate, but it did match up with Goodpasture’s “Mystery Man” photo described in the October 8 memo but not sent to HQ at that time.   It claimed that this information was being shared “with your representatives in Mexico City”. But that was not true.

The second memo went directly to the Mexico City station itself, with a different description of Oswald as “5 foot 10, 165 pounds” that matched the description of Robert Webster that had been used for molehunting purposes by the CIA and FBI during Oswald’s days in the Soviet Union.    (See Part 5 of this series).

Unlike the first memo, the second memo said that the last information on Oswald was when he was in the Soviet Union during May 1962, where he had “matured” .   And where the first memo provided the Mystery Man description to the headquarters of the FBI, State and Navy, the second memo instructed the station to share the Robert Webster-like description with the local Mexico City offices of these same agencies!

A clever aspect of all this was that the memo to Mexico City said that their latest info on Oswald was from May 1962, but to hold this information back from the FBI and other agencies. Otherwise, the whole game would have been blown, as FBI HQ agents and others had   provided post-May 1962 information about Oswald to the CIA.

When the ruse didn’t work, the result was that the CIA and FBI were now effectively the victims of blackmail

The hope was that one of these marked cards would pop up in the wrong hands in the midst of this clash between the agencies’ headquarters and the local agencies’ offices.   But it didn’t happen.

Instead, Lee Oswald was accused of killing President Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

Goodpasture’s immediate response on November 23 was to tell CIA HQ that the September 28 tape was destroyed before the October 1 tape was obtained. [xix]   But that doesn’t make any sense, as the rule was to hold tapes for at least two weeks.   For tapes that emanated from the Cuban consulate, the rule was to hold on to them for 30 days.     By the 24^th, the word from the Mexico City station was that all the tapes involving Oswald’s voice had been destroyed.

In fact, Goodpasture’s boss Win Scott played the tapes for the Warren Commission investigators several months later in a successful effort to convince them to get the Commission to shut up about them.   The Warren Commission investigators had no idea that Oswald might have been impersonated, so they put no special value to his voice . [xx]

Meanwhile, the Mexico City station was sitting there with all the above-mentioned memos, tapes, and transcripts about Lee Oswald over the past two months of his life.   If they had released these documents to the public, it would have probably meant the end of their agencies and the careers of the officers involved.   The solution was for the CIA to provide paraphrased versions of the documents to the Warren Commission.

Goodpasture does not appear to be in on any plan to kill Kennedy.   She does appear to be in on a molehunt to find out who made the Oswald calls, which created a paper trail that had to be covered up and hidden from the Warren Commission after November 22.  In other words,  it appears that she was involved in a compartmentalized operation and took action like any officer would to protect the operation.

Who made those phone calls?    I will address my thinking on that in my book on Mexico City, coming out in late September.    I will say this much.    If whoever made those calls genuinely had a hard time speaking either Russian or English, their native tongue was probably Spanish.    Oswald was not a Spanish-speaker.

Part 11: Final Days in Dallas with the Paines and the ACLU

By Bill Simpich [Originally published 8/30/2012]

Oswald thought that he might land a job at NASA  

When Oswald came to New Orleans, he was hired as an oiler greasing coffee machines at Reily Coffee Company for two months between May-July of 1963.   The two Reily brothers were active in anti-Castro politics.   Eustis Reily supported the right-wing propaganda operation known as INCA (Information Council of the Americas).   William Reily backed the Crusade to Free Cuba Committee, filled with luminaries like Claire Boothe Luce of Time-Life who raised funds for the would-be government-in-exile, the Cuban Revolutionary Committee (CRC). [1]

The main source of information about Oswald’s time at Reily’s was VP William Monaghan.  Oswald saw four co-workers head off to work at NASA, including the man that hired him and the man that fired him.  Oswald thought he would also land a NASA job.   What was going on?

Monaghan was a former FBI agent, and an industrial security specialist.  Reily’s may have been a place to screen industrial security applicants prior to hiring. [2]  Another factor to consider is that NASA security had been watching Robert Webster – Webster’s defection to the USSR appears to have spurred Oswald’s defection in 1959, and then both men returned about the same time in 1962.   See Part 5 of this series.

Webster’s work in plastics and aerospace was of great interest to NASA, and NASA security was monitoring the Webster case even before his defection. [3]   It’s logical that NASA security would want to stay apprised of Oswald based on the possibility that there was a relationship between Oswald and Webster.

The man who hired Oswald, Alfred Claude, left Reily’s to work at Chrysler Aerospace Division of the Michoud NASA facility in New Orleans. [4]   Emmett Barbee, Oswald’s immediate supervisor, went to a new job at NASA in New Orleans.   Dante Marachini, hired on the same day as Oswald, went off to Chrysler Aerospace at Michoud. [5]   John Branyon, a co-worker of Oswald’s, also went to NASA. [6]

Adrian Alba worked at the Crescent City Garage next door to Reily’s, where Oswald liked to hang out and read gun magazines.   This habit was noticed by Monaghan and Charles LeBlanc and led to his firing for inefficiency. [7]   Oswald then cited LeBlanc as a reference, but made sure to give the wrong address for him. [8]

Alba told the Warren Commission that Oswald told him in July 1963 that he had found “where the gold is” and would be hired by NASA to work at the Michoud plant. [9]   Alba wrote his statement promptly after the assassination at the request of the Secret Service.  [10]    NASA, Chrysler, and other contractors in the area were then canvassed, but none of them had any record of any application by Oswald. [11]

Guy Banister, Legend Maker #10, gave Oswald reason to believe that he would be hired by NASA.   Bill Nitschke, Banister’s colleague from the FBI, said that Banister bid on the security contract for NASA’s Michoud assembly facility. [12]   By 1967, Nitschke was working for NASA, and was said to have been the man who collected Banister’s still-missing files after his death in 1964.  Martin Samuel Abelow, “on special assignment” at NASA Houston, saw Oswald handing Fair Play for Cuba leaflets to sailors and turned a copy over to NASA security. [13]

Intelligence forces have denied for years that there was any relationship between Guy Banister and Lee Oswald.  It was left to New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, independent researchers and journalists to assemble an impressive array of evidence that ties these two men together.  Banister’s secretary Delphine Roberts said that Banister took Oswald under his wing and worked with him on a regular basis.  Other Banister staffers who agreed that the two men worked together include Vernon Gerdes, Tommy Baumler, George Higginbotham, and Allen Campbell.  Roberts and Higginbotham both said that they were specifically told by Banister that Oswald was working for him.  Banister’s wife, Bill Nitschke, Banister employee Don Campbell, Louisiana professor Michael Kurtz and several other people also saw the two men together. [14]

CIA-FBI informant William Gaudet told journalist Tony Summers in a 1978 interview that he had seen Oswald pass out FPCC leaflets in New Orleans and that he “did see Oswald discussing various things with Banister at the time, and I think Banister knew a whole lot of what was going on”.  [15]

Banister, a right-wing racist, was a CIA informant that ran a Southern anti-communist intelligence network

Banister had gone from serving as a valued FBI Special Agent in Charge  to running an anti-communist intelligence network.    He had plenty of experience as a Red-hunter during his sixteen years as chief in Indianapolis, Butte, Minneapolis and Chicago. [16]   He had worked with the White Russians and had relied on Igor and Natalie Voshinin of the anti-Soviet NTS (see Part 6 of this series) as sources back in 1950. [17]

After his retirement from the FBI in 1954, Banister served a stint as deputy police chief of New Orleans.   This ended in scandal when Banister allegedly pulled a gun on a bartender in 1957. [18] Banister then made himself notorious as a dogged anti-communist.   A CIA memo described him as “aligned” with Kent Courtney, the owner of the ultra-right newspaper The Independent American. [19]   He was a member of the segregationist Louisiana State Sovereignty Commission. [20]   His secretary and mistress Delphine Roberts was associated with the racist wing National States Rights Party. [21]

When asked about the Agency’s relationship with Banister, CIA New Orleans field office chief Lloyd Ray responded that Banister asked to work for them but they declined his offer in late 1960. [22] This was literally a half-truth.  A CIA memo states that “CIA headquarters considered contacting him for use as a foreign intelligence source and for possible use of his firm for cover purposes.   However, security investigation revealed derogatory information about his professional conduct”. [23]  The CIA decided not to use Banister’s firm for cover.  [24]   The Agency did use Banister as an informant for foreign intelligence. [25]  Banister used these connections to build his anti-communist intelligence empire.

Oswald described himself as a shipping export agent, and had a lingering relationship with Gerard Tujague’s import-export business

In January 1961, Banister was providing medical supplies and other aid to the CIA and Cuban exiles in preparation for the Bay of Pigs. [26]   During that month, Banister incorporated his front organization – the “Friends of Democratic Cuba” (FDC). [27]    Gerard Tujague was the treasurer of the FDC. [28]   Oswald had worked for Tujague’s import-export business in 1956, told his mother he was going to return to work at Tujague’s right before he defected in 1959, and listed himself as a shipping export agent on his passport in 1959.  Oswald named Tujague as a reference and used his proper address when he looked for work in 1963. [29]

Curiously, the evidence that Oswald collaborated with Customs is stronger than with any other agency.  Cuban exile Orestes Pena testified that he saw Oswald chatting on a regular basis with FBI Cuban specialist Warren de Brueys, David Smith at Customs, and Wendell Roache at INS.   Pena told the Church Committee that Oswald was employed by Customs.   Informant Joseph Oster went farther, saying that Oswald’s handler was David Smith at Customs.   Church Committee staff members knew that David Smith “was involved in CIA operations”.  Orestes Pena’s handler Warren DeBrueys admitted he knew David Smith. Oswald was also frequently seen with Juan Valdes, who described himself as a “customs house broker”.  [30]

1959 passport description of Oswald as ‘shipping export agent’

(Image by House Select Committee on Assassinations)

1959 passport description of Oswald as “shipping export agent” by House Select Committee on Assassinations
During January 1961, two FDC members named Joseph Moore and a man named “Oswald” went to a Ford outlet and requested the purchase of  ten trucks to send to the Cuban exiles.    Lee Oswald could not have been involved, as it was well-known that he had defected to the USSR.   The use of Oswald’s name was probably a convenient device that was considered useful if there was a need to “dirty” him up in the future.     

Banister was preparing the Oswald legend for bigger operations in the future

While Miami had the most important CRC office in the USA, New Orleans was number 2 in the hierarchy.   CRC members frequented Banister’s building at Lafayette and Camp, even though their lease had run out and the US government had cut off their funding.  Known as the Newman Building, it has also been described as the Cuban Grand Central Station.

Oswald met some of the anti-Castro CRC members in New Orleans that summer.  He introduced himself to CRC public relations man Arnesto Rodriguez (FBI informant NO 1213-S) about the beginning of August 1963, and asked him if he would teach him Spanish.  Oswald got into an argument at the courthouse with CRC delegate/FBI informant Frank Bartes.  By September 1963, Arnesto denied meeting Oswald even though his mother later told the FBI that he had taped a conversation with Oswald during August.  Bartes took the same approach as Arnesto during that month, denying any knowledge of Oswald.  Oswald also met CRC activist Carlos Quiroga (FBI informant NO T-5) – as we will see, Quiroga visited Oswald at his home trying to size up just who he was.

Banister was polishing Oswald’s legend as an FPCC activist to prepare him to take the public stage and go on to perform missions at larger venues.  Some have speculated that Banister was playing a game to insert Oswald inside an assassination team. Although it is tempting to think of the ultra-right wing ex-FBI agent Bannister as an assassination mastermind, what mastermind would use an assassin with a media trail that would lead right back to one’s own doorstep?

I suggest that Banister was like a Triple A baseball manager training his player for the big leagues.  Oswald was about to become an ostensible player in a FBI-CIA operation in Mexico City to smear the FPCC.

Banister was good at this kind of thing — he had people such as his associate Don Campbell and staffer Tommy Baumler working to infiltrate left-wing college groups.  [31]    Someone had to spy on the New Orleans Council for Peaceful Alternatives, who invited troublemakers like Father Phil Berrigan to speak on the immorality of nuclear weapons.

In May, Oswald started off by leaving FPCC fliers at the Tulane Library, a good way to flush out pro-Castro types that might try to infiltrate anti-communist groups. [32]  In June, he was leafleting sailors at the USS Wasp.  Using the waterfront was second nature for an ex-Marine like Oswald.    No surprise that FPCC agitation at the harbor resulted in the circulation of the Oswald legend throughout military intelligence.

The DRE took the CIA’s money but were difficult to work with.   This group was young, motivated, and very dangerous.   In August 1962, they shelled government buildings in Havana and then bragged about it, while Castro was infuriated at this latest act of terrorism and attempted assassination.   They attracted the attention of the Cuban’s government’s DGI.  The role of the DGI in Cuba was to penetrate counter-revolutionary organizations.  Counterintelligence analyst Ray Rocca made it very clear years later that he agreed that the DRE was heavily infiltrated by Cuban government DGI agents by 1962.

Several CIA officers had also concluded that the DRE was totally insecure.  Officer Calvin Thomas was concerned that the DRE might have even played a role in killing Kennedy.

Jorge Bringuier was the brother-in-law of New Orleans DRE leader Carlos Bringuier. (While DRE official Juan Salvat describes him as nephew,  Carlos says brother-in-law.)   Jorge Bringuier disgraced the family by becoming a Castro agent and betraying the Cuban wing of the DRE.  After he became national coordinator in Cuba in 1962, just about all of the Cuban DRE members were arrested.  There’s a contemporaneous memo about this betrayal in early 1963.  Jorge was pitched to defect on 12/6/63, and he sent a telegram to his mother on 12/13 saying that he was “out” and with the Americans.  Jorge was a CIA agent by 1968.

In late July, ten Cuban exiles traveled from Miami to New Orleans and joined an anti-Castro training camp north of New Orleans.   This training camp was on the land of Michael McLaney, a friend of “gamblers in Cuba”, and the new arrivals at the camp had obtained some dynamite and were planning to bomb Cuban oil refineries.   The leader of the dynamite procurement was Victor Espinosa Hernandez.  Espinosa’s group asked  New Orleans DRE leader Carlos Bringuier to assist them.  Bringuier had worked for some time in the same building as Banister, serving as the press and propaganda secretary of the aforementioned CRC. 

On July 31, the FBI swooped into a home in the New Orleans area and seized a ton of dynamite, bomb casings, napalm material and other devices.  Eleven people were arrested.   Bringuier escaped arrest.    Why?   It looks like US intelligence forces wanted a more subtle approach to test Bringuier’s loyalties.

Oswald Came to Center Stage After the Arms Seizure As An Asset

1.   The main goal was to make the FPCC look bad.

2.   Incidentally, an anti-FPCC operation would divert public attention from the recent terrorist plans of the anti-Castro underground.   This vigilante plan to napalm Cuba did not look good.

3.   Along the way, it made sense to try to determine if Carlos Bringuier might be pro-Castro, or if Jorge Bringuier could be brought back into the anti-Castro fold.  Carlos may have been used by those using Oswald.

There is an intriguing report of FPCC member Oswald being arrested with Celso Hernandez in New Orleans in late 1962 (see pp. 6-7, (follow-up at pp. 16-18) The ID of Hernandez was made years later and is admittedly shaky. The ID of Oswald is more substantive, as he id’d himself to the police as an FPCC member – but he was living in the Dallas area. The story is that the two men were picked up at the lakefront in Celso’s work truck, owned by an electronics firm that was Celso’s employer.

The most important thing is that right about this time, Bill Harvey – who worked both the wiretapping side and the Cuban beat for  the CIA during 1962 – was tipped off on 10/1/62 that Celso Hernandez might be a communist.  This kicked off an investigation that revealed in the autumn of 1963 that there was a left-wing Celso and a right-wing Celso, and a brother and sister who couldn’t agree on who was who.  [33] Oswald and Celso Hernandez were arrested together again in August 1963.  What we do know is that throughout this era, Hernandez was under close scrutiny as a possible pro-Castro infiltrator.  Below, we see Oswald’s interactions with Carlos and Celso.

Oswald’s Provocative Actions in New Orleans Built His Legend

August 1:   Oswald wrote the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and told them that he had got into a brawl with the “gusanos” — Spanish for worms and a well-known epithet for the Cuban exiles. [34]    This incident had not happened, but Oswald made sure that it did a few days later.   Oswald’s target was the Cuban DRE leader Carlos Bringuier.

August 5:   Oswald visited Bringuier’s clothing store and introduced himself as an ex-Marine prepared to fight against Castro and that he could train guerillas. He had come to the right place to make his pitch.   The DRE were attracted to military action and propaganda along those lines.  The two men talked for a full hour. 

August 6:     Oswald returned to Bringuier’s store, leaving a copy of his Marine guide book.

August 9:     Bringuier, Celso Hernandez, and another friend saw Oswald leafleting for the FPCC and realized that he was a Red Marine and no friend of theirs. [35]   As Oswald had foreseen in his letter, the four men argued vehemently until the police came and arrested them all.  [36]   FBI informant Orestes Pena was watching.   FBI photographers were filming across the street. CIA-FBI agent William Gaudet watched Oswald hand out the literature from his office.  [37]

August 10:    During Oswald’s short stint in jail, SA John Quigley reported that “Oswald was desirous of seeing an agent and supplying to him information with regard to his activities with the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee’ in New Orleans.” [38] Quigley took down everything Oswald gave him.   After waiting for more than a month, Quigley revealed Oswald’s defection to the USSR and his role as an FPCC activist on the day before Oswald’s trip to Mexico City.    

August 16:     Oswald went out to leaflet again, with Banister’s “544 Camp Street” address stamped on his FPCC leaflets.  He had some intriguing company at this intriguing site. The maintenance supervisor of the Trade Mart, a “Mr. Bridges”, was on the scene. [39]  The owner of the Trade Mart, Clay Shaw, had been a CIA source for many years.   DRE military leader Isidro Borja was watching. [40] WDSU-TV filmed the 8/16/63 event (as well as the 8/12 court appearance and an 8/21 WDSU-Oswald interview).  [41]  Also watching was Jesse Core, the PR man for the International Trade Market and an FBI source. [42]     Charles Steele, the man Oswald hired to pass out the leaflets — certainly a first in the history of political movements — was described as “T-14” for the FBI.   Even fifteen years later, he refused to say if he knew Oswald prior to that day, or if he ever saw him again. [43]

Later that day,  Cuban exiles Carlos Quiroga (NO T-5) visited Oswald with the ostensible purpose of trying to join the FPCC.   The story is that Quiroga was asked by Bringuier to penetrate Oswald’s group. [44]   Oswald’s landlady said that she saw that Quiroga was delivering a five-inch stack of FPCC fliers to Oswald, and let it be known that she didn’t want those fliers around her property. [45]    Quiroga said that Oswald spent little time with him, telling him to “go away”. [46]   It’s hard to say if they were adversaries or actually working in concert.         

August 17:     Oswald was interviewed by FBI informant Bill Stuckey for his WDSU show “Latin Listening Post.” Stuckey also had a background as a CIA informant on Cuban activities, as can be seen in a 1962 document where he is treated as a known quantity in a memo regarding his magazine article that provides the location of an anti-Castro base near New Orleans.   SA Milton Kaack wrote that Stuckey handed the original tape of this interview to the New Orleans FBI office on August 29.  [47]  Stuckey recalled giving it to the FBI as early as the 20^th.  [48]

August 21:     Stuckey called SAC Harry Maynor that morning, letting him know personally about the tape of the previous show and that there would be another show with Oswald that night. [49]

For the second radio show, Stuckey contacted Ed Butler, executive director of the Information Council on the Americas (INCA), which Stuckey described as “an anti-Communist propaganda organization.”   He also asked Bringuier to attend to give the show “Cuban flavor.”   When Stuckey invited Oswald to return for a Cuba policy debate, his jocular response was, “How many of you do I have to fight?”  [50]  Oswald’s defection to the Soviet Union was revealed while on the air, but Oswald kept his fighting face on throughout the debate.  Butler and Bringuier were mystified that anyone would consider him a crackpot. WDSU secretary Jeanne Rodgers promptly provided a copy of the debate transcript to the New Orleans FBI office.  [51]

Hoover’s office knew that things were heating up.   On the day of the debate, HQ sent a memo to New Orleans reminding them that it had been waiting to hear what Oswald’s job was since March and whether or not to interview Marina.  [52]  HQ also asked that “contact should be made with established sources familiar with Cuban activities in the New Orleans area to determine if (Oswald) involved in activities inimical to the internal security of the U.S.   Submit results in letterhead memorandum”.  [53]  SA Quigley provided no response until September 24, right after Oswald’s s family moved away from New Orleans and returned to the Dallas area – while Oswald went to Mexico City, seeking permission to enter Cuba.

As we will see in the next chapter, a few CIA officers in Miami took special notice of Quigley’s observations about Oswald and the FPCC.      We will also see that the New Orleans FBI had a friend at the visa office that could tell them that Oswald was on his way out of town, where he was going, and what alias he was using.

What the friend didn’t know is that Oswald was going to visit the Soviet and Cuban consulates in Mexico City to seek an “instant visa” to visit both of those countries.   This had worked when Oswald had defected to the USSR in 1959.  This time, however, Oswald had no intention of actually visiting these countries.  

Someone convinced Oswald to go to the Cuban and Soviet consulates, present himself as an FPCC representative, and to misbehave while on center stage.   The goal was to see if Oswald could rattle the embassy staff  – much like he had rattled Bringuier and the DRE – and then see how they reacted under pressure for the purposes of counter-intelligence.   This was a clever way for the CI officers to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of the other side.

David Phillips, the CIA’s chief of Cuban operations, was stationed in Mexico City.  Phillips didn’t need to rely on the CIA’s cameras trained on the Cuban consulate.  He had people watching from the inside…

Part 10 – Nightmare in Mexico City

A tip of the hat to more people than I can count:  Bill Turner, Warren Hinckle, Jim DiEugenio, John Armstrong, Gerald McKnight, Joan Mellen, William Davy, Peter Dale Scott, Jefferson Morley, and Tony Summers, to name just a few.

[53]    HQ also asked that “contact should be made with established sources familiar with Cuban activities in the New Orleans area to determine if (Oswald) involved in activities inimical to the internal security of the U.S.   Submit results in letterhead memorandum”:    “Preliminary Report into the Investigation of President Kennedy”, 2/20/76, p. 24,   Church Committee Boxed Files /NARA Record Number: 157-10014-10141.

By Bill Simpich [Originally published 6/4/2012]

The CIA and Army Intelligence worked together to form the Caribbean Action Center for collecting intelligence from Cuban refugees, the home of the debriefing specialist Dorothe Matlack

Dorothe Matlack, a renowned figure known as a pioneer in the Army’s use of human intelligence, has been described as the Pentagon’s liaison to the CIA.  She was a specialist in the art of debriefing.  She spent many years as Assistant Chief of Staff of Intelligence for Army Intelligence, with much of her work in the Collections Division.  She organized and directed the debriefings of tens of thousands of people, with a particular emphasis on refugees from Hungary and Cuba.

In the sixties, the value of her work had risen even higher, and her section was reorganized into the “Exploitation Section. ”  Her role with the Caribbean Action Center is major, illustrating the Center’s role as a vacuum cleaner for swallowing up information about Cuba. In an interview, JMWAVE officer Tony Sforza described a building near an airport where debriefing reports would be typed, processed, and provided to the intelligence agency of Cuban exiles known as the “AMOTs”.   150 Cubans were working for the Army and the CIA in this miniature agency .  More than twenty Cubans were among the actual debriefers, and the other Cubans worked in records, reports writing and similar tasks, all answering to US case officers.

David Morales was ideally suited to help lead the work of the Caribbean Action Center (CAC), as he was the #2 man at the CIA forward operations base in Miami known as JMWAVE, and helped create the AMOTs.  Morales was also a military man who had been seconded to the CIA.    Morales was joined at the CAC by his loyal ally Tony Sforza.   While serving as a top official within the ACSI, Matlack and her colleague Colonel Sam Kail were also key supporting officers at the Carribean Action Center.   

Matlack also worked with the Interagency Defector Committee and the CIA’s debriefing specialist Tony Czajkowski

After obtaining top secret clearances, Matlack joined the Interagency Defector Committee in 1953 and served for many years.    The agencies in the IDC were State, DIA, Army, Navy, Air Force, FBI and the CIA. She had worked with Tony Czajkowski of the CIA’s Domestic Contacts Division off and on over the years.

Like Matlack, Czajkowski was also a debriefing specialist.  His work with the Domestic Contacts Division in “domestic exploitation” was identical with Matlack’s.   Czajkowski wrote an article in 1959 entitled “Techniques of Domestic Intelligence Collection.” It’s a good discussion about how to get information from people such as Oswald or de Mohrenschildt.

In 1953, Matlack was assigned to be a “liaison on defector matters and aliens of interest.”  During the early 60s, Matlack worked closely with CIA Defector Coordinator George Aurell. Matlack also worked with the CIA in analyzing long lists of reports made by notorious defectors such as Anatoly Golitsyn. Odds are high that Matlack would have been intimately familiar with the story behind the re-defector Lee Oswald.

A CIA memo, probably written by Angleton’s man John Mertz, told the Warren Commission that the IDC only handled “foreign persons who defect to the United States, rather than defectors from the United States to an iron curtain country.”  Oswald, as a re-defector returning to the US from an iron curtain country, fit in neither category.

Mike Sylwester, an Air Force major who served on the Interagency Defector Committee for ten years, believed that it wasn’t clear whether the IDC or another CI agency would have jurisdiction for a re-defector such as Oswald:   “It might have been like two baseball players letting the ball drop between them because each one thought that the other one would catch it.”

Which agency was supposed to handle a re-defector like Oswald?

Which agency was supposed to handle a re-defector like Oswald?

Sylwester concluded that “the CIA did attempt to collect information from Oswald in a clandestine manner, through George De Mohrenschildt, without Oswald’s knowledge of De Mohrenschildt’s intentions.   This is not a normal method of collecting information from defectors.   People who normally collect information from defectors are normally not qualified to use techniques of this kind, and they would not have been informed at all about this operation“.  De Mohrenschildt may have been qualified to collect information from Oswald; or someone more experienced may have collected it from him.  As we will see, Matlack and Czajkowski spent some time with de Mohrenschildt before the assassination.

While trying to organize a coup of the Duvalier regime in Haiti, de Mohrenschildt finds himself being debriefed by Matlack and Czajkowski

Right about the time that Ruth and Marina became housemates, de Mohrenschildt left Dallas and never saw the Oswalds again.  De Mohrenschildt was now working with Clemard Charles, a Haitian banker and political leader.  De Mohrenschildt was touting Charles to his contacts as a possible new leader for Haiti that could effectively replace “Papa Doc” Francois Duvalier.

According to an Army Intelligence memo, “(de Mohrenschidt,) a business associate of Vice President L. B. Johnson, traveled with Charles in 1963 when he visited various U.S. government officers, both in Washington and in New York…(de Mohrenschildt) appeared to have the close personal contacts that provided Charles with the opportunity to air his views and his intentions to the higher echelons of USI (US intelligence) and the U.S. government; on occasions it was either de Mohrenschildt or Charles who made direct telephone contact with USI, rather than vice versa.  How these telephone numbers were obtained is not known.”

On 4/26/63, Gale Allen of the Domestic Operations Division requested an expedited check of sources on de Mohrenschildt while he was in Washington DC.  This may mark the beginning of a covert debriefing of de Mohrenschildt.  In a 2004 interview with author David Kaiser, Allen said that he had done this on behalf of someone else who had “plans” for de Mohrenschildt.

This man with plans was apparently C. Frank Stone, also of the Domestic Operations Division, who asked Anna Panor to request more information on de Mohrenschildt.  Leo Dunn at the Personnel Security Division provided a summary of de Mohrenschildt’s activities, which stated that certain derogatory information could be used to determine the right amount of contact with de Mohenschildt.

Anna Panor wrote a 5/9/63 memo to Stone, suggesting that more information could be obtained by contacting Thomas Schreyer, a high-level covert action officer in Meyer’s office who had handled de Mohrenschildt’s file in the past.

Between late April and late May, Stone had several meetings with de Mohrenschildt, Charles, and Thomas Devine.  Devine was a banker and partner of oilman George H.W. Bush.  At their last meeting, de Mohrenschildt assured Devine that Charles would make an excellent president once they got rid of Duvalier. De Mohrenschildt’s colleague Herbert Itkin, another spy that helped out Legend Maker #1 James Angleton in oil intelligence, was now the registered agent for Haiti’s “government in exile”.  Itkin said that George came to help out.

Meanwhile, a “Mr. Zagorski” at State reported that the Haitian desk expressed “extreme displeasure that anyone in the United States government should be in official contact with Charles.  The desk man considered Charles to be close to the Duvalier government, to be involved in several shady financial dealings, and, in general, to be an undesirable character”.  Charles was referred to in later years as Duvalier’s “bagman”, even though he saw a little time in prison in 1967 under the Duvalier regime.

Another memo expresses de Mohrenschildt displaying a “Casimir painting with Duvalier slogans” while talking up the regime to his guests during one of his Haitian house parties.  De Mohrenschildt was playing at least a a double game in Haiti.  It may have even been a triple game.  Czajkowski reported that Matlack thought the US should continue to “play ball with Charles” because if Duvalier could be removed, a cousin of Charles was in position to take over power.

Haiti is just twenty miles away from Cuban shores, and provided an ideal staging area for any invasion of Cuba.  Incidentally, the waters adjacent to Haiti and Cuba have long been considered to be a great spot to drill for oil – for the last fifty years, this region has remained undeveloped.

On May 7, 1963, Matlack and Czajkowski had the opportunity to meet with George de Mohrenschildt, his wife Jeanne, and Charles.  Charles was unexpectedly called away by a “Mr. Green”, thanks to some machinations by Czajkowski.   The debriefing specialists Matlack and Czajkowski now had the de Mohrenschildts all to themselves – which provided them an opportunity to finish any small talk about George’s time in Texas and their time with a certain family of Soviet defectors.

Part 9:  In New Orleans, the anti-Castro forces help Oswald create his legend as a Fair Play for Cuba organizer

A tip of the hat to many people, especially the recent work on de Mohrenschildt by Russ Baker.

Matlack organized and directed the debriefings of tens of thousands of people during her lifetime, with a particular emphasis on refugees from Hungary and Cuba:  Press Release, U.S. Army Fort Huachuca, “Human Intelligence Training Joint Center for Excellence Dedicates New Training Facility”, 5/4/10.

In the sixties, the value of her work had risen even higher, and her section was reorganized into the “Exploitation Section”:   William Kelly, report on Peter Dale Scott’s presentation on Colonel Frank M. Brandstetter”, 11/29/10.

JMWAVE officer Tony Sforza described a building near an airport where debriefing reports would be typed, processed, and provided to the intelligence agency of Cuban exiles known as the “AMOTs”:   Deposition of Alfred Sarno (Tony Sforza), 6/25/75, pp. 18-20, NARA Record Number: 157-10005-10250.  

David Morales was ideally suited to help lead the work of the Caribbean Action Center, as he was the #2 man at JMWAVE:   See Request for Personnel Action, appointment of “Stanley Zamka” (pseudo of David Morales) as “DCOS” (deputy chief of station), 8/11/61, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 44 / HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 44 / NARA Record Number: 104-10121-10249.

After obtaining top secret clearances, Matlack joined the Interagency Defector Committee in the mid-50s and served for many years:    Card with dates of clearances for Dorothe Matlack. HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 44 / NARA Record Number: 104-10121-10013. 

The agencies in the IDC were State, DIA, Army, Navy, Air Force, FBI and the CIA:   Memo from IDC Chairman Thomas Bland to the IDC membership, 1/24/63, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm – reel 8: Golitsyn – Hernandez) / NARA Record Number: 1994.04.28.14:31:55:970005  

She had worked with Tony Czajkowski of the CIA’s Domestic Contacts Division off and on over the years:   Cards with Matlack’s CIA contacts:  HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 44 / NARA Record Number: 1993.07.21.10:09:22:810620.

Czajkowski wrote an article in 1959 entitled “Techniques of Domestic Intelligence Collection.” It’s a good discussion about how to get information from people such as Oswald or de Mohrenschildt:  Czajkowski’s article is chapter 6 in H. Bradford Westerfield’s Inside CIA’s Private World , p. 51.

A quick summary of the article:   Lara Shohet, “Intelligence, Academia, and Industry”.  See footnote 2.

See this internet article based on Czajkowski’s work:   Maryann Karinch, “How to Collect Information Like A Spy”.

In 1953, Matlack was assigned to be a “liaison on defector matters and aliens of interest”:     Memo from Liaison Control Officer to Chief, Alien Division, 3/3/53, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 44 / NARA Record Number: 1993.07.21.10:09:22:810620.

Since at least 1960, Matlack worked closely with CIA Defector Coordinator George Aurell:   Request for Approval of Liaison, 12/8/60, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 44 / NARA Record Number: 104-10121-10016.

George Aurell was CDC Coordinator:   Memorandum for the Record by Howard J. Osborn, Deputy Chief, SR Division, 1/15/62,   Reel 7, Folder U — Anatoliy Golitsyn, NARA Record Number: 1994.05.31.13:11:40:430005.

Matlack also worked with the CIA in analyzing long lists of reports made by notorious defectors such as Anatoly Golitsyn. Odds are high that Matlack would have been intimately familiar with the story behind the re-defector Lee Oswald:  Memo from IDC Chairman Thomas Bland to the IDC membership, pp. 1-2, 1/24/63, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm – reel 8: Golitsyn – Hernandez)/NARA Record Number: 1994.04.28.14:31:55:970005  

A CIA memo, probably written by Angleton’s man John Mertz, told the Warren Commission that the IDC only handled “foreign persons who defect to the United States, rather than defectors from the United States to an iron curtain country”:  Meeting of the President’s Committee on the Warren Report, 12/1/64, p. 2,    Russ Holmes Work File /NARA Record Number: 104-10423-10323.

Mike Sylwester, an Air Force major who served on the Interagency Defector Committee for ten years, believed that it wasn’t clear whether the IDC or another CI agency would have jurisdiction for a re-defector such as Oswald…:  Mike Sylwester, “Why Didn’t the Intelligence Community Interview Oswald About the Soviet Union?” pp. 3-4, The Third Decade, Volume 9, No. 4, May 1993.

An Army Intelligence memo states that de Mohrenschildt, “a business associate of Vice President L. B. Johnson, traveled with Charles in 1963 when he visited various U.S. government officers, both in Washington and in New York:  Army Intelligence “Disposition Form”, 9/5/68, recounted in Douglas P. Horne’s Inside the Assassinatons Records Review Board, Volume V (MFF, 2009), p. 1491.

On 4/26/63, the evidence indicates that Gale Allen of the Domestic Operations Division and de Mohrenschildt were in the same part of Washington, D.C.:   HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 41/NARA Record Number: 1993.07.23.18:41:28:060330.

In a 2004 interview, Allen believed that he had made this request on behalf of someone else who had plans for de Mohrenschildt:  Interview with David Kaiser, 6/19/04, discussed in Kaiser’s Road to Dallas, p. 187.

This man with plans was apparently C. Frank Stone, also of the Domestic Operations Division, who asked staffer Anna Panor to request more information on de Mohrenschildt:   Beth Ann Lichtenfels, de Mohrenschildt File Review, circa 1978,   HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (staff notes)/NARA Record Number: 180-10141-10454.

Stone circulated a routing sheet for the 4/26/63 request , which was reviewed by Gale Allen and “Bessette”:   HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 14 / NARA Record Number: 104-10070-10076.

On the 29th, Leo Dunn at the Personnel Security Division provided DOD with a 1958 summary of de Mohrenschildt’s activities, which stated that certain derogatory information could be used to determine the right level of contact with de Mohrenschildt:   Memorandum for the Record, SA/PSD Leo Dunn, 4/29/63, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 41 / NARA Record Number: 104-10113-10011.

Anna Panor wrote a 5/9/63 memo to Stone, suggesting that more information could be obtained by contacting Thomas Schreyer, a high-level covert action officer in the office of Legend Maker #2 Cord Meyer:     Response to Request for Traces by REDACTED. Russ Holmes Work File/NARA Record Number: 104-10436-10014.

…At their last meeting, de Mohrenschildt assured Bush’s partner Thomas Devine that Charles would make an excellent president once they got rid of Duvalier:   Contact Report, 5/21/63, by C/DO/ODEO C. Frank Stone re WUBRINY/1 (Thomas Devine)

De Mohrenschildt’s friend Herbert Itkin was now the registered agent for Haiti’s “government in exile”:  CIA memo, 8/29/72, NARA Record Number: 1993.07.24.08:41:29:500310.

Itkin said that George came to help out:  Warren Hinckle, Bill Turner, Deadly Secrets, p. 237.

“Mr. Zagorski” at the State Department considered Charles to be close to the Duvalier government, to be involved in several shady financial dealings, and, in general, to be an undesirable character:   Memorandum for the Record from A. H. Czajkowski re Clemard Charles, 5/10/63, p. 3, Reel 52, Folder C — George de Mohrenschildt.  

Another memo reports de Mohrenschildt displaying a “Casimir painting with Duvalier slogans” while talking up the regime to his guests during one of his house parties in Haiti:  Memorandum by Joseph G. Benson, re report on George de Mohrenschildt by Paul Johnson of the Haitian-American Institute, 9/18/64, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm – reel 5: Conte – De Mohrenschildt)/NARA Record Number: 104-10166-10294.

Czajkowski reported that Matlack thought the US should continue to “play ball with Charles” because if Duvalier could be removed, a cousin of Charles was in position to take over power:  Memorandum for the Record from A. H. Czajkowski re Clemard Charles, 5/10/63, p. 4, Reel 52, Folder C — George de Mohrenschildt.

…After Czajkowski arranged for Charles to meet with a “Mr. Green”, Czajkowski and Dorothe Matlack were left in the company of the de Mohrenschildts –  probably for the purpose of gently finding out from them just how much they learned about Lee Harvey Oswald:    Memorandum for the Record by OO/C A. F. Czajkowski, p. 3, 5/10/63, Reel 52, Folder C, George de Mohrenschildt – NARA Record Number: 1994.04.26.09:19:10:570005.

Ruth and Michael Paine

By Bill Simpich [Originally published 6/3/2012]

Oswald returned from the Soviet Union speaking Russian with a Polish accent

When Oswald and his family returned to the Dallas-Fort Worth area from the Soviet Union, they knew that they had make contacts if they were going to put food on the table.  Oswald sought out Peter Gregory shortly after his arrival.   Peter Gregory described himself as an “oil consultant” who came from Russia in 1923.  He was also a translator who had his son Paul take Russian lessons from Oswald’s wife Marina.  Gregory provided Oswald with a letter certifying Oswald’s ability to serve as a translator.  Gregory commented on Oswald’s pronounced Polish accent, which was a result of Oswald’s extended time with Legend Maker #8 Alexander Ziger and the entire Ziger family.

Dallas oilman/spy George de Mohrenschildt became a benefactor to the Oswald family, providing them with money and contacts after their return to the US from the Soviet Union.  As discussed earlier, de Mohrenschildt’s lawyer Max Clark was also General Dynamics’ industrial security consultant and a leader within the White Russian community.   Oswald contacted Max Clark’s wife shortly after his return, explaining that the Texas Employment Commission had referred her to him as a Russian-speaker and that his wife would like to spend time with another Russian-speaker.

Both Peter Gregory and Max Clark displayed furtiveness and unclean hands after JFK was killed.  On 11/28/63, Gregory assisted the Secret Service in translating a lengthy interrogation of Marina Oswald.  On 11/29/63, both Gregory and Clark told FBI agent Earle Haley that Oswald had obtained their names from the Fort Worth Public Library, where Gregory worked.  When Clark testified before the Warren panel, he changed his story to say that Oswald was referred to his wife by the Texas Employment Commission (TEC). Clearly, both men had initially tried to keep their TEC contacts away from public view.  The TEC – better known as the state unemployment agency – kept extensive records on Oswald that are now available and open up all sorts of questions.  After a complaint by the Warren Commission staff that these earlier reports contradicted the Warren Commission testimony, Hoover ordered Legend Maker #6 FBI supervisor Marvin Gheesling to confront them on these contradictions.

When Gheesling re-assigned the case to the Dallas FBI office, agent Earle Haley went back and re-interviewed Clark and Gregory.  Haley was a personal acquaintance of Max Clark, who used to work with “Earle“.  Gregory wouldn’t change his story and blamed it on Oswald, while Clark said he heard about the whole issue second-hand from his wife, who always knew Oswald got her name from the Texas Employment Commission.  Max’s wife Gali Clark was treated with kid gloves.  There’s no indication that Haley or anyone else ever followed up with her.

Oswald had legend makers precisely because he and his wife presented a perceived threat to national security

De Mohrenschildt visited and exchanged cards and letters with CIA official J. Walton Moore on a regular basis during the fifties and sixties.  Moore wrote a memo in 1977 claiming that he only met de Mohrenschildt twice, in 1958 and in 1961.  Moore’s hazy memory on the number of visits was exposed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In 1964, a similar memo by Moore admitted that he met de Mohrenschildt in 1957, “several times” in 1958 and 1959, and the last time in 1961.   There was more than just that.  De Mohrenschildt sent Moore a stack of contact reports in 1957 and 1958.  In 1958, Moore used de Mohrenschildt as a “contact” with a Polish official.  In 1960, Moore referred to de Mohrenschildt as a “cleared contact” for a copy of a memo on the USSR’s use of petroleum.

Moore visited the De Mohrenschildts’ home in late 1961 to see a movie of their “walking tour” from Mexico to Panama.  HSCA Report, Volume 12, p. 54.  Although the de Mohrenschildts said that they were tracking the mining trails of the old Spanish conquistadors, they found themselves with hundreds of Cuban exiles in Guatemala City, a staging area for the Bay of Pigs invasion that was about to begin.   De Mohrenschildt revealed a few hours before his death that Moore took him to lunch in late 1961, and described to him an ex-Marine in Minsk in whom the CIA had “interest”.  In the summer of 1962, an associate of Moore suggested that de Mohrenschildt might want to meet Oswald.  De Mohrenschildt then called Moore, suggesting that suitable payback would be a little help by the State Department with an oil exploration deal in Haiti.

After the assassination, R.S. Travis at the Domestic Contact Division identified ten separate domestic contact reports prepared by de Mohrenschildt, and tipped off the staff of Legend Maker #1 Jim Angleton at the counterintelligence office. Travis referred to De Mohrenschildt as Moore’s “source,” and asked Moore to provide his personal evaluation of George for the CI Staff.  Moore wrote an intriguing evaluation that admitted that he had sought out de Mohrenschildt as “the result of a source lead from Headquarters” in 1957, but scrambled to avoid any direct admissions of the role he played in bringing de Mohrenschildt and Oswald together.  Moore’s evaluation was so carefully prepared that the file includes what appears to be a far-different rough draft.

Moore’s poor memory triggered internal scrutiny by the CIA’s Reinvestigation Program.   Moore went so far as to tell the CI staffer for  Angleton “there is no White Russian ‘community’ in Dallas.  He knows of only a couple of Russian linguists who are used by the Socony labs for translation.  Jim feels the word ‘community’ is inapplicable.  In any event he has had no contact with any such group”.  This memo is one of several indications that the task for Angleton’s staff was to sanitize de Mohrenschildt’s checkered history.  Moore was a former FBI agent and college roommate of Wallace Heitman, a Soviet language specialist who played the lead role for the FBI in controlling the first-day evidence.

Although US intelligence records on de Mohrenschildt go back to at least World War II, CIA Director Richard Helms said that the agency’s “initial interest” in George de Mohrenschildt was because he had been a petrochemical consultant with the International Cooperation Administration (ICA). De Mohrenschildt was appointed by the State Department as the “petroleum adviser” for the independent communist Yugoslavian government in 1957, and testified to the Warren Commission that ICA was the only US government agency that ever paid him.  The ICA became part of the Agency for International Development (AID) in 1961.  The AID has been cited by its former director John Gilligan as being filled with CIA agents “from top to bottom…the idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas, government, volunteer, religious, every kind”. 

In early 1963, de Mohrenschildt passed on his “babysitting duties” for the Oswald family to Ruth and Legend Maker #12 Michael Paine.  Ruth’s father Bill Hyde was regional director of the Nationwide Insurance Company, part of the International Cooperative Alliance founded in 1922 and still active today.  This similiarity between these two ICAs is not accidental – the contracts for both groups were coordinated through AID and the State Department. Both de Mohrenschildt and Hyde were business consultants that traveled abroad working on cooperative ventures and provided reports used by the CIA.  

The covert action division of Legend Maker #2 Cord Meyer sought to use Hyde as a security consultant in Vietnam back in 1957, but CI-SIG’s information on Hyde resulted in the denial of any security clearance.  Hyde’s problem, like Legend Maker #3 Priscilla Johnson, was that he was active with progressive causes and had family members involved with the United World Federalists.  Meyer, the CIA covert action chief in 1963, had got into trouble with the FBI during the 1950s for his former role as president of the United World Federalists.

Keep in mind that the CIA was not supposed to have officers handling domestic agents tracking US citizens inside the country.  That job was the FBI’s turf.  Routing slips show that interactions between Oswald and the FBI after his return were carefully scrutinized.  The rivalry between the CIA and the FBI led to CIA officers trying to work around the system.  In this setting Ideal babysitters for the Oswald family were trusted people that were denied security clearances – such as de Mohrenschildt or Ruth’s father.   Whether or not the babysitter knew that they were being monitored by intelligence, the operation could be kept in an officer’s vest pocket and never reduced to writing.

Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald became housemates after the Magnolia party

Ruth Paine met the Oswalds and George de Mohrenschildt at the party of Everett Glover on February 22, 1963.  This is known as the “Magnolia party”.  Glover was a chemist with Magnolia Labs, a geology lab for Socony Mobil Oil — the same “Socony labs” that Moore referred to when he argued that there was no White Russian community in Dallas.  Glover and four other Magnolia employees approached Oswald and got him to talk for several hours about life in the Soviet Union.   One of these employees, Norman Fredericksen, was the son of the former director of Radio Free Europe.  As discussed in the previous chapter, de Mohrenschildt had many close ties with Radio Free Europe.

The Paines have been described by researcher Greg Parker as pragmatic pacifists.  In an amazing coincidence, they moved from Pennsylvania to Oswald’s mother’s community of Irving, Texas during the second week of September 1959, the very week that Oswald abruptly left his mother and went off to defect to the USSR.   They had made the move so that Michael could take a job with the military contractor Bell Helicopter.  Michael said that Bell manufactured 40% of all of the helicopters used in the Vietnam War. Bell Helicopter was begun and run by Michael’s stepfather, Arthur Young, the most recent husband of Michael’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine.

They had made the move so that Michael could take a job with the military contractor Bell Helicopter.  Michael said that Bell manufactured 40% of all of the helicopters used in the Vietnam War. Bell Helicopter was begun and run by Michael’s stepfather, Arthur Young, the most recent husband of Michael’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine.

Helicopters on the attack.

The Paines probably had a handler within the intelligence community in 1959, whether they knew it or not.  Based on their background with the World Federalists and Ruth’s work with the Quakers and Soviet-American friendship committees, Cord Meyer is the logical candidate.  By 1963, Meyer was the chief of the covert action division.

Frederick Merrill at the State Department put his stamp of approval on the East-West Contact Committee program organized by the Quakers that Ruth had worked on – the following year, Merrill worked on the Robert Webster defector case that was linked to the Oswald defector case.  Did some combination of Meyer, AID and the State Department somehow persuade the Paines to keep an eye on this defector family, or were they simply manipulated into position?  Ruth had other intelligence operatives in her family – such as her sister Sylvia Hoke and her brother-in-law John Hoke – who could play a role in helping to convince her.   Michael Paine’s family also had access to talent in the intelligence arena.  Michael’s mother had a close friend named Mary Bancroft who was an OSS spy that slept with Allen Dulles.

After the Magnolia party, Ruth asked Marina Oswald if she would like to live with her so that she could improve her Russian.  Lee was about to leave Marina for awhile while he went to his home town of New Orleans and looked for more steady work.  Michael and Ruth had ostensibly split up, and were living in different houses.

Part 8:  The fiery Cuban dance steps of the CIA-Army Intelligence Mambo

Thanks to Barbara LaMonica, Greg Parker, Bill Kelly, and many other researchers for their insights on de Mohrenschildt and the Paines.  

Endnotes:

Peter Gregory…was also a translator who had his son Paul take Russian lessons from Oswald’s wife Marina.  Gregory provided Oswald with a letter certifying Oswald’s ability to serve as a translator:    Warren Commission Document 5, p.l 290; SA Earle Haley interview with Peter Gregory, 11/29/63.  Also see Secret Service report, below.

Gregory commented on Oswald’s pronounced Polish accent:  Secret Service report of Leon Gopadze, 11/29/63, p. 3, FBI – HSCA Administrative Folders/NARA Record Number: 124-10369-10062.

Oswald contacted Max Clark’s wife shortly after his return: Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Max Clark, Volume 8, p. 344.

On 11/28/63, Gregory assisted the Secret Service in translating a lengthy interrogation of Marina Oswald:   Secret Service report of Leon Gopadze, 11/29/63, p. 3, FBI – HSCA Administrative Folders/NARA Record Number: 124-10369-10062.

On 11/29/63, Clark and Gregory told FBI agent Earle Haley that Oswald had obtained their names from the Fort Worth ublic Library, where Gregory worked:   Warren Commission Document 5, p. 262, SA Earle Haley interview with Max Clark, 11/29/63; p. 290, SA Earl Haley interview with Peter Gregory, 11/29/63.

After a complaint by the Warren Commission that these these earlier reports contradicted the witnesses’ Warren Commission testimony, Legend Maker #6 FBI supervisor Marvin Gheesling was forced to confront them on these contradictions: Memo from Warren Commission counsel J. Lee Rankin to FBI Director, 5/7/64; Memo from Gheesling to SAC, Dallas, FBI, 5/11/64, 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 151, p. 49.

After Gheesling re-assigned the case to the Dallas FBI office, agent Earle Haley went back and re-interviewed Clark and Gregory:   Warren Commission Exhibits 1888, 1889, 5/14/64.

Haley was a personal acquaintance of Max Clark, who used to work with “ Earle “:   Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Max Clark, Volume 8, pp. 349, 352.  

Gregory wouldn’t change his story and blamed it on Oswald, while Clark said he heard about the whole issue second-hand from his wife:  Warren Commission Exhibits 1888, 1889, 5/14/64.

The Washington Post and other papers ran a UPI article on 6/9/62 announcing the Oswalds’ impending arrival to Dallas:   “Third American in 2 Months Leaves Soviet ‘Home'”, Washington Post, 6/9/62.

The FBI has got him tagged and is watching his movements:   Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Max Clark, Volume 8, pp. 351.

Marina’s uncle and surrogate father Colonel Ilya Prusakov was with the MVD, the parent intelligence organization to the KGB…:   William Hood, Mole, (W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1982) p. 305.  See memo of Richard Helms to Warren Commission staffer J. Lee Rankin, 1/25/64, for the time period “18-31 March 1961”.

…stationed in the Soviet embassy in New Delhi:  Reel 13, Folder R – Marina Oswald, pp. 97-98.

De Mohrenschildt visited with CIA official J. Walton Moore and exchanged cards and letters, on a regular basis in the 1950s and 1960s:   FBI memo by W. James Wood re meeting with George De Mohrenschildt, 3/7/64, Russ Holmes Work File/NARA Record Number: 104-10414-10179.

In 1964, a similar memo by Moore admitted that he met de Mohrenschildt in 1957, “several times” in 1958 and 1959, and the last time in 1961:  Memo by J. Walton Moore, 5/1/64, Russ Holmes Work File/NARA Record Number:  104-10406-10105.

De Mohrenschildt sent Moore a stack of contact reports in 1957 and 1958: Contact reports, Reel 5, Folder L – George de Mohrenschildt, pp. 88-98, 100, 102, NARA Record Number: 1994.04.25.14:01:26:660005.

In 1958, Moore used de Mohrenschildt as a “contact” with a Polish official:  J. Walton Moore, Process Sheet for OO/C Collections, 2/11/58, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm – reel 5: Conte – De Mohrenschildt)/NARA Record Number: 104-10244-10184.

In 1960, Moore referred to de Mohrenschildt as a “cleared contact” for a copy of a memo on the USSR’s use of petroleum:  Memo from J. Walton Moore to Acting Chief, Contact Division, Houston,   4/28/60, Reel 5, Folder L — George de Mohrenschildt, NARA Record Number: 1994.04.25.14:01:26:660005. 

Moore visited the De Mohrenschildts’ home in late 1961 to see a movie of their “walking tour” from Mexico to Panama:  HSCA Report, Volume 12, p. 54.

Although the de Mohrenschildts said that they were tracking the mining trails of the old Spanish conquistadors, they found themselves with hundreds of Cuban exiles in Guatemala City, a staging area for the Bay of Pigs invasion that was about to begin:   Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 9, Testimony of George de Mohrenschildt, pp. 213-217.

De Mohrenschildt revealed a few hours before his death that Moore took him to lunch in late 1961, and described to him an ex-Marine in Minsk in whom the CIA had “interest”…:  Dick Russell, The Man who Knew Too Much (1992), p. 274.

After the assassination, R.S. Travis at the Domestic Contact Division identified the file numbers of ten separate domestic contact reports prepared by de Mohrenschildt , and sent a copy to the staff of Legend Maker #1 Jim Angleton at the counterintelligence office :   Memo by R.S. Travis, Contact Division, to Paul Hartman, CI Division, 4/20/64, Reel 52, Folder C – George de Mohrenschildt, pp. 32-33, NARA Record Number:   1994.04.26.09:19:10:570005.

Travis referred to De Mohrenschildt as Moore’s “source,” and asked Moore to provide his personal evaluation of George for the CI Staff:  Id., at p. 31.

Moore wrote an intriguing evaluation that admitted that he had sought out de Mohrenschildt as “the result of a source lead from Headquarters” in 1957, but scrambled to avoid any direct admissions of the role he played in bringing de Mohrenschildt and Oswald together: Memo by J. Walton Moore, 5/1/64, pp. 1-2, Russ Holmes Working File/NARA No. 104-10406-10105.

Moore’s evaluation was so carefully prepared that the file includes what appears to be a far-different rough draft.   Id. pp. 3-4.

Moore’s poor memory triggered internal scrutiny by the CIA’s Reinvestigation Program:   Investigative Transmittal Sheet for Moore, 4/29/64, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 44 / NARA Record Number: 104-10124-10286;  Processing Sheet, NARA Record Number: 104-10124-10284.

Moore went so far as to tell the CI staffer for Legend Maker #1 James Angleton that “there is no White Russian ‘community’ in Dallas.  He knows of only a couple of Russian linguists who are used by the Socony labs for translation:  Handwritten note by R.S. Travis, 5/27/64, Reel 52, Folder C – George de Mohrenschildt, p. 10.

Moore was a former FBI agent and college roommate of Wallace Heitman, a Soviet language specialist who played the lead role for the FBI in controlling the first-day evidence:   Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked (2010 edition), p. 326.

Although US intelligence records on de Mohrenschildt go back to at least World War II, CIA Director Richard Helms said that the agency’s “initial interest” in George de Mohrenschildt was because he had been a petrochemical consultant with the International Cooperation Administration:  Memo by Richard Helms to Warren Commission counsel J. Lee Rankin, 6/3/64, Warren Commission Exhibit 1012.  

De Mohrenschildt was appointed by the State Department as the “petroleum adviser” for the independent communist Yugoslavian government in 1957…:  Memo of SA Raymond Yelchak, 3/4/64, documenting receipt of de Mohrenschildt resume in 1958.

…and testified to the Warren Commission that ICA was the only US government agency that ever paid him:  Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of George de Mohrenschildt, Volume 9, p. 212.

The AID has been cited by its former director John Gilligan as being filled with CIA agents “from top to bottom…the idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas, government, volunteer, religious, every kind”:   George Cotter, “Spies, Strings, and Missionaries”, The Christian Century (Chicago), March 25, 1981, p. 321, cited in William Blum’s Killing Hope (2003), p. 235.  

Ruth’s father Bill Hyde was regional director of the Nationwide Insurance Company, part of the International Cooperative Alliance founded in 1922 and still active today:   See this linked website of the International Cooperative Alliance.

The ICA has had an insurance sector for the last one hundred years:  See this linked website for the International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation.  

This similiarity between these two ICAs is not accidental – the contracts for both groups were coordinated through AID and the State Department. Both de Mohrenschildt and Hyde were business consultants that traveled abroad working on cooperative ventures and provided reports used by the CIA:   See Barbara LaMonica, “William Avery Hyde”, Fourth Decade (November 1997), pp. 8, 11. 

Meyer’s covert action division had considered using Hyde as a security consultant in Vietnam back in 1957 , but CI-SIG’s information about Hyde led to denial of any security clearance:    4/8/64 memo by Elizabeth Mendoza, Re:   LHO Address Book (FBI Report 12/31/63)    Oswald 201 File (201-289248)/NARA Record Number: 104-10300-10025. On the role of CI-SIG, see 12/5/63 memo by Chief, Research Branch/OS/SRS to Files, re William Avery Hyde.

Hyde’s problem, like Legend Maker #3 Priscilla Johnson, was that he was active with progressive causes and had family members involved with the United World Federalists:   Ruth Forbes Paine Young (Michael Paine’s mother) was an influential member of the United World Federalists.  George Michael Evica, A Certain Arrogance (Xlibris, 2006), p. 234.  Also see the Arthur M. Young website section for Ruth Forbes Paine Young.

Glover was a chemist with Magnolia Labs, a geology lab for Mobil.  Glover and four other Magnolia employees encircled Oswald and asked him to tell them about life in the Soviet Union for several hours.  One of these employees, Norman Fredericksen, was the son of the former director of Radio Free Europe:  This circle was described to Edward Epstein in his book Legend (1977), pp. 206-207, in interviews with participants Betty MacDonald, Norman and Elke Fredricksen, and Richard Pierce.  This meeting was corroborated by Richard Helms, based on a report by J. Walton Moore.  Memo of March 1964 by Richard Helms to J. Lee Rankin, Reel 44, Folder J, Lee Harvey Oswald Soft File, NARA Record Number: 1994.04.13.14:58:27:500005.

In an amazing coincidence, they moved from Pennsylvania to Oswald’s mother’s community of Irving, Texas during the second week of September 1959, the very week that Oswald abruptly left his mother and went off to defect to the USSR:   Memorandum for file by SA Raymond C. Eckenrode, on March 25, 1964, p. 2, CD 849, p. 6.

They had made the move so that Michael could take a job with the military contractor Bell Helicopter.  Michael said that Bell manufactured 40% of all of the helicopters used in the Vietnam War:    A.J. Weberman interview with Michael Paine, circa 1993.

Bell Helicopter was begun and run by Michael’s stepfather, Arthur Young, the most recent husband of Michael’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine:
“Model helicopter with Arthur Young”, JFKCountercoup, 12/20/09.

By 1963, Meyer was the chief of the Covert Action staff:   Cord Meyer, Memorandum for the Record, 4/17/63, pp. 1-4, Miscellaneous CIA Series/NARA Record Number: 104-10302-10000.

Frederick Merrill at the State Department provided his stamp of approval to the 1957-68 East West Contacts Committee work done by the Quakers that Ruth was part of…:
CIEE History:   1947-1960.   (Council for International Educational Exchange), pp. 11-12 .  Ruth reluctantly admitted that she was active with the East-West Committee:   Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Ruth Hyde Paine, Volume 3, pp. 134-136.

…and had worked on the Robert Webster case:    Memorandum for the Record, by REDACTED, SR/COP/FI, 10/8/59, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm – reel 17: Ruiz – Webster) / NARA Record Number: 104-10181-10128.

Note:  The author of this Webster memo, still only known to us as SR/COP/FI, is the same individual who helped stop the second known effort to make Priscilla Johnson a CIA officer:  See Memo from Director to REDACTED, 6/19/58, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 43 / NARA Record Number: 104-10119-10287.

Ruth had other intelligence operatives in her family – such as her sister Sylvia Hoke and her brother-in-law John Hoke – who could play a role in helping to convince her:

In a heavily redacted document, the FBI was informed by a “reliable” source that Ruth’s sister Sylvia Hyde Hoke was Naval Intelligence and was trying to obtain a top secret clearance: Commission Document 508 – FBI Mansfield Report of 06 Feb 1957 re: Hoke.

A CIA memorandum indicated that Sylvia Hoke was a CIA employee in 1961:   Security File on Sylvia Hoke Hyde, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 43 / NARA Record Number: 1993.07.24.08:39:37:560310.

Washington Post obituary for John Hoke states that he was fired from AID in 1962: Emma Brown, “A Local Life”, 3/19/11
Ruth Paine testified to the Orleans Grand Jury that Hoke was working for AID in 1963:  Ruth Paine’s testimony to the Orleans Grand Jury, 4/18/68,   p. 57 , Orleans Parish Grand Jury Transcripts .
These documents show Hoke was working for AID in 1963 and 1964:  Request for Approval of Liaison, re John Hoke, 8/22/63, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 43 / NARA Record Number: 104-10120-10304; 8/13/64, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 43 / NARA Record Number: 104-10120-10303.

Michael Paine’s family also had contact talent in the intelligence arena.  Michael’s mother had a close friend named Mary Bancroft who was an OSS spy that slept with Allen Dulles:   Mary Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy (New York:   William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1983); also see Evica, A Certain Arrogance , p. 248.

Michael and Ruth had ostensibly split up, and were living in different houses:   Memo by SA James Hosty, 4/1/64, FBI – Ruth and Michael Paine Files / NARA Record Number: 124-10065-10356

George de Mohrenschildt

By Bill Simpich [Originally published 11/22/11]

After Oswald returned home from the USSR, George de Mohrenschildt became Legend Maker #9

The Dallas-Fort Worth community of Soviet and Eastern European emigres – referred to as “White Russians” – took Oswald and his family under their wing upon their arrival from the USSR in May 1962.  Consider the importance of White Russian defectors as spies.  A re-defector like Lee Harvey Oswald was even more exotic.  The ability of a defector to report what is happening behind enemy lines is the ultimate counterintelligence prize.

The White Russian community settled on using George de Mohrenschildt as Oswald’s mentor, one of the few liberals in the community who enjoyed spending time with the man.  This chapter will focus on de Mohrenschildt’s intelligence connections with Radio Free Europe, key RFE officials Allen Dulles and Cord Meyer, and CI chief James Angleton.

Max Clark, an attorney and former industrial security supervisor at General Dynamics, was a mentor for de Mohrenschildt and this community.   Clark was part of a network of security personnel that put the squeeze on the Kennedy Administration that year to get General Dynamics’ TFX project in Fort Worth approved over their Boeing competitors  At the time, this deal to churn out the F-111 fighters was one of the largest military contracts in history.

General Dynamics F-111

The White Russian community harbored an underground anti-Soviet movement known as the NTS.

The Dallas White Russian community was tightly aligned with an anti-Soviet movement known by its Russian initials of “NTS” (National Alliance of Russian Solidarists). NTS was founded in 1930 by “second generation” White Russian emigres.  At that time, most of them were living in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.    Yugoslavia is where Mr. and Mrs. Igor Voshinin met and married in early 1940 – they moved to Dallas, were active in NTS, and knew Oswald.  During this era, “Solidarism” was a quasi-fascist ideology that saw corporations as an ideal and Benito Mussolini as a model of leadership.

In the 1940s, NTS was thoroughly enmeshed with Hitler’s war effort.  After Germany attacked the USSR during World War II, NTS was allowed to set up a Berlin headquarters and encouraged to proselytize in Soviet territories under German control among both POWs and civilians.  When the tides of war shifted, NTS swung back into alliance with the Americans.

After World War II, the CIA included NTS within the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty organization.  Radio Free Europe focused on the East European Soviet satellites, while Radio Liberty focused on the USSR itself.   A House report described Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Liberty as “the best known CIA proprietaries”.  These were pet projects of International Organizations chief Cord Meyer, who headed these radios from 1954 to 1971.  Meyer consulted directly and frequently to CIA director Allen Dulles before making any controversial decisions. As described earlier in this series, CI chief Jim Angleton and Cord Meyer were the best of friends.   Meyer described Angleton as his hero.  They were also Legend Makers #1 and #2 for Lee Harvey Oswald, as they had very special relationships with the people who either befriended or studied Oswald.

After meeting with Meyer, Radio Liberty decreed that anyone adhering to NTS’ “organizational discipline” would not be allowed to work at RL.   NTS infiltrated and dominated groups that challenged its supremacy. NTS members tried to sabotage the installations and intimidate the exile staffs.  Meyer saw it as part of his responsibility to “try to provide the radio with the counter-intelligence protection against this continuing intimidation…it was a never ending task”.

During the 1950s, the famed anti-war Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin (the inspiration for the Rev. Scott Sloan in Doonesbury) joined the CIA.   Coffin worked with the NTS to smuggle their spies into the USSR by parachute in a program known as REDSOX.   Most of them were killed.   Coffin looked back on the experience:   “It was a fundamentally bad idea…we were quite naive about the use of American power.”

At its peak, NTS had about 100,000 members and its headquarters near Berlin in Frankfurt.   In 1958,Soviet consul Gregoriy Golub confided that it was “a great step in his career” when he was successful in halting NTS’ campaign of writing harassing letters to the Soviet personnel in Helsinki.

William Blum, the author of Killing Hope, says that CIA decided that the NTS provided the best analysis about the Soviet Union, and became their main financial backer:  “From North Africa to Scandinavia, the CIA network confronted Soviet seamen, tourists, officials, athletes, even Soviet soldiers in East Germany, to present them with the Truth as seen by the “Free World,” as well as to pry information from them, to induce them to defect, or to recruit them as spies.”  By 1963, the State Department was helping NTS send broadcasts to Soviet troops in far-flung places such as the Dominican Republic.  Although the NTS’ power waned over time, the Soviet Communist Party admitted its fear of the NTS and other groups working with Western security agencies as late as 1990.

The intelligence background of George de Mohrenschildt and his role in the Dallas-Fort Worth White Russian community

The CIA-funded NTS network greeted the Oswald family upon their arrival to Fort Worth.    Lee Oswald, however, was a little bit too weird for this community to embrace.  It took another outsider — the eccentric baron George de Mohrenschildt — to bring Lee towards the fold as Legend Maker #9. 

De Mohrenschildt’s father was Russian, of German and Swedish descent, and was a marshal of nobility of the Minsk province.   Similarly, his Russian mother was of Polish and Hungarian descent.   T he Bolsheviks ran the family off their Russian home, and they were forced to move to Poland and consolidate their land holdings.  One story is that de Mohrenschildt’s father was killed by the Bolsheviks; another story is that his father was arrested but escaped.  De Mohrenschildt observed that “most of the colony in Dallas is more emotionally involved in Russian affairs then we are, because they are closer to them.   All of them have been relatively recently in Soviet Russia — while my wife has never been in Soviet Russia in her whole life, and I was 5 or 6 when I left it.   So to me it does not mean very much.”

De Mohrenschildt had an extremely deep background with the intelligence community, going back for more than twenty years. His handler appears to have been Thomas Schreyer, identified as “the acting chief” of the Cord Meyer’s International Organizations Division back in 1956.  This means that Schreyer worked very closely with Cord Meyer.   In April 1963, the Domestic Operations Division asked for traces on de Mohrenschildt, with Schreyer’s name provided as the source for any follow-up.

The CIA admitted before the assassination that de Mohrenschildt was “of interest” to them.   CIA Dallas resident agent J. Walton Moore stayed in touch with de Mohrenschildt, which will be discussed later in this series.  Covert action chief Richard Helms acknowledged that de Mohrenschildt and his wife provided useful foreign intelligence in 1957.     His brother Dimitri von Mohrenschildt, described by the CIA as being “employed in a confidential capacity by the U.S. government,” is said to have been one of the founders of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.   A lengthy CIA-created list entitled “Companies and People Known to be Associated with de Mohrenschildt” includes only one political group:   “Dallas Committee Radio Free Europe.”    De Mohenschildt’s wife in Philadelphia, Phyllis Washington, also worked for Radio Free Europe in the early fifties.

The Radio Free Europe connection is an important link between Cord Meyer and George de Mohrenschildt.   George couldn’t get OSS credentials during World War II because of security disapproval.  He was subjected to five separate investigations by intelligence during the 1940s and 50s.  Officers like Meyer and Schreyer, however, understood the nature of his relationship with people such as the Jacqueline Bouvier family and the White Russian community.  A CIA memo notes that George knew the families of the Kennedys and the Oswalds better than anyone else.

One of George’s contacts exposes his hidden CIA connections. In 1954, a young oil lawyer named Herbert Itkin wrangled a meeting in Philadelphia with Allen Dulles, CIA chief and the first chief of Radio Free Europe.   Dulles set him up with a meeting with de Mohrenschildt, who told Itkin he was “from that man in Philadelphia” and that his name was Philip Harbin. William Gaudet verified at an HSCA deposition that he knew George under his alias as Philip Harbin.  De Mohrenschildt’s beloved and soon-to-be new wife, Jeanne, was from Harbin, China.   Angleton testified that Dulles was a very close friend of his own family.  Angleton had both an Itkin file and a “Mike/Portio/Haiti” file (Itkin’s code name was Portio).  Itkin claimed he met “Harbin” in 1954, while CIA general counsel Larry Houston claimed that he could not find any Itkin files prior to 1964 after thousands of hours of search.  This was probably because Angleton’s personal Itkin and Portio files were kept apart from the CIA records system, and were only discovered after Angleton was fired in 1974.   All indications are that de Mohrenschildt was provided to Dulles by Angleton.

Working under the Harbin alias, de Mohrenschildt worked with Itkin in oil matters as a nonpaid, voluntary agent between 1954 to 1960, before Itkin moved on to work with another agent.  Itkin’s skills enabled US Attorney Bob Morgenthau to win convictions against New York political boss Carmine DeSapio and city commissioner James Marcus.   Morgenthau’s office described Itkin as “probably the most important informer the FBI ever had outside the espionage field.   He never lied to us.   His information was always accurate.”

By May 1963, Itkin became the attorney for the Haitian government-in-exile.   CIA documents show that Itkin’s handler in 1963 was Mario Brod, who was recruited in Italy by James Angleton during World War II and had operational involvements in Haiti. Before his brother was killed, Bobby Kennedy himself was relying on mob tips from Itkin.  In 1966, Itkin was reportedly researching under his code name “Portio,” while Angleton held onto his private “Mike/Portio/Haiti” file.   In 1968, CIRA (CI research and analysis chief) Ray Rocca swore that the “CI Staff definitely never was in contact” with Itkin.  By 1971, CIRA’s bird-dog investigator Paul Hartman was asking to review Itkin’s CIA file, no doubt to educate himself on some fine points.

De Mohrenschildt’s relationship with the NTS in Dallas

De Mohrenschildt knew all about NTS, telling the Warren Commission about “This group of Russian refugees (who) called themselves Solidarists. And Mr. and Mrs. Voshinin in Dallas belonged to that group and tried to make me join it.  Not being interested, I refused, but I read some of their publications.  And it is a pro-American group of Russian refugees who have an economic doctrine of their own.  And they seem to have some people working in the Soviet Union for them, and all that sort of thing.  It is a pretty well-known political party that – their headquarters is in Germany.”

The NTS was very active in Dallas.   When the group’s leader was interviewed in New York in 1957 by the FBI, the two Dallas people he knew  were oil man Paul Raigorodsky and NTS activist Igor Voshinin.  Raigorodsky, known as the “Czar” of the White Russian community, was the head of the Office of Petroleum Coordination for War for two years during the forties.  Igor Voshinin and his wife Natalie lived in the New York City area between 1947-1955, and then moved to Dallas.  When Mrs. Voshinin was interviewed by the FBI on Dec. 10, 1963, less than three weeks after the Kennedy assassination, she made it clear just how serious the Solidarist movement was in the Dallas area:

“She and her husband are members of NTS – Russian Solidarists, which she stated is known as the National Union of Working People, which organization has a representative in Washington D.C.  She stated this organization exists in the form of an underground movement in Russia and also has groups in the rest of the world; that its objectives include the abolishing of Communism and the establishment of private enterprise.”

Jenner was careful not to ask her any questions about the NTS at the Warren Commission hearing.   But the irrepressible Natalie Voshinin still managed to flip the script.   When Jenner was probing for communistic connections by de Mohrenschildt, she exclaimed that “George repeatedly hinted that he was performing some services for the State Department, you know, of the United States, yes.    And under those circumstances, you just don’t feel like asking any questions”.  Jenner quickly changed the subject.

De Mohrenschildt once made a presentation at a lecture hall about General Vlasov’s Russian POWs that fought on the side of the Germans at the end of World War II, discussed at the beginning of this chapter.   Just to shock his Jewish friends at the club, de Mohrenschildt quipped “I came to the conclusion that Himmler wasn’t a bad boy at all”.  Raigorodsky agreed that de Mohrenschildt was a “prankster”.  De Mohrenschildt settled down as a member of a political grouping that is virtually extinct – a liberal Republican.   He said that Kennedy was the first Democrat he would ever vote for.  Both De Mohrenschildt and Oswald  were attracted by the union of opposites.

Look at de Mohrenschildt’s musings about Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev:   “He is gone now, God bless his Bible-quoting soul and his earthy personality.”  On the plight of the poor, George brought up his bond with Lee Oswald:   “I am from New Orleans, as a kid I met refugees from all these banana republics.  No better source of information.  In this way, Lee and I were non-conformist, even revolutionaries…A younger man, I was career and money mad, a hustler…But Lee was the same since his childhood, which made him such a beautiful and worthwhile person to me.”

As an aristocratic liberal from a mixed ethnic background, de Mohrenschildt was an outsider in the White Russian community.   De Mohrenschildt turned to George Bouhe for guidance in how to get things done.   Bouhe was an old-school kind of guy — born in in Leningrad when it was still St. Petersburg and a bit of an aristocrat himself.   Bouhe was an accountant for one of the local oil barons and served as a patriarch in the community.   Bouhe testified that Paul Raigorodsky was the ‘godfather’ of the group, while he himself did the organization work.

Bouhe formed the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Parish, one of the two Russian Orthodox parishes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1963.    Also known as the “Bouhe group,” they met in individual homes with a priest from Houston visiting every five or six weeks and had services in Church Slavonic, an old Slavic language that is different from modern Russian language.   De Mohrenschildt was part of St. Nicholas’ choir when married to his Philadelphia wife.  The other church, St. Seraphim’s, was located at 4203 Newton Street in Dallas, where Igor Voshinin attended and services were in English.   Voshinin didn’t like Bouhe because he was very publicly in everyone’s business, saying things like “Well, you know, I forget things – so I keep a file on everybody.”

De Mohrenschildt’s attorney Max Clark had an intelligence background, doubling as an industrial security supervisor at General Dynamics

When the White Russian community heard about Oswald, they sought out Max Clark’s opinion as how they should respond to Oswald.   De Mohrenschildt considered Clark to be his lawyer.

De Mohrenschildt testified that he thought Clark was connected with the FBI in some way.   Clark referred to his interviewing agent Earle Haley as “Earl,” and told the Warren Commission that he was familiar with Haley and the FBI from working with them when he worked security at General Dynamics.

“Everyone was discussing that as to whether or not they should (associate with Oswald) especially when he first came back and all of them asked me and I said, “In my mind he is a defector and you know what he is…”

Clark was an industrial security supervisor at the Convair wing of General Dynamics and well-versed in the ways of intelligence.  In 1951, Convair had landed the Air Force contract for the first funded ICBM study contract.  Max’s wife, G ali Clark, was an excellent Russian speaker sought out by Oswald to help his family get situated after their return from the USSR.   Her name was in Oswald’s address book.

Max Clark had a close relationship to General Dynamics supervisor I. B. Hale

Three years earlier in 1959, Max Clark had received a CIA “covert security approval” in “Project ROCK” during the same time period that then-foreign intelligence chief Bill Harvey of Staff D worked on the U-2 related Project ROCK.

A covert security clearance with the CIA gives the CIA officer the right to share classified information with a civilian.   A CSC is telling evidence of strong interactions between the subject and the CIA, whether the subject is witting or unwitting.

Max Clark’s file states that he “worked closely” with I. B. Hale, a former FBI agent who was the chief of industrial security at General Dynamics.  I. B. Hale had been married to Virginia Hale, who got Oswald his sheet metal worker job at Leslie Whiting during July 1962.   When interviewed after the assassination, Virginia Hale said that she remembered Oswald “quite well”.

The Hale family was involved with blackmailing the Kennedy Administration in the TFX scandal

During this time, the Hale family was involved in a brazen campaign of extortion designed to force the Kennedy Administration into approving General Dynamics as the prime contractor to build the TFX bomber at their Fort Worth plant. This plane is now better known as the F-111.   At the time, this 7 billion dollar contract was the largest military contract in history.

Two weeks after I.B.’s wife Virginia got Oswald a job, their sons led a break-in at Judith Campbell’s house.   Campbell was the girlfriend of not only John F. Kennedy, but also Mafia chieftains Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli.

On August 5, Marilyn Monroe died in Brentwood, an affluent LA suburb, with a Kennedy phone number near her bed.   There are many well-known stories tying her with close relationships with both JFK and RFK.   The next day, August 6, JFK mistress Judith Campbell twice called the White House.   A note in the White House log shows that Kennedy was in conference, with the scrawled addition “no.”

Knowing of these relationships, the Hoover FBI had created a stake-out across the street from Campbell’s home.   While Special Agent William Carter was on duty, he saw two young men in their 20s come to Campbell’s apartment.   Campbell was not home, and the FBI later verified that she was elsewhere.    One of the perpetrators went inside the apartment, while the other one stood as lookout on the balcony.   Agent Carter obtained the license plate numbers for the car, which matched Hale’s car.

The FBI agent concluded that the perpetrators were Hale’s sons based on their age (early 20s) and their physical description.   The perpetrators left after about 15 minutes without taking anything.  It is reasonable to assume that they had planted a listening bug.

The reason for the stakeout is right in the FBI report: The FBI had heard the stories that Judith Campbell was the girlfriend of Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, and JFK.   The FBI wanted no part of this case and declined to take any further action after running out a few leads.

Attempted blackmail around the TFX contract would appear to be the motive.   Two months later, in October 1962, General Dynamics won the 7 billion dollar contract over the heavily favored Boeing.  This controversial decision dogged the Kennedy Administration from that day.

Part 7:  Some fancy Cuban dance steps by the CIA, de Mohrenschildt, and Army Intelligence

Endnotes:

NTS was founded in 1930 by “second generation” White Russian emigres.  At that time, most of them were living in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria:    Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day, (Autonomedia:  Brooklyn, 1999), p. 572.

Yugoslavia is where Mr. and Mrs. Igor Voshinin met and married in early 1940 – Dallas emigres, active in NTS, and knew Oswald:  Testimony of Mrs. Igor Voshinin, 3/26/64.  Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 8, p. 427.

After Germany attacked the USSR during World War II, NTS was allowed to set up a Berlin headquarters:   Arch Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom:   The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2000), p. 160.

After World War II, the CIA included NTS and its journal Possev (Seed) within the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty organization:   Coogan, Dreamer of the Day, p. 573.

A report by the House Select Committee on Assassinations described Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Liberty as “the best known CIA proprietaries”:   Narration by G. Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel, HSCA Appendix Volumes/ HSCA Report, Volume IV, p. 3.

Cord Meyer was the division chief in charge of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty from 1954 until 1971:   Puddington, p. 24.

After meeting with Meyer, Radio Liberty decreed that anyone adhering to NTS’ “organizational discipline” would not be allowed to work at RL, because of NTS’ history of infiltrating organizations and dominating them:   Puddington, p. 162.

NTS had its headquarters near Berlin in Frankfurt:   Memorandum by Thomas A. Parrott to the Special Group, 4/26/63, p. 3,   Miscellaneous CIA Series / NARA Record Number: 104-10306-10024.

Meyer saw it as part of his responsibility to “try to provide the radio with the counter-intelligence protection against this continuing intimidation”…:   Cord Meyer, Facing Reality, pp. 120-121.

Coffin looked back on the experience:   “It was a fundamentally bad idea…we were quite naïve about the use of American power.”:   Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes (New York, Doubleday:   2007), p. 47.

Soviet consul Golub confides that it was “a great step in his career” when he was successful in halting NTS…:     Memo from CIA’s Helsinki Chief of Station to Chief, Western Europe, 1/24/58.

The CIA network confronted Soviet seamen, tourists, officials, athletes, even Soviet soldiers in East Germany…to induce them to defect, or to recruit them as spies:   William Blum, Killing Hope, p. 116-118.

By 1963, the NTS was broadcasting to Soviet troops in far-flung places such as the Dominican Republic:  Memo by Thomas Parrott to the 303 Committee Group, 4/26/63, Miscellaneous CIA Series / NARA Record Number: 104-10306-10024.J

In 1990, the Communist Party within the Soviet Union admitted its fear of the NTS and other groups working with Western security agencies in preparation for the collapse of the Soviet government:       JPRS Report — Soviet Union Political Affairs, 1/9/90,   pp. 16-17.

De Mohrenschildt’s father was Russian, of German and Swedish descent, and was a marshal of nobility of the Minsk province…:   Warren Commission testimony of George de Mohrenschildt, Volume 9, pages 168-169.

The Bolsheviks ran the family off their Russian home, and they were forced to move to Poland and consolidate their land holdings:   Nancy Wertz, “George de Mohrenschildt, Who Are You?”, The Fourth Decade, Volume 5, Issue 5, July 1998.

One story is that de Mohrenschildt’s father was killed by the Bolsheviks:   Statement of Igor Pantoroff, an NYC portrait artist, who knew de Mohrenschildt since the early 40s.   See report of SA James Morrissey, 2/28/64, p. 18, Reel 5, Folder M — George de Mohrenschildt, NARA Record Number: 1994.04.25.14:02:25:940005.

Another story is that his father was arrested, but escaped:   Statement of Igor Voshinin.   See memo of SA James K. Fresney, 3/12/64, Reel 5, Folder M — George de Mohrenschildt, NARA Record Number: 1994.04.25.14:02:25:940005.

De Mohrenschildt observed that “most of the colony in Dallas is more emotionally involved in Russian affairs then we are…So to me it does not mean very much.” Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of George de Mohrenschildt, Volume 9, p. 266.

De Mohrenschildt had an extremely deep background with the intelligence community, going back for more than twenty years:  A good source on his background is Nancy Wertz, “George de Mohrenschildt, Who Are You?”, Fourth Decade, Volume 5, No. 5, p. 8, July 1998.

By 1971, Paul Hartman from CIRA was asking to review Itkin’s CIA file, no doubt to educate himself on some fine points:  6/4/71 request by Paul Hartman for Itkin’s security file,   NARA Record Number: 1993.07.24.08:41:29:500310.

This group of Russian refugees called themselves Solidarists:    Warren Commission testimony of George De Mohrenschildt, Vol. 9, p. 267.

When the group’s leader was interviewed in New York in 1957 by the FBI, the Dallaspeople he  knew of that were active at that time were Igor Voshinin and oil man Paul Raigorodsky:   Memo by SA Paul Garrity, New York, to Director, FBI, 10/21/57, FBI – HSCA Subject Files, Q – R / FBI – HSCA Subject File: Paul M. Raigorodsky / NARA Record Number: 124-90123-10010.

Raigorodsky, known as the “Czar”, served as the chief of the Petroleum Coordinator for War during two years in the forties:  9/16/52 memo by St. Louis FBI.   FBI – HSCA Subject File: Paul M. Raigorodsky /NARA Record Number: 124-90123-10089.

Igor Voshinin and his wife Natalie lived in the New York City area between 1947-1955, when they moved to Dallas:    Testimony of Igor Voshinin, Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. 8, p. 450.

The NTS – Russian Solidarists…exists in the form of an underground movement in Russia and also has groups in the rest of the world: FBI interview by SA Kenneth B. Jackson with Mrs. Igor Voshinin, 12/10/63, Dallas, Texas; Oswald 201 File, Vol 16/, CD 205, Part 1.

George repeatedly hinted that he was performing some services for the State Department…   Mrs. Igor (Natalie) Voshinin, Warren Commission Hearings. 8, p. 442, 3/26/64.

De Mohrenschildt made a presentation at a lecture hall about General Vlasov’s Russian army that fought on the side of the Germans:   Testimony of Igor Voshinin, Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 8, page 468.

Raigorodsky agreed that de Mohrenschildt was a “prankster”:   Testimony of Paul Raigorodsky, 3/31/64, Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. 9, p. 20.    When asked if de Mohrenschildt was a “provocative personality”, Natalie Voshinin said “definitely”.  Id., Vol. 8, p. 443.

He said that Kennedy was the first Democrat he would ever vote for:   George de Mohrenschildt, manuscript of I’m a Patsy!   I’m a Patsy!   HSCA Report, Volume 12, p. 225.   

Look at de Mohrenschildt’s musings about Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev:   “He is gone now, God bless his Bible-quoting soul and his earthy personality”:   George de Mohrenschildt, I’m a Patsy!, p. 204.

On the plight of the poor, George brought up his bond with Lee Oswald: George de Mohrenschildt, I’m a Patsy!, p. 187.

Bouhe testified that Paul Raigorodsky was the’godfather’ of the group, while he himself did the organization work:    Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of George Bouhe, Vol. 8, p. 358.

George Bouhe formed the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Parish, one of the two Russian Orthodox parishes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1963:   FBI interview by James Hosty of Igor Voshinin, 12/12/63, Commission Document 205 – FBI Report of 23 Dec 1963 re: Oswald, p. 593. Testimony of George Bouhe, Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. 8, p. 357.

The “Bouhe group” met in individual homes with a priest from Houston visiting every five or six weeks and had services in Church Slavonic, an old Slavic language:   Mrs. Igor Voshinin, Vol. 8, p. 430, 3/26/64.

De Mohrenschildt was part of St. Nicholas’ choir when married to a Philadelphi woman from the prominent Sharples family:   Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Igor Voshinin,. Vol.. 8, p. 455.

The other church, St. Seraphim’s, was located at 4203 Newton Street in Dallas,where Igor Voshinin attended and services were in English:  FBI interview by James Hosty of Igor Voshinin, 12/12/63, Commission Document 205 – FBI Report of 23 Dec 1963 re: Oswald, p. 593.

Bouhe was in everyone’s business, saying things like:  “Well, you know, I forget things – so I keep a file on everybody.” :   Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Igor Voshinin, Volume 8, p. 454.

De Mohrenschildt considered Clark to be his lawyer: Interview by Norman E. Warner, First Secretary of the American Embassy in Haiti, of George DeMohrnschildt, 12/4/63

Clark referred to his interviewing agent Earle Haley as “Earl”:   Testimony of Max Clark, Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 8, pp. 349, 352.

Everyone was discussing whether or not they should (associate with Oswald):   Testimony of Max Clark, Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 8, p. 351.

Back in 1951, Convair had also won the Air Force contract for the first funded ICBM study contract:    George Michael Evica, A Certain Arrogance, (Xlibris, 2006), p. 205.

Her name was in Oswald’s address book:   See the Office of Security memo, with Max Clark’s bio and OSI file: RIF# 104-10419-10316, pp. 1-5.

Clark received a “covert security approval” by the CIA in April 1959 for use in what was referred to as “Project ROCK”:      RIF# 104-10419-10316.

William Harvey was part of Project ROCK during this time period:  HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 42/ RIF# 104-10106-10581.

Also see M. D. Stevens memo to file, 1/30/64, “Lee Harvey Oswald/Address Book”, HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 47, NARA Record Number:   104-10132-10011.  Re the U-2 (Aquatone) tie-in with Project ROCK.

Max Clark worked closely with I.B. Hale, the chief of industrial security at General Dynamics:    HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 40; NARA Record Number:     1993.08.02.10:25:15:250060; Office of Security File on Clark, Max Edward.

I. B. Hale had been married to Virginia Hale, who got Oswald his sheet metal worker job at Leslie Whiting during July 1962…she remembered Oswald “quite well”:    Interview by SA Earle Haley and SA Robley D. Madland with Virginia Hale, Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 23, p. 694, Exhibit 1891.

At the time, the 7 billion dollar contract for the TFX was the largest military contract in history: Peter Dale Scott, in The Dallas Conspiracy, Chapter 3.

The next day, August 6, JFK mistress Judith Campbell twice called the White House:  Anthony Summers, Official and Confidential, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons: New York, 1993), p. 301.

On I.B. (Insall Bailey) Hale’s role with the break-in at home of Judith Campbell, girlfriend of both JFK and gangster Sam Giancana:  Report of SA William R. Carter, 8/8/62, FBI – HSCA Subject File: John Roselli/NARA Record Number: 124-10220-10433. Carter was interviewed by Sy Hersh in The Dark Side of Camelot.

Controversy over the decision to award the contract to General Dynamics:  George C. Wilson, “Twining’s Book Backs”, Washington Post, 9/18/66.