Russian-born oilman, a real international man of mystery, a vivid presence in JFK files

Ray Locker | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption JFK files: 4 big findings The National Archives have released more than 35,500 records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The once-classified records have fascinated researchers and fueled conspiracy theorists for decades.

WASHINGTON — Within days after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, the CIA's man in Dallas received a call from a friend who said he met Lee Harvey Oswald at a social function the previous January.

Oswald's host was George de Mohrenschildt, a Russian-born petroleum engineer whose story as detailed in long-secret JFK assassination files released Thursday reads like an off-kilter spy novel. That's one reason why de Mohrenschildt, who died in 1977, has been a staple of Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories for almost 54 years.

He was the uncle of President George H.W. Bush’s prep school roommate, a friend of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s parents, an associate of Oswald and a notorious womanizer and bon vivant who was rejected by the wartime Office of Strategic Services for alleged Nazi sympathies. In December 1963, he surfaced in Haiti to tell CIA operatives there that he knew Oswald, Kennedy's assassin.

"Dear George," de Mohrenschildt wrote Bush on Sept. 5, 1976, "You will excuse this hand-written letter. Maybe you will be able to bring a solution into the hopeless situation I find myself in."

Since the start of the hearings led by Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, in 1975, de Mohrenschildt had appeared again on the public radar in connection with reports about the CIA and its involvement in plots against Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and their possible connection to the Kennedy assassination.

"I do know this man"

"Mr. Bush, do you know this individual," a CIA secretary wrote on a note to the director.

"I do know this man DeMohrenschildt," Bush wrote in an internal CIA note. "I first met him in the early 40's. He was an uncle to my Andover roommate. Later he surfaced in Dallas (50's maybe)"

"He got involved in some controversial dealings in Haiti," Bush continued. "Then he surfaced when Oswald shot to prominence. He knew Oswald before the assassination of Pres. Kennedy.

"I don't recall his role in all this," Bush continued. "At one time he had/or spent plenty of money. I have not heard from him for many years until the attached letter came in."

Before Bush responded to de Mohrenschildt's letter, the CIA's inspector general, John Waller, searched the agency's records for information about de Mohrenschlidt, reporting that the CIA's Dallas operative J. Walton Moore first met with de Mohrenschildt in 1957 after he returned from working in communist Yugoslavia.

Moore asked for more research on de Mohrenschildt, which "contained sufficient derogatory information to preclude further extensive contact with the de Mohrenschildts," Waller's memo to Bush said.

The CIA opened de Mohrenschildt's mail that was sent to him care of the U.S. embassy in Haiti while he lived there between 1964 and 1966, Waller reported.

A continental outlook on life

Shortly after the Kennedy assassination, Moore was contacted by two employees of the Socony Mobile Research Laboratory of Duncanville, Texas, who told him they attended "some kind of social or discussion group" in January 1963 in which Oswald was present.

The first contact did not mention de Mohrenschildt, but Maryann Duggan, the company librarian, told Moore that Oswald was a guest of the longtime petroleum engineer. "She advised that de Mohrenschildt had befriended Oswald after his arrival in Dallas and had introduced him to a study group on the USSR."

De Mohrenschildt, Moore wrote, "makes a good appearance. ... He reputedly has an eye for the ladies and I understand his interest does not go unreciprocated. He leads a somewhat unconventional life, plays tennis at 5 o'clock in the morning, he is rather outspoken, has a keen interest in international affairs and in social justice. By local conservative standards," Moore wrote, "he would be considered a liberal.

"His outlook on life is continental," Moore wrote.

Another CIA file said de Mohrenschildt "has been acquainted with [first lady] Jacqueline Kennedy's father, John Bouvier, and mother, Mrs. Hugh Auchincloss, since Mrs. Kennedy was a girl."

"Enough charm to lie out of anything"

A detailed Feb. 28, 1964, FBI report interviewed his former wives, business associates and social contacts to provide an entertaining, gossip-filled look at de Mohrenschildt's life.

"Mr. de Mohrenschildt was a strange sort of man," said a neighbor, Mrs. H.E. Johnson of Dallas. "His wife confided in me that he was running around with other women."

William Stix Wassman, a financier in New York, said de Mohrenschildt had been married to his niece, Phyllis Washington, and then divorced. "Personally, I feel that she is the type of person who would be impossible to live with, and I know, definitely, that she ran him into debt."

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Wynne Sharples de Mohrenschildt Denton, his second wife, told the FBI that he "has enough charm to 'lie out of anything.' Sometime after I was married to the man, Mrs. Noble of Greenwich, Connecticut, told my mother, Mrs. Phillip Sharples, that George was a homosexual."

In 1942, the FBI reported, de Mohrenschildt had tried to join the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was the precursor to the CIA. But he was rejected as "a Nazi sympathizer and possibly a German agent." Also, the bureau reported, he "has spent much time in Mexico City in the company of Senora Lilia Pardo de Larin, widow of the chocolate magnate, who has access to the best social, government, and diplomatic circles in Mexico."

Unraveling

By the 1970s, de Mohrenschildt's fortunes had faded. A report for the House Select Committee on Assassinations noted that he was "an emotionally disturbed publicity seeker who doesn't care what type publicity he receives."

In May and July 1976, reporters for Dell Publishing and Reader's Digest had contacted de Mohrenschildt in connection with the Kennedy assassination and also the CIA's Moore, who "neither confirmed nor denied" his earlier meetings with de Mohrenschildt.

Finally, de Mohrenschildt wrote his old oil associate, George Bush, a former House member from Houston, a two-time candidate for the Senate in Texas and President Gerald Ford's CIA director.

"Let me say first that I know it must have been difficult for you to seek my help in the situation outlined in your letter," Bush wrote.

"The flurry of interest that attended your testimony before the Warren Commission has long since subsided," Bush continued. "I hope this letter has been of some comfort to you, George, although I realize I am unable to answer your question completely."

De Mohrenschildt committed suicide on March 27, 1977. He was 65. On April 1, 1977, his widow, Jeanne, gave the assassinations committee a photograph of Oswald standing in his Dallas backyard holding the rifle that investigators determined was used to shoot Kennedy from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building.



