Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (59 page)

Today, however, Jeanne DeMohrenschildt contends that her husband
was conducting oil business in Houston with John Mecom and John De
Menil. She said the only reason they didn't relocate to Houston during this
time was because of her successful clothing business in Dallas.

At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Oswald went to work for
Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, a Dallas printing and photographic firm that had
contracts with the U.S. Army Map Service. Although clearances were
required to work in some areas of the plant, testimony before the Warren
Commission showed security was sloppy and apparently Oswald had
access to sensitive material. It was here, it was believed, that Oswald
manufactured false identification papers both for himself and in the name
A.J. Hidell, using company photographic equipment.

He once asked fellow employee Dennis Ofstein if he knew what the
term microdot meant. (It should be noted that the word "microdot" was
found written in Oswald's address book next to the entry for Jaggars-
Chiles-Stovall.) When Ofstein replied no, Oswald proceeded to explain
that it was a special photographic process whereby a great mass of
documents could be reduced to the size of a dot. He said this technique
was used frequently in espionage work. Ofstein wondered why Oswald
would discuss such a subject.

Oswald and DeMohrenschildt also may have discussed spy work. He
told the Warren Commission that Oswald once told him: ". . . he had
some contacts with the Japanese Communists in Japan, and they-that got
him interested to go and see what goes on in the Soviet Union."

Through the Christmas holidays of 1962-63 DeMohrenschildt continued
to try with only marginal success to get the Dallas Russian emigre community involved with the Oswalds.

He apparently tried to separate the Oswalds and, on at least two occasions, tried to find living quarters for Marina and her children. But Marina
decided to reunite with Oswald, much to the disgust of her friends in the
Russian community who had tried to help her despite their dislike for her
husband.

On February 22, 1963, the DeMohrenschildts brought the Oswalds to
the home of Everett Glover, where Marina was introduced to Ruth Paine.
Mrs. Paine was separated from her husband Michael, an employee of Bell
Helicopter, and expressed an interest in seeing Marina again for the purpose of learning the Russian language. Marina agreed and several visits
between the women followed.

According to the Warren Commission, Oswald ordered the fateful
Mannlicher-Carcano rifle from a mail order firm under the name "A.
Hidell" on March 12, 1963, and it arrived in Dallas on March 25. Just
sixteen days later, Oswald reportedly fired a shot at General Walker.

The Walker incident occurred on a Wednesday night. Oswald arrived
back home that evening and, according to Marina's Warren Commission
testimony, told her he fired at Walker and had then buried his rifle.
(Recall that the rifle discovered in the Texas School Book Depository was
clean and well oiled and that no gun-cleaning material was found among
Oswald's possessions.)

Yet the following weekend, the rifle was observed in his home by
Jeanne DeMohrenschildt during a visit. She and her husband brought a
pink bunny toy to Oswald's young daughter and Marina was showing her
around their new apartment when she saw a rifle in a closet.

As Mrs. DeMohrenschildt recalls the incident today, she asked Marina:
"What on earth is that?" Marina replied: "A rifle. Lee bought it. I don't
know why when we need money for food and things." Asked what
Oswald did with the weapon, Mrs. DeMohrenschildt said Marina answered: "He goes to the public park with little June [Oswald's daughter]
and shoots leaves with it."

Mrs. DeMohrenschildt recently explained:

Today that sounds very strange, but at the time, I was thinking of the
times I had fired guns at small targets in amusement parks and I really
didn't think too much of her answer. When I told George about the rifle
I had seen in the closet, he immediately boomed out, "Did you take that
pot shot at General Walker, Lee?" George then laughed loudly. Looking back on this incident today, Lee and Marina did not appear to be
shocked or upset. They merely stood there in silence while George
laughed.

However, DeMohrenschildt told the Warren Commission:

He sort of shriveled, you see, when I asked this question. . . . Became
tense, you see, and didn't answer anything. . . . the remark about
Walker ended the conversation. There was silence after that and we
changed the subject and left very soon afterwards. ... It was frankly a
stupid joke on my part.

Marina told the Warren Commission that on another occasion, DeMohrenschildt asked Oswald, "Lee, how is it possible that you missed?"
However both DeMohrenschildts denied such a question was ever asked.

This visit was to be the last meeting between the DeMohrenschildts and the Oswalds. On April 23, Marina moved in with the attentive Mrs. Paine,
and the next day Oswald left Dallas by bus for New Orleans.

About a week later, the DeMohrenschildts left for a new business
venture in Haiti. It is now obvious that this venture involved more than
simply oil surveying and hemp growing as detailed by DeMohrenschildt to
the Warren Commission.

During May 1963, as the DeMohrenschildts were preparing to leave for
Haiti, they stopped in Washington where, according to CIA records,
DeMohrenschildt met with a CIA representative and the assistant director
of Army Intelligence. What specifically was discussed at this meeting is
not known, but at this same time, another CIA document shows that an
Agency officer "requested an expedite check on George DeMohrenschildt. "
At this meeting was DeMohrenschildt's Haitian business associate, Clemard
Charles. Researchers have noted that Charles later was involved in the sale
of arms and military equipment involving a gun runner named Edward
Browder.

According to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Browder
leased a B-25 bomber under the name of a fictitious company and flew it
to Haiti a year after the Kennedy assassination and later cashed a $24,000
check signed by Charles. Browder, a former Lockheed test pilot who is
serving a twenty-five-year prison sentence for "security violations," told
the Committee he had been working for the CIA. Browder, according to
information gathered by author David E. Scheim, also was an associate of
Jack Ruby in the 1950s when both men were arranging the sale of arms to
Fidel Castro.

The DeMohrenschildts were in Haiti when they learned of Kennedy's
death. Reportedly, DeMohrenschildt told friends there the FBI was behind
the assassination. Whether or not he actually made such a comment, he did
start to experience difficulties after Haitian president Francois "Papa Doc"
Duvalier reportedly received a letter from the FBI telling of DeMohrenschildt's friendship with Oswald and labeling him as a "Polish Communist
and a member of an international band."

The DeMohrenschildts were called to Washington to testify to the
Warren Commission in April 1964. Oddly enough, when DeMohrenschildt
tried to raise the issue of the damaging FBI letter with Warren Commission attorney Albert Jenner, Jenner quickly told him: "I would say you
have been misinformed on that." DeMohrenschildt replied: "Well, he
did receive some kind of letter." Jenner then said, "But, nothing that
would contain any such statements. . . . It may have been a crank letter,
but nothing official." DeMohrenschildt, catching the drift of Jenner's
remarks depreciating the whole subject, suddenly agreed: "Yes, I am
sure it is nothing official. I am sure it could not have been anything
official. "

Researchers are left with the question of how a Warren Commission
attorney, supposedly searching for the truth of the Kennedy assassination, could have been so confident that the FBI letter was a "crank" and why
he had closed the subject rather than trying to find out more about it.

Today, Jeanne DeMohrenschildt claims that the Warren Commission did
not appear eager to hear from her and her husband and that they had to
ask to testify. She told this author:

Much of our problems with government authorities came from our
refusal to slander Lee's name. The Warren Commission, along with the
mass media, depicted Oswald as a complete loner, a total failure, both
as a man and a father. This is not the impression George and I had of
this man. Lee was a sincere person. Although from a modest educational background, he was quick and bright. . . . Lee obviously loved
his daughter June. We could not possibly consider him as dangerous.

During their stay in Washington, the DeMohrenschildts visited in the
home of Jackie Kennedy's mother, now Mrs. Hugh D. Auchincloss, who,
according to an unpublished book by DeMohrenschildt, said; "Incidentally, my daughter Jacqueline never wants to see you again because you
were close to her husband's assassin."

Returning to Haiti, the DeMohrenschildt's problems there increased to
the point that in 1967 they were forced to sneak away from the island
aboard a German freighter, which brought them to Port Arthur, Texas.
Here, according to Jeanne in a 1978 interview with this author, the
DeMohrenschildts were met by an associate of former Oklahoma senator
and oilman Bob Kerr. The returning couple were extended the hospitality
of Kerr's home.

By the 1970s, the DeMohrenschildts were living quietly in Dallas,
although once they were questioned by two men who claimed to be from
Life magazine. A check showed the men were phonies.

DeMohrenschildt seemed content to teach French at Bishop College, a
predominantly black school in south Dallas. Then in the spring of 1976,
George, who suffered from chronic bronchitis, had a particularly bad
attack. Distrustful of hospitals, he was persuaded by someone-Jeanne
cannot today recall who-to see a newly arrived doctor in Dallas named
Dr. Charles Mendoza. After several trips to Mendoza in the late spring and
summer, DeMohrenschildt's bronchial condition improved, but he began
to experience the symptoms of a severe nervous breakdown. He became
paranoid, claiming that "the Jewish Mafia and the FBI" were after him.

Alarmed, Jeanne accompanied her husband to Dr. Mendoza and discovered he was giving DeMohrenschildt injections and costly drug prescriptions. She told this author:

When I confronted [Mendoza] with this information, as well as asking
him exactly what kind of medication and treatments he was giving
George, he became very angry and upset. By then, I had become suspicious and started accompanying George on each of his visits to the
doctor. But this physician would not allow me to be with George during
his "treatments." He said George was gravely ill and had to be alone
during treatments.

Jeanne said her husband's mental condition continued to deteriorate
during this time. She now claims: "I have become convinced that this
doctor, in some way, lies behind the nervous breakdown George suffered
in his final months."

The doctor is indeed mysterious. A check with the Dallas County
Medical Society showed that Dr. Mendoza first registered in April 1976,
less than two months before he began treating DeMohrenschildt and at the
same time the House Select Committee on Assassinations was beginning to
be funded.

Mendoza left Dallas in December, just a few months after DeMohrenschildt refused to continue treatments, at the insistence of his wife.
Mendoza left the society a forwarding address that proved to be nonexistent. He also left behind a confused and unbalanced George DeMohrenschildt.

During the fall of 1976 while in this unbalanced mental state,
DeMohrenschildt completed his unpublished manuscript entitled, I Am a
Patsy! I Am a Patsy.' after Oswald's famous remark to newsmen in the
Dallas police station. In the manuscript, DeMohrenschildt depicts Oswald
as a cursing, uncouth man with assassination on his mind, a totally
opposite picture from his descriptions of Oswald through the years.

The night he finished the manuscript, DeMohrenschildt attempted suicide by taking an overdose of tranquilizers. Paramedics were called, but
they declined to take him to a hospital. They found DeMohrenschildt also
had taken his dog's digitalis, which counteracted the tranquilizers.

Shortly after his attempted suicide, Jeanne committed her husband to
Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where he was subjected to electroshock
therapy. To gauge his mental condition at this time, consider what he told
Parkland roommate Clifford Wilson: "I know damn well Oswald didn't
kill Kennedy-because Oswald and I were together at the time."
DeMohrenschildt told Wilson that he and Oswald were in downtown
Dallas watching the Kennedy motorcade pass when shots were fired. He
said that at the sound of shots Oswald ran away and DeMohrenschildt
never saw him again.

This story, which was reported in the April 26, 1977, edition of the
National Enquirer as "Exclusive New Evidence," is untrue since both
George and Jeanne were at a reception in the Bulgarian embassy in Haiti
the day Kennedy was killed.

But the incident serves to illustrate George DeMohrenschildt's mental
condition at the time.

In early 1977, DeMohrenschildt, convinced that evil forces were still
after him, fled to Europe with Dutch journalist Willems Oltmans, who later created a furor by telling the House Select Committee on Assassinations that DeMohrenschildt claimed he knew of Oswald's assassination
plan in advance.

However, DeMohrenschildt grew even more fearful in Europe. In a
letter found after his death, he wrote: ". . . As I can see it now, the whole
purpose of my meeting in Holland was to ruin me financially and
completely. "

In mid-March DeMohrenschildt fled to a relative's Florida home leaving
behind clothing and other personal belongings. It was in the fashionable
Manalapan, Florida, home of his sister-in-law, that DeMohrenschildt died
of a shotgun blast to the head on March 29, 1977, just three hours after a
representative of the House Select Committee on Assassinations tried to
contact him there.