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Ed Epstein's tale of George De Mohrenschildt's last day


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I have been extremely interested in the JFK assassination for about 5 years. A year of so ago, I was expounding upon my view of the assassination to my friend John Berendt (author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), and John said to me that I had to meet his friend Ed Epstein. John said he knew Ed from back in the 60's when John was editor of Esquire Magazine and published some of Ed's earlier work on the JFK assassination. So John was nice enough to set up a dinner with himself, me, Ed Epstein and another friend.

At this dinner Ed told the story of George De Mohrenschildt's last day. Ed was commissioned by Reader's Digest to write some story on the JFK assassination, and so he was interviewing a bunch of people for the article. Apparently, Reader's Digest was paying well for this article. Ed had lined up a few days of interviews with George De Mohrenschildt. George needed money and Ed (thanks to the Reader's Digest largess) was able to pay him a bit.

Ed was conducting the interviews and along to help him was an assistant. After a long morning of interviews, they decided to break for lunch. George left to go back to his sister's?? house (where ever he was staying at the time) for lunch, and when he left, he left his address book behind. Ed picked up the address book and showed it to his assistant, and they had a brief conversation about what to do about the address book. Then, two minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Ed said he knew exactly what the knock was. He said he knew it was George coming back to get the address book. So Ed went to the door, address book in hand and wordlessly handed it to George, who went off to lunch.

Ed described George and being tense, anxious and fearful, but not depressed. According to Ed, George seemed fine, maybe a bit tired after a long morning of interviewing. During his lunch break, George was fatally shot. His death was reported as a suicide, but given that he was about to testify before congress and he seemed to be somewhat talkative, there is a pretty good chance he was killed to silence him.

George did not come back to interview with Ed, but the police and local district attorney came after the death. Ed said that the only thing that the district attorney (Ed wasn't 100% sure that it was a DA, but it was a local official and not police) wanted to know was about the address book. Ed said that he and his assistant were repeated questioned about where they had the address book, but they were asked few other questions.

The implication of this is that Ed's hotel room (I think that is where they were conducting the interviews) was bugged, and that someone was listening in on his interviews.

It is quite possible that Reader's Digest commissioned the article at the behest of some other authority and that Ed Epstein was unknowingly used to see who was talking about the assassination. Ed's credentials as an investigator were solid enough to give comfort to people who might be reluctant to talk. By then, bugging his interviews, higher powers could find out who was talking too freely. You gotta give credit to the CIA. They are some pretty cleaver and devious people to be able to manipulate people like this.

I asked Ed who he thought was behind the assassination, and he said "the CIA". When I asked who at the CIA, he had no idea. I found it strange that I could have a better idea who was behind the assassination than he did. But his work investigating the assassination was quite early, and Ed seemed to have moved on from paying attention to the assassination. He had never heard of E Howard Hunt's death bed confession. He knew a lot from first hand experience, but he seemed not to have paid much attention to the work of other researchers.

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Unfortunately, Ed's declaration that "the CIA" was behind it is a bit shallow. Were/are they heavily involved in the cover up (obstruction of justice) of the crime? Yes. But, that is an easily demonstrated fact. However, there is precious little evidence, if any, that they were "behind" the actual deed itself. Many people have drawn inferences from the available evidence implicating the agency in the actual murder, but those inferences are mainly based on unsupported assertions. The underlying theme seems often to be: "If you can't figure out exactly who done it, then it must have been the CIA." That is flawed thinking.

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Cleveland Cram was CIA chief of station in the Western Hemisphere. He retired from the CIA in 1975. The following year he met George T. Kalaris and Ted Shackley at a cocktail party in Washington. Kalaris, who replaced James Angleton, as Chief of Counterintelligence, asked Cram if he would like to come back to work. Cram was told that the CIA wanted a study done of Angleton's reign from 1954 to 1974. "Find out what in hell happened. What were these guys doing."

Cram took the assignment and was given access to all CIA documents on covert operations. The study entitled History of the Counterintelligence Staff 1954-1974, took six years to complete. As David Wise points out in his book Molehunt (1992): "When Cram finally finished it in 1981... he had produced twelve legal-sized volumes, each three hundred to four hundred pages. Cram's approximately four-thousand-page study has never been declassified. It remains locked in the CIA's vaults."

Cram continued to do research for the CIA on counterintelligence matters. In 1993 he completed a study carried out on behalf of the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI). Of Moles and Molehunters: A Review of Counterintelligence Literature. This document was declassified in 2003.

In this work Cram looks at the reliability of information found in books about the American and British intelligence agencies. Cram praises certain authors for writing accurate accounts of these covert activities. He is especially complimentary about the books written by David C. Martin (Wilderness of Mirrors), David Wise (Molehunt) and Tom Mangold (Cold Warrior). Cram points out that these authors managed to persuade former CIA officers to tell the truth about their activities. In some cases, they were even given classified documents.

In Of Moles and Molehunters, Cram is highly critical of the work of Edward J. Epstein (Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald and Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA). Cram makes it clear that Epstein, working with James Angleton, was part of a disinformation campaign. Cram writes: “Legend… gave Angleton and his supporters an advantage by putting their argument adroitly – if dishonestly – before the public first. Not until David Martin responded with Wilderness of Mirrors was an opposing view presented coherently.”

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcramC.htm

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Cleveland C. Cram, Of Moles and Molehunters: A Review of Counterintelligence Literature (1993)

Epstein, Edward J. Legend: The Secret World of Le Harvey Oswald. McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1978 (382 pages)

Epstein is a bright and able writer who took his M.A. at Cornell and his doctorate in government at Harvard. He made a name for himself with his book Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth, his master's thesis at Cornell. It was one of the first serious works to expose the shortcomings of that Commission. Epstein became aware of the Yuriy Nosenko case through The Reader's Digest, and this led to his acquaintance with James Angleton. Their association flourished, and Angleton became Epstein's major source on Nosenko and the controversy surrounding his defection. Eventually The Reader's Digest sponsored Epstein's research to the tune of $500,000. Legend, the book that resulted, was a bestseller, projecting the author to the forefront of those who were proponents of Angleton's theories. Following its publication, Epstein wrote numerous articles for New York, Commentary, and other publications, mostly - though not always - supportive of the Angleton theories.

Legend has two parts: the first is about Nosenko and Angleton's belief that he was part of a KGB deception operation; the second is about Oswald's sojourn in the Soviet Union following his service with the Marine Corps in Japan. While in Japan the book suggests that Oswald acquired information about U-2 flights flown from the airfield at which he was stationed.

In brief, Epstein accepted Angleton's conclusion that "Nosenko was a Soviet intelligence agent dispatched by the KGB expressly for the purpose of delivering disinformation to the CIA, FBI, and the Warren Commission." In this scheme, Oswald, the supposed lone assassin of President Kennedy, probably was working for the KGB. (Nosenko said this was not true.) Oswald, having defected to the USSR in 1959 and returned three years later, had been living a "legend," a false biography concocted for him by the KGB.

A central theme in both parts of the book, carefully stated and always present, was that the highest level of the Intelligence Community, and certainly the CIA, was penetrated by a "mole" working for the KGB. Although this mole had not been found by 1978, the best "proof" that one existed, according to the book's argument, was Nosenko's assertion that he knew of no penetration, thereby contradicting statements made by a "Mr. Stone," who subsequently proved to be Anatolelbolitsyn. Epstein thus promoted the twin beliefs of deception and penetration by the KGB, Angleton's theory that came to be called derisively "the monster plot."

Epstein's source notes state that his work is based on interviews with Nosenko and retired CIA and FBI officers. He lists Gordon Stewart, Admiral Turner, Richard Helms, James Angleton and members of his CI Staff, William Sullivan and Sam Papich of the FBI, and others connected with the Golitsyn and Nosenko cases. Epstein carefully camouflaged his sources by never quoting them directly, but clearly a number of CIA officers provided an immense amount of classified information. This leaking about sensitive Soviet cases was on a scale the CIA had not experienced before. But, because Epstein so cleverly refrained from pinpoint sourcing, exactly which CIA or FBI officers provided classified information could not be determined.

In 1989 the mystery was solved when Epstein published a second book, Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA, which again dealt with the contentious old cases, including Nosenko and Golitsyn. Angleton, his major source, by then was dead, and Epstein revealed who his informants had been. Although the presentation of these highly classified cases shocked most observers, within a year the entire Nosenko case was opened to the public by the US House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Legend sold well, and conspiracy buffs found it a welcome addition to the growing literature on the Kennedy assassination. Many others, however, found the book confusing, its claims extravagant, and its conclusions unsupported by evidence. One of the chief critics, George Lardner of The Washington Post, wrote: "What Epstein has written... is a fascinating, important, and essentially dishonest book. Fascinating because it offers new information about Oswald, about the KGB, and about the CIA. Dishonest because it pretends to be objective, because it is saddled with demonstrable errors and inexcusable omissions, because it assumes the KGB always knows what it is doing while the CIA does not. It is paranoid. It is naive."

Nevertheless, Legend unquestionably set the tone for the debate that subsequently ensued in the media about the Nosenko affair. It gave Angleton and his supporters an advantage by putting their argument adroitly - if dishonestly - before the public first. Not until David Martin responded with Wilderness of Mirrors was an opposing view presented coherently.

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I have always been of the school that Epstein may have been a plant from the start.

Jim,

I think you are being a bit too harsh on Ed Epstein. His book "Inquest" was very significant at the time and significantly contributed to the public questioning of the Warren Commission. In fact, the CIA ( if I remember correctly, it could be Cord Meyer) took pains to discredit his work. The full document is available at: http://mtracy9.tripod.com/cia_instructions.htm

CIA Instructions to Media Assets

This document caused quite a stir when it was discovered in 1977. Dated 4/1/67, and marked "DESTROY WHEN NO LONGER NEEDED", this document is a stunning testimony to how concerned the CIA was over investigations into the Kennedy assassination. Emphasis has been added to facilitate scanning.

CIA Document #1035-960, marked "PSYCH" for presumably Psychological Warfare Operations, in the division "CS", the Clandestine Services, sometimes known as the "dirty tricks" department.

RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report

3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active [business] addresses are requested:

a. To
discuss the publicity problem with [?] and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)
, pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.

b. To
employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose.
The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism,
a useful strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher [?] article and Spectator piece for background. (Although Mark Lane's book is much less convincing that Epstein's and comes off badly where confronted by knowledgeable critics, it is also much more difficult

Russell Baker's book Family of Secrets does a good job covering the story of Ed Epstein working for Reader's Digest. Pages 264-267 available through Google book search.

I believe that Ed Epstein was subject to a CIA counter-intellegence effort to confuse him and send him on the wrong track, and to a large extent they succeeded. He got too close to Jim Angleton and others, and they were able to distort his version of reality. I do not think that you need to ascribe nefarious motives to Ed Epstein to explain his later questonable work. I find it unrealistic to think that someone who started on a rightous path could be knowingly co-opted to work with the CIA.

He was one of the earliest researchers, and he prides himself in relying on interviews that he has done himself. In the early days after the assassination, there was merit in this approach. But by not relying on the work of other researchers and weighing conversations that he has personally had too heavily, he got lost and was able to be manipulated. At least, this is my perspective and it fits with the available facts and seems logically consistent to me.

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Mark:

Forget "Inquest". Lots of people write books to introduce themselves to the critical community and then spy and feed info back to their handlers. Epstein is everything Jim says and worse. That's why he got to see DeMohorenschildt before Fonzi got there in my opinion. And who knows what really happened there. A tape revealed that someone else was present when the shot was fired. (I am doing this from a long ago memory, so forget the details, someone taping a tv show or something.

Dawn

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Guest Tom Scully

Of course the CIA was working against Readers' Digest's Epstein, which means the CIA was working against itself, chasing its own tail, makes perfect sense. If you don't sit down and break bread with lizards, you'll never risk being influenced to belief they are regular guys, just like you and me!

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Guest Tom Scully

The Nation is a real piece of work on the JFK case.

They actually did write a couple of decent articles in the very early days, like the one abut the ear witnesses, and one about the probably FBI informant status of Oswald.

But then when the WR came out, they endorsed it with a long piece by Andrew Hacker, a professor. I always found it interesting that he was a mentor for Epstein.

..............................

So how many covert CIA figures would Tom Guinzburg have to be the roommate or kissin' cousin of, before his refusal to publish Mark Lane's "Rush to Judgmenrt" while he was chomping at the bit to publish Epstein's book, before Hacker and Epstein, (the youngest reknowned professor, and the oldest college student (just six years apart in age....) appear to be as illegitimate as Guinzburg was? I think the only reason Mark Lane was

not taken out with extreme prejudice was because the company was rightly concerned that the sensibilities of the agents assigned to bottle Lane

up after mining everything in his files, were too delicate.

Buckley: William F. Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism

books.google.comCarl T. Bogus - 2011 - Google eBook - Preview

... fraternities and a 1956 Yale student pamphlet described as "the most pretentiously snobbish organization at Yale” In fact, Fence so wanted to recruit Bill that—at Bill's demand—it reversed itself and accepted for membership Tom Guinzburg, a friend of Bill's whom Fence had previously rejected because he was Jewish.....

Thomas Guinzburg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Guinzburg

Thomas Henry Guinzburg (March 30, 1926 – September 8, 2010) was an ... where he was a member of Skull and Bones as well as the managing editor of th

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...At this dinner Ed told the story of George De Mohrenschildt's last day...Ed had lined up a few days of interviews with George De Mohrenschildt...Ed was conducting the interviews and along to help him was an assistant. After a long morning of interviews, they decided to break for lunch...

Ed described George and being tense, anxious and fearful, but not depressed. According to Ed, George seemed fine, maybe a bit tired after a long morning of interviewing. During his lunch break, George was fatally shot. His death was reported as a suicide, but given that he was about to testify before congress and he seemed to be somewhat talkative, there is a pretty good chance he was killed to silence him...

...All the DA...wanted to know was about the address book. Ed said that he and his assistant were repeatedly questioned about where they had the address book, but they were asked few other questions.

The implication of this is that Ed's hotel room (I think that is where they were conducting the interviews) was bugged, and that someone was listening in on his interviews...

Mark, another alternative is that George De Mohrenschildt actually committed suicide, and I think the content of his current book, "I'm a Patsy, I'm a Patsy!" suggests that he did. Consider his background from this angle, if you would:

(1) In the early 1960's George De Mohrenschildt was an international playboy as well as a University Professor, and he was married to a wealthy ballet dancer.

(2) George wanted a lucrative oil deal -- so he made a trade with the CIA -- he would babysit Lee Harvey Oswald in Fort Worth, Texas in 1962, in exchange for the name of an oil baron, and a letter of reference to a big oil deal. George shook hands on it.

(3) Things went well - but George could not help meddling in Oswald's life. In his book, "I'm a Patsy, I'm a Patsy!", George admitted he had been stunned by the "big show-off" of General Edwin Walker late 1962, who instigated race riots at Ole Miss University at Oxford, Mississippi.

(4) Although Walker was arrested and committed to an insane asylum by RFK, Walker was released only five days later with an apology. The blunder of using psychiatry in a political context would guarantee that Walker would be acquitted by a Grand Jury -- they dropped all the very serious charges.

(5) Now Walker was loose again, widely broadcasting his nonsense about Communists in the White House. Most intellectuals of the period winced whenever they heard the name of General Walker. George De Mohrenschildt was one. So was Volkmar Schmidt. So was Michael Paine. There were many others, too, who also lived in Dallas.

(6) Lee Harvey Oswald had gotten on De Mohrenschildt's nerves at this time, because he was still complaining that standard Marine complaint about the Bay of Pigs and JFK's big failure there.

(7) So George De Mohrenschildt and Volkmar Schmidt came up with a big idea in January, 1963. They would hold a party in Dallas, and invite the Paines and all these liberal intellectuals, as well as Lee and Marina Oswald. Then, Volkmar would demonstrate a psychological trick he had learned, to transfer hatred from one object to another within a subject's mind. Volkmar worked on Lee Harvey Oswald for at least a solid hour - probably much longer.

(8) At the end of this party, Oswald was converted. He promptly went forth and purchased fire arms, and began taking photographs of himself as an assassin (a 'hunter of fascists), and began taking photographs of General Edwin Walker's home in Dallas. (Oswald became so obsessed with this that he lost his job at Jagger-Chiles-Stovall, where he developed many of these photographs.)

(9) At some point in this process, Oswald met Larrie and Bob Schmidt (according to Dick Russell) and on 10 April 1963 the Schmidt brothers drove Oswald to General Walker's home at 4011 Turtle Creek Blvd, and tried to shoot him in the head from 120 feet away. They missed, and then sped away in the Schmidt brother cars.

(10) Shaken by the news which was all over Dallas, George and Jeanne De Mohrenschildt devised a way to clear up all their confusion and doubts. Three days later, at 10 PM on Saturday 13 April 1963, the De Mohrenschildt's took a toy bunny as a ruse to visit the Oswalds -- woke them up out of bed, and George kept Lee occupied as Jeanne manipulated Marina to show her around the house -- until she found a rifle with a scope on it.

(11) George asked Lee Oswald if he had been the one to take a pot-shot at General Walker, and Lee and Marina just froze. So George started laughing and they all started laughing and that was the end of the visit. George and Jeanne promptly left, and they never saw the Oswalds again in their lives.

(12) The very next day, George De Mohrenschildt was confused about what to do -- should he tell the police? Should he tell the CIA? What would happen to his lucrative oil deal if he admitted this mishandling of Oswald?

(13) So, on Easter Sunday 14 April 1963, George De Mohrenschildt visited his good friends from Russia, Mr. and Mrs. Igor Voshinin, and told them all his suspicions about Lee Harvey Oswald. They were a sympathetic audience -- they had always told George that Lee Oswald was untrustworthy. As soon as George left, Mrs. Voshinin called the FBI and told them everything George had said. (Source: Dick Russell)

(14) In a couple more days, George and Jeanne De Mohrenschildt flew to Haiti, hoping never to return to the USA. They tried to forget all about the Oswalds -- and they prayed that General Walker and the DPD would never find out the De Mohrenschildt family secret -- they were ultimately to blame for the shooting at General Walker on 10 April 1963.

(15) Things went very well for George De Mohrenschildt in Haiti -- the money was good and the contract was on schedule. Then came 22 November 1963, and George was again stunned when the face of Lee Harvey Oswald was broadcast around the world.

(16) Yes -- he would be called to testify. When the news came out that the Warren Commission wanted to interview him, his oil contact in Haiti was as good as burned. Friends no longer returned his calls, or invited the De Mohrenschildt's to their parties. It was over. This was the beginning of the end.

(17) But George was still strong and optimistic -- he would conquer this thing -- after all -- he had done nothing wrong, did he?

(18) During the Warren Commission hearings, George and Jeanne De Mohrenschildt went over and over that day when they visited the Oswald's with that toy bunny -- who said what when? Where were you standing when you said that? Why did so-and-so repeat that differently?

(19) After that, the oil contract in Haiti could not be salvaged, no matter what. George was again reduced to living on his wife's income.

(20) Over the years, family troubles plauged the De Mohrenschildts -- and always under the surface was the guilt lurking that they had a hand in the attempted assassination of General Edwin Walker -- but this was never prosecuted.

(21) By the time the HSCA chose to subpoena De Mohrenschildt again, 1977, George was a shell of his former self.

(22) Volkmar Schmidt described him as shriveled and weak, aged beyond his years. Jeanne had left him. His children avoided him. He once begged to move in with Volkmar and his family, but Volkmar -- in deference to his own family -- turned George down.

(23) In an effort, finally, to make some money from the JFK conspiracy market, George decided to burst on the scene with his own book -- "I'm a Patsy, I'm a Patsy!"

(24) He sat down to carefully write -- but when it came time to confess his role, and Volkmar's role, in the brainwashing of Lee Harvey Oswald, he could not do it. He faced that old demon from 1963, and the demon again won.

(25) We know this when we read the account in "I'm a Patsy, I'm a Patsy!"

(26) Walker cannot even name his German friend, Volkmar Schmidt, or describe him honestly -- but calls him "a Jew, if I'm not mistaken." His own role in the brainwashing, or the party's frolicsome interest in it, were not admitted, even in 1977.

(27) Here, then, was where Ed Epstein enters the picture. Ed Epstein is no psychiatrist, so his opinion of whether George De Mohrenschildt was 'depressed' or not is frankly worthless.

(28) Yet Ed Epstein is actually a penetrating journalist, and he naturally probed and prodded George De Mohrenschildt, always missing George's guilt, always barely missing those facts that George habitually kept hidden for more than a decade.

(29) Instead of selling his book, George De Mohrenschildt simply sent this book to the HSCA as his affidavit. He would not subject himself to the burden of testifying before the HSCA, which was like the Warren Commission on steroids.

(30) George's failures in life could be traced to Lee Harvey Oswald -- and not so much to Oswald's personality as to George's meddling and toying with the mind of Lee Harvey Oswald.

(31) Even if Lee Harvey Oswald had continued to associate with ex-Marines, Cuban Exiles and CIA contract renegades, the trouble he encountered could not be traced to George De Mohrenschildt -- if only George had kept his opinions to himself.

So, Mark, there's my take on the situation. George De Mohrenschildt was completely ruined by his contact with Lee Harvey Oswald, and he could not bear to re-live and re-live those days again and again, for the whole world to see and criticize. He had reached for the stars, and he missed. Now he had to live with the consequences -- but the HSCA was too much stress. George De Mohrenschildt was not strong enough to handle HSCA challenge to confront himself one more time.

Best regards,
--Paul Trejo
<edit typos> Edited by Paul Trejo
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Guest Tom Scully

I'm hoping the dramatic progression in the resoluteness of Paul's opinions is more due to his writing style and my interpretation than it actually is to strong conclusions he has formed.

I read his posts since early spring and my first reaction is to post replies, but I don't because I don't get the impression anything I put in a post will lessen his resolve. His mind seems made up about so many details. The Gerald Ford presidency, to name one example, should be enough, in its intricacy and circumstances, to give him pause but I do not see where this even enters into his conclusions, if they are conclusions.

Ford was unelected as either V.P. or as POTUS. He had been a partner of Robert Douglas Stuart, Jr, in the AFC in 1940, and as a member of the WC, we now know he was the eyes and ears of DeLoach and Hoover, down to carrying a secret FBI briefcase.

Ford appointed Rockefeller as unelected V.P. and Rockefeller to conduct a whitewash, cover up investigation of the CIA and intel ops. He appointed GHW Bush, with no visible qualifications, as DCI. Hooker, Bush, Devine, all connected with DeMohrenschildt, and Bush and Devine with Rockefeller. Devine and Bush are connected with Macomber, Jr. and his brother, John. Macomber, Jr. is driven out of the country to hide as Ambassador to Turkey after it is revealed he cooperated fully with Colson, to discredit Ellsberg and to provide E. Howard Hunt with security clearance waver so he could access classified cables related to the coup against Diem in Viet Nam in an effort to smear JFK including the admission by Hunt that he forged a cable's text to affect what he could not achieve via acccess and research. Macomber, Jr. came back to the U.S. to reprise his role in Nancy Bush's wedding as best man, this time, in 1973 on Jupiter Island in the wedding of Thomas Devine.

Rockefeller, Whitney, CIA, and the above associations cannot be divorced from a serious appraisal of DeMohrenschildt, but Paul has done it. The firmness and swiftness of Paul's resoluteness is even more surprising because the proof he provides for his conclusions about Walker's relevance is not voluminous or particularly persuasive, especially related to the alleged shooting, did Paul's co-shooters give Oswald and his rifle rides to and from, lack of forensic evidence, etc...? ...... and he seems to have dismissed Jim Root's impressive research on the airline flight Walker and Oswald may have shared in Europe.

As in the example of my references about Gerald Ford, et al, posed as questions and observations, rather as anything presented as a whodunnit solution, if we are misinterpreting Paul's points as being conclusions, than he only needs to consider adjustments in his presentation to set readers straight about his flexibility.

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You think Oswald took a shot at Walker?

I disgree in spades. If he had, the FBI would not have had to alter the color and caliber of the bullet that Walker held in his hand. Nor would the WC have had to hide that fact from Walker when he testified.

I also disagree with your characterization of the relationship between the Baron, the Paines, Oswald and the White Russians.

You seem to classify it as all on the up and up, something almost benign and happening willy nilly.

I don't see it that way. I see it as much more malignantly motivated, and much more planned for.

Jim, in order to doubt that Oswald took a shot at ex-General Edwin A. Walker, one must totally discount Marina Oswald's testimony. My starting point (admittedly hypothetical) is that I completely accept Marina Oswald's sworn statements.

That is -- when she felt harassed by the press and the FBI, and wasn't under oath, she blurted out defensive statements. But after she calmed down and realized there was a chance for her to raise her children in the USA, she became cooperative. Under oath, she told the truth. That's my starting point.

Next, I believe the testimony of George De Mohrenschildt -- to a point. That is, I can't find a direct lie, but I also believe George did not always answer questions fully -- he always held something back. The same goes for Jeanne De Mohrenshildt. The same goes for Michael Paine. The same goes for Ruth Paine. They told the truth until it came to the final question: "Is there anything else you think the Commission should know?" Nope. Probably they all hid the fact that the Walker shooting involved at least a dozen people.

So -- going by the testimony of Marina Oswald (which she never changed, for the HSCA or afterwards), and adding the testimony of the De Mohrenschildts and the Paines -- I believe we can establish a scenario in which Lee Harvey Oswald was at least one of the shooters at ex-General Edwin Walker on 10 April 1963.

Let us also add the statements by Brandford P. Angers, the private detective who hired Larrie Schmidt on behalf of H.L. Hunt -- now we have a scenario that matches the DPD eye-witness who saw multiple shooters flee the scene in cars. There are thus two witnesses who establish that Oswald did not act alone.

This is my ultimate conclusion -- Oswald never acted alone in anything (although to Marina it might have appeared that he did).

I realize that there are holes in Marina's testimony -- but even Marina admitted that. She admitted she had very limited information to go on, and she always said that if she had more information she would change her opinions.

But I was never interested in Marina Oswald's opinions -- but only in her eye-witness (and ear-witness) testimony of what she saw and heard at the time, no matter how incomplete or partial it may have been.

By saying you don't believe that Oswald was a shooter at ex-General Walker, Jim, aren't you saying that Marina Oswald was a xxxx? But if so, I believe that is a shaky position.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit text>

Edited by Paul Trejo
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I'm hoping the dramatic progression in the resoluteness of Paul's opinions is more due to his writing style and my interpretation than it actually is to strong conclusions he has formed.

...

Rockefeller, Whitney, CIA, and the above associations cannot be divorced from a serious appraisal of DeMohrenschildt, but Paul has done it. The firmness and swiftness of Paul's resoluteness is even more surprising because the proof he provides for his conclusions about Walker's relevance is not voluminous or particularly persuasive, especially related to the alleged shooting, did Paul's co-shooters give Oswald and his rifle rides to and from, lack of forensic evidence, etc...? ...... and he seems to have dismissed Jim Root's impressive research on the airline flight Walker and Oswald may have shared in Europe.

As in the example of my references about Gerald Ford, et al, posed as questions and observations, rather as anything presented as a whodunnit solution, if we are misinterpreting Paul's points as being conclusions, than he only needs to consider adjustments in his presentation to set readers straight about his flexibility.

Tom, you're right that I haven't formed strong conclusions yet -- I'm still in the process of forming a theory. Yet the combination of evidence that I assemble can suggest strong statements. I believe that is not due to any pressure that I add, but only due to the logical flow of the evidence presented.

As for the CIA, I do believe that it plays a minor role in George De Mohrenschildt's decisions, i.e. they invited George to babysit Lee Harvey Oswald to find out what made him tick. That's plenty of involvement.

I believe the evidence for General Walker's participation in the JFK assassination in Dallas is nearly as strong as the evidence we have that he masterminded: (1) the attack on Adlai Stevenson only four weeks before the JFK motorcade; (2) the WANTED FOR TREASON handbill; and (3) the black-bordered ad ["Welcome Mr. Kennedy]. That's strong evidence, IMHO.

As for the Walker shooting -- I'm aware of the many alternate theories -- but that is speculation enjoyed decades later. The really important evidence is what witnesses said in the first few weeks after the 10 April 1963 shooting.

As for the forensic evidence of the bullet in question -- let's review that very carefully -- Walker held the mutilated bullet in his hand. Here's exactly what the bullet looked like:

(front side) http://www.pet880.co...er_bullet_1.gif

(reverse side) http://www.pet880.co...er_bullet_2.gif

Now, what was the dispute that Walker had about the bullet that Professor Blakey displayed to the HSCA and on Television? It was a temptest in a teapot -- it was merely that instead of that mutilated bullet, Blakey displayed to the Television camera a pristine bullet, as a symbol of the actual bullet. This made Walker enraged!

Walker complained to his lawyer, to Blakey, to the US Congress! How dare they show a pristine bullet instead of his famous multilated bullet?

Here's the proof that this was a molehill made to look like a mountain:

http://www.pet880.co...r_Blakey_TV.pdf

So, was this merely Walker's ego that was wounded by Blakey's display of a pristine bullet? By no means -- this was Walker's entire alibi. This was Walker's proof that he had not participated in the JFK killing -- how could a victim be an instigator? Yet if Walker's alibi became diluted over time, then he became less of a victim -- and then he would become more of a suspect.

As for Jim Root's theory that Walker and Oswald might have met in Europe at some point in 1959, I don't discount the possiblity, but it would need to have been sometime in early October, 1959, and that squeezes the days quite a bit. Let's say, however, that they did meet -- Jim Root's theory is simply that Walker gave Oswald tips regarding how to fib his way into Russia. There is no evidence in the slightest there that they talked about assassinating JFK in October of 1959 -- before JFK was even elected.

In conclusion, Tom, I do include lots of other viewpoints in my theory -- and actually I make it a point to include as much actual sworn testimony and trustworthy statements from eye-witnesses as possible. That's one of the strengths of my theory -- it includes more data than the average theory.

Only on this basis can I offer my humble (and flexible, and open-to-new-evidence) opinion that George De Mohrenshildt committed suicide because he realized finally and conclusively that his life had become irretrievably ruined by his own mishandling of Lee Harvey Oswald, and especially by his own role in Oswald's "loose-cannon" behavior of shooting at ex-General Edwin Walker on 10 April 1963.

I call 'em like I see 'em. So far, all the evidence points to the ultimate legacy of George De Mohrenshildt as the mishandler of Oswald. If George had done a better job, the whole history of the USA would have been significantly different. But hey -- George wasn't even an American -- his own country was already defeated. How much did he really care about the USA?

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited by Paul Trejo
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Paul,

Your trust in Marina, DeMohrenschildt and the Paines is misguided. The picture we have come to accept of Lee Harvey Oswald was built almost exclusively on their testimony. Marina's testimony before the Warren Commission was laughable. Yes, she was under pressure, but her willingness to undermine her husband's memory in order to curry favor with the authorities is so transparent it practically screams out at the reader.

Remember, Marina not only is the primary source for Oswald taking a shot at Walker, she also described him either burying the rifle in the ground or hiding it in some bushes afterwards. She reported that he carried his rifle under a raincoat, and practiced shooting it near a bus stop! That is the kind of ridiculous story a child, or in this case a frightened young woman with little knowledge of English or American culture, would devise. As if this weren't enough, Marina also testified that she had kept Oswald locked in the bathroom (by holding onto the door from the outside) to prevent him from shooting Richard Nixon. Picture the petite Marina being physically strong enough to do something like that.

The backgrounds of DeMohrenschildt and the Paines alone make the entire relationship with the poverty stricken Oswalds highly suspect. Adult relationshps are inevitably tied to class and income. DeMohrenschildt was a vertiable aristocrat; he was friendly with Jacqueline Bouvier's family. Because their ties to the Oswalds bear serious scrutiny, the testimony of the Paines and the DeMohrenschildts must be looked at skeptically.

As for Edward Epstein, he was always given more credit than he deserved, imho, for Inquest. Basically a master's thesis he wrote while at Cornell, it was not a critical examination of the evidence, or the flaws in the official case against Oswald. The fact the CIA singled out Epstein's book as being harder to refute is akin to Brer Rabbit pleading not to be thrown into the briar patch. As author Thomas Pynchon once noted, they don't have to worry about answers if you ask the wrong questions.

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