Gene Kelly

David I read (somewhere) that Lee Bowers apparently saw a lot more than he ever let on publically, or in testimony. He had a commanding view of what happened, and who might have been in and around the rail yard and fence/pergola. The yard for the Union Railroad Terminal had a two-story tower - known alternately as the North Tower or Interlocking Tower 106 - in a switching station that dates back to 1916. Bowers was working in the tower 14 feet above ground level and noticed a series of cars, including a dirty 1959 Oldsmobile station wagon with out-of-state license plates and a Goldwater '64 bumper sticker, driving slowly through the off-limits parking area. According to a friend of Lee Bowers (Walter Rischel), shortly before his death, Bowers was afraid to tell everything he knew, particularly to the Warren Commission and allegedly feared for his own life. In August 1966, Bowers died in a mysterious car accident. As the story goes, a doctor from Midlothian, who rode in the ambulance with Bowers, noticed that he was in a "strange state of shock, a different kind of shock than an accident victim experiences." Bowers widow at first insisted to researcher Penn Jones that there was nothing suspicious about her husband's death ... but then she became flustered and said: "They told him not to talk." Gene

Connecting the dots. Assuming that the Soviets (and KGB) were competent and understood what was being played out, this puts a lot of things into a more believable perspective. All of a sudden, Nosenko begins to make sense. And so does Marina and Nagell. If Nosenko is somehow connected to Paisley, and his dispatch is timed with Oswald's movements ... no wonder Angleton and friends kept him under wraps for 3-4 years. And - back to the original question in this thread - how/why did Hosty expect to talk to Marina? This also brings to mind the suspicious deaths of John Paisley, William Sullivan and William Colby ... which also seem somehow linked.

Wilcott was (as JFK would write) a profile in courage ... I wonder how any other more ethical and principled CIA employees tried to speak up (and were intimidated or silenced). You'd think more than a few felt the same way. Its reassuring to finally read the 'unvarnished' truth, but very sad as well. The HSCA knew ... they knew the truth, and concocted the Mafia fairy tale. Its simply shameful. The climate and culture within CIA are described well by Wilcott. One can see how being liberal would be viewed with distaste. It reminds me of the later disparaging remarks by Howard Hunt about liberals. The condescending and arrogant tone of William R. Buckley on Firing Line. I worked (as a federal employee) with an investigator who had been involved with HSCA in his previous career, and approached him in 1994 to ask "who did it?" His reply was CIA ... I was less well informed in those days, and somewhat taken aback, finding it difficult to believe a government agency would be complicit. I countered with "how sure are you?" and he answered that he'd bet a year's salary on it. He spoke of how utterly impossible it was to get any viable information from CIA or a straight answer. My last question to him -- the answer to which stays with me today (and forever) - was the inevitable "why don't they just come out (after 30 years) and tell us? His reply: "What makes you think that's the worst thing they ever did?"

Thanks everyone ... I didn't doubt he was there. But I've never seen a clear picture before. All are pretty blurred, and Marilyn Sitzman is easier to identify than Abraham. . Jeremy: thanks for laying out that comprehensive list of photographers. It dispels a myth that I bought into, about cameras being confiscated. David: excellent compilation of photographers and their location. That's quite a few people who captured pictures. The Wiegman film is difficult to watch.

I do think it best to ignore posts that offend, and simply report them to moderators for attention. I'd also point out (for readers' edification) an excellent recent article by Dan Hardaway (former HSCA investigator) in AARB Achieves dated 10/30/2017 entitled "What Were They Hiding and What Should We Look For?" This article reveals a 1967 CIA dispatch (memo) sent to CIA Stations which lays out a plan for defending the government's official story and labels people who question the lone nut theory as “conspiracy theorists.” It describes a strategy to counter and discredit the claims of such conspiracy theorists ... and it suggests tactics similar to what we experience in certain Forum threads in question today. The recommended approach in the 1967 dispatch is to label critics (of the official story or the CIA) as: (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.” It suggests that critics be countered by advancing arguments such as that they have produced no new evidence, that they overvalue some evidence while ignoring other evidence, that large scale conspiracies are “impossible to conceal in the United States,” that Oswald would not have been any “sensible person’s choice for a co-conspirator”, and by pointing out the comprehensive work of the Warren Commission. When this behavior is encountered, Hardaway suggests we stop and ask, “Why is the writer disparaging this idea? Who is he trying to deflect suspicion from? Why is he trying to direct my suspicion elsewhere? Can I reject the label and recover an objective view what this labeled individual has to say?” And don't simply reject it out of hand because of the labelling ... but keep in mind that the term “conspiracy theory” gained prominence as a result of a CIA-led propaganda initiative specifically addressed at protecting their own interests. He also references an article by Lance deHaven-Smith, "Conspiracy Theory in America" (2013) about how the term (CT) was popularized and subsequently made a target of ridicule and hostility. Sounds familiar ... Gene Kelly

Mike Rago status aside, I've always found it difficult (and strange) that no pictures of Zapruder standing/filming on that famous pedestal exist. I've tried to find evidence of him in the many stills taken and published (similar to the umbrella man and his companion) but have never seen any photographs. For a guy who took one of the most infamous and controversial movies ever made, he disappears from the entire scene very quickly. And unlike others who told of having their cameras seized in the aftermath, he escapes with a movie camera no less. It is an interesting question to pose.

... and two days later, Yuri Nosenko defects Lots of dots to connect here

Steve Don't forget Ruth Paine and Marina Prusakova ... plus Priscilla McMillan Gene

Ron: This strays far from Steve's original question in this thread. Nagell's story does seem far-fetched, but there's obviously something to it. His story has all the makings of a great mystery movie, where real life is stranger than fiction. What makes it credible (imho) is the author's reputation and experience. Here is what Dick Russell said about Nagell's bonafides in 2006: My basic approach to writing about "secret history" is, at first, to believe just about everybody. By that, I mean I don't prejudge someone I'm interviewing or dismiss even a "fantastic" story out-of-hand. It's only as I came to know a great deal about the Kennedy assassination, for example, that I was able to realize that quite a few - indeed, the majority - of the strange folks I'd interviewed were probably not telling the truth. Some may have been intentionally planting disinformation. Ultimately, I came to believe Richard Nagell - and Antonio Veciana, for example - because I gained a strong sense of their personal integrity. And, I guess, because there were things they WOULDN'T say, to my frustration. After awhile, an investigative journalist starts to draw conclusions by finding as many sources for verification as possible. It's time-consuming. As for getting ahold of documents, it used to be a lot easier to use the FOIA, before the Bush Administration ..." Russell's personal interviews with Nagell spanned a 17-year period (until Nagell's death in 1995) and portray an unstable nature to Nagell's character (see George Bailey's May 2012 review of Russell's "The Man That Knew Too Much" in the blog Oswald's Mother). Bailey characterized Nagell as "a fringe character with a offbeat story that most researchers don't include in the overall analysis of what happened ... a tangent too far". There are several Education Forum threads on Nagell (e.g. see John Simkin thread started August 2005) - with cogent comments by Lee Foreman, Larry Hancock, and Russell himself - describing letters written in 1967 by Nagell (from prison) describing his knowledge of the plot. Nagell had been in Leavenworth since 1964 serving a ten-year sentence for “attempted bank robbery”. In April 1967, a Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that “the evidence introduced by the Government is not sufficient to maintain conviction” and he was released after serving four years . Upon his release, Nagell flew to New York and met twice with Jim Garrison in Central Park. Nagell then flew to Zurich, Switzerland. According to Russell, he was in Zurich the day of the RFK killing, and arrested 3-4 days later by East German police, where he remained incarcerated until October 1968. This is all hard to make up. As the story goes, Nagell was playing a double-agent role (code name Laredo). He used the alias Hidell, had connections with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and had a copy of Oswald's military ID in his possession when arrested two months before the assassination. On January 18, 1964 a Secret Service Agent questioned Marina Oswald about Richard Case Nagell for two hours. Coincidentally, on January 20, 1964, KGB agent Yuri Nosenko defects to the US after landing in Geneva as part of a Soviet disarmament delegation. He claims to have been the KGB official who had personally handled the case of Oswald during his stay in Russia, and claims that the KGB found never debriefed Oswald about his military background nor ever considered recruiting him as an agent. Nosenko subsequently underwent hostile interrogation at the hands of the CIA and was kept in solitary confinement for 1,277 days. On January 27, 1964, the El Paso Times reported that Nagell had been questioned by the FBI and SS in connection with Oswald; and, that Assistant US District Attorney Fred Morton made a motion to put Nagell in a federal institution in Springfield, Missouri for psychiatric examination. On March 20, 1964, Nagell wrote the Warren Commission from the El Paso county jail concerning his attempt to alert authorities about the assassination. In May 1964, Nagell is found guilty by a jury of intent to rob a bank, and sentenced by Judge Homer Thornberry (an LBJ crony) to ten years "with the provision that he may be released at any time the US Bureau of Paroles decides." Then there is a 2009 Deep Politics thread where it lays out how Nagell became aware of the plot. Nagell, Oswald, Herminio Diaz Garcia are in Mexico City during July of 1963. All three then come back into the United States via Miami. The operation was handled by one Jorge Volsky, who reports directly to Manuel Mendez (aka David Morales). Volsky also is the eyes and ears for Nagell into the Cuban community. Plus, Volsky is the apparently guy who sets up the Sylvia Odio visit by Oswald, Leopoldo and Angel. Nagell becomes aware of all of this and gets wind of Dallas plot (see James Richards comments in the "Nagell - More than meets the eye" thread). As Alice cried in Lewis Carroll's Looking Glass: “Curiouser and curiouser!” Nagell first publically surfaced during the Garrison investigation. He was ignored by the Warren Commission, and no record exists of interaction with the HSCA (although rumors exist of an aborted contact). The January 1968 edition of Ramparts magazine marked the first national awareness of the story, wherein author William Turner cited a registered letter (never found or made public) that Nagell purportedly sent to FBI Director Hoover, warning of the plot. Nagell sent a letter to Jim Garrison in early 1967 from the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. Nagell was subsequently interviewed by Garrison investigator William Martin, and alleged that ‘certain interests’ wanted him out of the country, so that he could not be subpoenaed to appear in Garrison's Clay Shaw trial. Nagell also revealed to Martin that two Cuban exiles were manipulating Oswald ... Sergio Arcacha Smith, and another with a last name beginning with "Q" (possibly Carlos Quiroga). Nagell claimed he had recorded their incriminating talks with Oswald on tape; he concurred that Garrison was "on the right track", and referred to this taped conversation with these Cuban exiles as validation. Nagell later discovered Martin's duplicity (as a CIA plant in Garrison's office) and refused any more interviews. In 1975, on the eve of the HSCA, Jim Garrison stated, "Richard Nagell is the most important witness there is" and he is included in Garrison's memoir On the Trail of the Assassins. Notably, he remained under-investigated (officially). There is no record of the Warren Commission ever having interviewed Nagell, despite his letters to the Commission telling them he had knowledge of both Oswald and the conspiracy. What's less clear is how Robert Blakey and the HSCA approached Nagell, who apparently had ignored him. To date, no HSCA records of contacts with Nagell have been declassified by the ARRB or National Archives. (see Jim DiEugenio's account of "The Life and Death of Richard Case Nagell" in December 1995). More recently (and adding to the intrigue), a January 10, 2018 article by Russell - "Update on Richard Case Nagell: The New Files" - in WhoWhatWhy describes recently released CIA files connected with the CIA's Office of Security concerning Nagell (e.g. a CIA “transmittal slip” to “Mr. Murphy” — possibly David Murphy of the Soviet Russia Division — dated October 6, 1969). Another of the Nagell-related releases among the new files is a State Department Telegram from the US Consulate in Berlin in October 1968, with a handwritten notation to “send copies to Solie.” Bruce Solie was the CIA security officer who had conducted an investigation in 1968 exonerating Yuri Nosenko as a suspicious KGB defector. Russell points out that certain individuals involved in the CIA’s Oswald paper trail (and controversial 201 file) — Jane Roman, Bruce Solie and David Murphy — overlapped with the Nagell story. It appears that the Agency was keeping tabs on where Nagell was and who he was talking to, when he fled the country and ended up in East Berlin. Nagell also alleged to have knowledge of the infamous "KGB moles" within the CIA's Soviet Russia Division, casting suspicion upon John Paisley (who dies mysteriously in 1978) as well as an unnamed case officer in the CIA's Mexico City station. Nagell was later found dead in his Los Angeles apartment in November 1995, after an alleged heart attack at age 65 ... the same day that a subpoena from the Assassination Records Review Board arrived at his post office box, requesting his testimony and papers (which never surfaced). Dick Russell's 1992 book quotes Nagell as asserting that he had made arrangements for certain "smoking guns" to be divulged - in the event of his death (i.e. as 'life insurance') - allegedly damning information stored in a Geneva bank vault. The AARB did contact Nagell's executor after his death, but its unknown what (if anything) transpired. As Bailey summarizes: "His claimed cache of documents, audio tapes, photos, and whatever - that could blow the whole thing wide open - vanish upon his demise like they always do–if they ever existed at all". Gene

Pamela I too agree with you and Steve ... and I think you have pointed out something significant and insightful. I'm fast coming to the realization that the KGB/Soviets were "on" to the plot to kill JFK (see the Nosenko threads) and Marina may have been inserted as another means to thwart the plot. That scenario makes sense to me. Gene

Cutting to the chase, I believe that Angleton isolated/tortured Nosenko (who apparently was trying to point the spotlight for the JFK hit where it belonged) in order to protect Allen Dulles and the plotters. To attempt to defend Angleton at this point (with all we know) is weak and unconvincing. Angleton also lived to regret his allegiances. To quote from Devils Chessboard: “Fundamentally, the founding fathers of U.S. intelligence were liars. The better you lied and the more you betrayed, the more likely you would be promoted. Outside of their duplicity, the only thing they had in common was a desire for absolute power. I did things that, in looking back on my life, I regret. But I was part of it and loved being in it.” He invoked the names of high eminences who had run the CIA in his day - Dulles, Helms and Wisner. These men were “the grand masters”. He took another slow sip from his steaming cup: “If you were in a room with them, you were in a room full of people that you had to believe would deservedly end up in hell ... I guess I will see them there soon.”

Peter Gabriel ... "In Your Eyes": All my instincts, they return And the grand façade, so soon will burn Without a noise, without my pride I reach out from the inside In your eyes The light the heat In your eyes I am complete In your eyes I see the doorway to a thousand churches In your eyes The resolution of all the fruitless searches In your eyes I see the light and the heat In your eyes Oh, I want to be that complete I want to touch the light The heat I see in your eyes

Actually, the Kimsey's "The Ends of a State" is essentially complimentary of JJA (although he uses academic language that I struggle to understand). He has this to say; I argue that, for a figure such as Angleton, disinformation and deception—supposed hallmarks of totalitarianism—are necessary if democracy, which Ransom compares to a beautiful poem, is to survive. Gene

Thanks for the links, and Ill study them ... another interesting read is by DePaul University's John Kimsey (2017) “The Ends of a State: James Angleton, Counterintelligence and the New Criticism” in International Intrigue: Plotting Espionage as Cultural Artifact (although more about modernist poetry than judging the bona fides of defectors)

Thanks Tommy: I'm still doing my due diligence in all of this. I don't pretend to have expertise in this area (as I presume you must have, given your confident grasp of the details) but I will read the Spy Wars references and continue to educate myself. It seemed to me that Heuer's 1987 essay came well after Hart had confronted Bagley in 1976 with what his objections were based upon ... and over 20 years after the Solie report. Critics of Spy Wars cite Bagley's reliance upon former KGB officers (unnamed) as his sources of information. It certainly caused quite a rift within the intelligence community and opinions are both strong and divided , even today. By the way, I'm a fan of peter Gabriel ... Gene

Thomas: Have you read the 1987 article by Richards J. Heuer “Nosenko: Five Paths to Judgement" in Studies in Intelligence where he lays out strategies for analyzing deception? Gene

Paul: God only knows ... seems to me that George (the Baron, not Bush) was being set up as another "patsy", and was ultimately sacrificed by Dulles. If I were the Judge/Jury, I'd arrest Dulles and his minions (including Bush Sr. who was up to his ears in bay of Pigs). Gaeton Fonzi noted that in late 1963, several large deposits popped up in de Mohrenschildt's Haitian bank account including one for $200 thousand dollars from a Bahamian bank. This occurred when de Mohrenschildt and Clemard Charles were supposedly running a sisal plantation, a derelict operation they never went near. This sort of intrigue is covered/obscured forever, and wont ever be unraveled (imho). Gene

Joe: I revised this post to add some additional information. If you dig into the machinations going on in May 1963, it appears that a covert operation was being run in Haiti, and JFK was being kept in the dark and allegedly "played' by the CIA and his own national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy. In November 1976, DeMohrenschildt was committed to a mental institution in Texas for three months, and apparently he had four previous suicide attempts. In a notarized affidavit, his wife stated that George suffered from depression, heard voices, saw visions, and believed the FBI and 'Jewish Mafia' were persecuting him. In early 1977, Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans brought George to Europe to negotiate book and magazine rights to his story. Oltmans later claimed that DeMohrenschildt wandered off while in Brussels, and disappeared. In March 1977, de Mohrenschildt re-surfaced in the United States. As the story goes, on March 29th George visited his sister in law in Manalapan, Florida, where his daughter was staying (ostensibly the reason for his visit). While he was there, DeMohrenschildt agreed to conduct an interview with journalist Edward Epstein for a feature story to be published in Reader’s Digest. Epstein - suspect by many researchers as a close associate of James Angleton - embellished the legend of the Walker shooting and the celebrated backyard photograph of Oswald in his book “Legend” and his writings. The "third backyard photograph" was allegedly found by George in a piece of luggage which he had left in storage during his 1963-1967 sojourn in Haiti. The photo (with Cyrillic handwriting on the back and an inscription addressed to George) shows Oswald in a similar pose to that in WC exhibit CE 133A, but with both arms held higher. Epstein employed a handwriting expert who identified the inscription as Oswald's writing, and concluded the printing on reverse side was consistent with Marina's handwriting. This enabled a conclusion that De Mohrenschildt had been given this incriminating photograph before the assassination. His wife Jeanne later told the HSCA that she had never seen the photo before, and believed it was planted in their belongings while they were traveling in Haiti. Epstein wrote this about George’s death: The news came as a shock. I had been in the midst of a four- day interview with De Mohrenschildt, for which I had agreed to pay him a $4,000 "honorarium." I had never before paid anyone for an interview, but De Mohrenschildt had had an extraordinary relationship with the subject of my book, Lee Harvey Oswald. I had reason to believe that he might have been in a position to cast light on Oswald's prior entanglement in the web of intelligence services. He had been, as far as I was concerned, a man of considerable mystery. Even his date of birth—"1911," on one passport, "1914" on another— was in doubt. He had emigrated from Russia via various European countries to the United States in May 1938, and claimed such diverse occupations as insurance salesman, film producer, journalist and textile salesman. In addition, British intelligence suggested that he may have been working for German intelligence. On the day of George’s death, HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi had called and left his card – because de Mohrenschildt was apparently ready to talk. After George's untimely (and inexplicable) suicide, Epstein flew out of Palm Beach before Fonzi could locate or question him. Fonzi had this to say about the suicide death: Certainly, it seems that his death was the work of those who wanted to prevent him from telling what he knew. The House Committee was getting started again. He was being asked, I believe, to begin another role in his relationship to the assassination and his testimony before the Warren Commission. Just before he committed suicide, he was taken to Belgium by a foreign journalist. He was, I believe he felt he was, being set up. He was supposed to have a meeting with a KGB official, I believe, but he ran away. He came back to Florida. He believed he was being set up to make it appear that there was a link between him and the KGB ... and then obviously a link between Oswald and the KGB, because of his link to the KGB. And then, Epstein shows up ... and spends a whole afternoon with him at a hotel in Palm Beach. While the HSCA investigation was ongoing, Angleton manipulated several episodes that seemed to extend a cover-up of his own connections with Oswald. The first concerns the creation of the book "Legend" by Epstein, written at the time of the HSCA inquiry, which serves to confuse the public about who Oswald really was, and to portray him as a Russian agent being controlled by deMohrenschildt. At the same time, George was being hounded by Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans to "confess" his role in the assassination ... which he refused to do. In George’s absence after his death, Oltmans came forward with the sensational allegation that de Mohrenschildt had admitted serving as a middleman between Oswald and a plot involving Texas oilmen, anti-Castro Cubans, and elements of the FBI/CIA. As an aside, none of these intrigues and obvious disinformation schemes could have been orchestrated by the Mafia, Cuban intelligence or the Radical Right. Gene

Joe: If you dig into the machinations going on in May 1963, it appears that a covert operation was being run in Haiti, and JFK was being kept in the dark and allegedly "played' by the CIA and his own national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy. In November 1976, DeMohrenschildt was committed to a mental institution in Texas for three months, and a notarized affidavit (by his wife) lists four previous suicide attempts. In the affidavit she stated that George suffered from depression, heard voices, saw visions, and believed that the FBI and the 'Jewish Mafia' were persecuting him. In early 1977, Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans brought George to Europe to negotiate book and magazine rights to his story. Oltmans later claimed that DeMohrenschildt wandered off while in Brussels, and disappeared. In March 1977, de Mohrenschildt re-surfaced in the United States. As the story goes, on March 29th George visited his sister in law in Manalapan, Florida, where his daughter was staying (the reason for his visit). While he was there, George agreed to conduct an interview with journalist Edward Epstein for a feature story to be published in Reader’s Digest. Epstein - suspect by many researchers as a close associate of James Angleton - propagates and embellishes the legend of the Walker shooting and the celebrated backyard photograph of Oswald in his writings. The "third backyard photograph" was allegedly found by George in a piece of luggage which he had left in storage during his 1963-1967 absence in Haiti. The photograph (with Cyrillic handwriting on the back and an inscription addressed to George) shows Oswald in a similar pose to that in WC exhibit CE 133A, but with both arms held higher. Epstein employed a handwriting expert who identified the inscription as Oswald's writing, and concluded the printing on reverse side was consistent with Marina's handwriting. This enabled a conclusion that De Mohrenschildt had been given this incriminating photograph before the assassination. His wife Jeanne later told the HSCA that she had never seen the photo before, and believed it was planted in their belongings while they were traveling in Haiti. Epstein wrote about George’s death: The news came as a shock. I had been in the midst of a four- day interview with De Mohrenschildt, for which I had agreed to pay him a $4,000 "honorarium." I had never before paid anyone for an interview, but De Mohrenschildt had had an extraordinary relationship with the subject of my book, Lee Harvey Oswald. I had reason to believe that he might have been in a position to cast light on Oswald's prior entanglement in the web of intelligence services. He had been, as far as I was concerned, a man of considerable mystery. Even his date of birth—"1911," on one passport, "1914" on another— was in doubt. He had emigrated from Russia via various European countries to the United States in May 1938, and claimed such diverse occupations as insurance salesman, film producer, journalist and textile salesman. In addition, British intelligence suggested that he may have been working for German intelligence. On the day of George’s death, HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi had called and left his card – because de Mohrenschildt was apparently ready to talk. After George's untimely (and inexplicable) suicide, Epstein flew out of Palm Beach before Fonzi could locate or question him. Fonzi had this to say about the suicide death: On the day of George’s death, Gaeton Fonzi had called and left his card – because de Mohrenschildt was apparently ready to talk. Fonzi had this to say about the suicide death: Certainly, it seems that his death was the work of those who wanted to prevent him from telling what he knew. The House Committee was getting started again. He was being asked, I believe, to begin another role in his relationship to the assassination and his testimony before the Warren Commission. Just before he committed suicide, he was taken to Belgium by a foreign journalist. He was, I believe he felt he was, being set up. He was supposed to have a meeting with a KGB official, I believe, but he ran away. He came back to Florida. He believed he was being set up to make it appear that there was a link between him and the KGB ... and then obviously a link between Oswald and the KGB, because of his link to the KGB. And then, Epstein shows up ... and once again, spends a whole afternoon with him at a hotel in Palm Beach. While the HSCA investigation was ongoing, Angleton manipulated several episodes that seemed to extend the cover-up of his own connections with Oswald. The first concerns the creation of the book "Legend" by Epstein. Written exactly at the time of the HSCA inquiry, this book serves to confuse the public about who Oswald really was, and to portray him as a Russian agent being controlled by deMohrenschildt. At the same time, George was being hounded by Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans to "confess" his role in the assassination ... which he refused to do. In George’s absence after his death, Oltmans came forward with the sensational allegation that de Mohrenschildt had admitted serving as a middleman between Oswald and a plot involving Texas oilmen, anti-Castro Cubans, and elements of the FBI/CIA. Gene

DeMohrenschildt’s previous wife in Philadelphia, Phyllis Washington, worked for Radio Free Europe in the early fifties. 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. These connections are a link between Cord Meyer and de Mohrenschildt (Ref. William Kelly 2011). He was subjected to five separate investigations by intelligence during the 1940s and 50s, and could not gain security clearance for OSS work. After the United States entered the war, George Von Mohrenschildet (and apparently his brother) changed their names to de Mohrenschildt, so they would not be viewed as German. De Mohrenschildt had previous experience as a CIA contact for a New York lawyer named Herbert Itkin, knee-deep in anti-Duvalier politics ... he had been introduced to Itkin by none other than Allen Dulles. In 1954, a young oil lawyer named Herbert Itkin arranged a meeting in Philadelphia with Allen Dulles. 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 provided an HSCA deposition that he knew George under his alias as Philip Harbin (De Mohrenschildt's wife, Jeanne, was from Harbin, China). CIA Director Richard Helms later testified that the agency’s “initial interest” in George de Mohrenschildt was because he had been a petrochemical consultant with the ICA, which became part of the Agency for International Development (AID) in 1961. In the early 1960’s, de Mohrenschildt was part of Clint Murchison’s interests in Haiti, and became involved in oil transactions with the dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. A former CIA agent, Herbert Atkin, revealed that Mohrenschildt’s activities in Haiti were actually a cover for his intelligence-gathering operation for the CIA’s attempt to overthrow Duvalier. In May of 1963, he arranged a meeting between Clemard Charles, who grew hemp in Haiti, and Army Intelligence. In 1967, Charles was later connected with a CIA/Haitian Cuban Exile plot to invade Haiti from Florida, a sequel of sorts to the Bay of Pigs. In May 1963, an order was issued for the Ambassador of Haiti to be recalled to Washington, D.C. Just two days after the meeting, an unnamed “charge” is sent to Haiti, purportedly to attend Duvalier's self-coronation. Just four days later (one month to the day after the phony staged attempted "kidnapping" of Duvalier's children), Ambassador to Haiti Thurston is recalled to Washington for "consultation," leaving the U.S. Embassy in Haiti in control of the Charge d'Affaires (Thurston was not returned to Haiti). And just four days after that, DeMohrenschildt arrived in Dallas, hastily packed up his belongings, and tore off to Haiti, arriving on Sunday, 2 June 1963. The U.S. Embassy in Haiti now was in control of the unknown Charge d'Affaires. When de Mohrenschildt moved to Haiti, he remained there for over four years. He and other investors had set up an industrial development enterprise whose work was to include conducting a geological survey of Haiti to plot out oil and geological resources on the island. After the assassination, he returned to The de Mohrenschildt’s later left Haiti in 1967 and returned to Dallas four years after the assassination, to testify before the Warren Commission. HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi noted that in late 1963, several large deposits popped up in de Mohrenschildt's Haitian bank account including one for $200 thousand dollars from a Bahamian bank. This occurred when de Mohrenschildt and one Clemard Joseph Charles, proprietor of the first independent commercial bank in Haiti were supposedly running a sisal plantation, a derelict operation they never went near. In author Dick Russell’s words: “Like Fitzgerald's Gatsby, Baron George Sergei de Mohrenschildt was borne back ceaselessly into the past’. Intrigue and oil were the two constants in the Baron's life. He was an emigrant son of the Czarist nobility who spoke five languages fluently and who, during the Second World War, was rumored to have spied for the French, Germans, Soviets and Latin Americans. The Warren Commission took 118 pages of his testimony to satisfy itself of de Mohrenschildt's benign intent. De Mohrenschildt moved in both European high society and the American underworld, and would have made a splendid character in a Graham Greene novel.

Getting to the bottom of this is ... like pulling teeth (sorry, couldn't resist)

Steve: I appreciate your feedback, but would admit that I actually know very little about either Marina or James Hosty. What little I can find out about James Hosty leads me to believe he didn't much subscribe to anything beyond the storyline published in the Warren Report. Perhaps he was being loyal to his Agency (in spite of his disciplinary treatment) and not wanting to rock the boat. Marina is an entirely different subject for discussion and speculation. Its interesting that, in Agent Fain's September 1961 FBI report, he refers to Marina as an "orphan" and also cites her occupation as "nurse". After consideration of the 2007-2008 books by the Romanian and Czech authors - Ion Mihai Pacepa, “Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination” and Ludvík Zifčák, "We Killed Kennedy" - it got me thinking more broadly. These books do seem to have the flavor of disinformation about them. However, what if (for discussion purposes) Marina was KGB ... and this is a counterintelligence chess game (with Angleton and Company pulling the strings) where the real "patsy" was Marina? Her affiliation with the assassin makes the Soviets and KGB (e.g. Comrade Kostin) look complicit. No wonder they would send false defectors like Nosenko to debunk that notion. Gene PS. Hosty visiting Marina (whom "they" know speaks fluent English) would then make more sense ... which is the original topic of this thread

Paul: I would point you to the Forum thread “Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination”, started by John Simkin in February 2011. That thread points to several books, one in 2007 by Ion Mihai Pacepa, “Programmed to Kill” and another in 2008 by Ludvík Zifčák, "We Killed Kennedy". A review performed by Robert Buchar calls out the reference (on page 157 of the Zifcak book) to the allegation that Marina's stated jobs in health care (hospital, pharmacy) were a cover, and that she was an office clerk in the GRU. Regards, Gene

Steve: I'm not sure how the FBI would have an accurate count of Soviet spouses allowed to defect to the West. As Marina's legend goes, her father had been killed in the war and she lived with her stepfather and mother in Archangel, in the far north of Russia. She then moved to Moldova as a small child and then to Leningrad at age 12. Her Mother, Klavdia, died in 1957 and she moved to Minsk to live with her Uncle Ilya (and his wife Valya), a colonel in the MVD, the Soviet Interior Ministry security service. The notion of no father or mother invokes the imaginative portrait of an orphan being crafted into a deep-cover sleeper agent (and parallels that of Lee Harvey himself). Her testimony over the years contains contradictions and inconsistencies (e.g. she entered a pharmacy school - Pharmacy Technikum - for what the Warren Report later characterized “special training” when she was 14 years old). According to certain authors, Young Marina Prusakova's job in the health sector was a cover; she was actually a personal office clerk in the GRU. Marina is said to have associated with diplomats and high government bureaucrats in Leningrad, and her "clientele" allegedly was foreigners (she would later vaguely admit to being raped by an Afghan ambassador). The CIA purportedly wrote a 29-point report suspecting her of being an intelligence agent. At the beginning of the ARRB (during the 30th anniversary of the assassination), Marina was briefly open to discussion about her early Leningrad experiences. She was somehow involved with the LaFontaine’s and their 1996 book, "Oswald Talked". She also appeared on Oprah and refuted her original testimony about the rifle (she has since refused to make appearances). The INS in Dallas, Texas, have a file (A12530645) on Marina Nikolaevna Oswald, nee Prusakova. Gene

Interview of Former Special Agent James P. Hosty (1952 – 1979) by Jack O’Flaherty, Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, on March 8, 2006: We had an investigation on her under the SOBIR Program, that’s the Soviet Bloc Immigrants and Repatriates Program. They had information, good information from informants, defectors that the Soviets were going to infiltrate the United States with immigrants and repatriates to build up an illegal network of espionage in the event that the diplomatic immunity was taken away from the Embassy people and they could no longer operate. Then they would have a network in this country. There were certain criteria; they had to be within a certain age limit, had to have a certain educational limit and come from Soviet Bloc countries. Marina fit the category perfectly. She was the only the third known Soviet spouse allowed to leave the Soviet Union with their non-Soviet spouse and go to the west. It turns out, we didn’t have it at the time, but as the investigation continued it turned out that Marina’s uncle, the man who raised her, she was an orphan, was raised by her uncle and aunt, her mother’s brother was a MVD Colonel, a full colonel in the MVD in the Gulag section of the prison section. Also, she was a registered pharmacist or the equivalent, the Russian equivalent of a pharmacist so she was not an ignorant little peasant girl as the press tried to pretend she was. You know, the sweet little girl. She was one tough cookie. I interviewed her after the assassination and believe me she isn’t what people think she was. I’m not saying that she was involved. I don’t think she was involved in the assassination of Kennedy but we were looking at her for other reasons.