James Hepburn and George de Mohrenschildt

[John Simkin]

Extract from George de Mohrenschildt's, I'm a Patsy (1977):

However another book was published in Luxembourg - to avoid criminal prosecution - and it had an enormous success in Europe. "L'Amerique brule" - America burns - contains over 400 pages of outrageous innuendoes against the American insituations. The writer, James Hepburn, an invented name is actually a group of European newspapermen who had been assembling dirt about the United States. This collective James Hepburn calls both Lee Harvey Oswald and myself CIA agents. Let me translate this nonsense which appears on page 356. "Oswald was suspected, as any other agent returning from a mission in the enemy territory of having been 'manipulated'. He was put therefore under surveillance by CIA and then interrogated and 'tested' by one of the specialists utilized at the same time by Washington (CIA) and by Houston (oil men) and whose 'nom de guerre' was George de Mohrenschildt, and whose nickname was 'Chinaman'".

This 'well-informed' book which still has flashed of success in Europe, goes on describing yours truly: "the Chinaman was 'presumed' to have been born in the Ukraine and was an ex-officer in the Polish cavalry. He was recruited during the war by O.S.S. (Officer of Strategic Services) and was registered in 1944 at the University of Texas where he obtained a degree of geological engineer, specializing in petroleum geology.

The CIA used him in Iran, in Egypt, in Indonesia, in Panama, in Guatemala, in Nicaragua, in San Salvador, in Nigeria, in Ghana, in Togo, in Haiti etc. where he worked - in principle - for the Sinclair Oil Company.

George do Mohrenschildt was closely connected with petroleum circles (and member of Dallas Petroleum Club, of the Alilene Country Club, of the Dallas Society of Petroleum Geologists) and had close personal connections with the managers of the following companies: Kerr McGee Oil Company, Continental Oil Company, Cogwell Oil Equipment, Texas Eastern Corporation and also with John Mecom (of Houston). He was a distinguished and cultured man (Mr. Hepburn obviously buried me already) who was part of the establishment and frequented the Social Register of New York. His wife, a White-Russian lady, burn in China, worked frequently with him.

Another of his covers was the International Cooperation Administration (I.C.A. - sic) in Washington."

This "book" also accuses Lee of working for a photographic firm in Dallas, a cover for CIA, which specialized in making and reproduction of maps and confidential documents for the United States Federal Government.

But enough of all this nonsense. However, it let us remember, that all these idiocies and distorsions were based on the Warren Report.

If I were a CIA agent, I would not have been so miserably treated by the American Embassy in Port-au-Prince, and especially by the Ambassador.

It is discouraging to say that the Warren Report contained mostly the "words which were put in our mouths" so to say. However, there were a few good and truthful facts in this report. For instance, a friend of mine, an investment banker in Dallas, testified that he met Lee and that he found him intelligent and alert. Another young man, who had lived in Fort Worth, also had some kind of words for my friend.