Did the FBI interview de Mohrenschildt about Walker and Oswald in April 1963?

[Greg Doudna]

Can anyone identify an FBI record that corresponds to or sheds light on this from Jim Hosty, Assignment: Oswald (1996 [2011 edn]) (bold added)?

"[O]ne of Oswald's acquaintances, George DeMorenschild [sic], reported to us that a short time before the Walker shooting, he and Oswald had been discussing politics when Walker's name came up. DeMorenschild mentioned that Walker, who was fervently anti-Castro, was just another Hitler. He told Oswald that Walker was a menace to society and that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea if someone took a shot at him. DeMorenschild told us he had said this in the heat of passion--he hadn't been serious about that comment. But he might have inadvertently put the idea in Oswald's head." (Hosty, Assignment: Oswald, 107)

I can find no FBI interview report of de Mohrenschildt. But on its face, this reads as a claim that there was one. When? Well in 1964 when the FBI had been asked by the Warren Commission to do further interviews, de Mohrenschildt was in Haiti and de Mohrenschildt was not interviewed.

It sounds like an FBI interview of de Mohrenschildt in April 1963 before de Mohrenschildt left Dallas.

But where is this mystery interview?

Hosty refers to de Mohrenschildt having "reported to us", meaning the FBI, but does not say which FBI agent or agents conducted the interview. Was the recipient of that information from de Mohrenschildt on FBI's end possibly Hosty himself? (Since Hosty knows about this interview and no other FBI agent is known to have ever spoken of this.) Hosty says that in this time frame he was investigating Walker.   

"[I]n May 1963 I decided that the Oswalds had had enough time to cool off. It wasn't as if the Oswalds were my only, or even my major, concern. I was heavily involved in investigating the former U.S. Army general and leader of the Dallas-based Minutemen Edwin Walker for possibly inciting a riot at the University of Mississippi in Oxford during a tense confrontation over desegregation. I was under intense pressure from headquarters on the Walker case; they had made it my top priority." (Hosty, Assignment: Oswald, 46)

But why no FBI document or report of an April 1963 de Mohrenschildt FBI interview (or at any other time)?

Then it occurred to me: could that puzzling Hosty paragraph answer a longstanding question in a way that has not heretofore been noticed? For it has always been a puzzle why Natasha Voshinin, who claimed in 1992 to Dick Russell that de Mohrenschildt had visited her several days after April 10, 1963, the night the shot was fired into Walker's house, and told her that Oswald had fired that shot, and that she, Voshinin, absolutely, emphatically, had reported that immediately to the FBI. And yet there is no FBI record of that. (Though Mrs. Voshinin did not mention this in her 1964 Warren Commission testimony, at the end when asked if she had any other information of interest to tell the Commission.)

"[N]ot long after the Walker shooting, Mrs. Natasha Voshinin recalled de Mohrenschildt dropping by to see them one evening. 'He said, "Listen, that fellow Oswald is absolutely suspicious, you are right." Thousands of times before, he would say we were wrong. "Imagine," George said, "that scoundrel took a potshot at General Walker. Of course Walker is a stinker, but stinkers have a right to live." Then he told us something about the rifle ... I immediately delivered this information [from de Mohrenschildt] to the FBI.'

"That last statement seemed to me [author Dick Russell] a remarkable one, for according to the Warren Commission Report, 'The FBI had no knowledge that Oswald was responsible for the attack until Marina Oswald revealed the information on December 3, [1963].' Yet Mrs. Voshinin was saying she had alerted the FBI of the possibility sometime back in April. Had the FBI looked into this at the time? Was the bureau's disclaimer of any foreknowledge in the Walker matter a fabrication, designed to cover up its prior awareness of Oswald?" (Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much [1992, 1st edn], 317-18, citing interview of Natasha Voshinin of 4/5/92)

Could it be (a) the answer to Dick Russell's last question above is "yes", and (b) Hosty's unidentified FBI interview of de Mohrenschildt in April 1963 cited above IS an echo of an FBI followup to the Mrs. Voshinin information?

It reads like it!

The logical thing for the Dallas office of the FBI to do to something incoming as described by Mrs. Voshinin--a declarative information identifying the shooter at Walker as a named person, Oswald--would be to contact and interview the reported source of that information named by Mrs. Voshinin, George de Mohrenschildt.

And what Hosty describes de Mohrenschildt said sounds very much like what it can be imagined de Mohrenshildt could well have answered the FBI in response to their specific questions about the Voshinin report.

Did some sector of the FBI know (as in, believe) within days that Oswald was the suspected shooter at the Walker house the night of April 10, 1963?    

How can Hosty's published paragraph on page 107 of Assignment: Oswald not read as direct confirmation that de Mohrenschildt and the FBI had an April 1963 contact, shortly following the Walker shot, which reads exactly like the FBI had received Natasha Voshinin's phone call report and had followed up on it? 

And how can the FBI say it (the FBI) had no information Oswald was the suspected shooter when Hosty's own statement says de Mohrenschildt told them (and it had to be April 1963 because after that he was gone from Dallas) that he, de Mohrenschildt, had "told Oswald that Walker was a menace to society and that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea if someone took a shot at him".

Oswald is named. And if Hosty was the contact or interviewer of de Mohrenschildt, Hosty already knew who both Lee and Marina Oswald were--he had their file.

So, in April 1963, the FBI is discussing Oswald with reference to the Walker shot. And later denied that altogether to the Warren Commission.

And did that enter into the famous dispute over what Hosty did or did not say to Dallas Police officer Revell on Nov 22, 1963 concerning what Revell said Hosty told him was FBI knowledge that they knew Oswald was capable of killing the president? (affirmed by Revell, denied by Hosty) 

And did that enter into what General Walker always later claimed which has always sounded so crazy, that he was told by someone in the Dallas Police something about the police knew within days of the shot at him that it was Oswald, but that Robert Kennedy, head of the Justice Department, had spiked going after Oswald? Well, Walker did get things garbled, said all sorts of things. The Justice Department would be more likely to have spiked something in the FBI, which was part of the Justice Department, rather than something in the Dallas Police Department, over which they had no actual jurisdiction beyond asking as a favor (and there is no evidence from DPD of any awareness of Oswald as a suspect to the Walker shot prior to Nov 1963). Also, Oswald was never "arrested" as in Walker's garbled claim of the story he heard. But the notion that Oswald was known by name to the FBI early, and they spiked it or did nothing about it, could that be the kernel of truth in Walker's long-held story? A story which first became public the weekend of the JFK assassination with Walker's interview with that newspaper in Germany. 

But if there was awareness internal to the Dallas FBI office of Oswald as a suspect in the Walker shot as early as several days after April 10, 1963 (and if there was, surely that awareness would have gone to headquarters!), why did the FBI not pursue investigation of Oswald then, or inform Dallas Police of the name of Oswald as someone to look at, and later answer falsely to the Warren Commission about it?

Who ever heard of a law enforcement body receiving an otherwise promising investigative lead toward a suspect in a high-profile case that is unsolved with no other promising leads, and covering that up instead of investigating it, for no reason? Why?

I don't know why, but my first supposition is such a decision would have had to have come from headquarters, and my second supposition is there will have been a reason, which in the absence of any more promising possibilities, by default might be not wanting to interfere in some intelligence or informant activity of some other agency (if not one's own). Does someone else have a better analysis to offer?   

[Gerry Down]

Could the FBI have travelled to Haiti to interview GDM after the JFK assassination and this is what Hosty is referring to?

Perhaps an FBI legal attache there interviewed him?

[Tom Gram]

 

6 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Could the FBI have travelled to Haiti to interview GDM after the JFK assassination and this is what Hosty is referring to?

Perhaps an FBI legal attache there interviewed him?

It looks like something like that happened. This document isn’t particularly legible, at all, but it looks like FBI reached out to the American Embassy in Haiti - possibly through an intermediary - immediately after receiving the info from Marina regarding GDM’s alleged comments to Oswald about the Walker shooting:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146078#relPageId=1

This is a state department cable, with sender listed as “Ball”, but it’s not clear if that was Ball from the WC. There’s just a stamp at the bottom that says “BALL”. The date looks like 12/13/63. 

The mostly illegible interview question list is sandwiched by:

FBI requests that the DeMohrenschilts be reinterviewed immediately to:

and

Cable summary of interview, pouch full report.

I don’t have time to look right now, but it seems like finding a better copy of this cable (note the marginalia “best available copy” -_-), the response and attached report may answer some questions. 

The use of the word “reinterviewed” is also kind of interesting. Does that suggest an earlier interview on the same subject, or just that the FBI knew and had spoken with the DeMohrenschilts before? I have no idea - but seeing the question list would certainly help. 

Edited February 26 by Tom Gram

[Mark Ulrik]

16 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

It looks like something like that happened. This document isn’t particularly legible, at all, but it looks like FBI reached out to the American Embassy in Haiti - possibly through an intermediary - immediately after receiving the info from Marina regarding GDM’s alleged comments to Oswald about the Walker shooting:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146078#relPageId=1

This is a state department cable, with sender listed as “Ball”, but it’s not clear if that was Ball from the WC. There’s just a stamp at the bottom that says “BALL”. The date looks like 12/13/63. 

The mostly illegible interview question list is sandwiched by:

FBI requests that the DeMohrenschilts be reinterviewed immediately to:

and

Cable summary of interview, pouch full report.

I don’t have time to look right now, but it seems like finding a better copy of this cable (note the marginalia “best available copy” -_-), the response and attached report may answer some questions. 

The use of the word “reinterviewed” is also kind of interesting. Does that suggest an earlier interview on the same subject, or just that the FBI knew and had spoken with the DeMohrenschilts before? I have no idea - but seeing the question list would certainly help. 

These are readable at least:

DEMOHRENSCHILDT AND WIFE (U.S. CITS) INTERVIEWED AT PORT AU PRINCE EMB
FBI INVESTIGATION RE DEMOHRENSCHILDTS IN DALLAS

[Tom Gram]

28 minutes ago, Mark Ulrik said:

These are readable at least:

DEMOHRENSCHILDT AND WIFE (U.S. CITS) INTERVIEWED AT PORT AU PRINCE EMB
FBI INVESTIGATION RE DEMOHRENSCHILDTS IN DALLAS

Thanks Mark. 

Isn’t the first one from an earlier interview in Haiti? It looks like it. The date says 12/4, but other cable says 12/13. That would explain the use of the term “reinterviewed”. 

We should be able to track down the full reports sent up from the embassy for both interviews, and the cable response from the second. I’d imagine there’d be copies in both State Dept and FBI files, and probably CIA too.

Edited February 26 by Tom Gram

[Stu Wexler]

Back when JFK (the movie) first came out, there was a convocation with Edward Epstein, David Lifton and I think Stone. I attended. Someone needs to dig it up because, in it, Epstein said that in his last interviews with George deM , shortly before George died, he indicated that he told J. Walton Moore about the Walker incident not long after it happened. That is how I remember it but I would love to have that double checked. And to consider how that would even go down with George in Haiti.

[Stu Wexler]

I found it. It was Norman Mailer not Lifton. Here is what Epstein said:

EPSTEIN: George De Mohrenschildt would just be more food for thought. I was with him, I was interviewing him, on a four-day interview, and in the middle he shot himself [Laughter]. I don’t know whether I bored him to death or there were extraneous factors [Laughter]. But the only thing that always interested me about it is the last thing that he pointed to before he went home and got killed. Was that he had a photograph that Oswald had given him, he claimed the night Oswald went to shoot at a right-wing general called Walker.

 

He said that he reported this to the CIA contact man he was with. And why I always found this interesting, going back to the conspiracy that Hitch talks about, is that it would show that if the CIA had had knowledge that he was a potential assassin, they would’ve had reason to do a cover-up no matter what their involvement was. So I always found that fairly interesting. I always consider it another unresolved, mysterious death. But thank you Victor.

[Paul Brancato]

Greg - you are looking for evidence that Hosty or someone from FBI interviewed DeM shortly after the Walker shooting, because, even though Hosty doesn’t provide a date for that interview in his book, the context in the book implies that timing. Then you provide other tidbits that would, if they were true, support that supposition. Apparently there is evidence of an FBI interview(s) in Dec. 1963 in Haiti. There is also the possibility that George was interviewed by FBI when he later came to Dallas to testify to the WC, which I hope I’m correct in assuming took place in Dallas. Neither of those two ideas buttresses your idea. Officially the first time FBI learns of Oswald’s supposed role in the Walker shooting is from Marina after the assassination. As for Walker, even though it’s certainly true that he repeatedly said that he knew that Oswald was his shooter right after the April shooting because DPD (or someone), those statements all postdate Nov 22, 1963. I looked for anything earlier, never found any such evidence. And add to that that his conversation with National Zeitung a few days after that, a newspaper run by a Nazi btw, doesn’t have a clear timeline, at least as far as I was able to determine it. Was it Walker that informed the German journalist that Oswald had previously shot at him, or did that idea come from the journalist? Have you ever looked closely at that? It is assumed that the info came from Walker, but I couldn’t prove that, and suspect it was the other way around. I couldn’t even determine with absolute certainty who called who. If you know differently I’m all ears. 
The Dick Russell source would tend to confirm your idea, and Walker’s assertions. But if there is no corroboration for it that predates the assassination, then I’d rather add it to the list of the post Nov 22 1963 character assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald. 
One more point - who was George DeMohrenschildt really? I contend that we have never gotten to the bottom of that. 

 

[Greg Doudna]

Appreciation to Gerry Down, Tom Gram, and Mark Ulrik on the possibility--likelihood--that the FBI information of de Mohrenschildt referred to by Hosty came from Haiti post-Nov 22. Hosty's reference in his book is non-specific (no date, no interviewer, no footnote), and based on the FBI interest in and relationship to the State Department officials' interviewing of de Mohrenschildt in Haiti, that seems to be what underlies the Hosty reference.

In other words, there is no proof from the Hosty reference for an April 1963 FBI interview or information from de Mohrenschildt re the Walker shot. The question of the topic title is answered satisfactorily to me in the negative, in the sense that there is no strong basis for supposing such. 

Natasha Voshinin's story remains unexplained, but its first appearance in 1992 does not seem sufficient to overcome the absence of other evidence, plus the FBI's denial, that Oswald was not on the FBI's radar re the Walker shot prior to post-assassination. Voshinin's claim is in the genre of it could be true but there is no way of knowing that it is. 

As Stu Wexler notes, Epstein was very strong in reporting that de Mohrenschildt, in his interview on the last day of his life, claimed both to have received a Backyard Photograph from Marina prior to the Walker shot and to have reported Oswald's involvement in the BYP and/or Walker shot to a CIA contact in the Dallas office of the Domestic Contacts Division (Edward Jay Epstein, The Assassination Chronicles [1992], 554-569), in a larger context in which de Mohrenschildt was doing unofficial surveillance of Oswald reporting to the CIA. According to de Mohrenschildt (according to Epstein), the CIA had been informed by de Mohrenschildt of those things in real time. Epstein cites Marina, who said on the record that the BYP with "to my friend George" and "hunter of fascists ha! ha!" inscribed on the back, had been given to de Mohrenschildt prior to April 10, and two unnamed friends of de Mohrenschildt (unfortunately not named and unable to verify) whom Epstein claims confirmed de Mohrenschildt's concern about his possession of that BYP prior to de Mohrenschildt's return from Haiti. In other words, de Mohrenschildt's claim that he never knew of that BYP until 1967, which he claimed he and Jeanne had only belatedly first noticed in their belongings after their return from Haiti, was not true on the timing of that, according to these reports. 

I was surprised to read in the biography of de Mohrenschildt by Nancy Wertz Weiford, The Faux Baron: George de Mohrenschildt (2013), Weiford's argument that de Mohrenshchildt knew at the time (in April 1963) that Oswald had taken the shot at Walker, because Oswald had told him--contrary to de Mohrenschildt's later claims that he suspected but did not know, which become interpreted as de Mohrenschildt understatement. In addition to other argument on that point, Weiford cites a new witness not previously come to attention:

"After the assassination, there were also several instances of George or Jeanne revealing their earlier knowledge of Oswald's complicity in the Walker shooting in April 1963. Alston Boyd, a UT Austin graduate student who later spent a year in Haiti with de Mohrenschildt in 1963-1964, also claimed he never heard George mention Lee Oswald until after the assassination in November, 1963. The next day, November 23, Boyd recalled George telling him that 'Oswald had bragged about taking a shot at General Walker, but that he had missed.'" (p. 361, citing "author interview with Alston Boyd in August, 2003)

Weiford adds this footnote to that:

"During our interviews and correspondence, I really probed this issue with Boyd to ensure he was remembering the incident correctly. Boyd said the conversation with de Mohrenschildt occurred on Saturday, November 23, the day after the assassination. De Mohrenschildt had never spoken of Oswald before the assassination, and it was because of his knowledge of Oswald's shooting at Walker that he immediately thought of Oswald when he heard that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. This was the connection that fixed the conversation so strongly in Alston Boyd's mind." (Weiford, The Faux Baron, 748)

I am in an advanced stage of a rewrite of my earlier paper on the Walker shot, in which I believe there is incontrovertible evidence that Walker aide Robert Surrey had knowledge of and was involved in that shot, was physically present in the alley close by to Oswald at the moment of the shot. I believe strongly that Oswald's involvement in the shot must be accepted due to overwhelming evidence that he was. The question is whether the shot was intended to kill Walker or not. There are three theoretical possibilities: the shooter shot to kill Walker but missed; the shooter intentionally missed; or the shooter fired into an empty room and Walker faked it. All three possibilities are consistent with the physical evidence. The question of which of those three then turns on less-certain assessments of a wider spectrum of evidence and the direct and hearsay claims of persons of interest.   

I intend to argue that if this Alston Boyd witness claim is accurate (the argument that it is, being influenced by plausibility of its accuracy on other grounds), it would weigh against Oswald having shot with intent to kill. If it was really true that Oswald sought to kill Walker to eliminate a Hitler figure for America, then a miss of that shot would be a failure and not something Oswald would brag about. But if the shot was some form of political theater, then that is something that could be consistent with Oswald bragging about it privately to a friend.

[Tom Gram]

I’m still looking for the response cable, but here’s the report on the second DeMohrenschildt interview in Haiti:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=5946#relPageId=11

Comment to Oswald on Walker Incident:

Mr. de Mohrenschildt states that he did not see the gun, but having heard the women mention it, he asked Oswald in a joking manner whether he had taken a shot at Walker. Oswald kept a “poker face”, he recalls, “and sort of waved it away” without saying anything. Mr. de Mohrenschildt explained to Mr. Warner that he has the “habit of kidding”. He added that “it sounds serious now but we all believed the Walker incident was a publicity stunt”. He said “everybody in Dallas” thought Walker had staged this himself for publicity. 

There’s no mention of a pre-shooting conversation with Oswald about Walker. The “habit of kidding” comment could be a veiled reference to something like that, though. 

Edited February 27 by Tom Gram