by Russ Baker
Oltmans was the son of an affluent family with a history in colonial Indonesia. A Dutch citizen, he had graduated in the same Yale University class as William F. Buckley, and was a strident anti-Communist. Though he had no apparent connections to Dallas, Oltmans was drawn into conservative circles in that city shortly after Allen Dulles’s forced resignation and about the time that the CIA’s Dallas officer J. Walton Moore began talking to George de Mohrenschildt about Lee Harvey Oswald. Oltmans’s reason for visiting at that time was an invitation to give occasional lectures to women’s groups. Those female auxiliaries played important support roles in Dallas’s highly politicized and archconservative elite, as did the White Russian community, the independent oilmen, and the military contractors and intelligence officers.
Oltmans’s name appears on a schedule of upcoming speakers at the Dallas Woman’s Club published in the Dallas Morning News in October 1961. The leadoff speaker for that season: Edward Tomlinson, “roving Latin American editor” for Reader’s Digest.
Oltmans’s next invitation to speak to the Dallas ladies appears to have been in January 1964, shortly after Kennedy’s assassination. At that time, Oltmans met Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother on a plane (a coincidence, he said). She mentioned to him her suspicions about the fact that the Dallas police had interrogated her at length about her son but failed to record the important biographical details she provided them. She told Oltmans that she suspected a conspiracy at work.
From that moment forward, in his telling, Oltmans was hooked on the JFK mystery. He interviewed George and Jeanne de Mohrenschildt in 1968 and ’69 and remained in touch with them in the years that followed. George de Mohrenschildt got so comfortable with Oltmans that in early 1976 de Mohrenschildt sent him a few pages of a manuscript about his life, with an emphasis on his interactions with Oswald. Oltmans edited the incomplete and stiffly written pages and sent them back to de Mohrenschildt.
Meanwhile, others outside Washington were also becoming interested in reexamining the JFK assassination. One was the world’s largest-circulation publication, Reader’s Digest. With its wholesome portrayal of America, it was almost standard issue in every doctor’s waiting room. Less well known are its longtime ties to government, in particular the close historic relationship of the magazine’s top brass with J. Edgar Hoover and the CIA. One of the most powerful figures on the board that ran Reader’s Digest was Nelson Rockefeller’s brother, Laurance.33
Here’s how the magazine explained its interest in the assassination— one that would culminate in its reporter’s meeting George de Mohrenschildt in 1977 on the day he died:
For years Digest Managing Editor Fulton Oursler, Jr., had been fascinated by the cascade of conflicting reports surrounding the findings of the Warren Commission. In early 1975, as fresh information began to seep out of the Senate’s Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, and as certain documents began to be available through the Freedom of Information Act, Oursler’s interest sharpened. “How could it be,” he asked his colleagues, “that there was a major investigation in 1964, and that 11 years later people are still [italics in original] coming up with new information?” Oursler believed that the Digest should attempt a definitive examination of the enigmatic assassin.
As the above excerpt shows, Oursler seemed less interested in uncovering new information than in investigating why new information continued to emerge. An extreme conservative and a reliable editorial customer for Hoover’s propaganda wares, Oursler apparently felt that the solution for the Reader’s Digest editors was to reassure the American mainstream of Oswald’s guilt.34
The Digest editors decided it would be advisable to retain an outsider to write the book, and they turned to Edward Jay Epstein. Epstein had written his master’s thesis at Harvard on the Kennedy assassination, as well as a book called Inquest, which was a comparatively mild critique of the Warren Commission’s investigation.
Epstein’s skepticism of the commission’s conclusions regarding Oswald made him seem a credible “expert” to later argue the opposite: that Lee Harvey Oswald had indeed shot Kennedy—and moreover, that he had done it as a Soviet agent. This was the version of the assassination tale told by James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s longtime head of security; it became the explanation preferred by hard-line “cold warriors.”
That the Digest should adopt Angleton’s account is not really that surprising, especially when one learns that the magazine’s interest was at least to some degree externally stimulated. The magazine editors had been approached by “Jamie” Jamieson, a CIA officer who had purportedly left the agency but now interacted with the media as a “consultant” to it. He arranged interviews with Soviet defectors and ghostwrote articles for them. At this point, Jamieson was ghostwriting a book by Yuri Nosenko, who had defected from the Soviet Union before Kennedy’s assassination. Nosenko had originally claimed that Oswald had no ties to Soviet intelligence, but had now reversed himself. Jamieson suggested to the Digest editors that they publish a new book about the Kennedy assassination—one in which Nosenko’s new claims about Oswald as a Soviet agent would play a central role.
As noted above, in CIA debriefings, Nosenko had originally insisted that the KGB had no ties to Oswald. The defector stuck with that story despite an unusually long and harsh period of interrogation ordered by Angleton. Nosenko had insisted that the Soviets considered Oswald an odd duck and possible CIA double agent during his residency in the Soviet Union; the KGB concluded Oswald had no operational usefulness to the Soviet spy system.
Epstein, however, citing confidential, unnamed sources and classified materials, asserted that Nosenko himself was a double agent who had defected to the United States in order to provide a cover story for Oswald— who, Epstein concluded, was a Soviet agent too. The problem with Epstein’s theory, which he revealed later in his own writings, was that his source for most of this was none other than Angleton, the CIA’s longtime chief of counterespionage who had been fired by then-director William Colby.35
Angleton was considered paranoid by many people in the agency; he saw Russian moles everywhere, and he had been a staunch Dulles loyalist.
Epstein has claimed that he was reluctant to take on the new JFK assassination book project. He did not say why—and did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages from me seeking more information. But once he acquiesced to Oursler’s request, he worked quickly. He managed to publish Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1978, beating the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) to the punch, and perhaps partially influencing its conclusions.36
With the assistance of two Reader’s Digest staffers, Epstein was able to contact virtually every witness of interest, thereby getting to them just ahead of House investigators. Among these was Oswald’s shipboard roommate from his initial passage to Russia—who coincidentally was from the Bush hometown of Midland, Texas. The roommate, Billy Joe Lord, had just sent a letter to President Jimmy Carter, asserting that there was a conspiracy involving the CIA and FBI. Lord would later complain to the FBI that Epstein’s team tried to intimidate him into cooperating. He said the Digest researchers even sought to exert pressure by invoking the Bushes, and also Jimmy Allison, Poppy’s political lieutenant, who had by then returned to Midland. Allison was the publisher of the local daily, where Lord worked.
For almost a year, Epstein traveled the world with unusual access to top CIA officials. He even stayed as a guest of former-CIA-director-turned-ambassador Richard Helms in Tehran, Iran. He also talked with Angleton at his home in McLean, Virginia, and inspected his famous orchid collection. On April 22, 1976, according to Epstein, he conducted a brief interview with George de Mohrenschildt, but found him less than forthcoming.
Meanwhile, support continued to mount in Congress for a special investigation of assassinations—a list which now included not just John F. Kennedy but also Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. On September 17, 1976, after month
s of heated debate, the House voted to open a new investigation. The House Select Committee on Assassinations soon had a staff of 170 lawyers, investigators, and researchers.
As the HSCA became a reality, George de Mohrenschildt’s urgent plea arrived at CIA headquarters for Director Bush. The missive appears to have been intercepted by a member of Bush’s staff, who wrote on a routing slip, “Mr. Bush, do you know this individual?” followed by boxes for “yes” and “no.” Bush had marked “yes.” Under “Remarks,” a staffer wrote: “I was going to forward this to DCI security—but since it’s a ‘Dear George’ letter and from Texas, I thought I should run it through you on the off chance that it is a friend of the Director’s.”
Bush himself typed an internal memo, which appeared on the director’s stationery:
I do know this man DeMohrenschildt.
I first men [sic] him in the early 40’3 [sic]. He was an uncle to my Andover roommate.
Later he surfaced in Dallas (50’s maybe).
He got involved in some controversial dealings in Haiti.
Then he surfaced when Oswald shot to prominence. He knew Oswald before the assassination of Pres. Kennedy.
I don’t recall his role in all this.
At one time he had /or spent plenty of money.
I have not heard from him for many years until the attached letter came in.37
GB 9-17
Bush’s memo appears to be a case study in dissembling and obfuscation: pure spycraft posterior-covering by a consummate intelligence bureaucrat. How could the head of U.S. intelligence “not recall” the role of a friend in the Kennedy assassination, and apparently not even be interested? And if he couldn’t remember de Mohrenschildt’s role in the assassination, how could he remember that he had gone to Haiti? And why would he even remember such a thing as that de Mohrenschildt had “controversial dealings in Haiti” when he could not recall de Mohrenschildt’s certainly more controversial dealings with Oswald? It would have been amusing had the subject not been so literally dead serious.
Poppy was being no more candid in his assertion that he had not heard from de Mohrenschildt “for many years.” In fact, the two appear to have maintained sporadic contact. In 1971, as U.N. ambassador, Poppy Bush wrote to the State Department on behalf of de Mohrenschildt, who claimed to be in a dispute with the Haitian government.38 (A bureaucrat replied to Bush that the matter was essentially a private one and that it would be inappropriate for the State Department to intercede.)
And as recently as 1973, when Bush headed the Republican Party, de Mohrenschildt had sent him an amiable update note, mentioning that he was now teaching at a small private college and urging federal support for such schools.
“And we shall vote for you when you run for President,” he had concluded. “Your old friend G. DeMohrenschildt.”39
From One George to Another
By the fall of 1976, however, when his note was passed through official CIA channels, de Mohrenschildt was no longer upbeat. In fact, as the content reveals, he was terrified:
Dallas, Sept. 5
Dear George,
You will excuse this hand-written letter. Maybe you will be able to bring a solution to the hopeless situation I find myself in.
My wife and I find ourselves surrounded by some vigilantes; our phone bugged; and we are being followed everywhere. Either FBI is involved in this or they do not want to accept my complaints. We are driven to insanity by the situation.
I have been behaving like a damn fool ever since my daughter Nadya died from [cystic fibrosis] over three years ago. I tried to write, stupidly and unsuccessfully, about Lee H Oswald and must have angered a lot of people—I do not know. But to punish an elderly man like myself and my highly nervous and sick wife is really too much.
Could you do something to remove the net around us? This will be my last request for help and I will not annoy you any more.
Good luck in your important job.
Thank you so much.
Sincerely,
G. deMohrenschildt
2737 Kings Road, Apt 142
Tel 521-1309 (a/c 214) Dallas 75219
This was an interesting letter for a number of reasons. For one thing, what was de Mohrenschildt thinking when he said he “must have angered a lot of people” by trying to write about Oswald? His writing efforts had never been published, nor had any mention of those efforts. The only person who definitely knew about de Mohrenschildt’s “writings” was the Dutchman Willem Oltmans. De Mohrenschildt was clearly referring to a limited circle of people who knew about his activities and had something at stake.
To anyone in CIA headquarters who saw the note before it reached the director, it likely appeared desperate and stressed, which explains the comments on the routing slip about passing it along to security.
But to anyone familiar with the saga itself, other things stood out. De Mohrenschildt clearly saw George H. W. Bush as someone he could trust and who had the power to do something about these problems. He appeared to be suggesting that Bush might actually be familiar with the situation and the basis for the harassment.
There’s just a hint of the shared shorthand of the sort that intelligence people and others use when communicating something sensitive. It feels as if he is saying to Bush, We both know what is going on here, and please make it stop. There is also a hint amid the ingratiating self-deprecation that there could be adverse publicity consequences should this become public: “to punish an elderly man like myself.”
Bush’s staff prepared a boilerplate response. And they attached to it this memo to Bush:
The attached suggested draft to Mr. DeMohrenschildt was written without knowledge of the flavor of your personal relationship with him. The tone may not be appropriate, but the message boils down to the fact that neither CIA nor the FBI appear to have been interested in Mr. DeMohrenschildt for a number of years.
On September 28, 1976, a letter likely reflecting his staff’s suggested language went out to de Mohrenschildt at his Dallas address.
Dear George:
Please forgive the delay in my reply to your September 5th letter. It took time to thoroughly explore the matters you raised.
Let me say first that I know it must have been difficult for you to seek my help in the situation outlined in your letter. I believe I can appreciate your state of mind in view of your daughter’s tragic death a few years ago and the current poor state of your wife’s health. I was extremely sorry to hear of these circumstances.
In your situation, I can well imagine how the attentions you described in your letter affect both you and your wife. However, my staff has been unable to find any indication of interest in your activities on the part of Federal authorities in recent years. The flurry of interest that attended your testimony before the Warren Commission has long since subsided. I can only suspect that you have become “newsworthy” again in view of the renewed interest in the Kennedy assassination and, thus, may be attracting the attention of people in the media.
I hope this letter has been of some comfort to you, George, although I realize I am unable to answer your question completely. Thank you for your good wishes on my new job. As you can imagine, I’m finding it interesting and challenging.
Very truly yours,
George Bush
Director
With his cordial response, Bush could have been strategically establishing a record—a tactic he has been known to employ. This note provides future investigators with alternative explanations for de Mohrenschildt’s disquiet: his daughter’s death and the attentions of the press, neither of which have anything to do with Poppy personally. And in his backhanded way, Poppy implants a whiff of doubt about de Mohrenschildt’s sanity.
For a man who knew what de Mohrenschildt knew, the note must have been terrifying.
DESPITE CIA DIRECTOR Bush’s assurances that de Mohrenschildt had nothing more to fear than hounding from the media, his life quickly took a turn for the worse. In fact, that turn beg
an almost immediately after de Mohrenschildt’s letter arrived on Bush’s desk—and before Bush sent his saccharine reply.