“Official Stories” by Liam Scheff takes apart the contemporary myths of geo-politics, culture and science, from vaccines and HIV, to Big Bang myths and the dead-end of “survival of the fittest.” Here we present an excerpt from chapter 3 – the second on the CIA in the book, which culminated in what E. Howard Hunt called “The Big Event,” the assassination of our 35th president, in a chapter called, “JFK – Turn Right On Houston.”
Here’s a name we don’t learn in school: George de Mohrenschildt. Born in Russia in 1911, he emigrated to the U.S in 1938. He was strongly anti-communist.
His brother joined the OSS’s (early CIA’s) overseas operations in Europe, to fight the Communists in Russia. George appeared to have some alliances with the Nazis; he said that was to get back what was stolen by the Stalinists, but who knows.
In his 30s, George (“deM” for short) applied for work with the CIA; they (the official story goes) looked askance because of his “Nazi” leanings. But the rest of George’s life was marked by meetings with CIA and U.S. intelligence and government officials in the U.S., Haiti, Mexico and Europe.
He was a petroleum geologist and a member of the oilmen’s secret clubhouse – the Dallas Petroleum Club. He was wealthy, traveled internationally and spoke at least five languages. He was regularly debriefed by CIA and I think reported to them for instruction.
Because it was George De Mohrenschildt who became (putative Kennedy assassin) Lee Oswald’s new best friend in Dallas. He was 31 years his senior, from a class and a level of training that the “lone nut” version of Oswald never achieved. What did they have in common?
They spoke Russian together. George deM declared that Lee was “remarkably fluent.” Go figure. I guess those lessons and that time being a defecting expatriate, really paid off.
But wait – how’s this for connected? George deM was a personal friend of the Bush family. His nephew went to boarding school with a cousin of President Bush, the first. George deM even wrote George Bush, Sr. a personal letter asking for a favor in 1976 and got a personal reply. We’ll get to that in a minute.
Dear George
George deM was a popular and connected man. He was close with the socialite Bouvier family of New York. He even bounced little Jackie on his knee when she was a young girl. She called him “Uncle George.”
Pause. Rewind. George de Mohrenschildt bounced young Jackie Kennedy on his knee? The man who became best friends with “lone nut” Lee Harvey. Bounced the wife of the future assassinated president. On his knee.
(Bring out the coincidence meter! Plug it in! Type in the sentence. Oh no, we’ve broken the coincidence meter!)
No, this wasn’t a coincidence. This was planning. This guy was chosen. He’s CIA. Setting up a patsy. Or, believe what you like, but for reasons omitted from all official versions, George took Lee right under his wing. It was George deM who got Lee the job at the military map makers. It was George deM who introduced Lee and his wife Marina to a woman named Ruth Hyde Paine.
It was Mrs. Paine who facilitated the weirdness in Oswald country. She conveniently and oh-so-amicably separated from her husband in 1963, just in time for Marina to move in, because she and Lee were on the outs.
Ruth Paine became Marina’s new best friend. Lee rented a room elsewhere, visiting the family on weekends, but still got Marina sufficiently pregnant to have another child, while she was at Paine’s. Paine got Lee a job at the school book depository looking down on Elm and Houston Streets, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas.
In October, 1963. Five weeks before. The President arrived. Just in time to use his extraordinary Russian, map-making and radio-operating skills…stacking textbooks.
But who was Ruth Paine? Her father worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development. So did her brother-in-law. And U.S.A.I.D. functions as? A CIA front-operation.
Lee took the job stacking school books for a few dollars a day, until the fateful day that John F. Kennedy’s limo rolled down Elm street, under the open windows of the buildings looming over…Open windows? Hold that thought.
In 1976, George deM wrote to…you might not believe me, but it’s true. He wrote the head of the CIA, personally, in a hand-written note and asked him for help. George deM said he was being hounded for what he’d said and written about Lee Oswald. He got a letter back from the head of the CIA, addressing him not as Mr. De Mohrenschildt, but as “George.”
Who did he write, but another George. George H.W. Bush, future V.P. and President, then head of the CIA. Bush told him, essentially, politely, in the cold tones only a Connecticut Yalie can master, to go fuck himself. Here’s how he put it:
“I can only speculate that you may 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. George Bush, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
De Mohrenschildt was dead weeks later, with intelligence officers looking for his “little black book.” That address book was retrieved by an honest investigator working to reveal information about assassinations. In the book was found a name and address: “Bush, George H. W. (Poppy), 1412 W. Ohio also Zapata Petroleum, Midland.” I guess they did know each other, after all.