Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination (52 page)

Another scrawled note in Oswald’s address book, also presumably written in Moscow, reads: “K-42000, 384, 1-2 DINNER, Jelisavcic.”
Jelisavcic, research indicates, was Mikhailo Jelisavcic, the manager of American Express in Moscow. “K-42000” was his telephone number and “384” the number of the room at the Hotel Metropol that was his office. Oswald, of course, had reason to visit American Express—in connection with the imminent journey back to the West. Though American Express had reportedly been used as cover by U.S. intelligence in earlier years, and though documents suggest Jelisavcic was on good terms with U.S. Embassy officials, and though the FBI would years later probe the “possible compromise of Jelisavcic by Soviet intelligence,” there is no basis for the notion that he worked for either U.S. or Soviet intelligence—as some have claimed. Oswald’s scrawled “1-2 DINNER” may merely refer to the hour at which Jelisavcic would be absent from his office. Oswald’s notebook also reflects contact with the Rotterdam American Express office during his forthcoming travel through Holland. (Atlanta route: XVI.616; XVIII.16; Davison’s mother: XVI.37; XVI.50; brief stop?: I.330;
Tilley v. Delta Airlines
, February 1, 1966, http://sc.findacase.com (re. schedule of Delta flight); skimped: HSCA XII.250; Jelisavcic: CD 1115; Memorandum
re
addresses in Oswald address book, FBI file 62-117290 HSCA HQ Bulky file 456x6; SAC New York to Director, December 17, 1968, FBI Airtel, John Armstrong papers, Box 16, Book 2, Tab 20, Baylor University Archives; CIA Appendix C to Chron. of Oswald in USSR, Mary 26, 1964, p. 55; CD 680; Director to SAC New York, January 8, 1965, FBI 105-82555, Oswald HQ file, Section 224; American Express intelligence: AP, July 29, 2010, “The CIA’s Temporarily Unavailable Records,” National Security Archive, June 6, 2012)

171
     Train journey: XVI.137, 144.

Helmstedt: XVIII.168; XVI.144, 147; research contributed by Sidney A. Martin; http://oswaldinholland.weblog.nl; Perry Vermeulen,
Lee Harvey Oswald, via Rotterdam naar Dallas
, Holland: Tirion Sport, 2008.

172
     Accomodation: XVIII.615; I.101 (testimonies, U.S. Embassy staff); Marina—HSCA 11.289, 310; HSCA XII.369 (Marina alternately spoken of Amsterdam and Rotterdam).

Executive session: transcript of proceedings of Warren Commission, January 27, 1964.

Holland research: author’s 1993, drawing on CE 18, pp. 51, 42, 47; Vermeulen,
op. cit.
, http://oswaldinholland.weblog.nl.

173
     
Maasdam
crossing: 1.101, (testimony, Marina Oswald); Report, p. 712; http://oswaldinholland.weblog.nl.

Note 8
: The Oswalds were listed on the
Maasdam
’s passenger list, though the Commission found no one who recalled having seen them on board. Oddly, Marina is on record as having said they “arrived in New York
by air
[author’s emphasis]
… stayed in some hotel in New York City for one day and then went by train to Texas [author’s emphasis].” Though Marina spoke in the presence of two qualified translators, the anomaly—the author guesses—was probably the result of an error in translation. (ship’s manifest, obtained by author, 1993;
“by air”
: XXIII.407–Secret Service report of Marina Interviews, November 26–28, 1963)

174
     Raikin: Report, p. 173.

American Friends: “From Dallas to Watergate” by Peter Dale Scott,
Ramparts
, November 1973.

Oswald & anti-Castro exiles: The reference is to 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. See Chapter 17, “Blind Man’s Bluff in New Orleans.”

Form Oswald signed: XIX.680.

175
     ONI no action: John Newman,
op. cit.
, p. 264.

Not placed on list: XVII.801.

FBI security case: Report, p. 434.

FBI asked Oswald: Report, p. 434.

Declined polygraph: Dallas FBI office memorandum to HQ, July 10, 1962, Sen. Int. Cttee.,
Performance of Intelligence Agencies
, p. 88.

case closed: Report, p. 435.

Note 9
: There would be further contacts between Oswald and the FBI in the period leading up to the assassination, and the nature of his relationship with the Bureau—to be covered later in these pages—is clouded.

Fox: Epstein,
Legend
,
op. cit.
, p. 312.

176
Note 10
:
Webster has appeared earlier in these pages, in Chapter 9:
Note 6
and Chapter 10:
Note 5
. Other returning defectors questioned were Libero Ricciardelli, a World War II Air Force hero who returned from Russia with his family in 1963, and Bruce Davis, a soldier who had deserted from the U.S. Army in Germany. The Assassinations Committee Report found, however, that the CIA did not automatically contact returning defectors. Indeed, an Assassinations Committee study found that of twenty-two returnee defectors who returned in the relevant timeframe (out of an original list of 380) only four were interviewed by the CIA. (Ricciardelli/Davis: HSCA, XII.437, John Newman,
op. cit.
, p. 184; not automatically: HSCA Report, p. 209).

“Laying on interviews”:Casasin to Haltigan, November 25, 1963, CIA, HSCA Record no. 104-10059-10181.

“REDWOOD”/ “KUJUMP”: Research Aid: Cryptonyms and terms in Declassified CIA Files, www.nara.gov.

Note 11
: Having previously been released with redactions, Casasin’s memo was in released virtually in full in 1996. “Thomas Casasin” is a pseudonym, not a real name. The sense makes clear that the timeframe of the discussion by CIA officers was mid-1962—the Assassinations Committee accepted that a reference in the memo to “1960” was incorrect. Committee interviews located no other CIA employee who recalled the discussion, and found no evidence of Agency contact with Oswald. (redactions: HSCA IV.210; not real name: Memo for the Record, June 29, 1978, HSCA Record no. 104-10066-10201; not “1960”/no other: HSCA Report, p. 208)

177
     Deneselya: HSCA Report, p. 208, Henry Hurt,
Reasonable Doubt
, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1985, p. 247–, Russo,
op. cit.
, p. 122–, Ewing to Gabrielson, June 5, 1980, JFK Box no. 59, Folder F15, www.maryferrell.org, citing UPI March 31, 1980 & see “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald,” by Joan Mellen, www.maryferrell.org.

Psychiatrist: CBS Evening News, June 30, 1975, Epstein,
Legend
,
op. cit.
, p. 312n14, HSCA XII.451.

Note 12
: Deneselya reportedly first told his story to Senator Richard Schweiker of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and certainly did tell it to the Assassinations Committee. He talked with PBS’s
Frontline
program in 1993, and has spoken with other researchers. The Assassinations Committee looked for but failed to locate the contact report to which he referred.

There are numerous CIA reports on an American named Marvin Kantor, who had made two visits to Minsk, and had—like Oswald—once served in the Marine Corps. Details about Kantor, however, do not fit the man referred to by either Deneselya or by the unnamed psychiatrist. Unlike Oswald, Kantor was not a defector—he had a relative in Minsk—and had not worked at the Minsk plant. He returned to the United States with a Danish wife, not a Soviet bride, and came back not in 1962 but in 1961. There remains the possibility that the unnamed psychiatrist’s subject, as he himself wondered, might have been not Oswald but returned defector Robert Webster. Webster had lived with a woman in the USSR, but he had not married her and did not bring her with him to the United States. (Deneselya: as sourced above; Kantor: Kantor entry, Mary Ferrell database, www.maryferrell.org; DDP, CIA to Director, FBI September 1, 1961, NARA 104-10173-10084, August 23, 1963, NARA 104-10173-10085, & undated, NARA 104-10173-10990; DDP, CIA to Director, Civil Service, May 6, 1964, NARA 104-10173-10087; Metz to Director, FBI, March 2, 1965, NARA 104-10059-10182; see references to Webster
supra
.)

“Andy Anderson”: (“signed off”/ officers) Russo,
op. cit.
, p. 122, citing work with “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald,”
Frontline
, November 16, 1993; (consultant) John Newman, int. for
Frontline
; (“Anderson” document) MFR
re
Oswald/Alvarado, December 3, 1963, NARA 104-10408-10347.

Note 13
: For a
detailed summary of the Anderson entry and its discovery by Newman, see Gus Russo,
op. cit.
, p. 122–.

178
     former deputy chief:
ibid
.; and
VF
, December 1994.

“big billboard”: int. John Newman.,
VF
, December 1994.

Moore: int. Jeanne de Mohrenschildt, & see de Mohrenschildt sources in Chapter 12.

12. Oswald and the Baron

179
     Jeanne de Mohrenschildt quote: Bill O’Reilly int. 1977 for WFAA TV, cited at www.reopenkennedycase.net.

Gregory call: II.337, testimony of Peter Gregory.

de Mohrenschildt: Report, p. 282–; (de Mohrenschildt background) IX.166, 285–testimony of de Mohrenschildt; FBI file on de Mohrenschildt; HSCA XII.49-; HSCA Report, p. 217–; author’s interviews with Jeanne de Mohrenschildt, 1978–1979. Except where indicated, material on De Mohrenschildt is taken from these sources.

Note 1
: George de Mohrenschildt’s father, Sergei von Mohrenschildt, had been a Marshal of Nobility in the province of Minsk, where decades later Oswald had spent most of his time in Russia. George had grown up on a family estate in Poland, trained at the elite Polish cavalry academy, then studied at a university in Belgium. He had come to the United States in 1938.

180
     OSS: CIA document 18-522—Helms memo to Warren Commission; (application) CD 531.3; CD 777A.3; CD 533.57.

Cogswell:
New York Daily News
, April 12, 1977; see, however, HSCA XII.60, noting that Cogswell generated information on De Mohrenschildt for HSCA.

CIA file shows: CIA document 18-522.

Offer to State Department: Report, p. 283.

181
     Something for State Department?: testimony of Mrs. Igor Voshinin, HSCA VIII.425.

Note 2
: De Mohrenschildt told the Warren Commission he had never been an agent of any government, or been in the pay of any
government, except the American government, the ICA (International Cooperation Administration, a forerunner of AID, the Agency for International Development). In an unpublished memoir, obtained later by the Assassinations Committee, he wrote: “I never, never worked for CIA.” (IX.212 & XII.314)

Orlov interview: Epstein,
Legend
,
op. cit.
, p. 314.

Bouhe: testimony, VIII.355.

De Mohrenschildt on Moore to Warren: IX.235–.

Note 3
: In a muddled answer, de Mohrenschildt said in his testimony that the others with whom he might have spoken about Oswald were George Bouhe, the doyen of the Russian community in Dallas, and/or Max Clark, an attorney who had previously been head of security for the Convair Aircraft Corporation (IX.235–, & see FBI agent James Wood’s report, March 22, 1964, Everett Glover statement to FBI, February 28, 1964, CD 555 & HSCA XII.54.

182
     Moore employed: HSCA Report, p. 217–; HSCA XII.54.

Jeanne on Moore: ints. 1978/1979.

Note 4
: George de Mohrenschildt himself referred to the meeting with Moore in an unfinished manuscript he left behind at his death. “A short time after meeting Lee Harvey Oswald, before we became friends,” he wrote, “I was a little worried about his opinions and his background. And so I went to see Mr. J. Walton Moore, to his office … and asked him pointblank: ‘I met this young ex-marine, Lee Harvey Oswald. Is it safe to associate with him?” And Mr. Moore’s answer was: “He is OK. He is just a harmless lunatic.”

On the day he died, in 1977, de Mohrenschildt claimed in an interview: “I would never have contacted Oswald in a million years, if Moore had not sanctioned it.” The interview, with author Edward Epstein, was never completed—nor did the Assassinations Committee ever hear his account. Hours after speaking with Epstein, and on hearing that a House Asassinations Committee investigator wished to speak with him, de
Mohrenschildt was found shot dead—an apparent suicide. The ensuing investigation established that de Mohrenschildt had suffered from depression, had spent three months in a mental institution the previous year, and had made previous suicide attempts. What he wrote in his unfinished manuscript—if relevant passages were written in the months before his death—and what he told Epstein, are obviously of dubious value. That is why later statements attributed to George de Mohrenchildt material have been relegated to this note.

Jeanne de Mohrenschildt, however, was entirely rational in lengthy conversations with the author, and appeared to have good recall. The one conflict between her account of the initial conversation with Moore and her late husband’s was that she said the exchange with Moore occurred not at Moore’s office but over dinner at the de Mohrenschildt’s home.

Research in 2012 indicated that a large number of documents on de Mohrenschildt are still withheld. (Manuscript: obtained by author from attorney Patrick Russell, & see HSCA XII.69–; “I would never”: Edward Epstein,
The Assassination Chronicles
, New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992, p. 559; HSCA investigator: Gaeton Fonzi,
The Last Investigation
, New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1993, p. 192; shot dead: Death Investigation, Palm Beach, Florida, Sheriff’s Office, March 29, 1977; Jeanne: ints. by author 1978–1979; documents withheld: NARA withholding list shared with William Kelly.

“No commenting”: Epstein,
Legend
,
op. cit.
, p. 315n15.

Moore fobbed off: “Three Witnesses,” Dick Russell article,
New Times
, June 24, 1977.