50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Oswald's CIA Connection

According to Chapater VI of the Warren Commission Report, entitled "Investigation of Possible Conspiracy," former CIA Director John McCone and former CIA Deputy Director Richard Helms "testified before the commission that no one connected with the CIA had ever interviewed Oswald or communicated with him in any way." Yet according to a 1990s published book, a friend of Oswald prior to November 22, 1963--the late baron George de Mohrenschildt--was connected to the CIA. As The Man Who Knew Too Much by Dick Russell noted:

"The CIA is on record as having itself been utilizing de Mohrenschildt's services...Only a few hours before he died on March 29, 1977, the baron told the story to journalist Edward Jay Epstein. De Mohrenschildt related that, late in 1961, J. Walton Moore, in charge of the CIA's Domestic Contact Service [DCS] in Dallas, had taken him to lunch. Moore described an ex-Marine working at an electronics factory in Minsk, who was soon to return to the United States and in whom the CIA had `interest.'

"...In the Summer of 1962, de Mohrenschildt maintained that an `associate' of J. Walton Moore provided him Oswald's address in Fort Worth, suggesting the baron might want to meet him. De Mohrenschildt called Moore, noting that in exchange for his services with Oswald, the State Department might assist him with an oil exploration deal he was trying to make in Haiti.

"Moore, de Mohrenschildt said, then `encouraged' him to pursue an Oswald relationship..."

The Warren Commission Report also observed that former CIA Director McCone "stated unequivocally that Oswald was not an agent, employee or informant of the CIA." Yet, according to The Man Who Knew Too Much, de Mohrenschildt's wife, Jeanne de Mohrenschildt "said she knew that Oswald had been sent to the Soviet Union by the CIA."

According to Appendix XIII of the Warren Commission Report, entitled "Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald," after "Oswald first came into the office of the Texas employment commission" on October 9 [1962], he "was referred to Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall Col." on Oct. 11, 1962 "in response to a call from John Graef, head of the photographic department of the company, who had told the employment commission that he needed a photoprint trainee" and who "picked" Oswald "over several other applicants."

What the Warren Commission Report failed to mention, however, in its Biography Of Lee Harvey Oswald" appendix, according to The Man Who Knew Too Much, was that "By October 1962" the apparently CIA-connected de Mohrenschildt "also landed Oswald his job at JCS [Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall photo-lithograph firm]." In the same book, author Dick Russell also recalled that when he visited the de Mohrenschildts in Dallas in July 1976 and talked with Jeanne de Mohrenschildt about what actually happened on November 22, 1963, Jeanne de Mohrenschildt replied: "Of course the truth has not come out. We know it was a vast conspiracy and Oswald did not shoot the president."

(Downtown 4/28/93)