The Three Barons

by J. W Lateer

  Lawrence and Ame had a son William Samuel who was born in 1936. Ame was listed in the 1940 census as a field welfare worker for the State of Louisiana. She had also listed herself as a worker for her Parish government in the welfare field in another year during that period. Their son William Samuel Orlov was shown in the Louisiana State University yearbook in 1955 and was majoring in commerce. In 1957, William Samuel listed his occupation as an auditor for the State of Louisiana Department of Revenue. William Samuel apparently enlisted in the military after earning an MBA at LSU and served from 1957 to at least 1970 in the Army or the Army Reserves. He was an impressively decorated veteran in Vietnam, gaining several bronze star awards in air action.

  One could ask the question as to whether Orlov had some connection to Military Intelligence. He served at Kelly Field in San Antonio during World War II. Since he enlisted in the Army at age 43 with a wife and child and attained the rank of Colonel in only 3 years, that could indicate service in intelligence or at least his possessing some type of skill that was of special use to the military. He could have gotten a start in Military Intelligence during World War I when he worked as a Field Clerk at the headquarters of the Northeastern Department Army Headquarters. According to one book on the subject, the Northeastern Department headquarters in Boston, along with the other 5 Department Headquarters in other large cities, was very involved with Military Intelligence matters. Riots in major cities, including Boston, were a very real possibility at this time.

  As previously mentioned, in Baton Rouge and Alexandria, Louisiana, Ame’s name along with William Samuel appeared in the city directories in the late 1950’s and up to 1960. Lawrence was not listed. However, beginning in 1961, Lawrence’s name began to be listed in the Dallas city directory, but with no mention of Ame or William Samuel.

  Considering he was educated at Harvard, Lawrence’s professional life seemed rather barren. He was listed as working for BFC Oil & Gas Co while living in Dallas, but the office seemed to move around. At one point, his business address was Suite 931 in the Five Eleven North Akard Building in Dallas. One account in a JFK assassination book describes that building as containing at least one seedy “broom closet” type of office with a JFK witness, an attorney named Jarnigan, in that office. Jarnigan had reported seeing Oswald and Ruby together at Ruby’s club, but had later clammed up. If he worked in the same building as Orlov, the conversations in the parking lot might have been very interesting.

  Like George de Mohrenschildt, the oil business activities of Lawrence Orlov were apparently very basic and attracted no particular notice. This could mean he was getting financial support for some hidden Army Reserve intelligence function or as an informant, especially since he was a regular handball companion of the Agent in Charge of the Dallas CIA Office. There is absolutely no evidence regarding this point and since Lawrence never testified to the Warren Commission or any other investigation, we don’t know anything more than what is in the public record. Due to the fact that the government investigations avoided Orlov like the plague, our theory of his usefulness to the Nazi plotters because of his Jewish background remains very plausible.

  When he died, he was buried at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery in Indiantown, Pennsylvania. The nearby Fort Indiantown Gap was the headquarters of the 4th Psychological Operations Battalion and the 6th Psychological Operations Battalion at various times. This post was used both in the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees in the mid 1970’s and Cuban refugees in the 1980’s. During World War II, troops were sent from Fort Indiantown to the Island of Fiji for deployment in the Pacific. The Fort’s primary purpose is described as a training facility for the Pennsylvania National Guard but it is also described as being fairly far removed from ordinary Army activities due to its remote location. It is possible that Lawrence and Ame moved to Carlisle to be closer to their son William Samuel, who could have been stationed at Fort Indiantown Gap. Or they could have moved there to be closer to friends and service members they knew during World War II if Lawrence had served at Fort Indiantown Gap where he was buried. They had no known connection to Pennsylvania prior to their move there and there is no hint of why they moved from Texas to Pennsylvania.

  Lawrence Orlov’s last residence listed in his Social Security record was Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 43 miles from Fort Indiantown Gap. The Social Security records of Orlov’s wife Ame show that her last Social Security benefit was received in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. However, she only obtained her Social Security card in 1962. Ame died in 1980. Lawrence died in 1989.

  We must consider the fact that Lawrence Orlov was called “Colonel Orlov,” but there is only very general information as to the nature of his military service or where he served. All we know is that he served at Kelly Field in San Antonio in World War II and also in Guam. Further, the Warren Commission, the Garrison Investigation and the House Select Committee on Assassinations completely avoided Colonel Lawrence Orlov. No one interviewed or called him to testify. This was in spite of his key role in welcoming Oswald back from the USSR. The other White Russian Oswald “babysitters” were interviewed and most testified in depth.

  To add all of this information up, it seems remotely possible that there was a “false defector” program and that Oswald was part of that program. That explains why Colonel Lawrence Orlov would be greeting the Oswalds upon their return, especially since Orlov was not a White Russian and did not speak Russian. Orlov could conceivably have been on the receiving side of the false defector program, helping in resettlement and utilization of the returning defectors as intelligence assets. But it was George de Mohrenschildt, not Lawrence Orlov, who took the initiative in seeking out the Oswalds.

  However, Orlov was friends with the head of the Dallas CIA office, J. Walton Moore. Since Moore was likely monitoring Oswald because of involvement with the FBI counter-intelligence function, he could have suggested that Orlov help him out and find a way for the Oswalds to be resettled. This could have purely been a charitable motive. Another theory as to why Orlov was handball partners with J. Walton Moore was that he had a pipeline into the Dallas Jewish community which would undoubtedly be a rich source of information for a CIA agent. There is no information that Orlov and Jack Ruby, who, like Orlov, either was Jewish or had a Jewish extended family in Dallas, had any known relationship with each other.

  When one-time (probable) Nazi agent George de Mohrenschildt first met Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife, Marina, he was in the company of Col. Lawrence Orlov. In a manuscript written by de Mohrenschildt which is appended to the House Select Committee on Assassinations report, de Mohrenschildt mentions Col. Lawrence Orlov. According to de Mohrenschildt, he and Orlov were in Fort Worth on business when they both decided to visit Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife for the first time. De Mohrenschildt mentions that Orlov thought that Marina was beautiful, but that he was not in agreement with Orlov on this point. De Mohrenschildt fails to mention whose idea it was to make the visit. Thus, he leaves the impression that it was the idea of Orlov.

  But de Mohrenschildt also stated at another time that he and Orlov were at the offices of attorney Max Clark on business. Again, it is not stated that the subject of Oswald came up at that meeting, but since Max Clark was married to Princess Scherbatoff, a/k/a Gali Clark, the effect of this story is to associate Orlov together with Gali Clark and de Mohrenschildt in the minds of investigators and later generations of researchers. When de Mohrenschildt quickly follows up the meeting with Orlov and Oswald with a phone call to CIA Agent J. Walton Moore, Orlov is then further embroiled in these relationships.

  George de Mohrenschildt seems to have deliberately tried to incriminate Orlov on the basis of wanting to visit Oswald and his wife Marina. Keep in mind that de Mohrenschildt was likely a Nazi spy at some point and was considered by many officials to be a Nazi sympathizer.

  The big question, of course, is this: George de Mohrenschildt was very likely a Nazi spy and was known to give his Jewish friends a “Hitler Sieg Heil Salute” according to a
uthor Nancy Wertz Weiford. He even gave a speech lauding the Vlasov Army, a group of Nazi collaborators. Why would Orlov, who was apparently Jewish and/or was married to a Jewish wife, be involved in pawning off Oswald to de Mohrenschildt, a Nazi spy and known Nazi apologist? The most obvious answer would be that the Nazis who planned the assassination wanted to taint Orlov, who had a Jewish heritage and wife, with the murder of Kennedy as they tried to taint Jack Ruby.

  If the Warren Commission or other investigators interviewed Orlov, Orlov might have popped off with ramblings about “anti-Semites” like Jack Ruby did during his Warren Commission testimony. And on a more sinister note, if Jewish groups or even the Israeli Mossad got wind of, and were monitoring the assassination plot, then Orlov could have been in there gathering information for the protective Jewish parties watching from afar. This could explain why Orlov was a regular handball player with the Agent in Charge of the Dallas CIA office, J. Walton Moore. This fact could have come out during testimony by Orlov before the Warren Commission.

  The next generation of Orlovs seemed to remain in Carlisle until the 1990’s. Orlov’s son was apparently married and lived a very stable life. As mentioned, William Samuel became a Vietnam War hero and apparently lived an All-American life, despite having the Oswald monkey on the family’s back. At the date of this writing, William Samuel is apparently living somewhere in the Midwest at age 81. In living down this unwanted connection to the Oswalds, one could count him and the Orlov family as minor American heroes in their own right.

  The biggest unsolved issue is where did Colonel Lawrence Orlov live and work from 1948 to 1961? Since Orlov’s wife Ame lived in Baton Rouge as well as Alexandria, it is likely that Orlov lived there also. Two things about Baton Rouge should be mentioned whereby Lawrence Orlov could have become involved with the JFK assassination while living in Louisiana.

  First, segregationists like Leander Perez, DeLesseps Morrison, Guy Banister, James O. Eastland and David W. Ferrie would have been very active with their racist activities in Alexandria and Baton Rouge in the mid and late 1950’s. Since Ame Orlov and Samuel Orlov both found work with the State Government of Louisiana, this could have been due to some connection with the right-wing politics of the Louisiana State Government. Since the Louisiana Sovereignty Commission, the Louisiana Un-American Affairs Committee and the White Citizen’s Councils were rising up around this time, any State employee would be aware of this. The problem is that the Orlovs were of Jewish heritage. It is unlikely that they would have been allowed to join forces with the militant segregationists, much less conspire with them to murder JFK.

  Second, both I G Farben and Standard Oil had giant facilities in Baton Rouge at various times around and after World War II and probably into the 1950’s. As we will discuss in another chapter, IG Farben and Standard Oil both had financial interests which could have been at play in relation to the JFK assassination. Since we don’t know for which oil business Lawrence Orlov worked in Baton Rouge or Alexandria, he could have become an amateur-type operative for one of the powerful oil interests which played a role in the assassination. But there is absolutely no evidence which would suggest this.

  Perhaps more research could reveal whether Colonel Orlov could have been a reservist active in psychological operations for the Army when he was one of the first persons to welcome Lee Harvey Oswald and Marina Oswald back from Russia in 1962. It would be helpful to know the nature of his service in World War I. But there is no real evidence to support any hypothetical relationship to intelligence work one way or the other. For all appearances, Orlov was just caught up in the maelstrom of events with only the best of intentions.

  Jean De Menil

  Jean De Menil, or John de Menil, to which his birth name was changed, was a European who is featured prominently in JFK assassination research. He was born Baron Jean Marie Joseph Menu du Menil in Paris in 1904. In 1931 he married the French heiress Dominique Schlumberger whose family controlled a world-wide oil service corporate empire. Menil was a banker in Paris, but later moved to Houston, Texas and became President of Schlumberger Overseas and Schlumberger Surenco. Schlumberger remains to this day one of the two largest oilfield services companies in the U.S. and probably in the world. Schlumberger provides infrastructure for the production of oil.

  The Torbitt File, published as a book entitled NASA, Nazis & JFK by Adventures Unlimited Press in 1996, makes extensive references to de Menil. It states that de Menil escaped from Russia at some time between 1917 and 1923. This would make him a White Russian. The accuracy of this is unclear.

  The de Menil’s were not White Russian and they lived in Houston, so they were not a part of the Dallas White Russian Community. Further, de Menil and his wife were French Catholics. The reason that they are connected by some researchers to the JFK assassination is twofold.

  First, the Schlumberger company owned a warehouse in Houma, Louisiana. This warehouse was used by the CIA as a weapons depot for the various Cuban Exile covert operations against Castro around the time of the assassination. Some witnesses placed Lee Harvey Oswald in the midst of these operations in 1962 or 1963. The Torbitt file, analyzed in a separate chapter prior to this one and mentioned previously, specifically names de Menil as involved in the plot.

  Second, in her book Me & Lee, Judyth Vary Baker, alleges that Lee Harvey Oswald traveled on the Schlumberger private aircraft when he traveled from New Orleans, to Texas and finally by bus to Mexico City in September, 1963.

  The de Menils and Schlumberger were among the most influential oil people in Texas. Further, Jean de Menil was born a Baron and his ancestor had been made a Baron by Napoleon in 1813. This connection to France and presumably at least an acquaintance with prominent French Catholic fascists would seem to outweigh in significance any connection to White Russians.

  Considering that de Menil was in the midst of wealthy European fascists and equally wealthy Houston oilmen, there are surprisingly few probative details pointing to him as involved in the JFK plot. However, based on the issue of the Houma warehouse and the claim about the use of the Schlumberger aircraft to transport Oswald, de Menil must be included in the organizational chart of the assassination.

  Paul Raigorodsky

  It has been mentioned in our discussion of Baron George de Mohrenschildt, that Paul Raigorodsky was the lay leader of the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Dallas. There is an excellent description of the history of this faith in Dallas in a Wikipedia article viewed on December 10, 2016, the link to which is reproduced in the notes to this chapter.

  Raigorodsky was on oilman like George de Mohrenschildt. He testified as a witness and provided information to the Warren Commission. He died in the same month as his friend George de Mohrenschildt and thus couldn’t testify to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Author Jim Marrs considers this a “mysterious death” although it was regarded by all as a death from natural causes at the time.

  In an article cited later in this chapter, the author Stig states that Raigorodsky and Governor John Connally were investors in the Tryall Compound Resort near Montego Bay, Jamaica. This resort is believed to be a staging or planning area for the assassination in the minds of some JFK authors and researchers. For our purposes, we will only suggest that there was probably a lot of informal and social contact between many of the principals who surrounded the assassination plan, mostly from a distance. We know that the father of JFK’s Treasury Secretary, C. Douglas Dillon whose name was Clarence Dillon had a resort home nearby called “High Rock.” Of course, C. Douglas Dillon commanded the Secret Service so this nexus cannot be entirely discounted.

  The White Russians had two main functions in the assassination plot: First, they served as the welcoming committee for Lee and Marina Oswald upon their return from Russian in 1962. They allowed the Oswalds to reside in their homes periodically.

  Second, they provided confidential translators when the FBI and other agencies interviewed Marina Oswald following the assassination. This allo
wed the FBI to avoid using their own Russian translators. Such an FBI translator would have been a witness to the many inconsistencies and evasiveness of Marina Oswald. Indeed, Marina’s testimony was fixed and rigged. She wound up with $250,000 cash in the bank, supposedly from the many small-time fans she had around the country who sympathized with her. Actually, she was seen secretly entering the offices of oilman H.L. Hunt just a few days after the assassination. So Marina was amply paid with hush money. She spoke only Russian. So Paul Raigorodsky and his friends were crucial in smoothing over the Lee/Marina situation in Dallas.

  Princess Scherbatoff a/k/a Gali Clark

  One of the charming figures in this scenario is Princess Scherbatoff, a Russian Princess married to Texas attorney Max Clark.

  When Lee Harvey Oswald returned from the Soviet Union in June, 1962, he applied for work at the Texas Employment Commission. Virginia Hale, a lady who worked there and whose husband was with the Security Division of General Dynamics in Fort Worth, took an interest in helping Oswald. She gave Oswald the phone number of Max Clark, knowing he was married to Gali Clark who was from Russia and spoke Russian. She apparently had heard that Marina Oswald spoke only Russian or had some similar reason for making this referral to Clark and his wife. These facts can be found on the following website, viewed 12-10-2016 called www.reopenkennedy-case.net.