At this point, December of 1976, Dutch television journalist Willem Oltmans, who had known the Baron since 1967, got in contact with him. When Oltmans encountered the Baron after his hospital stay, he talked him into traveling with him to Amsterdam. There they were to film a series of interviews on NOS television, a large network in the Netherlands. But before the pair departed from Dallas, DeMohrenschildt got a phone call from author Edward Epstein. Epstein was offering the Baron money to be interviewed for his upcoming book about Oswald, entitled Legend.58 The Baron decided to leave anyway with Oltmans. They departed from New York on March 2.59 When they arrived in Amsterdam, Oltmans began negotiating a book and television deal for DeMohrenschildt.60 After a few days in Amsterdam, Oltmans decided to go to Brussels. He was meeting with an old acquaintance named Vladimir Kuznetzov, the Soviet charge d’affaires. According to Oltmans, when they met the Russian, DeMohrenschildt talked to him for awhile in Russian. Oltmans did not understand anything they said. The Baron excused himself to take a walk, and he said he would return in an hour.61 This was the last time Oltmans saw DeMohrenschildt.
The Baron went back to America and stayed with his daughter Alexandra in an affluent Florida town called Manalapan, just south of Palm Beach. Alexandra was staying with her aunt, Mrs. C. E. Tilton. George stayed in touch with Oltmans. And Oltmans, who had been in contact with the HSCA, told Robert Tanenbaum that George was in Florida. While in Manalapan, Epstein tracked down the Baron. They then agreed that DeMohrenschildt would do a series of four interviews with Epstein. The deal was a thousand dollars for each interview session. On March 29, 1977, Epstein was in his second day of interviews with George at the luxury hotel The Breakers in Palm Beach. Gaeton Fonzi was alerted to where DeMohrenschildt was staying and he left his card with Alexandra that day. He said he would call back in the evening. Epstein and DeMohrenschildt then took a lunch break. The Baron drove back to Manalapan in a car rented by Epstein. When he arrived, Alexandra showed him Fonzi’s card, to which George showed no reaction.62 He then went to his bedroom on the second floor to rest. At 2:21 p.m., he was dead from a shotgun blast. His body was discovered by Alexandra at 2:45 p.m.63
It is important to note here that, after DeMohrenschildt’s death, Oltmans seemed to want to write the public epitaph to his life in relation to the Kennedy assassination. For example, within forty-eight hours of his death, Oltmans was testifying in front of the HSCA. Emerging from that testimony, he immediately began giving interviews to the press. (In fact, he had actually been on the ABC show Good Morning America, before he appeared in front of the HSCA.64) At his request, Oltmans’, HSCA testimony had been in executive session— that is, it was secret.65 But now, as he emerged from that secret testimony, he had no qualms telling the public the substance of what he had just said. In a complete reversal of what the Baron had told Dick Russell several months previous, Oltmans now said on camera that DeMohrenschildt had instructed Oswald in his killing of Kennedy. The two had discussed the matter from A to Z. Therefore, DeMohrenschildt knew Oswald was going to kill Kennedy.66 But he immediately added that Oswald was among four of the assassins of Kennedy. Oswald had apparently arranged with some other Cubans for there to be a crossfire in Dealey Plaza.67 DeMohrenschildt also claimed to Oltmans that he knew Jack Ruby and had been in his saloon.68 He seemed to imply that DeMohrenschildt, in turn, had gotten his instructions from Texas oil men Lester Logue and H.L. Hunt. He knew this since Oswald had told DeMohrenschildt that he had written to Hunt.69 Again, this is another reversal. Because when Oltmans asked DeMohrenschildt on camera in 1968 if Texas oil money financed the assassination, the Baron said no it had not.70 Further, when Robert Tanenbaum asked Oltmans if the Baron had told him how he instructed Oswald to arrange the crossfire, he said no he had not. When he asked him if DeMohrenschildt told him what Hunt’s instructions were to him, he said no he had not.71 Oltmans then seemed to try and discredit his own story. He quoted DeMohrenschildt as saying that he only made up a story about Oswald because everyone makes money off the Kennedy assassination. Except him. So now it was his turn to do so.72 What makes all this even more odd is that in the manuscript he was working on, I am a Patsy, I am a Patsy, DeMohrenschildt wrote that Oswald actually admired Kennedy, specifically for his attempts to break down segregation in the south, and his efforts to wind down the Cold War.73 DeMohrenschildt also wrote that Oltmans, who visited him often, by 1976 believed he had nothing to do with the assassination.74
Then, a year later, Oltmans took another pass at the JFK case. In a much heralded article for Gallery, he came up with a new key witness. A man named General Donald A. Donaldson. Oltmans claimed Donaldson had been instructed by President Kennedy to investigate any plots against his life. After the Dallas assassination, Donaldson kept quiet about this investigation. But years later he confided to Oltmans because of his work with DeMohrenschildt. In this new updating of Oltmans’s JFK conspiracy, the Dutchman cooperated with Japanese writer Nobuhiko Ochiai. This time, the plotters were not Texas oil men. They were Allen Dulles and J.Edgar Hoover with the approval of Richard Nixon.75 Near the end of the story, Oltmans tells us that Donaldson is now missing.76 Therefore, for any interested parties, it would be difficult to check the information. Or even find out if the man really was who Oltmans said he was. In a last minute insert at the beginning of the magazine the publisher tells us that, as the issue went to press, they learned through “extremely reliable sources” that Donaldson had been killed in December of 1977. The cause of death was a rather improbable 17 bullets to the skull. This made it impossible to ever check on the Oltmans revision.
Even though a coroner’s inquest ruled his death as self-inflicted, there are some serious questions about DeMohrenschildt’s demise. First, according to the crime scene report and the autopsy, there was not any exit wound to the rear of the skull. Yet DeMohrenschildt allegedly placed a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Its true that shotgun shells disperse more quickly than jacketed bullets. But this shot was almost within contact distance. Neither the maid nor the cook heard the shotgun blast, even though both women were right below the room that DeMohrenschildt was in at the time.77 The police also had problems explaining the blood spatter pattern on the wall. When a blood spurt hits a flat surface it creates a different pattern than if it hits a surface that is perpendicular to it. In looking at photographs of the spatter pattern, it appears that the bathroom door was closed at the time the shooting took place. Because the blood pattern looked continuous. But the police said this was not the case. The bathroom door was open at the time. The testifying officer demeaned the jurors for asking this question and then jumped to a new topic.78 But it would appear that someone altered the crime scene afterwards. The final oddity about the scene is the position of the weapon after death. It fell trigger side up, parallel to the chair DeMohrenschildt was in, with the barrel resting at his feet and the butt of the rifle away from him and to his left. The police had a problem with this issue and so did the inquest jurors.79 As author Jerry Rose has noted, this strange positioning of the rifle suggests it was “placed” by someone.
Ms. Tilton was not at home at the time of DeMohrenschildt’s death. But she had left strict instructions for the maid to record her favorite TV programs. The home had an alarm system which caused a quiet bell to ring anytime an outside door or window was opened. During the hearing, the tape of the program was played. When it was, the alarm bell went off and then the gun blast was heard.80
Mark Lane was at the coroner’s inquest. He interviewed local DA David Bludworth. Bludworth was greatly concerned about the tragedy. And he was waiting for the HSCA to send down an investigator to talk to him. Bludworth brought up a point that Jerry Rose also found curious. Why did Epstein have DeMohrenschildt leave so early if he was paying him so much money? Couldn’t George have rested in Epstein’s room? Further, Bludworth told Lane that Epstein said he had no notes or tape recordings of the interview session. The DA did not believe that, not at the price he was paying. Bludworth
then brought up a curious point. He told Lane that his office had records of all long distance calls, including Epstein’s. Bludworth then said that Epstein showed DeMohrenschildt a document, “which indicated that he might be taken back to the Parkland Hospital in Dallas and given more electroshock treatment.” Bludworth stared at Lane and then added, “You know, DeMohrenschildt was deathly afraid of those treatments. They can wreck your mind. DeMohrenschildt was terrified of being sent back there.”81
There are three ways to look at DeMohrenschildt’s death today. Perhaps distraught by the fact he was going to be called before the HSCA, he took his own life. The second way to look at his death is that he may have been murdered. The third way to view it is that he was hounded and harassed into taking his own life by the combined actions of Mendoza, Oltmans, and Epstein. In this last regard, it is interesting to note that Epstein’s book Legend posited the idea, however vaguely, that Oswald killed Kennedy while working as a Russian agent. Because he was Russian by birth, DeMohrenschildt has a very large role in that book. While working on the book, one of Epstein’s consultants was James Angleton.82 Angleton pushed the myth that Oswald was a Russian agent until he died. Although George revealed to Epstein that he was instructed by Dallas CIA station chief J. Walton Moore to first visit Oswald, that fact is not in the original 1978 edition of the book. Finally, once DeMohrenschildt was in Florida, he told Mrs. Tilton he was being harassed by Oltmans.83 He also wrote a statement saying that while in Amsterdam, he felt Oltmans was trying to drug him, and also exchange his traveler’s checks. He also felt that Oltmans was making homosexual overtures to him. All this in order to make him admit things that he did not do. He also feared that his family lawyer, Patrick Russell, was collaborating with Oltmans against him.84
Reporter Jerry Policoff also got copies of the statements that DeMohrenschildt had written in Amsterdam concerning Oltmans’s tactics and objective. He wrote about them in an article for New Times. When he saw that article, Oltmans called Policoff and told him to meet him in the lobby of an apartment building near the United Nations in New York. When they met, Oltmans claimed that the DeMohrenschildt documents that Policoff based his article on were not genuine. Policoff said he did not believe that at all. He thought they were real. When Policoff said this, Oltmans put on an entirely different face and demeanor than that of the cheery and articulate television reporter. He became extremely menacing and intimidating. He began to say things that were threatening and designed to scare Policoff. It got so bad that Policoff decided to get up and leave. Clearly, Oltmans did not want the fact that he was attempting to undermine DeMohrenschildt to gain currency. Then no one would buy his steady stream of disinformation anymore. They would wonder where he was getting it.
Blakey Takes the Helm
It is not an exaggeration to say that a sea change overtook the House Select Committee once G. Robert Blakey filled the Chief Counsel position. It was not easy to find a replacement once the spectacle of the removal of Dick Sprague was complete. Former Justice of the Supreme Court Arthur Goldberg was one candidate who turned down the job. Al Lewis had talked Goldberg into filling the position. But Goldberg had one reservation. He wanted to know if the CIA would cooperate with him. Lewis suggested calling up Stansfield Turner, President Carter’s CIA Director. So Lewis called him and told him Goldberg wanted to talk to him. He put Goldberg on the line and the candidate asked Turner if he could guarantee the Agency would cooperate if he became Chief Counsel. A long silence ensued. It got so long and so quiet that Goldberg turned to Lewis and said, “I’m not sure if he’s there anymore.” Lewis suggested that he say something. So Goldberg asked if he was still on the line and Turner said he was. Goldberg asked him for an answer to his question. Turner said, “I thought my silence was my answer.”85 Goldberg decided to bow out.
Apparently, this kind of attitude did not deter Blakey, the organized crime authority. Blakey had served in Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department and played a leading role in drafting the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as RICO. Blakey later helped draft a wiretapping law as part of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. He was a law professor at Notre Dame from 1964?69. He then worked as a Chief Counsel to Senator John McClellan on a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee dealing with Criminal Laws and Procedures. At the time he was offered the HSCA position, he was a law professor at Cornell.
Just from this brief background one can discern two things about Blakey. Unlike Sprague, he had some experience in the ways of Washington. Secondly, he had spent a large part of his career up to that time focusing on the way that organized crime worked. In America, at that time, this meant the Mafia. Before we detail some of the controversial things that Blakey did once he became Chief Counsel, it is important to ask if he came to Washington with any kind of preconceived ideas about Kennedy’s assassination and who was behind it. Jim McDonald was a lawyer Blakey recruited to serve on his Organized Crime team. McDonald was reluctant to go to Washington. But Blakey intimated that he had some new evidence. He then asked McDonald who he thought killed Kennedy. McDonald said he didn’t know. Blakey told him to think, since it was obvious. But McDonald still could not guess the right answer. Finally Blakey declared, “Organized crime killed Kennedy!”86 In a conversation that William Davy and the author had in Virginia with committee investigator Bill Triplett, Triplett said that if the suspect’s name did not end in a vowel—meaning it sounded like he was in the Italian Mafia—Blakey wasn’t interested in him.87 When the author talked to Gaeton Fonzi, he said that from the beginning Blakey was centered on the Mafia as his main suspect. And it became an obsession as more evidence came in that pointed elsewhere.88
But there was a complement to this focus on the Mob. And that was a feeling of protectiveness towards the CIA. When a manuscript written in Spanish allegedly based on a secret Cuban intelligence report came into the committee, it was given to the Spanish speaking Eddie Lopez to read and summarize for Blakey. Later, reporter Jack Anderson learned that Blakey had turned it over to the Agency. Blakey called Fonzi one evening and told him that if Anderson or one of his cohorts told Fonzi that he had done that, it wasn’t true. The problem is that it was true. And Blakey knew that when he told Fonzi he hadn’t.89 When confronted with skepticism over the Bureau’s and Agency’s true intentions with his committee, Blakey replied with, “You don’t think they’d lie to me, do you? I’ve been working with these people for twenty years.”90 Toward the end, when CIA liaison Regis Blahut was caught mishandling Kennedy’s autopsy photos while they were secured in a safe, the Agency offered Blakey four ways to do an inquiry of what had happened. The main object being to see if Blahut was part of a larger operation to undermine the HSCA. One option was to do the inquiry through the D.C. police, another was through the FBI, and the third was an internal HSCA inquiry. The last was to have the CIA do it. Even though the Agency officers at this meeting strongly encouraged Blakey not to choose them to do the investigation, he still did.91 The reporting officer, Haviland Smith, made the only conclusion he could from this meeting. He wrote that his interpretation of what Blakey wanted was the Agency “to go ahead with the investigation of Blahut and that he expects us to come up with a clean bill of health for the CIA.”92 Which, of course, they did despite the fact that Blahut flunked three polygraph tests.93 When the author talked to HSCA staffer Eddie Lopez about this matter, I told him that in reading these memoranda, I was struck by how friendly Blakey was with these CIA officers. That is, what a seemingly easy rapport he had with them. I said, “You know Eddie, he talks to them . . .” Lopez interrupted me in mid-sentence and completed the thought for me: “He talks to them like he’s one of them.”94
When Blakey was trying to make his argument that the Mafia killed Kennedy with Oswald as their hit man, he maintained that Dutz Murrett knew and worked with Sam Saia. Murrett, Oswald’s uncle, had run a bookmaking operation in New Orleans for a number of years. According to information
Blakey attained through unreliable Garrison antagonist Aaron Kohn, Saia was a gambler and a close associate of Carlos Marcello. Yet, in interviews the HSCA did with Murrett’s wife and son, it became clear that Murrett had gotten out of the bookmaking business prior to 1959.95 Therefore, the Marcello-Saia-Murret connection would not have been viable in 1963.96 The HSCA report on this issue is careful not to be blunt with this information, which is clever of Blakey, since his staff was unable to provide credible evidence of a direct relationship between Dutz Murrett and Marcello97—that is, one without Saia. In fact, in a later book co-authored by Blakey, he admits this by saying the Committee could not find any other underworld figures associated with Oswald besides Murrett.98 The above testimony, closely held by Blakey, is probably the reason why most of the members of the Organized Crime team did not think they had connected Oswald to the Mob. But it became clear by Blakey’s attitude at meetings that “Blakey wanted that. He wanted to make the link more than anything else.”99
Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, & the Garrison Case Page 50
