by Jim Marrs
Yet another contact with the CIA that has become known only in recent years involves a man who “coincidentally” obtained the Mexican travel permit number just before Oswald’s—William George Gaudet.
When applying for a new passport in June 1963, Oswald did not try to hide his past or his intentions. On the application, he acknowledged he might travel to Russia and other European countries later that year. He also noted that his previous passport had been canceled. Despite these admissions—coupled with the fact that the State Department, which loaned him money to return from the Soviet Union, knew of his attempted defection and threat to give military secrets to the Soviets—Oswald received a new passport within twenty-four hours.
On September 17, a week after the alleged meeting between Oswald and CIA case officer “Maurice Bishop,” Oswald visited the Mexican consulate in New Orleans and applied for a tourist card. He was issued card number 24085, which was valid for fifteen days.
After the assassination, the FBI, with the help of Mexican authorities, identified every person who had applied for Mexican entry papers on September 17—all but one. The FBI reported they could not locate the record of the card holder immediately preceding Oswald, No. 24084. However, in 1975, apparently due to a bureaucratic mix-up in declassifying FBI documents, it was learned that card holder No. 24084 was William George Gaudet, who had worked for the CIA for more than twenty years.
Gaudet claimed that sheer coincidence placed his name just ahead of Oswald’s on the Mexican tourist card application sheet. Gaudet, who worked in the area of Latin America for the agency, operated the Latin American Newsletter for a number of years. Shortly after the assassination, Gaudet said, he was interviewed by FBI agents, but only after obtaining the approval of his CIA boss in New Orleans. No record of that interview has been made public.
In a 1978 interview with author Anthony Summers, Gaudet admitted he had known Oswald in New Orleans, but then qualified this by saying he had only observed Oswald handing out leaflets. “He was a strange man, an unusual man,” was Gaudet’s description of Oswald. Gaudet did firmly state that while in New Orleans, Oswald was in contact with known CIA and FBI agents. Gaudet told Summers, “I do know that I saw him one time with a former FBI agent by the name of Guy Banister.” He also mentioned David Ferrie, saying, “He was with Oswald.”
Gaudet said he did not accompany Oswald on a bus to Mexico, but went by air. He now claims he cannot remember whether his 1963 Mexican trip involved intelligence activity. He also said that due to his experience with the CIA, he is not surprised that little information concerning Oswald’s intelligence activities has been forthcoming: “[CIA officials] told me frankly when I did things for them that if something went awry they would never recognize me or admit who I was. If I made a mistake, that was just tough, and I knew it.” The former CIA operative went on to say he finds it “extremely possible” that Oswald was working for some American intelligence agency and added, “I think he was a patsy. . . . I think he was set up on purpose.” Gaudet also agreed with many assassination researchers who believe that the anti-Castro Cubans were involved in a plot to kill Kennedy. But when asked if he thought the Cubans could have carried out an assassination alone, he replied, “No, I don’t think so.”
But if Gaudet did not actually accompany Oswald to Mexico, one very suspicious man did—Albert Osborne. Although the passenger list for Continental Trailways bus No. 5133, which allegedly carried Oswald to Mexico City, is missing, the FBI managed to locate some of the travelers, including two Australian girls who told of a conversation with a man who told them of his experiences in the Marines and in Russia. These girls told the FBI that the man also had sat next to and talked at length with an older man.
FBI agents tried to locate a man named John Howard Bowen who had been on Oswald’s bus. However, they found only Albert Osborne, but Osborne seemed to know a lot about Bowen. After three visits from the FBI, Osborne finally admitted that he was the man they were seeking, having used the alias “John Bowen” for many years. He denied ever having met Oswald. Even the Warren Commission didn’t buy that, stating “his denial cannot be credited.”
Osborne claimed to be a missionary who traveled extensively all over the world, although he never said how these travels were financed. Also, no confirmation of his story could be found by checking border records in the countries he claimed to have visited. Despite his lies to the FBI regarding his name, no charges were ever brought against Osborne.
In recent years, several assassination researchers have claimed that Osborne worked for the CIA, but no hard evidence of this has been established. It is interesting to note, however, that when Oswald ordered Fair Play for Cuba Committee materials printed in New Orleans, he used the name “Osborne.”
Other intriguing connections between the CIA and the JFK assassination concern George DeMohrenschildt and the Carcano rifle found in the Texas School Book Depository.
DeMohrenschildt and the Agency
George DeMohrenschildt and his wife, Jeanne, were identified by the Warren Commission as the people closest to Lee Harvey Oswald just before the assassination. DeMohrenschildt’s son-in-law, Gary Taylor, even told the Warren Commission, “If there was any assistance [to Oswald] or plotters in the assassination they were, in my opinion, most probably the DeMohrenschildts.”
DeMohrenschildt undoubtedly is one of the most colorful and suspicious of all the persons connected to Oswald. He even wrote to Lyndon Johnson in April 1963, at a time he was in contact with Lee Oswald, and was told by LBJ aide Walter Jenkins a meeting with the vice president might be arranged. Based on CIA memos now available, thanks to Freedom of Information Act suits, it is known that DeMohrenschildt had a relationship with the agency dating back to OSS days. One memo by former CIA director Richard Helms states that DeMohrenschildt applied to work for the government as early as 1942 but was rejected “because he was alleged to be a Nazi espionage agent.”
The charge had some substance. After a trip to Yugoslavia with his wife in 1957 (they were shot at by guards of Marshal Tito), DeMohrenschildt provided the CIA with “foreign intelligence which was promptly disseminated to other federal agencies in 10 separate reports,” according to the Helms memo. Another agency memo indicated DeMohrenschildt also furnished lengthy reports on travels he made through Mexico and Panama at the time of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Asked by a Warren Commission attorney if he believed the DeMohrenschildts may have been spying on the invasion preparations, Taylor replied, “Yes.”
In fact, at the time DeMohrenschildt was befriending Lee Harvey Oswald, one of his close friends in Dallas was J. Walton Moore with the CIA’s Domestic Contacts Division. DeMohrenschildt publicly stated that before becoming involved with Oswald, he had checked with Moore. Moore, according to DeMohrenschildt, said unhesitatingly, “Yes, he’s okay. He’s just a harmless lunatic.”
In a CIA memorandum written not long after Oswald returned from Russia, the CIA author wrote, “Don’t push too hard to get the information we need, because this individual [Oswald] looks odd.”
Much later it was learned how the CIA was to further “debrief” Oswald—by using the genial George DeMohrenschildt. Author Edward Epstein interviewed DeMohrenschildt on the morning of March 29, 1977. That same morning, an investigator from the House Select Committee on Assassinations had attempted to contact DeMohrenschildt. Three hours later DeMohrenschildt was dead from a shotgun blast to the head. His death was ruled a suicide although the detective in charge of his investigation expressed some reservations about this verdict.
According to Epstein, DeMohrenschildt said Moore encouraged him to see Oswald and that, in fact, he was to question Oswald “unwittingly” about his stay in Russia. DeMohrenschildt said that after his first meeting with the ex-Marine, Oswald gave him a lengthy memo covering his activities in Russia.
DeMohrenschildt, a petroleum engineer, and Moore had offices in the same Dallas bank building and often ate lunch together, according to Jea
nne DeMohrenschildt.
The CIA memos, Moore’s closeness, and DeMohrenschildt’s own testimony all confirm that a certain relationship existed between the CIA and the man closest to Oswald in early 1963. While this does not necessarily involve the agency in a plot to kill Kennedy, it raises questions about what agency officials might have known regarding such a plot.
In a related issue that belies the idea set forth in 1963 that the CIA was neither aware of Oswald nor interested in him, it is now known that the agency was opening Oswald’s mail while he was in Russia. In letters to his mother, Marguerite Oswald, in 1976, former CIA legislative counsel George L. Cary admitted that the agency had opened mail from her to her son while he was in Russia. Cary said the admission was a result of an investigation into the CIA’s mail intercept program—known as HT-Lingual—by the Government Information and Individual Rights Subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee.
Another possible connection between the CIA and the JFK assassination concerns a former CIA operative named Robert D. Morrow. In his book Betrayal, Morrow tells how he purchased four 6.5 mm Carcano rifles on orders from a CIA superior. Morrow remains convinced that at least one of these rifles ended up in the hands of Dallas police on November 22, 1963.
Morrow even presented a plausible, though unproven, account of the assassination:
Oswald, who went to Russia for the CIA and was an FBI informant by the summer of 1963, was brought into an assassination plot led by CIA consultant Clay Shaw, using right-wing CIA operatives and anti-Castro Cubans headed by Jack Ruby in Dallas and Guy Banister in New Orleans. This group, operating outside Agency control, manipulated events to insure Oswald being named as the assassin. They also used an Oswald look-alike to incriminate the ex-Marine by firing shots from the Texas School Book Depository. Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit was killed by this Oswald substitute when he failed to go along with the group’s scheme to have Tippit kill the real Oswald in the Texas Theater. With the capture of Oswald, Ruby was compelled to stalk and finally kill the accused assassin.
The Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition also raised questions about CIA involvement. According to an FBI document, the 6.5 mm ammunition found in the Texas School Book Depository was part of a batch manufactured on a US government contract by Western Cartridge Corporation of East Alton, Illinois, which is now a part of Winchester-Western Division of Olin Industries.
In the mid-1950s, the Marine Corps purchased four million rounds of this ammunition, prompting the author of one FBI document to state, “The interesting thing about this order is that it is for ammunition which does not fit and cannot be fired in any of the United States Marine Corps weapons. This gives rise to the obvious speculation that it is a contract for ammunition placed by the CIA with Western Cartridge Corporation under a USMC cover for concealment purposes.”
It is well-known that the CIA had used “sanitized” weapons—that is, weapons that cannot be traced directly back to the agency or the United States—in various missions around the world.
Most of the information available suggesting links between the assassination and the CIA is circumstantial—which is hardly surprising. After all, agency officials could hardly be expected to reveal information possibly connecting them to the president’s death. However, at this time there can be little doubt that many persons connected to Oswald—David Ferrie, Guy Banister, Carlos Bringuier, and other anti-Castro Cubans—were also connected to the CIA, although some knowledgeable persons, such as former CIA operative Morrow and others, claim they were operating outside of agency control.
One strange incident involved an intelligence operative named Gary Underhill, who had served in World War II and was considered one of the top US experts on unconventional warfare. At the time of the assassination, Underhill performed “special assignments” for the CIA and was on close terms with officials of both the agency and the Pentagon. Several days after the assassination, Underhill visited friends in New Jersey. He was badly shaken and fearful. He said that President Kennedy had been killed by a small group within the CIA and that he believed his life was in danger. A short time later, Underhill was found fatally shot in his Washington apartment. His death was ruled a suicide although he was shot in the left side of his head and a pistol was found in his left hand—and it was well-known that Underhill was right-handed.
There is also the very real possibility that the assassins who killed Kennedy may have had no direct link at all with Oswald and his Cuban contacts. This intriguing possibility—which could go far in explaining why none of the trails leading backward from Oswald’s acquaintances in New Orleans seem to connect firmly with the shooting in Dealey Plaza—became apparent several years ago with the revelation of a French connection to the assassination.
The French Connection to the Assassination
In 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that many Dealey Plaza witnesses were correct in stating that at least one gunman fired on Kennedy from the Grassy Knoll.
While the committee said it could not identify the Grassy Knoll gunman, the second gunman may have been a premier French assassin with close contacts to the CIA, organized crime, and even an oblique connection with Jack Ruby. According to evidence revealed in the late 1970s, more than one French assassin may have been operating in Dealey Plaza.
Central to this possibility is CIA Document No. 632–796, which the agency released in 1977 along with more than 3,000 other documents. Dated April 1, 1964, and carrying the handwritten title “Jean Soutre’s Expulsion from US,” the half-page document stated:
8. Jean SOUTRE aka [also known as] Michel Roux aka Michael Mertz—On March 5, [1964] the FBI advised that the French had [withheld] the Legal Attaché in Paris and also the [withheld] had queried the Bureau in New York City concerning subject, stating that he had been expelled from the US at Fort Worth or Dallas 18 hours after the assassination. He was in Fort Worth on the morning of 22 November and in Dallas in the afternoon. The French believe that he was expelled to either Mexico or Canada. In January he received mail from a dentist named Alderson. . . . Subject is believed to be identical with a Captain who is a deserter from the French Army and an activist in the OAS [a right-wing French militant group]. The French are concerned because of De-Gaulle’s planned visit to Mexico. They would like to know the reason for his expulsion from the US and his destination. Bureau files are negative and they are checking in Texas and with the INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service].
And the government did check, first with the dentist, who was still practicing in Houston, Texas, in the 1980s. Dr. Lawrence M. Alderson told researchers that FBI agents began watching him in early 1964. He said agents finally contacted him and said they were trying to find the Frenchman “under any circumstances under any conditions.”
Alderson said, “They felt that Jean knew who, or he himself had, assassinated Kennedy. And they wanted to know who in Washington had had him flown out of Dallas. And, to my knowledge, nobody ever found out or nobody knew.”
Alderson said he had not seen the Frenchman since serving as a security officer with him shortly after World War II. He confided that he was working for the CIA at the time. The dentist gave the following information about the Frenchman, Jean Soutre (pronounced “sweatra”):
He’s a career soldier. From what I can gather, he was in the French underground movement in Algiers. I do know he left the French Air Force. . . . I believe he was in the Fourth French Air Force Headquarters in France. He was a very prominent and upcoming French security officer. When I knew him, he was a lieutenant. . . . I lived with him so I knew him quite well. He was very well educated, very outgoing, forward, dynamic. He came from a very poor family. In France, you don’t have a thing if you’re from a poor family unless you have a military career behind you. So, he was very interested in his career and this is why I never did really understand why he left it. But, he very definitely left, I presume, his wife. I have not heard from her in many years. She was a well-to-do, b
eautiful woman from a Southern France wine family. The last I heard from her, she was the one who told me that he had left the French Army and had gone underground trying to save Algeria. So, evidently, he was rather committed, or felt committed, to leave his career, which was the only career he had. The next time I heard of him, quite truthfully, was when the CIA, or the FBI rather, had me tailed for about two months following the assassination. . . . The last contact I had with the CIA was in France when I was working for him. So, the only contact I had in this country was with the FBI.
After providing a snapshot of his French friend, Alderson said Soutre in the early 1950s was about twenty-five years old and spoke English, Spanish, and German without a trace of an accent.
An FBI report stated that three persons named John Mertz, Irma Rio Mertz, and Sara Mertz flew from Houston to Mexico City on November 23, 1963, according to records of Pan American World Airways. The FBI report concluded, “These records contain no further identifying data regarding these individuals.”
Although Soutre could have flown out of the country by private or even military aircraft, it is interesting to note the coincidental departure of the Mertzes at a time corresponding to that in the CIA document. After all, even the FBI report noted that Soutre also was known as Michel Roux and Michael Mertz.
Today it is known that Roux and Mertz are the names of two real individuals, both of whom were connected to the shadowy world of intelligence work.
The name “Mertz” crops up in the 1974 Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative book The Heroin Trail, compiled by the staff of Newsday. According to this book, Michael Victor Mertz was a World War II French Resistance hero and a captain in the French secret service after the war. Mertz operated in Germany, Turkey, and Morocco under the cover of his military title. In April 1961, Mertz was ordered to penetrate the terrorist group Organisation de l’armée secrète (OAS), the secret group fighting to keep Algeria a French possession. Reflecting the methods of Lee Oswald, Mertz posed as an OAS sympathizer and was arrested later in 1961 for distributing pro-OAS leaflets. He was sent to an internment camp. There he worked his way into the highest levels of the OAS and was able to break up a bomb plot against Charles de Gaulle.
