General Walker and George De Mohrenschildt (6)

<Photo: A young George De Mohresnshildt ~1940>

[Due to multiple medical issues twe have posted nothing here for four months.  We are now back to complete last year’s focus on George De Mohrenschildt.]

Jim Garrison (1968) and his many imitators (e.g. Joan Mellen, 2012) published their suspicions that George De Mohrenschildt might have been a CIA officer and possibly the CIA “handler” of Lee Harvey Oswald.  I disagree with this common misconception of George, and I’ll explain why.

About 15 years ago I dug deeper into the biography of George De Mohrenschildt (hereafter George DM) via Bruce Campbell Adamson’s DVD which contains hundreds of pages of historical research on George DM.  As a genealogist, Adamson systematically traced multiple levels of George DM’s connections among wealthy Euro-Americans. 

Adamson did his best to fit George DM for the mold of a CIA agent, but after exploring his material at length, he showed no solid evidence.  (CIA secrecy by itself is proof of nothing.  We must always produce material evidence.)

George DM and his brother volunteered information to Allied Intelligence during the last half of WW2, but that alone cannot define a CIA officer.  Lots of people volunteered lots of information to the CIA, and that didn’t make them official CIA agents.  So, let’s take a closer look at the colorful life of George DM. 

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GEORGE DM

George DM was born in 1911 in Belarus (east of Poland).  His family was aristocratic, extremely wealthy, and owned miles of rich farmland.  They valued education and reputedly spoke five languages.  Sadly, in 1917, when George was six years old and his older brother Dimitri was 15 years old, their nation was conquered by the Communists who quickly seized the DM aristocratic estate. 

George’s family fled to Poland with whatever money they could salvage.  George and Dimitri never gave up hope that they would one day retrieve their ancestral estate.  When George was 22, he and his brother pinned their hopes on the Nazi regime of 1933. 

Hitler had promised to topple the Communist regime, so George and Dimitri naively supported the Nazi regime in any way that they could in blind hopes to regain their estate.  When the Nazi regime finally invaded Belarus in June 1941, Dimitri (now 39) and George (now 30) hoped for the best. 

Instead they were stunned by the brutal manner in which the Germans treated these local allies.  The Nazi regime was even worse than the Communists – this is what Dimitri and George saw with their own eyes. 

So, in 1941 they changed their allegiance again; this time to the Western Allies.  Dimitri migrated to New York where he helped to create Radio Free Europe.  George remained in England where he volunteered his translation abilities to Allied Intelligence, translating French, German, Russian, and Polish documents into English, as needed. 

At the end of World War Two, George was now 34, and he enjoyed the newfound freedom of Paris.  Dimitri became a professor of Russian studies at Dartmouth College in the US.  Eventually George also migrated to the US and met Dimitri’s new American friends, including the Bouvier family.  George remarried a number of times, but by 1960, at 49, he had settled in Dallas with his fourth wife, Jeanne, a former Russian ballerina, and their children. 

George DM never became as well-connected as Dimitri and had to settle for life as a professor of Geology at the University of Texas at Dallas.  Although Jeanne had her own money, George strove to be the breadwinner for their comfortable lifestyle.  So, George was always looking for ways to use his Geology skills in oil-rich Dallas to finally strike it rich. 

Folks in the oil industry were George’s main companions in Dallas.  Many of them had belonged to the Russian expatriate colony in Dallas/Fort Worth since the 1940’s.  These Russian-speakers were mostly successful, middle-aged people, e.g., many who testified before the Warren Commission (hereafter WC).

Some names include Igor and Natasha Voshinin, Declan and Katya Ford, Paul and Peter Gregory, John and Elena Hall, Frank and Valentina Ray, Max and Gali Clark, George Bouhe, Lydia Dymitruk, Samuel Ballen, Helen Leslie, Paul Raigorodsky, Anna Meller, Ilya Mamantov, and Dorothy Gravitis.

Let’s briefly review their activities from late 1962 through early 1963.  I find nothing suspicious about them with regard to the JFK Assassination or the shooting at General Walker.  They were all very conservative, friendly to the local police, and ready to call the FBI in Dallas at the drop of a hat.

Largely led by Mr.  Bouhe, they had pooled their money in the 1950’s to construct a Russian Orthodox Church in Fort Worth.  They made a point to include all Russian expatriates to make a home for them in Dallas/Fort Worth.  Many preferred speaking Russian and many still spoke broken English. 

Even the agnostics George and Jeanne joined that Church for the social contact.  One Sunday George and Jeanne DM came to Church wearing their tennis shorts.  This confirmed their local reputation as non-conformists.

George DM was an intellectual in Dallas, yet despite his earnest efforts he wasn’t a social leader.  In 1961 George founded a Bohemian Club in Dallas to arrange dinners and speakers for the entertainment of Dallas oil professionals.  When George couldn’t schedule a speaker, he volunteered himself. 

Perhaps because he’d suffered so much in his life, and had just turned 50, he looked upon Americans in Dallas as soft – they never suffered like Europeans suffered.  So, George’s sense of humor had become sarcastic. 

At one of his speeches, knowing that one of his prominent guests was Jewish, George spoke positively about the Third Reich and Heinrich Himmler – just as a joke.  That shocked many and sped the demise of the Bohemian Club. 

George was an exhibitionist.  He was proud of Jeanne’s athletic body and his own, and this partly explains why they came to Church in tennis shorts.  It also partly explains why they made a spectacular, long and public walking marathon from Dallas to Mexico City, for months, filming all the way and enjoying the international publicity. 

GEORGE MEETS LEE AND MARINA OSWALD

The Oswald saga is another example of George DM’s non-conformist exhibitionism.  When Lee Harvey Oswald (hereafter LHO) and Marina Oswald moved into Fort Worth in June 1962, they were soon befriended by the local Russian expatriate colony in Dallas/Fort Worth. 

The colony adored Marina, a native of Minsk, Belarus who spoke an aristocratic Russian dialect learned from her grandmother who despised the Communist regime.  Most of them were in the professional class, so that also pitied Marina because LHO had no money, no job, no education, a bad Marine discharge, the stigma of defector, and no prospects. 

LHO openly scorned the Russian expatriates for their middle-class lifestyle – for “selling out to capitalism.” So, most of the Russian expatriate colony wanted no part of LHO, whom they called “the defector.”  George DM was the only Russian expatriate in that time and place who made a special point to befriend the poverty-stricken LHO.  Why?  The evidence suggests that this was George being a non-conformist. 

Following Bouhe’s lead, the Russian colony in Fort Worth overwhelmed Marina Oswald with nice clothes.  Marina was grateful, but LHO was ungrateful; often belittling it and even expressing hostility.  Sadly, the retired Bouhe would also flirt sincerely with Marina.  He paid for Marina’s expensive, sorely needed dental work.  He bought her a baby crib (because her baby’s crib was in those days a suitcase). 

All of this made LHO jealous.  He threatened Bouhe with violence and then moved away from Fort Worth to Dallas.  He had to get away from the Russian expatriate colony that had loved Marina so much.  The expatriates were sorry to lose Marina, but they were glad to see LHO go away.

GEORGE’S NON-RUSSIAN FRIENDS IN DALLAS

George’s non-Russian associates in Dallas were mostly younger engineers in the oil industry, such as Volkmar Schmidt, Everett Glover, and Michael Paine.  (The latter two also testified before the WC.)

As 1963 began, the Oswalds had no society because LHO had spurned the Russian expatriate colony, so, George DM spoke with Volkmar Schmidt (a Lutheran) and Everett Glover (a Unitarian) and offered to bring the poverty-stricken Oswalds to their next barbeque party as special guests for the entertainment of this crowd of professionals. 

Glover planned the party and told his engineer friends to bring their spouses to see the ex-Marine who had defected to Russia and then returned to the US with a Russian bride.  The ex-Marine would answer questions, and his wife, who spoke no English, would be there for those wishing to practice their Russian conversational skills. 

Michael Paine caught a cold on the night of the party, but Ruth Paine was eager to practice speaking Russian, so she went alone.  It was there, on the evening of Friday, February 22, when Marina Oswald met Ruth Paine for the first time.  This Dallas engineers’ party was a game-changer for many of those present, but we’ll focus on the members of that party and their WC testimony about it in a subsequent blog post. 

For now, let’s return to the HSCA exhibit, CE 133A-de Mohrenschildt.  It was dated April 5, 1963, it was explicitly addressed to George and signed by LHO himself.  Handwriting experts confirmed that this was LHO’s handwriting.  The photo was found among the possession of George and Jeanne DM. 

But in his 1976 manuscript ("I'm A Patsy! I'm A Patsy!") George DM claimed that he didn’t know that it was among his possessions.  His argument was that the date of the signature was “April 1963,” and that he was “thousands of miles away in Haiti” at that time.  Actually, George and Jeanne moved to Haiti during May, not April.  Still, he insisted. So, it was no mistake; it was a deliberate misdirection.  Why would George lie about it?   

Well, one of the most prominent, repeated themes in George DM’s manuscript of 1976 is his admission that both George and LHO would agree firmly on one point – that they despised General Walker.  They were both outraged by Walker’s extreme, ultra-rightist political theater. 

In his public statement to PBS, Volkmar Schmidt admitted redirecting LHO’s rage over the Bay of Pigs to rage over General Walker.  But Volkmar firmly denied that he suggested that LHO shoot Walker.  In his own WC testimony, George DM also firmly denied that he suggested to LHO to shoot Walker.  Let’s briefly review that testimony:

Mr.  JENNER.  You didn’t want him to shoot anybody?

Mr.  De MOHRENSCHILDT.  Anybody.  I didn’t want him to shoot anybody.  But if somebody has a gun with a telescopic lens you see, and knowing that he hates the man, it is a logical assumption you see.

Mr.  JENNER.  You knew at that time that he had a definite bitterness for General Walker?

Mr.  De MOHRENSCHILDT.  I definitely knew that, either from some conversations we had on General Walker, you know – this was the period of General Walker’s, you know, big showoff, you know.

George stumbles for words at the end, but the message is clear.  The phrase, "big showoff," was a reference to Walker's racial riot in September, 1962, at Ole Miss University. George was certain that when it came to General Walker, LHO “hated the man.”  Yet George neglects to tell the WC that he himself had encouraged LHO to hate Walker. 

In his 1976 manuscript, George portrayed himself and LHO as intellectual equals who agreed firmly on US Civil Rights as the highest moral issue.  Yet in 1962-1963 George DM thought of LHO as strictly inferior.  In his testimony before the WC, George called LHO a “semieducated hillbilly.” George added, “I never would believe that any government would be stupid enough to trust Lee with anything important.” That was no slip of the tongue. 

George had more to say about LHO, as he told the WC in 1964: “His mind was of a man with exceedingly poor background, who read rather advanced books and did not even understand the words in them.  He did not understand the words – he just used them.  So how can you take seriously a person like that? You just laugh at him.”

In sharp contrast, George in 1976 moaned about LHO’s fate, and called him his “dear friend.”  Twelve years after his WC testimony, George blamed WC attorney Albert Jenner for manipulating him into speaking so cruelly about LHO.  George said, “Jenner played with me as if I were a baby,” so he blamed others for his words.  What was the reason for his blatant reversal?

LHO liked George DM better than any other Russian expatriate in Dallas – and he happily accepted George DM’s personal charity.  But when George moved to Haiti in May, 1963, LHO had already moved to New Orleans, and they never saw each other or wrote to each other again.  They were evidently never as close as George would later portray them in 1976.

THE BASIC PROBLEM

Here is the main point in this exploration of George DM: what is the exact degree of knowledge that George had about LHO’s plot to shoot Walker? We must ask because we must explain the existence of the many Backyard Photographs that the WC and the HSCA ultimately accumulated. 

Dallas Police Officer Roscoe White gave his wife a copy of a Backyard Photograph that the WC never saw.  Dallas Homicide Detective Richard Stovall gave the HSCA two different poses of the Backyard Photograph.  In 1995 Dan Rather interviewed Michael Paine who admitted something he never told the WC -- that he had personally seen a Backyard Photograph on April 2, 1963 – eight days before the Walker shooting. 

Let us inquire – who failed to tell the Dallas Police about the Backyard Photographs after the news broke about the Walker shooting?

Marina Oswald was culpable, although the Law excuses a wife from testifying against her husband.  Michael Paine admitted that he saw a Backyard Photograph at the Oswalds’ apartment on 4/2/1963, so, Michael was also culpable.  Did Volkmar see a Backyard Photograph and fail to inform the Dallas Police after the Walker shooting? Did Everett Glover?

Most relevant to this blog post – was George DM culpable? Was he lying about CE 133A-de Mohrenschildt, that is, did George actually receive it directly from the hand of LHO on April 5, 1963, the day that LHO addressed it to George, signed it and dated it? Yet, if George actually received it on April 5, then he had a strong motive to lie about it. 

Here’s why.  If George had early knowledge of the Backyard Photograph, this would have made him a suspect in the Walker shooting.  Even worse – just as the WC had made the Walker shooting into a ridiculous, non-sequitur proof that LHO had assassinated JFK, George DM would have also been smeared with this so-called proof by association, and so would have become a suspect in the JFK Assassination. 

So, George DM, like Michael Paine, would have had a powerful motive to hold back the whole truth about the Backyard Photograph from the WC in 1964. 

It’s more obvious in George’s case, however, because only three days after the Walker shooting, George and Jeanne visited the Oswalds late at night on Saturday, April 13, and found LHO’s rifle complete with scope inside their apartment.  They surely suspected that LHO was Walker’s shooter.  We know this because of George’s famous joke about the rifle and Walker that came out in the WC testimony of George, Jeanne, and Marina. 

Therefore, even if George never saw CE 133A-de Mohrenschildt until 1967, we must still blame George and Jeanne for failing to alert the Dallas Police about finding LHO’s rifle three days after the Walker shooting.

George’s crime in the case of the Walker shooting would have been “accessory after the fact.” That crime bore the same penalty as the shooting itself.  And because LHO wasn’t arrested for the shooting, he was free to become mixed up in a bizarre Dallas plot to assassinate JFK.  If (and only if) Michael Paine, George DM, and Volkmar Schmidt were accessories in the Walker shooting, they would have been exposed to accusations of involvement in a JFK plot. 

It seems to me that George DM strained to hide this culpability for the rest of his life.  I will note here that a genuine CIA agent would have never behaved in this manner.

CONCLUSION:

I find nothing to suggest that George DM was a genuine CIA agent.  After helping Allied Intelligence during WW2, he and his brother Dimitri became college professors.  George also wanted to be rich, and the Haiti oil exploration contract that he landed was his ticket to the equivalent of a million dollars in today’s money.  But the JFK Assassination scuttled that Haiti contract anyway , because George became world-famous as “Oswald’s best friend in Dallas.” So, George died in poverty.

It should also be obvious that LHO was not a CIA agent because of the desperate poverty in which LHO and Marina lived.  Slum apartments, no car, no telephone – this is ample proof that LHO was never an officer in the CIA.  Besides that, LHO was insubordinate, a maverick, a high-school dropout, and a poor speller; and thus unsuitable for the CIA chain of command.  (That said, it seems likely that LHO did dream of becoming a CIA agent).

Also, as George DM noted, LHO wanted public recognition.  In New Orleans LHO was in the newspapers, on radio, even on TV, posturing as an “anti-Communist Marxist.” No CIA agent draws such attention to himself. 

It has now been over 60 years since these events took place.  Everett Glover died in 2001.  Volkmar Schmidt died in 2012.  Michael Paine died in 2018.  None of the others in that clique are alive to tell the story (to the best of my knowledge). 

For ten years I tried and failed to contact Michael Paine.  Ruth Paine kindly gave me an interview, yet what I mainly learned from her is what we continually learn from all of Ruth’s many interviews, namely, that Ruth was out of the loop!  She was so busy taking care of her own children in addition to Marina and her two babies, June and Audrey – that she was clueless about guns or shootings until after the Dallas Police searched her garage.

We can only hope that Michael Paine left a memoir about those times.  In my opinion, he had the closest look at the Walker shooting than anybody alive in 2018.  In 1977, George topped the list, but in 2018 the top was Michael.

In the meantime – let’s reconsider CE 133A-de Mohrenschildt.  It was addressed to George and it was signed and dated on the back by LHO on April 5, 1963, when George and Jeanne were not “thousands of miles away.”

Thank you,

--Paul Trejo, M.A.

© Copyright 2020, 2026, Trejo Academic Research.  All Rights Reserved.