Joan Mellen's "Our Manin Haiti" George DeMohrenschildt and the CIA in the Nightmare Republic (Trine Day, 2012)
[URL="http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/"]JFKcountercoup
[/URL]
JFKCountercoup2
THE LONG VERSION W/ LINKS AND FOOTNOTES
By William E. Kelly
As we approach the 50[SUP]th[/SUP]anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy we can expect aslew of books on the subject and Joan Mellen's "Our Man in Haiti"is one of the first out of the gate. This book is not about the assassinationof President Kennedy, but it does add some interesting pieces to the puzzle of Dealey Plaza the Haitian intrigues ofthe accused assassin's "babysitter" George DeMohrenschildt, who many believeassisted in setting up Lee Harvey Oswald as the patsy to take the fall for themurder of the president.
Nor is this book about "our man"in Haiti in the sense that Win Scott was, as in Jeff Morely's book "Our man in Mexico" or Graham Green'scomic spoof "Our Man in Havana," asMellen herself attests "our man in Haiti" in this story could beDeMohrenschildt, Haitian banker Clem Charles or even the greaser I. IrvingDavidson, all featured characters in what also turns out to be a somewhat sad andfrustrating spoof on everyone.
While most of the action takesplace in Haitifrom the time of the assassination up until the strange death of DeMohrenschildtin 1978, it does often refer to the crutch of the matter - the earlierassociation in Texas between theregal, distinguished and shifty baron George DeMohrenschildt and the repatriatedex-Marine defector Lee Harvey Oswald.
When Oswald first arrived homefrom behind the Iron Curtain he was befriended by the charismatic baron DeMohrenschildt,who recounts his relationship with Oswald in the unpublished manuscript "I'm aPatsy," [HSCA Vol. X, http: Mary Ferrell ].
As noted by Mellen, DeMohrenschildtsought out Oswald and in the company of Col. Lawrence Orlov, a equallymysterious character who subsequently seems to just disappear. DeMohrenschildt thenbecame a mentor to Oswald and introduced him into a unique network of friends,who provided him with places to stay, jobs, gifts and even took care of hisfamily's dental needs.
Then, shortly before DeMohrenschildtmoved on to Haiti, he indiscreetly "passes" the responsibility for caring forthe Oswalds off on to Ruth and Michael Paine, who assume the same "babysitter"and patron role as DeMohrenschildt previously played leading up to theassassination.
Since I am of the belief thatOswald didn't shoot anyone on November 22, 1963, and was framed as a patsy ashe himself claimed, he therefore plays the distracting role of the "rabbit,"who leads investigators astray while the real assassins slip by unnoticed.
If Oswald actually did shoot thePresident, DeMohrenschildt would have been a primary "person of interest" andsuspected as a collaborator or facilitator in the crime, but as Mellen accuratelydescribes him, DeMohrenschildt is one of those who helped frame the patsy forthe crime of the century.
While the identity of the realSixth Floor Sniper would lead directly to the sponsors of the Dealey Plazaoperation, Oswald and the detractors, including DeMohrenschildt, also lead tothem, but in a more roundabout way, a trail marked with many detours and deadend alleys, which is one of the reasons why Oswald was designated as theprinciple patsy in the first place.
No one had more influence overOswald than DeMohrenschildt, as his son-in-law (Gary Taylor) told the WarrenCommission, but putting a trace on the shifty and smooth operator is not aneasy thing to do. Since he had so many secret and powerful associations, it'sdifficult to know which intelligence agency was running him at any given time,if any were. George was associated with the Polish, German, Mexican and Frenchintelligence services during World War II, and applied for a job with the OSS,while his brother Dimitri was more influential. Having served in OSS,as did their father, said to have been recruited by Allen Dulles, Dimitrihelped found the CIA's Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, edited the RussianReview, was a professor at Dartmouthand worked at the Hoover Institute at Stanford at the time of theassassination. .
[BK Notes: In the late 70s,during the HSCA investigation, I too focused on DeMohrenschildt, put together atime line of his life and wrote out everything I could learn about him, anessay that I still have, typed out on a typewriter, and will check to see if itis worth posting.]
Before George DeMohrenschildt metup with Oswald, and set him on the path to Dealey Plaza, DeMohrenschildt had workedfor a number of major players - mainly Colorado,Texas and Louisianaoil men, and had three rich and influential wives, all of whom are colorfulcharacters in Mellen's book.
[BKN: One of the more colorful isJohn Mecom, whose son goes on to buy the New Orleans Saints football team.Mecom sent DeMohrenschildt to Yugoslavia,where he had also been sent by the USgovernment. According to Mellen, (p. 43) Mecom's "private foundation wouldlater be exposed as a CIA proprietary front…" (p. 48) "…Mecom had incorporated the San Jacinto Fund, a conduit for CIAmoney…William A. Smith, a director and trustee of the San Jacinto Fund. Thisfund in turn sponsored the National Student Association (NSA),…among CIAdefenders in its financing of the NSA was General Philip H. Bethune, an eminenceat the Dallas Council on World Affairs…" Mellen also says that Mecom flewDeMohrenschildt to Iranto meet with the Shah and make the pitch for an oil deal. Mae Brussell madenote that in 1957, while Oswald was working for Leon Trujaque and DeMohrenschildtwas working for Mecom, Trujaque andMecom both sat on the board of directors of a New Orleans bank. What that meansI don't know, other than both would work for men who were business associatesfive years before they met.]
In 1957 DeMohrenschildt went toYugoslavia on behalf of the US government International CooperationAdministration (ICA, aka CIA), but was asked to leave the country, accused ofdrawing secret military fortifications, just as he came to the attention ofauthorities in 1941 for photographing and drawing the Coast Guard facility atCorpus Christi, Texas.
Back home DeMorhrenschildt wasinterviewed by J. Walton Moore, the head of the Dallas Domestic ContactsDivision of the CIA, which routinely debriefed American businessmen when theyreturned from abroad.
But DeMohrenschildt filed tenseparate reports with Moore, andlater said that he and Moore had a special meeting about Oswald and Mooregave his okay and encouraged his association with Oswald, a point later deniedby Moore. Moorewas a friend and handball partner with Col. Lawrence Orlov, who accompaniedDeMohrenschildt when he first sought out Oswald.
Although not mentioned by Mellen,Moore was also a OSSagent who served in Chinawith Charles Ford, the Princeton grad who later took aleave from the CIA's Office of Training to be RFK's liaison with the mobstersinvolved in the JMWAVE plots against Castro.
Although Gaeton Fonzi and DickRussell came close, Bill O'Riley, when he was a young and hungry TV reporter inTexas in the late 1970s, almostgot the elusive interview with DeMohrenschildt's CIA contact J. Walton Moore,but came away without a cigar. [See: David Talbot review of O'Riley's bookand V-2].
[BK Notes: I thought there mightbe more evidence of a closer association between Oswald and J. Walton Moore.Since both Oswald and Moore had acknowledged viewing DeMohrenschildt's film home movie of his 1961 walking tour of Central America,I had wondered whether they saw the same screening at one of the home parties whenDeMohrenschildt showed the film. If so, that would at least place them in thesame room together. But Mellen answers that speculation with a firm no, havingdetermined that Oswald saw the film As Mellen writes (p. 124), while at homeengaged in a questionable business deal with Dabney A. Austin on October 27, 1962, "an unexpectedvisitor knocked on the door. It was Lee Harvey Oswald. Together the groupwatched deMohrenschildt's home movie of his walking tour of Central America."
One of the first FOIA letters I sent inthe late 1970s was to the NARAasking about DeMohrenschildt's walking tour movie and received a response fromMarion Johnson saying that the film was not among the records at the NARA.I also think it significant that the film includes parts filmed in Guatemalawhere DeMohrenschildt and his wife stumbled on the CIA's anti-Castro Cubantraining base getting ready for the ill fated Bay of Pigs.]
After taking care of the materialneeds of Oswald and his family for about a year, DeMohrenschildt introducedthem to Ruth and Michael Paine, who then fulfilled the Oswald's needspreviously taken care of by DeMohrenschildt, while he took off for a newmission in Haiti.
What was George DeMohrenschildtup to in Haitiwhile his squire Oswald was getting tangled up in the assassination of thepresident in Dallas? It was prettymuch the same game as Mellen demonstrates, with DeMohrenschildt apparently involvedin an attempt to take over the presidency of Haitiin a coup that could have also included assassination. While Oswald is generallyrecognized as a pawn that was put into position to checkmate the president at Dealey Plaza, DeMohrenschildt was a morepowerful and maneuverable rook or bishop in the same game, though an equally dispensableone.
According to Mellen GeorgeDeMohrenschildt was "a tall, comely man, who spoke with a pronounced accentthat to some sounded German. There was nothing straightforward about him…He wasa handsome man who used his sexuality as a weapon to dominate and degradepeople…an easy man to discard when his usefulness expired. His life illustrateshow CIA treated its assets and contacts when their activities rendered theminconvenient."
While Mellen and others keepsaying Oswald, and DeMohrenschildt were being run by the CIA, from my readingsof the same material, at some point the CIA didn't want to have anything to dowith him, and both Oswald and DeMohrenschildt could have just as easily been operating,knowingly or wittingly with Army Intelligence or the Office of NavalIntelligence (ONI), as both were heavily involved in these nefarious affairs,as the recently released government records attest.
Besides meeting with CIAofficers, DeMohrenschildt and his Haitian banker and sidekick Clem Charles alsomeet with Dorothe Matlack, Assistant Director of the Office of the DomesticExploitation Section, Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence.
[BK Notes: Isn't this the sameoutfit in the Pentagon that the Army Reserve Colonel from Dallaswho ran the Havana Hilton reported to? Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence.Yes, I checked it out and Col Frank M. "Brandy" Brandstetter, in his book,acknowledges reporting to, according to my notes, "Col. William Rose at thePentagon office of the Assistant Chief of Staff-Intellignce. Rose arranged forBrandy to be assigned for training on weekend duties to the 488[SUP]th[/SUP]Strategic Intelligence Team in Dallas.Brandy also contributed to a study of the capability of the Soviet oil fields,working with oil engineer Col. Jack Crichton, MI and U.S.Army (Ret.) ]
Mellen is the first to point outthe significance of 66[SUP]th[/SUP] Military Intelligence Group (MIG) and 902MIG "90 Duce," the mysterious and secret units that kept track of all thesenefarious activities.
Smack in the middle of things isour old friend US Army Colonel Sam Goodhue Kail, an office associate of Matlackwho we know from his days as the Military attaché in the American embassy in Havana(June 3, 1958 - Jan. 4, 1961) when he worked closely with such Dealey Plaza luminariesas David Morales, Antonio Veciana and David Atlee Phillips.
[BK Notes: As an Addendum afterthe main text and regular footnotes, there's a bonus, added addition on thesubject of "H.L Hunt & Sons and CIA athree part fifty page long supplement concerning H.L. Hunt's connections tothe assassination and the machinations of his security assistant PaulRothermel, concluding that the CIA had it infor the Hunts because they wouldn't let the CIAuse his companies and used Rothermel to try to pin the Dealey Plaza operationon the Hunts.]
In the course of her work Mellenalso utilized the tenacious research of Bruce Adamson, whose chronology and dozenbooks on George DeMohrenschildt certainly makes him an authority on the man,and had access to the cryptic files of the late J. Harrison, a former Texaspoliceman and JFK assassination researcher. Mellen also draws extensively onthe official files and records released under the JFK act, although many of thegovernment's records on DeMohrenschildt and his associates remain sealed forreasons of "national security."
[BK Notes J. Harrison's filesare now in the possession of Walt Brown in North Jersey,who lives not far from Mellen near Princeton. He gaveMellen access to Harrison's files.]
Mellen also interviewed a fewimportant characters who are still alive, especially Joseph F. Dryer, thoughfew others live to tell their tales.
[BK Notes T. Scully seems tohave a file on Dryer and wants to ask him a few questions see Ed Form.]
What I didn't understand at firstis why she left out some important well-known details, and figured, just as shewrote a follow up biography on Jim Garrison after "Farewell to Justice," therewas another book in the works.
[BK Notes: Among the items notmentioned and conspicuously left out of Mellen's narrative are 1) the detailsof Adml. Chester Bruton and Collins Radio; 2) the fact that DeMohrenschildt'ssecond wife Dr. Dee Dee Sharples was a trustee of Temple U., where Mellen teaches; 3)Dimitri DeMohrenschildt's association with the Hoover Institute; 4) thenotation "Hunter of Fascists" written on the backyard photo of Oswald foundamong DeMohrenschildt's possessions….among others.]
And indeed there is, as I havesince learned there are two more books on the way, all three of which utilizesome of the same sources and general material, but focus on differentgeographical locations. Also in production is a book on the Texas Mafia, and athird - "The Great Game in Cuba," which rounds out the trilogy and uses"the Cuban Revolution, as a backdrop to examine the CIA's inner workings duringthe fifties and sixties."
And it is a "Great Game," but one that is unforgiving foreveryone who plays, and the stakes now, after fifty years, are high. While itshould all come to a conclusive end by the 50[SUP]th[/SUP] anniversary with therelease of the remaining files, the CIA insists on keeping the ball in playuntil 2017, the termination date set by the JFK Act. While every researcherrummaging through the nation's attic at the Archives has come across the blankfile pages marked CLASSIFIED and "Withheld in Full," we don't need theremaining sealed files to figure out what happened.]
Besides Joan Mellen's books, David Lifton, Russ Baker, BillSimpich and Greg Parker are among a number of serious and responsibleresearchers who are also diving into these subjects, trying to make sense ofit, and preparing books that should be published in the coming year, giving usan even better picture of what happened.
Thanks to Kris Milligan forhaving the courage to publish this and other important works. And special thanksto Joan Mellen and the other researchers for helping to outline a roadmap ofthe JFK assassination game board and the intelligence webs that operated on it,so we can follow the patsy and the patsy's mentor back into the guts of the intelligencenetwork responsible for the assassination of the President. There you will findthe ones who got away with murder.
Now we just have to get down tothe nitty-gritty, fill out the map's side roads, back alleys and gutters and shinesome light in to the murky darkness to see whose there.
You go first, I got your back.
William Kelly
Jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com
