George von Mohrenschildt was born to a Russian aristocrat family in 1911. Some have called him a Russian Clay Shaw. He was a charming social chameleon who could fit into pretty much any situation with pretty much any type of people. This proved to be an asset to is business as well as personal life – allowing him four marriages to wealthy women – but didn't keep him from the subsequent divorces.

His father ran afoul of the Russian Revolution and was exiled to somewhere in the north of Russia. However his father escaped and took the family to Poland. He graduated from the Polish Army's Cavalry Academy in 1931. He earned a master's degree with a thesis about the economic influence of the US in Latin America and a doctorate from the University of Liege in Belgium in international commerce in 1938.

He then come to the United States and official changed his name from von Mohrenschildt to de Mohrenschildt... which was probably a good idea considering the time in our history. He moved in with his brother Dimitri von Mohrenschildt on Long Island. Among his new acquaintances was the Bouvier family where their daughter Jacqueline called him “Uncle George” as she sat on his knee.

George went to work with his his cousin, Berend Maydell, at a company named Film Facts in New Your City. Maydell was reputed to have pro-Nazi sympathies and George came to the attention of the government as a potential Nazi spy... according to Richard Helms, former CIA Director. de Mohrenschildt denied such charges and pointed to a film he took part in describing the resistance in occupied Poland.

He married his first wife in 1942 and divorced her in 1944. However in 1945 he earned a masters degree in petroleum geology from the University of Texas. Mean while his brother Dimitri was an avowed anti-communist and when war came to America, joined the OSS.

In 1951 de Mohrenschildt and his third wife moved to Dallas Texas where he went to work for Clint Murchison as a petroleum geologist. Here he joined the Dallas Petroleum Club and the (CIA sponsored) Dallas Council on World Affairs. This brought him in close contact with Murchison, HL Hunt and Sid Richardson. He also joined the Crusade for Freedom where he connected with the likes of DH Byrd and Earle Cabell.

In 1957 he conducted a geological field survey in communist Yugoslavia through a US State Department program called the International Cooperation Administration. While there, the secret police accused him of making drawings and notes of the military facilities. He denied it and when he returned home was debriefed by the CIA.

At the request of Walton Moore (CIA's Domestic Contacts Division) he met Lee and Marina Oswald in Fort Worth, Texas during the summer of 1962. In spite of the divergent social circles, a friendship developed between Lee and George as they spent a good bit of time together George de Mohrenschildt was already familiar with Moore who had debriefed him after several overseas trips. Many of these excursions to other countries just happened to be around the time of CIA operations in the area... usually covert.

In October of that year de Mohrenschildt helped Lee get a job at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall in Dallas. He held that job for a while then lost it. About that time he was passed on to Ruth and Michael Payne where they moved in. Ruth Payne said she heard about a job at the Texas School Book Depository from a neighbor. Although Lee had a room closer to his work, he returned to the Payne residence on weekends.

George de Mohrenschildt claimed he was never at agent for the CIA, but did admit to doing favors for them in return for the CIA helping him out in his business. However toward the end of his life he felt he was being pursued, or followed... sometimes harassed. He wrote to George HW Bush who was the director of the CIA at the time to see if he could get the CIA or FBI to back off. Bush replied to his old friend and associate that to his knowledge neither organization was looking at him.

Willem Oltmans, a Dutch journalist expressed interest in de Mohrenschildt's connection to Lee Oswald and they arranged a meeting to talk about his time with the accused killer. At the time he told Oltmans that he felt a little guilty about his dealings with Oswald and that he really didn't think he was the killer. He was aware of the conspiracy and wished he hadn't had any part in it.

Some accounts say he returned to the home he and is daughter were staying in Florida he found a note that Gaeton Fonzi – an investigator for the Senate Select Committee on Assassinations had called and would like to talk to him. Other accounts say it was several day after the meeting with Oltmans.

In any case, sometime later a shotgun blast ended his life. His death was ruled a suicide although there are those who would dispute that conclusion. Oltmans was aware of a tape recording (done for television show for his sister) that recorded footsteps, a gunshot and more footsteps.

In his book, Killing Kennedy, Bill O'Reilly tells us he was standing outside knocking on the door when he heard the shotgun blast.

Willem Oltmans played the part of George de Mohrenschildt in the JFK film.

Lee Harvey Oswald as I Knew Him
by George de Mohrenschildt

“Let us hope that this book, poorly written and disjointed, but sincere, will help to clear up our relationship with our dear, dead friend Lee.” Thus concludes a largely forgotten manuscript appended to Volume XII of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. “Lee,” of course, was Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of having assassinated President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963—and whose closest friend, many have argued, was Dallas resident George de Mohrenschildt.

For years following Kennedy’s assassination there were rumors and assumptions—some started by de Mohrenschildt himself—that this colorful, largerthanlife European émigré possessed a key to understanding Oswald’s alleged actions. The reflections presented here, recorded between 1969 and his death in 1977, was de Mohrenschildt’s attempt to recover the humanity of a friend he believed had been demonized as simply an “insane killer.” In a series of recollections about his brief friendship with Oswald and his wife Marina between the fall of 1962 and the spring of 1963, de Mohrenschildt recalls conversations about Lee’s time in Minsk, about political issues of the day, particularly Latin America, and the Oswald’ turbulent and troubled marriage. He discusses the assassination and its aftermath, including his lengthy 1964 Warren Commission testimony, appearance on NBC television, and concludes with his own speculations about the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy and the question of Oswald’s involvement.

Our Man in Haiti: George de Mohrenschildt and the CIA in the Nightmare Republic
by Joan Mellen

Delving into the complex and intertwined world of the CIA, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, this book takes on the angle of those who knew and associated with Kennedy’s alleged assassin. Profiling George de Mohrenschildt, a petroleum geologist based in Dallas and Haiti, this examination explores the relationship between Oswald, the CIA, and de Mohrenschildt. This book also investigates the CIA’s involvement in the Haitian government during the 1960s, and seeks to connect each entity to each other in the jigsaw puzzle that is the Kennedy assassination.