Spy Games at the Country Club
But first, a bow to the keepers of our collective memory
This is the second exploration of the social network in which those who had some connection to the Oswalds (besides family) floated in 1962/63.
But first, I need to acknowledge how much my understanding or grappling with this milieu owes to Bill Simpich, an Oakland, California attorney, who besides knowing almost everything about the assassination and everyone involved in understanding the assassination, has led the legal fight to pry loose documentation from the files of the intelligence community. He has been extremely active in the Mary Ferrell foundation, and for those who don’t know, Mary Ferrell was what I would call the first archivist for all those who read the Warren report and said “wait a minute, there’s more to this story, much much more.”
And they were right. Allen Dulles, fired head of the CIA , and on-site manager/monitor of the Commission proceedings would stare innocently at the ceiling while the other members struggled with the question of whether Jack Ruby, owner of a strip club in Dallas, could conceivably have any underworld connections . Or for that matter, whether Lee himself did (his uncle by marriage, “Dutz” Murret ran numbers for Carlos Marcello, who controlled the underworld from New Orleans to Dallas. Marcello is now prime suspect in some analyses of the assassination; there’s a movie with Al Pacino in production right now that says “the Mafia did it”).
All this time Dulles held his peace, twiddled his thumbs, puffed on his pipe silently, knowing full well that his lieutenant William Harvey had been in charge of all CIA collaborations with the Mafia to assassinate Castro. Not a peep to the other members of the commission.
It took twelve years for the simple fact of this collaboration between the CIA and the Mafia to become known. Given that one line of thinking was that the assassination was perhaps some kind of payback on Castro’s part, we could say that information about Mafia involvement and connections was germane.
Not a peep.
All of this to say that the archivists, the preservers of our collective consciousness, are big big heroes in this story of figuring out who killed our president. After sixty years.
You can access any record ever published re the assassination, every bit of testimony, every FBI interview with witnesses, every redacted document coughed up by the CIA, on the Mary Ferrell website.
Here’s the link
Bill Simpich has helped with all of this and written two wonderful online pieces giving a who’s who of people in Lee Oswald’s world who are important to the story .
This link will take you to Bill’s collection of essays on people in Lee Oswald’s world, who, put together, make it clear that he was much more than “a lone nut”.
(In spyspeak the word “Legend “ refers to the accumulation of facts and circumstances that can be used to give someone an identity or role that is not in fact who they are)
When I wrote last week’s essay I depended on individuals’ Warren Commission testimony, which is in and of itself, a gold mine. Since then, I went back and read Bill’s piece on this subject in his fundamental work.
Bill points out that an attorney named Max Clark was part of this scene. Max Clark adds to the aerospace dimension of the club as he was a representative of General Dynamics and played a big role in pushing the Kennedy administration to award the contract for the F-111 fighter to General Dynamics in Dallas.
George de Mohrenschildt considered Max Clark to be his attorney. The wife of an associate of Max Clark, I B Hale, head of industrial security at General Dynamics, got Lee his first job on his return to Dallas from Russia, as a sheet metal worker at a porch awning company.
Lee owed his first job back stateside to the head of security at General Dynamics? Hmmm, anyone see a connection here?
Max Clark certainly fell within J Walton Moore’s mandate to know everyone in the Dallas area of intelligence interest.
Bill also elaborates on the connections of Igor and Natalie Voshinin, two prominent members of the White Russian Community and adherents of a semi-fascist organization, the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists
This organization had a long history of placing spies behind the Iron Curtain and trying to hijack the messaging of anti soviet propaganda outlets of the USA to be even MORE ant-Soviet and pro fascist.
It is clear that Igor and Natalie Voshinin fit the description of people of intelligence interest in the Dallas area, people whom it was J Walton Moore’s job to know.
All in all his testimony makes it clear that Voshinin knew but did not like De Mohrenschildt and his friends and considered them to be leftists.
In his deposition he was asked “Did you ever meet Lee or Marina Oswald “. His answer.
“No, thank God!”
It is clear to me that Lee did not circulate on the far right wing of the Russian expatriate community, but did among those who could be considered on the left. There are two possible explanations for this. He was of a mind with the leftists. Or….. he was spying on them.
Next week: the Magnolia Party (just don’t call it a party)
Whatever else George was, he was a good friend of Lee and stood up for Lee until the day he shot himself (or someone did it for him).