George de Mohrenschildt - Later Life and Death

Later Life and Death

For reasons unknown, George and Jeanne de Mohrenschildt obtained a divorce in Dallas, Texas on April 3, 1973, after nearly fourteen years of marriage. It was not reported in the local newspapers, and the couple continued to present themselves as husband and wife.

On September 17, 1976, the CIA requested that the FBI locate de Mohrenschildt, because he had "attempted to get in touch with the CIA Director." On September 5, 1976, De Mohrenschildt had written a letter to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George H. W. Bush asking for his assistance. The letter said:

You will excuse this hand-written letter. Maybe you will be able to bring a solution to the hopeless situation I find myself in. My wife and I find ourselves surrounded by some vigilantes; our phone bugged; and we are being followed everywhere. Either FBI is involved in this or they do not want to accept my complaints. We are driven to insanity by the situation. I have been behaving like a damn fool ever since my daughter Nadya died from over three years ago. I tried to write, stupidly and unsuccessfully, about Lee H Oswald and must have angered a lot of people — I do not know. But to punish an elderly man like myself and my highly nervous and sick wife is really too much. Could you do something to remove the net around us? This will be my last request for help and I will not annoy you any more. Good luck in your important job. Thank you so much.

George Bush wrote back:

Let me say first that I know it must have been difficult for you to seek my help in the situation outlined in your letter. I believe I can appreciate your state of mind in view of your daughter's tragic death a few years ago, and the current poor state of your wife's health. I was extremely sorry to hear of these circumstances. In your situation I can well imagine how the attentions you described in your letter affect both you and your wife. However, my staff has been unable to find any indication of interest in your activities on the part of Federal authorities in recent years. The flurry of interest that attended your testimony before the Warren Commission has long subsided. I can only speculate that you may have become "newsworthy" again in view of the renewed interest in the Kennedy assassination, and thus may be attracting the attention of people in the media. I hope this letter had been of some comfort to you, George, although I realize I am unable to answer your question completely. George Bush, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

On November 9, 1976, Jeanne had him committed to a mental institution in Texas for three months, and listed in a notarized affidavit four previous suicide attempts while he was in the Dallas area. In the affidavit she stated that George suffered from depression, heard voices, saw visions, and believed that the CIA and the Jewish Mafia were persecuting him.

According to Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans, a "serious and famous Dutch clairvoyant," named Gerard Croiset, had a vision in 1967 of a conspirator who had manipulated Oswald; his description led Oltmans to de Mohrenschildt, and the two stayed in touch. In 1977, Oltmans went to Texas and brought de Mohrenschildt to Holland. What happened next is disputed. Michael Eddowes says Oltmans plied de Mohrenschildt with pharmaceuticals, which Oltmans denies, saying instead that he rescued de Mohrenschildt from a mental institution to bring him to the "famous" clairvoyant, Croiset. According to Oltmans, Croiset agreed that de Mohrenschildt was the man he saw in his vision. About this episode Lobster Magazine subsequently commented: "Between psychiatrists on one side and a psychic on the other — and even if the CIA were not involved — did not have much of a chance."

Oltmans says that after de Mohrenschildt arrived in Holland, he invited him out with some Russian friends. They went to Brussels and had plans to go to Liege, a city in the French speaking part of Belgium. Oltmans owned a house not far from Liege in the countryside. Upon returning to Brussels, de Mohrenschildt went for a short walk from which he failed to return. He had earlier agreed to meet Oltmans and his friends for lunch. Oltmans waited for him but he didn't come back.

On March 16, 1977, de Mohrenschildt returned to the United States from his trip. His daughter talked with him at length and found him to be deeply disturbed about certain matters and had expressed a desire to commit suicide. On March 29, De Mohrenschildt gave an interview to author Edward Jay Epstein, during which he claimed that in 1962, Dallas CIA operative J. Walton Moore had given him the go-ahead to meet Oswald. "I would never have contacted Oswald in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it," de Mohrenschildt said. "Too much was at stake." On the same day as the Epstein interview, de Mohrenschildt received a business card from Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, telling him that he would like to see him. That afternoon, de Mohrenschildt was found dead from a shotgun blast to the head in a house where he was staying in Manalapan, Florida. The coroner's verdict was suicide.

On the day of de Mohrenschildt's death, Edward Jay Epstein, the author who had interviewed him that day, wrote the following diary entry (29 March 1977):

David Bludworth, The State's Attorney, was a folksy, charming and savvy interrogator. He began by telling me that de Mohrenschildt had put a shotgun in his mouth and killed himself at 3:45 p.m. There were no witnesses — and no one home at the time of the shooting. The precise time of his death was established by a tape-recorder, left running that afternoon to record the soap operas for the absent Mrs. Tilton, and which recorded a single set of footfalls in the room and the blast of the shotgun, which was found on the Persian carpet next to him. No suicide note or other clue was found. He said I was probably the last person to talk to him. Then, he asked whether I had in my possession De Mohrenschildt's black address book. I replied "No." He politely rephrased the question, and asked me again — about a half-dozen times, whether I had the black book.

House Select Committee on Assassinations investigator Gaeton Fonzi retrieved an address book from de Mohrenschildt's briefcase after his death. In the address book was an entry for "Bush, George H. W. (Poppy), 1412 W. Ohio also Zapata Petroleum, Midland." Upon hearing of De Mohrenschildt's death, Richardson Preyer, then chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, said: "He was a crucial witness...."