blatant coverup had made public pressure for a new investigation of the Kennedy
assassination irresistible, the House Assassinations Committee planned to
interview de Mohrenschildt once again. But in March, 1977, just before de
Mohrenschildt was scheduled to be interviewed by Gaeton Fonzi of the House
committee's staff, he was found dead in Palm Beach, Florida. His death was
quickly ruled a suicide. One of the last people to see him alive was Edward Jay
Epstein, who was also interviewing de Mohrenschildt about the Kennedy
assassination for an upcoming book. Epstein is one of the writers on the Kennedy
assassination who enjoyed excellent relations with the late James Angleton of the
CIA. If de Mohrenschildt were alive today, he might be able to enlighten us about
his relations with George Bush, and perhaps afford us some insight into Bush's
activities during this epoch.
Jeanne de Mohrenschildt rejected the finding of suicide in her husband's death.
"He was eliminated before he got to that committee," the widow told a journalist
in 1978, "because someone did not want him to get to it." She also maintained
that George de Mohrenschildt had been surreptitiously injected with mind-altering
drugs. 15 After de Mohrenschildt's death, his personal address book was located,
and it contained this entry: "Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) 1412 W. Ohio also
Zapata Petroleum Midland." There is of course the problem of dating this
reference. George Bush had moved his office and home from Midland to Houston
in 1959, when Zapata Offshore was constituted, so perhaps this reference goes
back to some time before 1959. There is also the number: "4-6355." There are, of
course, numerous other entries, including one W.F. Buckley of the Buckley
brothers of New York City, William S. Paley of CBS, plus many oil men, stock
brokers, and the like. 16
George de Mohrenschildt recounted a number of different versions of his life, so
it is very difficult to establish the facts about him. According to one version he
was the Russian Count Sergei de Mohrenschildt, but when he arrived in the
United States in 1938 he carried a Polish passport identifying him as Jerzy
Sergius von Mohrenschildt, born in Mozyr, Russia in 1911. He may in fact have
been a Polish officer, or a correspondent for the Polish News Service, or none of
these. He worked for a time for the Polish embassy in Washington DC. Some say
that de Mohrenschildt met the Chairman of Humble Oil, Blaffer, and that Blaffer
procured him a job. Other sources say that during this time de Mohrenschildt was
affiliated with the War Department. According to some accounts, he later went to
work for the French Deuxième Bureau, which wanted to know about petroleum
exports from the United States to Europe.
De Mohrenschildt in 1941 became associated with a certain Baron Konstantin von
Maydell in a public affairs venture called "Facts and Film." Maydell was
considered a Nazi agent by the FBI, and in September 1942 he was sent to North
Dakota for an internment that would last four years. De Mohrenschildt was also
reportedly in contact with Japanese networks at this time. In June, 1941, de
Mohrenschildt was questioned by police at Port Arthur, Texas, on the suspicion of