George Sergius de Mohrenschildt (April 17, 1911 – March 29, 1977) was a Russian-born American petroleum geologist, anti-communist political refugee, professor, and occasional CIA informant. He moved to the Dallas area in October 1961, and befriended Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1962, the year before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A Russian emigrant who was born into an aristocratic family in Tsarist Russia, he ran in high social circles and was friends with Jacqueline Kennedy, the future wife of the president. While still a young boy, his wealthy family fell victim to the communist revolution, and they fled to Poland. He emigrated to the United States in the late 1930s, where his brother worked for the OSS during World War II.
De Mohrenschildt met Oswald in 1962. By most accounts, he treated Oswald with respect. After the assassination, de Mohrenschildt testified before the Warren Commission investigating the assassination, in which he minimised their relationship; his testimony was one of the longest of any witness.
In March 1977, de Mohrenschildt died by apparent suicide while waiting to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. His different accounts of Oswald at different times and his CIA links had led to several assassination conspiracy theorists to question his relationship with Oswald.
Life Early life De Mohrenschildt was born as Jerzy Sergius in Mozyr, in the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus), on .Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 168, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt. He had an older brother, . His aristocratic father, Sergey Alexandrovich von Mohrenschildt, was of Baltic German, Swedish, and Russian descent. De Mohrenschildt's mother, Alexandra, was of aristocratic Polish, Russian, and Hungarian descent.
Sergey von Mohrenschildt was described by his son as the Marshal of Nobility of the Minsk GovernorateIn his testimony to the Warren Commission, de Mohrenschildt claimed that his father had been a Marshal of Nobility of the Minsk Governorate, but the directories of 1913-1917 listed him in the lower position of Marshal for a uezd (county). Beside this, he and his children never had the title of baron or count/graf, whether in Russia or in any other country. from 1913 to 1917, and a civil rank of Actual Civil Councilor corresponding to Major General. In 1920, during the Red Terror and the Russian Civil War, Sergey von Mohrenschildt was arrested by the Bolshevik secret police, or CHEKA, for alleged anti-Soviet agitation.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 171, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt. He was sentenced to internal exile for life in Veliky Ustyug, a town in the north of Russia. De Mohrenschildt later testified before the Warren Commission that, while awaiting transport to Veliky Ustyug, his father became ill. Two doctors who treated him in jail advised him to stop eating so he would appear more sickly. The doctors then told the Soviet government that Sergey was too ill to survive the trip to Veliky Ustyug and he should be allowed to recover at home. The Soviet Government agreed, under the condition that Sergey check in weekly until he was well enough to be sent to Veliky Ustyug. After his release, Sergey, his wife and the young de Mohrenschildt then fled to the Second Polish Republic in a hay wagon (de Mohrenschildt's older brother Dimitri, who was awaiting execution, was later repatriated to Poland as part of a prisoner exchange).Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 172, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt. During their journey, de Mohrenschildt, his father and mother Alexandra contracted typhoid fever. Alexandra died of the disease shortly after the family crossed into Poland.
After the death of his wife, Sergey von Mohrenschildt and his sons made their way to Wilno (Vilnius) in Lithuania, where the family owned a six-acre estate. George de Mohrenschildt graduated from the Wilno gymnasium in 1929 and later graduated from the Polish Army's Cavalry Academy in 1931.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 175, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt. He went on to earn a master's degree at the Institute of Higher Commercial Studies.Bugliosi 2007 p. 655 Having completed a dissertation on the economic influence of the U.S. on Latin America, he received a doctor of science degree in international commerce from the University of Liège in Belgium in 1938.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, pp. 177-178, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt.
George von Mohrenschildt emigrated to the United States in May 1938, after which he legally Gallicised the nobiliary particle in his name from the German "von" to the French "de". According to de Mohrenschildt, he gathered information about people involved in pro-Nazi activities, such as those bidding for US oil leases on behalf of Nazi Germany before the US became involved in World War II.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 183, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt. De Mohrenschildt testified that a further purpose of his data collection was to help French petroleum companies outbid the Germans. He said that he was doing this work on behalf of French intelligence, but that he was not a member of French intelligence.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 184, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt.
George de Mohrenschildt spent the summer of 1938 with his older brother Dimitri von Mohrenschildt on Long Island, New York. Like George, Dimitri von Mohrenschildt was a staunch anti-communist,Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 176, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt. who was also an anti-Nazi agent for General William J. Donovan's OSS and, during the Cold War, one of the founders of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.Baker 2009 p. 72
While in New York, de Mohrenschildt became acquainted with the Bouvier family, including future First Lady of the United States Jacqueline Bouvier. Jacqueline grew up calling de Mohrenschildt "Uncle George" and would often sit on his knee.Baker 2009 p. 128 He became a close friend of Jacqueline's aunt Edith Bouvier Beale.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 179, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt.
De Mohrenschildt dabbled in the insurance business from 1939 to 1941, but failed his broker's examination.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 180, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt. In 1941, he became associated with Film Facts in New York, a production company owned by his cousin, Berend Maydell, also known as Baron Maydell (or Count Maydell) who allegedly had pro-Nazi sympathies. In 1942, en route to Mexico, de Mohrenschildt was confronted by agents of the US government who accused him of being a Nazi spy. After his car was searched, he was let go and continued on to Mexico. According to a memo by former CIA director Richard Helms, de Mohrenschildt "was alleged to be a Nazi espionage agent." In 1942 de Mohrenschildt applied to join the Office of Strategic Services but his application was rejected on the grounds of this suspicion. George de Mohrenschildt denied ever having Nazi sympathies and claimed instead to have helped raise money in America for the Polish resistance, by making a documentary film about resistance fighters in Occupied Poland.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, pp. 182-183, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt.
In 1941, de Mohrenschildt co-founded The Russian Review. In 1942, he married an American teenager named Dorothy Pierson. They had a daughter, Alexandra (known as Alexis) and divorced in early 1944.Bugliosi 2007 p. 656 In 1945, de Mohrenschildt received a master's degree in petroleum geology from the University of Texas.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, pp. 190-191, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt.
Dallas, Oswald and Haiti After the end of World War II, de Mohrenschildt moved to Venezuela, where he worked for Hampton Industries Oil, a company owned by the family of Preston A. HamptonBaker 2009 p. 75 In 1947, he married Phyllis Washington, the step-daughter of a diplomat with the State Department, S. Walter Washington. They divorced in 1949.Bugliosi 2007 p. 657 That same year, de Mohrenschildt became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In 1950, he launched an oil investment firm with his step-nephew Edward Hooker, with offices in New York City, Denver, and Abilene. In 1951, de Mohrenschildt's third marriage was to the physician Wynne "Didi" Sharples. The following year, the couple settled in Dallas, Texas, where de Mohrenschildt took a job with oilman Clint Murchison as a petroleum geologist. De Mohrenschildt and his third wife had two children, a son and a daughter, both of whom were born with cystic fibrosis (the couple's son died of the disease in 1960, as did their daughter in 1973).Bugliosi (2007) p. 1205Bugliosi 2007 pp. 657-658 De Mohrenschildt and Sharples were divorced in 1957.
De Mohrenschildt joined the Dallas Petroleum Club,Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 217, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt was a member of the Dallas Council on World Affairs,Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, p. 267, Testimony of George S. de MohrenschildtBaker 2009 p. 77 and taught at a local college. One of his longtime friends, offshore oil engineer George Kitchel, told the FBI that de Mohrenschildt counted among his good friends oil barons Clint Murchison, H.L. Hunt, John W. Mecom Sr., and Sid Richardson.Baker 2009 p. 84 De Mohrenschildt also joined the right-wing Texas Crusade for Freedom, whose members included Earle Cabell, Everette DeGolyer, David Harold Byrd and Ted Dealey.Baker 2009 pp. 77-78
In 1957, de Mohrenschildt went to Communist Yugoslavia to conduct a geological field survey for the U.S. State Department-sponsored International Cooperation Administration. While in Yugoslavia, de Mohrenschildt was accused by the secret police, or UDBA, of making drawings of military fortifications. After returning to the United States, de Mohrenschildt was debriefed by the CIA, both in Washington and in Dallas. The following year he travelled to Mexico and Panama where he produced further intelligence reports for the CIA.
Following his divorce in 1957, de Mohrenschildt married his fourth wife, former dancer, model, and fellow Russian-American Jeanne LeGon, in June 1959.Warren Commission Hearings, volume 9, pp. 203-4, Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt. LeGon (née Eugenia Fomenko) was the daughter of a director of the Chinese Far East Railway who was later killed by communists.Johnson McMillian 2013 p. 269Warren Commission Hearings, volume IX, pp. 285-7, Testimony of Mrs. George S. de Mohrenschildt. From late 1960 and into 1961, he and his wife toured Central America and the Caribbean.Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Jeanne de Mohrenschildt. His "walking trip" through Central America was made to recover from the grief of losing his only son in 1960 to cystic fibrosis. However, de Mohrenschildt also submitted a written report of his trip to the U.S. State Department, and a photograph taken during the trip shows him meeting the American ambassador to Costa Rica.