Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years (78 page)

18
. Author interview with Aubrey Irby, February 1, 2007.

19
. Burton Hersh,
The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA
(St. Petersburg, FL: Tree Farm, 1992); and Peter Grose,
Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994).

20
. Hersh,
The Old Boys
, p. 394.

21
. Tim Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
(New York: Anchor, 2008), p. 144.

22
. Ulmer was running things in Greece during the country’s vicious civil war; the Athens CIA station was also in charge of most Middle East operations and anti-Soviet-bloc efforts in Yugo slavia, Albania, and other Balkan countries. Ulmer would go on to a host of key CIA assignments, including running the Paris station and the CIA’s Far East division, overseeing operations in Southeast Asia, and an attempted coup against the populist Indonesian president with the typically Indonesian one-word name: Sukarno.

23
. Niarchos personally won Dulles over when the director stopped in Athens to visit Ulmer as part of a secret 1956 “world tour” of CIA stations. Dulles was treated to a weekend on Niarchos’s 190-foot yacht. Niarchos introduced the bonvivant Dulles to the willful and alluring Queen Frederika of Greece (granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm) and made his yacht available to them for their private purposes. See Grose,
Gentleman Spy
, pp. 430, 452.

24
. Peter Evans,
Nemesis
(New York: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 140.

25
. Grose,
Gentleman Spy
, p. 452.

26
. James Presley,
Never in Doubt: A History of Delta Drilling Company
(Houston: Gulf, 1981), pp. 41–45.

27
. Author interview with Keating Zeppa, February 3, 2007.

28
. The FBI document is available at the Assassination Archives Research Center on page 14 of this longer file:
www.aarclibrary.org/notices/Affidavit_of_George_William_Bush_880921.pdf
29
. Author interview with Kearney Reynolds, March 4, 2007.

30
. This cannot be corroborated, as no relevant Secret Service records have been publicly released.

31
. Telephone interview with James Parrott conducted by independent researcher Bruce Campbell Adamson, May 31, 1993.

32
. Steve Berg, “Republicans Tear Into Clinton; Family Values Issue Widens Cultural Gap,”
Minneapolis
Star-Tribune
, August 19, 1992.

5: OSWALD’S FRIEND

1
. Letter from de Mohrenschildt to Bush, available through the Mary Ferrell Foundation Web site(
www.maryferrell.org
). It includes the official routing slip where Bush checks “yes” after “do you know this individual?” (104-10414-10013). Also available is a memorandum from Inspector General John Waller to Bush summarizing what is in the CIA files on de Mohrenschildt (104-10414-10378); and a letter from Bush to de Mohrenschildt (104-10414-10134).

2
. Associated Press, “Russian-Born Society Figure Knew Kennedy’s Family and His Assassin,”
Washington Post,
November 25, 1964.

3
. Norman Mailer,
Oswald’s Tale
(New York: Random House, 1995), p. 458.

4
. George de Mohrenschildt’s family were Russian nobility of Swedish and German extraction; de Mohrenschildt de-Germanized his name upon immigrating to the United States.

5
. David L. Francis, former mayor of St. Louis and governor of Missouri.

6
. Serving with Samuel Bush on the War Industries Board was Robert S. Lovett, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, chief counsel to E. H. Harriman, and executor of Harriman’s will. Lovett had been in the Texas law firm of the family of future secretary of state and Middle East envoy James Baker. Lovett’s son, Robert A. Lovett, would go on to become an important figure in the Bush saga, as a business partner with Prescott Bush and Averell Harriman, and during World War II, as an aide to Ambassador Harriman in Moscow. Under Harry S Truman, he would be instrumental in the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency.

7
. Mrs. Harriman’s late husband was a cousin, major financier, and business associate of E. H. Harriman,whose sons, Averell and Roland Harriman, were Skull and Bones mates and later business partners of Prescott Bush, and employers of Prescott’s father-in-law, George Herbert Walker.

8
. Steve LeVine,
The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea
(New York: Random House, 2007), p. 34.

9
. Dimitri called himself von Mohrenschildt, while George, who didn’t find the German appendage useful in America, went by de Mohrenschildt.

10
. Obituary of Edward G. Hooker,
New York Times
, March 30, 1967.

11
. From the University of Liège, Belgium, 1938.

12
. Long before he headed up the CIA, Dulles had revealed his consummate skill in government service, which included a stint at the U.S. embassy in Istanbul at the time the United States was trying to wedge its way into the now-defeated Ottoman Empire—whose former oil properties in Mesopotamia (Iraq) were the subject of intense international competition following World War I—and in Washington as chief of the Near East desk at the State Department. He would also serve as an adviser on German war reparations. During his trips to Europe as a lawyer, Dulles gathered intelligence on political conditions. Switching between public and private service seemed to come naturally to him, particularly when it involved carry ing out intelligence work.

13
. Peter Grose,
Gentleman Spy
:
The Life of Allen Dulles
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), p. 147.

14
. Serge Obolensky,
One Man in His Time
(London: Hutchinson, 1960).

15
. William F. Buckley Sr. had started Pantepec in Mexico in 1914. After he resisted restrictions placed on American oil companies and land ownership by the Mexican Constitution of 1917, Buckley Sr. was expelled in 1921 by Mexican president Álvaro Obregón. The Mexicans suspected Buckley of working with other American corporate figures to topple the government.

16
. David A. Andelman,
A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today
(New York: Wiley, 2007).

17
. Warren Commission testimony, p. 267.

18
. Other members included Clint Murchison (employer of George de Mohrenschildt and friend of J. Edgar Hoover), Fred Florence (executive of the CIA-controlled Republic National Bank), oilman H. L. Hunt (business associate and friend of Murchison and a staunch anti-Communist), Bernard L. Gold (owner of Nardis Sportswear, which employed both Abraham Zapruder and Mrs. George de Mohrenschildt), and R. Gerald Storey (later, chief of the JFK assassination investigation in Texas).

19
. Letter from Senator Prescott Bush to Eisenhower national security aide and cold war propaganda expert C. D. Jackson, dated March 26, 1953. Found in a footnote to Warren Hinckle and William W. Turner,
The Fish Is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro
(New York: Harper Collins, 1981).

20
. Though the couple divorced in 1973, they remained close until de Mohrenschildt’s death in 1977.

21
. As a one-paragraph article with a Havana dateline buried in the
New York Times
of June 14, 1954, noted: “Interest in the possibility of petroleum production in Cuba increased here today with the announcement that a group of American oil operators would start a series of wells within ninety days. The announcement said these operators, from Texas and California, had signed a contract to drill exploratory wells on leases of the Transcuba Oil Company and the Cuban Venezuelan oil voting trust.”

Eighteen months later, on January 4, 1956, the
Times
reported:

Cuba’s hopes of taking her place among the oil producing nations of the world are rising slowly. There has been no spectacular strike but the steady increase in production from small wells and the inflow of capital for exploration work is highly encouraging.

Oilmen from Texas, Oklahoma and California in particular are appearing in Cuba in increasing numbers. Various small companies and some with considerable resources have been formed.

Last September the Stanolind Oil and Gas Company (Standard Oil of Indiana) signed a contract with Trans-Cuba Oil Company and the Cuban-Venezuelan Oil Voting Trust in Havana, which have large holdings. The Stanolind will spend $2,000,000 yearly in exploration and drilling during the next five years. It is estimated that investors will have committed $25,000,000 for exploration work during the next two years.

22
. Back in the 1930s, Lansky had hit upon the Caribbean as a perfect place to launder illegal profits for mob bosses from the Northeast. He funneled the cash into a wide range of gambling ventures, hotels, and other businesses, as well as the drug trade, and became close to the Cuban authorities. For more, see Alfred McCoy,
The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the
Global Drug Trade
(Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 1991).

23
. During the first six months of 1955, Cuba produced 151,122 barrels of oil, three times the production of the previous year. October 1955 saw daily production running more than 50 percent above the average for the first half of the year. “Rise in Domestic Oil Flow Bolsters Cuba; Exploratory Capital Pouring into Island,”
New York Times
, January 5, 1956.

24
. “Oil Drilling Deal Set,”
New York Times
, November 30, 1956.

25
. “Cuban-Venezuelan Unit Chooses Trustee,”
New York Times
, May 14, 1956.

26
. Stephen Birmingham,
Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York
(New York: Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 409–410.

27
. Empire Trust corporate filings with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, as of 1966.

28
. Henry Brunie, Empire Trust’s president, was a best friend of and served as best man at the wedding of Warren Commission member John J. McCloy.

29
. John A. “Jack” Crichton interview, July 6, 2001, Oral History Collection, Sixth Floor Museum,Dallas.

30
. The 488th Army Intelligence Detachment.

31
. R. Hart Phillips, “Cuba Limits Search for Oil; Nationalization Step Seen,”
New York Times
, November 22, 1959.

32
. These refineries were not affected, however, since most of the oil they refined came from other countries. Much of it, in fact, came from Venezuela.

33
. William A. Doyle, “The Daily Investor,”
Portsmouth Herald
(New Hampshire), August 14, 1961.

34
. John Kouwenhoven,
Partners in Banking: An Historical Portrait of a Great Private Bank, Brown
Brothers, Harriman & Co., 1818–1968
(New York: Doubleday & Company, 1983 reprint), p. 206.

35
. Erik Hedegaard, “The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt,”
Rolling Stone
, April 5, 2007.