Volkmar Schmidt and the Houston plot

Much attention has been given to individuals such as Ruth Paine and George DeMohrenschildt by researchers (and rightly so). But one individual who has not been given as much attention; and who I think deserves much more, is Volkmar “Dirk” Schmidt. After migrating to the United States from Germany, Schmidt worked for the Mobil Oil Company in Dallas as a geologist/petrologist in 1963. I first became interested in Schmidt after reading about FBI informant Dallas T-3 in a post by Lee Farley at the old ROKC forum. Consider the following:
 
“On March 20, 1964, confidential Informant Dallas T-3 advised that in an effort to obtain further information informant had learned through Mrs. Carnes Nance that the information relating to alleged visits by Jack L. Ruby to 1026 N. Beckley street was probably gossip and that Informant had no way of further determining the reliability of such reports. Informant specifically requested that under no circumstances should Mrs. Nance be interviewed as it would cause the loss of Informant’s job.”
 
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=58974&relPageId=107
 
If you go to page 106 in the above link, you will see that Mrs. Nance was an employee of the Mobil Oil Company in Dallas, Texas. It occurred to me that the informant was concerned about losing his/her job because he/she also worked at the Mobil Oil Company; and that Nance could have him/her fired if she knew that he/she had provided the FBI with the above information which was obtained from her. It also occurred to me that Volkmar Schmidt may have been informant Dallas T-3. The following is from Bill Kelly’s telephone interview with Schmidt in January, 1995:
 
K: What was your impression of [Oswald]?
 
S: The same impression as my colleagues had, who all met them because I had arranged a party after that for them to meet Lee Harvey Oswald and his family. I was gone on a lengthily business trip then. A very disturbed man. A man desperate, spiritually, totally desperate. That’s why I talked with him, to try to get him back to sanity. His determination to leave an imprint in history was just incredible. The warning flags went right off for me that this man was ready to explode and do harm to him and others. Specifically what flashed to me, the logical suicide of Dostoevsky, that story, a man is devoid of spiritual meaning in life, then the knowledge of power of intellect creates a great dilemma. That’s what Dostoevsky beautifully put down. So anyway, I had been around people who were even more disturbed during my youth because I grew up in the house of a psychiatrist.
 
……………………..
 
K: Can you give me some more of your impressions of Oswald?
 
S: Oswald found out that if you really want to do something you can succeed in a lot of things, it just takes determination. That’s how he learned Russian, hea? It took incredible determination. And he pulled himself out of really low class upbringing in Fort Worth, which was hell, so he was a bitter young man because of social injustice, which quite frankly existed in Texas especially. So he was a nothing, who tried to make something out of himself. And he was looking, like many Americans, for notoriety. It was subconsciously, the only avenue to succeed. He would kill himself if he could leave a mark, and he left a terrible mark. So he was a very, very desperate man.
 
K: You mentioned General Walker when you talked with Oswald?
 
S: Yes, Professor Kuetemeyer told me you know, to deal with people like this who are disturbed, you have to use empathy, be slightly over zealous yourself to like up with them and that total insanity, towards reality. When I heard how hateful he was towards Kennedy and Cuba, which was kind of irrational, I tried to say "hey, there’s something much more real to be concerned about," because I don’t know about Castro, but I know about this Walker, he’s kind of a Nazi, yea? Not so bad as those Nazis in Germany, but I had specifically mentioned to Lee Harvey Oswald, that Walker had given a speech to the students at the Mississippi campus and those guys went off and killed a couple of journalists.
 
K: Yes, reporters died during those racial riots.
 
S: Absolutely, and here's something that we have to protest, and think about it. But I said it has to be all constructive, yes? There was a racial problem and you have to bring justice to the minorities.
 
K: So do you think your conversation with Oswald about Walker may have instigated him to take a pot shot at him?
 
S: Yes, he did, and naturally it was a terrible responsibility, and for years when I drove past the underpass I literally had to cry because, you know. But I exonerate myself completely because I had the best intent, embarrassed Kennedy, and I certainly didn’t tell him to take a pot shot at him.
 
K: I didn’t think you told him to do it, just because you were talking to him about it...
 
S: I may have triggered it. Actually, a few days after I talked with him, he bought his weapons.
 
K: It’s a shame that it’s been 30 years and we are just beginning to look at the files.
 
S: One thing is that the DeMohrenschildts were terribly afraid of all kinds of things, people disappearing and what not, and were afraid to talk about it. They also said that Oswald didn’t do it, but I think it could have been that they had the key in their hand. When they saw this nut giving them a picture with, "the Nazi killer." It was totally irresponsible for George DeMohrenschildt not to make a noise about it. He told me about it.
 
K: He knew that Oswald had the rifle.
 
S: Yes.
 
K: Now DeMohrenschildt had a shady background himself. And by shady I mean he had these affiliations with intelligence agencies, which leaves open the possibility that the assassination was a covert operation disguised as a patsy as the lone nut. Do you think that is possible?
 
S: No. He (DeMohrenschildt) was a bit of a nut, but he was also a very spread out person. He was totally irresponsible, the playboy, being the old man, but he was loyal in certain ways to his family and friends, and I don’t think George used this to make money, but he was an opportunist to the first degree, but he had some ideals, like Hemingway.
 
……………………..
 
K: When you organized the party for the Paines to meet the Oswalds, you were on a business trip?
 
S: A whole bunch of people came there, but I was on a trip to Libya and overseas. But I put some money down and arranged it, and did my best.
 
K: You were trying to help Oswald out.
 
S: Absolutely, especially Marina. That was the other thing. I saw Marina and the little child and Oswald just didn’t take any notice of them, and I thought, "boy, are you in trouble."
 
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com.au/2008/01/volkmar-schmidt-interview.html
 
Reading through the shit Schmidt had to say about Oswald, one could easily get the impression that Kelly was actually interviewing David Von Penis head. During his interview with the FBI on January 7, 1964, Everett Glover; who worked with Schmidt at the Mobil Oil Company in Dallas, claimed that he and Schmidt decided to invite the Oswalds over to Glover’s house:
 
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10730&relPageId=216
 
As most researchers probably know, this is where Ruth Paine allegedly met both of the Oswalds (on February 22, 1963). Although Schmidt claimed that he was on a trip to Libya when Paine allegedly “met” the Oswalds at Glover’s house, both George DeMohrenschildt (who was also invited) and the bitch (Paine) told the Warren Commission that Schmidt was present:
 
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=19064
 
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=16044
 
As we can see, Schmidt told Kelly that it was he who had “inadvertently” put the idea of shooting Walker into Oswald’s head. Schmidt was interviewed by the FBI on February 27, 1964. According to the report of his interview with them “Schmidt advised that George DeMohrenschildt definitely had strong socialistic leanings but these could not be considered pro-Russian Communist leanings” and that “Schmidt advised that both of the DeMohrenschildts were definitely atheistic, independent thinkers with socialistic tendencies.”
 
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10954&relPageId=69
 
During an interview with the FBI on November 23, 1963, Ilya Mamantov (who was one of Marina Oswald’s interpreters) claimed that he warned Schmidt (whom he referred to as Folkner Schmidt) about associating with George DeMohrenschildt. During that same interview, Mamantov claimed that a couple of days after he warned Schmidt about associating with DeMohrenschildt, DeMohrenschildt called him and said to him “A good friend of mine told me that you said I was a Communist. If I hear of anymore statements of this nature, I will come over and beat [the] hell out of you.”
 
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10672&relPageId=594
 
Mamantov denied that he told Schmidt that DeMohrenschildt was a communist. But why would Schmidt tell DeMohrenschildt that Mamantov had said this to him? I suspect it might have been because Schmidt was trying to lay the blame on someone else for making allegations himself that DeMohrenschildt was a communist. When Marina Oswald testified before the Warren Commission, she claimed that as soon as the DeMohrenschildt’s arrived at their apartment on Neely Street (where I don’t believe the Oswalds lived) he said to Oswald “Lee, how is it possible that you missed?”
 
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=15030
 
This was supposedly a reference to Oswald taking a shot at the ultra-right wing, ex-general Edwin Walker. As I think most people reading this are aware, the DPD and the FBI were involved in fabricating evidence against Oswald for the Walker shooting. My opinion is that this was done in order to reinforce the notion that Oswald had leftist beliefs; and was capable of taking the life of another person. As I think most people reading this are also aware, Marina Oswald was threatened by the FBI (in so many words) to be deported back to the Soviet Union if she didn’t cooperate with them, and was told that she would have more rights in the United States if she co-operated with the Government in “investigating” the assassination. For those who are unaware of any of this, you can read about it in my review of the Reston book, under the subheading “The Walker shooting and the ‘Nixon incident’:”
 
http://jfkthelonegunmanmyth.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/review-of-accidental-victim-by-james.html
 

As I also discussed in my review of the Reston book (under the same subheading), DeMohrenschildt denied that he had said to Oswald “Lee, how is it possible that you missed?” during his testimony before the Warren Commission. When we take the above into account with the fact that Schmidt told the FBI that DeMohrenschildt had “strong socialistic leanings” and had “socialistic tendencies,” and the fact that Schmidt told Bill Kelly that he had put the idea of shooting Walker into Oswald’s head, I think there is good reason to believe that Schmidt (who was also quite possibly an FBI informant) was wittingly used by the FBI to bolster the notion that Oswald was a leftist who had taken a shot at Walker. I don’t think Marina Oswald just pulled out of her ass that DeMohrenschildt said to Oswald “Lee, how is it possible that you missed? I think she was coerced by the FBI into saying this.

I think Schmidt was an FBI informant who was keeping tabs on members of the “white” Russian community in the Dallas area. I also think it is entirely possible that Schmidt had introduced the Oswalds to Ruth Paine long before the so-called party at Everett Glover’s house, and that Schmidt and the FBI; with the help of Glover, Paine, and the DeMohrenschildts, fabricated the party at Glover’s house to cover this up (keep in mind what I have discussed in the “Oswald living with Ruth?” thread at this forum).
 
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/pdf/WH26_CE_3116.pdf
 
Aside from all of that, I also think there is good reason to believe that Schmidt was involved in a plot to assassinate JFK in Houston, Texas, on November 21, 1963. Let’s consider the following. Thomas Edward Beckham; who allegedly knew Oswald, Guy Bannister, David Ferrie, Lawrence Howard, Jack Ruby etc. told Johnathan Blackmer and L.J. Delsa from the HSCA the following in August 1977:
 
“During the course of events of the meetings of the “cell,” Beckham recalls a man in attendance known to him as “George Schmidt.” Beckham thinks it was this man that drove Lee Harvey Oswald to Houston in September or October of 1963. While Beckham did not know Schmidt very well, he was told that Schmidt was from the Dallas area, knew Ruth Paine, and was responsible for introducing LHO to Mrs. Paine. Additionally, Beckham stated that Schmidt had committed suicide some months ago in Florida, and recalled seeing Schmidt’s photograph in the newspaper. Beckham stated Schmidt had some connection with the oil business.”
 
http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/29390/rec/18 (see page 5).
 
Apart from the first name “George” and the alleged suicide, the person Beckham was describing sounds a lot like Volkmar Schmidt to me. Although I don’t know where Beckham got the idea that Schmidt committed suicide, perhaps he had seen the photograph of a man who looked like Schmidt in the newspaper who had committed suicide, and confused the two for each other. As for the name “George Schmidt,” I think Schmidt was using it as an alias similar to how Clay Shaw used the name Clay Bertrand as an alias.
 
On March 16, 1967, Evelyn Sheppard; who was a personnel placement advisor at the Continental Oil Company in Houston, Texas, told the FBI that sometime from mid to late September or early October, a man who “greatly resembled” Oswald came to the personnel office of the company about a job interview, and that he insisted on an interview. According to Sheppard, the man wanted to make out an application for a mail clerk, and told her that he was qualified as one. Sheppard told the FBI that a mail clerk had the duty of delivering mail to all sections of the building without restriction, and that at the time, the door to the roof of the building was kept unlocked and that people could go on the roof and use it more or less as an observation tower:
 
http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/8670/rec/5
 
Although Sheppard told the FBI that she thought the man gave his name as “Lee Oswald,” there is good reason to believe that he was in fact Larry Crafard. First of all, as I discussed in my essay on Crafard, not only was Crafard demonstrably mistaken for Oswald by multiple people, but he was also likely impersonating Oswald. Sheppard told the FBI that she “clearly” remembered that the man had told her he had just returned from Mexico where he had gone with a “friend” and that they had tried (unsuccessfully) to go from Mexico to Cuba. As I discussed in my essay on Larry Crafard, at around the same time that Oswald was allegedly returning from Mexico City via San Antonio, Texas, a motorist named Stanley Moczygemba picked-up a hitchhiker (something Crafard was) from the outskirts of San Antonio whom Moczygemba thought may have been Oswald, and whom Moczygemba described as having the same height and weight as Crafard; as reported in Crafard’s interview with the FBI on November 28, 1963 (see under the subheading “Was Crafard living at 1026 North Beckley?”).
 
http://jfkthelonegunmanmyth.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/did-larry-crafard-kill-jd-tippit.html
 
During her interview with the FBI, Sheppard also claimed that “…the individual had a peculiar look out of his eyes which could be described as a piercing look and also appeared as if he might have been taking narcotics or some kind of drugs. She stated that he had an unusual stare.” Clarence Aubry Summers; who knew Crafard, told the FBI that Crafard’s eyes were blinking “almost constantly.”
 
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/pdf/WH26_CE_2792.pdf
 
Marvin Gardner; who also knew Crafard and who purportedly worked at the Dallas state fair with Crafard, told the FBI that Crafard had a “nervous twitch in his eyes.”
 
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh25/pdf/wh25_ce_2348.pdf
 
Why is this relevant? Because (as I am sure many people reading this probably know already) constant eye blinking and eye twitching are symptoms caused by taking certain drugs. Sheppard also remarked to the FBI that the man told her that he had a wife and a child who were staying with his mother. Crafard told both the FBI and the Warren Commission that he had a wife and a son, and told the Warren Commission that after he left his wife at his parents’ home in Dallas, Oregon (around the middle of September), he had travelled to Dallas, Texas. Crafard also told the Warren Commission that his wife stayed with his parents for about two or three weeks after he left; and that the last he heard, she left his son and step-son with a woman in Cuba, Missouri (see pages 414 to 416 of Volume XIII of the Warren Commission volumes).
 
The woman in Cuba, Missouri (to whom Crafard was referring to) was almost certainly Mary Sampson. Sampson told the FBI that she “kept two children” for Crafard’s wife from September to December, 1963 (see page 9 of the following pdf file):
 
[url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/FBI Records Files/44-24016/44-24016 Volume 45/44-24016-45C.pdf]http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/FBI%20Records%20Files/44-24016/44-24016%20Volume%2045/44-24016-45C.pdf[/url]
 
On that very same page, you will see that Crafard was looking for his wife in Cuba, Missouri, at the end of February, 1964. With all of this in mind, I think it is entirely likely that Crafard was the man whom Evelyn Sheppard interviewed in October, 1963. But what does this have to do with a plot to assassinate JFK in Houston? In my opinion, there are a number of things to consider. First of all, as I am certain most people reading this are aware, JFK was in Houston the day before he was assassinated. Secondly, as discussed in my essay on Crafard, Crafard’s alibi for the time of the assassination stinks (see under the subheading “Crafard’s Alibi”). Of course, we also have good reason to believe that he was the man who killed Tippit. With all of that in mind, I think it is entirely possible that he was the sixth floor shooter, and that therefore, he could have been trying to get the job at the Continental Oil Company so he could be in a position to shoot JFK; provided JFK’s motorcade was to go past the building. Let’s also keep in mind that Houston was the home state of the Air Force One winker/wanker, Albert Thomas, who was a protégé of LBJs and who “maintained a generally conservative voting record.”
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Richard_Thomas
 
When Evelyn Sheppard was interviewed by the FBI, she also claimed that, as she recalled, when the President was in Houston the day before he was assassinated, his motorcade passed the continental Oil Company building. As Sheppard explained, the sides of the building facing Polk Street and Travis Street were “open,” with the implication being that a sniper in the building would have been able to shoot the President if his motorcade had passed by the building on either one of those streets. In the link below, you can see spectators lined up on Travis Street to see the President as his motorcade went North on Travis Street towards the Rice Hotel.
 
http://globalnews.ca/news/984356/then-and-now-13-photos-of-u-s-president-john-f-kennedys-visit-to-houston-texas/
 
I don’t know if the President’s motorcade passed the continental Oil Company building on Travis Street after it turned off from the gulf freeway, but this is where I need the help of my fellow ROKCers to determine if this was indeed the case. I highly recommend that everyone read through Sheppard’s interview with the FBI (which I linked to above).
 
Returning now to Volkmar Schmidt, as you can see, I put the words “Oil Company” above in bold and underlined them. I don’t think it is just a coincidence that Thomas Beckham thought that the man who was likely Volkmar Schmidt (whom we should bear in mind worked for an Oil company) was the man who drove “Oswald” to Houston, and that someone who was demonstrably mistaken for Oswald by multiple people and was quite likely involved in the President’s assassination in Dallas was likely the man who insisted on an interview at (of all places) an Oil Company in that very same city. I think Schmidt and his cohorts thought that they could get Crafard the job at the building as a mail clerk by using Schmidt’s contacts/connections in the continental Oil Company.
 
As for Schmidt’s motive for being involved in a plot to assassinate JFK, let’s keep in mind that according to researcher Mae Brussell “Volkmar Schmidt came from Munich, Germany, to work full time for General [Edwin] Walker.” I don’t know if Schmidt was associated with Walker as Brussell claims, but if he was, then it stands to reason that Schmidt had strong right wing beliefs.
 

To make one thing perfectly clear, I don’t believe for even a nano-second that I have proven that there was a plot to assassinate JFK in Houston which involved Volkmar Schmidt and Larry Crafard. However, taking into account all of the above; I think it is entirely possible that there was such a plot, and that both Schmidt and Crafard were a part of it. I also realise that what I have written above involves quite a bit of speculation, but let’s see where we can go with it.