GARRISON AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION: INTERVIEW OF GARRISON ON DUTCH TV
Originator: CIA
Document date: 1968-03-01 00:00:00
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

# DOCID-32347792

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JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM

IDENTIFICATION FORM

AGENCY INFORMATION

AGENCY : CIA

RECORD NUMBER

RECORD SERIES

104-10067-10080

JFK

AGENCY FILE NUMBER

80T01357A

Date: 12/14/04

DOCUMENT

INFORMATION

AGENCY ORIGINATOR

CIA

FROM

TO

TITLE:

GARRISON AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION: INTERVIEW OF

GARRISON ON DUTCH TV

DATE

03/01/1968

PAGES

5

SUBJECTS

: CIA INVOLVEMENT

GARRISON JAMES

TV INTERVIEW

JFK ASSASSINATION

OLTMANS WILLIA

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER

CLASSIFICATION

: SECRET

RESTRICTIONS

1B

CURRENT STATUS

RELEASED IN PART PUBLIC - RELEASED WITH DELETIONS

DATE OF LAST REVIEW

05/25/04

COMMENTS

JFK12: F10: 20031216-1025950

Released under the John F. Kennedy

Assassination Records Collection Act of

1992 |44 USC 2107 Notel. Case#:NW

65924 Date: 10-25-2021

[R)

- ITEM

IS

RESTRICTED

104-10067-10080

MNW 65924. Docld:32347792 Page 1

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1 March 1968

MEMORANDUM

SUBJECT:

Garrison and the Kennedy Assassination:

Interview of Garrison on Dutch TV by

William L. Oltmans (201-155221)

REFERENCES: A. Joint State-USIA cable, HCM 553,

HAGUE - 3981, 24 February 1968

B.. The Hague 3870, IN 59064,

27 February 1968

SUMMARY

Garrison appeared on Dutch TV on 22 February 1968. He

continued -- in fact, escalated -- his attack upon CIA in a persuasive

performance. There is a possibility of a follow-up program in

Holland and replays elsewhere in Europe. Garrison's interviewer,

William L. Oltmans, is a Dutch pro-Communist, although he pretends

not to be, and a homosexual who seems to be or to have been intimate

with ex-President Sukarno of Indonesia.

Consideration is being given to forwarding to the Station at

The Hague overt derogatory information about Garrison from the U.S.

press and TV/radio interviews for release to CA assets there.

DETAILS

1. References state that on 22 February 1968 Garrison

taped in the U.S. and sent on tape to Holland.

The Dutch desk believes

that the latter is true.

SIGNET

Excited Face

06241

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2. The following were Garrison's charges:

a. Kennedy was murdered because he favored a

detente detrimental to the interests of the "military-

industrial complex".

b. Kennedy was the victim of a CIA plot. CIA

has made common cause with the military-industrial

establishment because of a vested interest in maintaining

the cold war.

c. CIA is committed to the land war in Asia,

whereas one of President Kennedy's last orders directed

a reduction.of troops there.

d. A U.S. president who brings the U.S. to the

brink of peace will suffer Kennedy's fate.

e. Asked why the program had been designed for

a European audience, Garrison said that the growing

influence of CIA on U.S. media had made it impossible for

him to be heard in his own country.

3. Reference A says Garrison, calm and composed, was

sufficiently credible to elicit rather favorable reviews from generally

"Several Dutch viewers also

commented on the credibility / of / his person and presentation.

Likely that the NTS will try to sell this program to other European

4. Reference B says that the Dutch press was generally favorable

and that many comments noted he seemed logical and in control of his

facts. The majority opinion among Embassy, USIS, and CIA personnel

at The Hague is that he seemed credible to a large proportion of the

Dutch viewers. SYMPATHIZER 17 feels that the program created an

all-time low in the U.S. image in the Netherlands. Dutch TV alluded

to a third part of the interview, still to come.

5. Garrison was interviewed by William L. Oltmans.

synopsis regarding Oltmans follows:

2

SECTET

Lia.

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SECT

a. DPOB 10 June 1925 Huizen, The Netherlands.

b. Studied at Yale 1950 but expelled for unstated

misbehavior.

c. Thereafter worked briefly as correspondent

for U.P. and for Dutch paper De Telegraaf but dismissed

by both for unstated cause.

d. An FBI report of 1960 states that he calls

himself anti-Communist but expresses the views "of a

great admirer of communism".

An I&NS report of 1961 lists his address for

1956-1961 as 118-09 83rd Ave., Kew Gardens, Long Island,

f. A CIA report of 1961 lists him as a UN

correspondent then planning an unsponsored trip to East

Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Dutch

correspondents said that they had yet to see a story written

by him. When he applied for membership in the UN

correspondents association, he was unable to produce a

single clipping in support of the application. He travels

extensively. He has excellent contacts in all Communist

countries including Cuba.

g. The Haague Post of 15 April 1951, with a

nationwide readership, characterized Oltmans as an

intimate friend of the then President of Indonesia, Sukarno,

and as having tried for five years to arrange contacts

for Sukarno in Holland.

h. An FBI report of 24 November 1961 restates

the above and adds that he had been separated or divorced

from his American wife 18 months earlier because "he is

not a man". He was living with a male at the time of the

report.

i. An FBI report of l February 1962 includes an

interview with the ex-wife Frieda Bieling (she had remarried).

3

SECRET

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ESCRET

She said that her ex-husband and President Sukarno

were close

friends and that he wrote to Sukarno at

least once a week throughout their marriage. Around

1957 she and Oltmans lived at the Paramount Hotel,

New York, for a time. The Indonesian government

paid their bill, which was more than $300. She met

- Sukarno through her husband in May 1959 in Copenhagen.

At the time of the introduction Sukarno cleared the

room of all advisors and bodyguards, then said to her,

"So you are Frieda. Well, I am Sukie." He told her

"that he looked forward to receiving his weekly messages

from her husband and that he always read them just

before he went to sleep while he was in bed." She said

that ten minutes after her wedding ceremony with

Oltmans was over, she was alone. Her father, she

said, learned that Oltmans had a police record for

molesting young boys in Amsterdam. She obtained a

Mexican divorce in 1960. She said that Oltmans is at

least intellectually a Communist and believes Communism

to be the economic system of the future.

j• HAGU-1365, 24 October 1966, says Oltmans

wrote pro-Lumumba articles in 1960, visited Cuba in 1962

and perhaps 1963, developed friendly relations with

Chicoms at The Hague and may have visited China in 1964.

In August 1966 he applied for a Chicom visa at The Hague.

k.. An FBI report of 12 May 1967 says that Oltmans

claimed to have written for Ramparts an article about CIA

in Indonesia. No such article has been found.

Garrison's mental health and performance as a public official. A

summary of derogatory information from overt U.S. media for the

past year (March 1967 to March 1968) has been compiled in response.

A decision will soon be made as to whether part or all of this material

may be sent to the Station for use by Dutch CA assets.

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(

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SIS ET

Distribution:

Orig - DCI

1 - DDP, ADDP

1 - A/DCI

- Eur/Netherlands

- Office of General Counsel

Office of Security

• C/CI, DC/CI

1 - R&A chrono

1 - DP

reports file

5

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