SUBJECT: GARRISON AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION: INTERVIEW OF GARRISON ON DUTCH TV BY WILLIAM L. OLTMANS.
Agency: CIA
Originator: CIA
From: C/CI/R&A
To: DCI
Document date: 3/1/68
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

## Page 1

104-10170-10162

• UNCLASSIFIED

ERNAL

USE ONLY

ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET

CONtENTIAL

E SECRET

SUBJECT, Misionat

FROM.

TO:

building)

Raymond G. Rocca

C/CI/R&A

oin numbers and

DATE.

EXTENSION

1653

INITIALS

NO

RAPE

1 March 1965

DCI

MAR 969

2.

3.

ar. Kedes

Mp'a

for file, pha.

•%.

8.

8.

10. •

11.

11.

11.

FORMA

3-47

610 maes

SECRET

CONFIDENTIAL

INTERNAL

USE ONLY

UNCLASSIFIED

---

## Page 2

STRET

1 March 1968

MEMORANDUM

SUBJECT:

Garrison and the Kerinedy Assassination:

Intorvicw of Garrison on Dutch TV by

William L. Oltmans (201-155221)

REFERENCES:

A. Joint State-USIA cablo, HCM 553,

HAGUE - 3981, 24 February 1968

B. The Hague 3870, IN 59064,

27 February 1968

SUMMARY

Carrison 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 TVradio interviews for release to CA asscts there.

DETAILS

1. References state that on 22 February 1968 Garrison

appeared on Dutch TV (Dutch Television Foundation, NTS) during

prime time for one hour (time not stated). Neither reference explains

whether Garrison travelled to The Hague or whether the show was

taped in the U.S. and sent on tape to Holiand. The Dutch desk believes

that the latter is true.

SOSTET

---

## Page 3

14-00000

CROTET

2. The following were Garrison's charges:

2. Kennedy was murdered because he favored a

detente detrimental to the interests of the "military-

industrial complex"

b. Kennedy was the victim of a CLA plut. CIA

has made common cause with the military-industrial

establishment because of a vested interest in maintaining

the cold war.

S. 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 oi 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 lavorable revicw's from generally

well informed Dutch newspapers.

•"Several Dutch viewers also

commented on the credibility / of 7 his person and presentation.

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

stations."

Reierence B says that the Dutch preas was generally favorable

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

facts.

The majority opinion among Embassy, USIS, land 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 IV alluded

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

5. Garrison was interviewed by William I. Oltmans. A

synopsis regarding Oltmans follows:

2

SEC ST

---

## Page 4

a: DPOB IU 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 zur Dutch paper De Telegraaf bur dismissed

by boch 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'.

e. An I&NS report of 196l lists his address for

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

New York.

f. ¿l ClA 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.

§. 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 ir 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

i. An FBI report of l. February 1962 includes an

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

---

## Page 5

14-00000

She said that her ex-husband and President Sukarna

were close friends and that he wrote to Sukarno at

least once a weck throughout their marriage. Around

• 1957 she and Oltmans lived at the Paramount Hotel,

Nes York, for a time. The Indoneslan 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 ul all advisors and bodyguards, then said to her,

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

"ghat he looked forward to receiving his weckly 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

Ottmans 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 belioves Communism

8o be the ecoriomic system of the future.

HAGU - 1365, 2•1 October 1966, says Oltmans

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

and perhaps 1963, developed friendly relations with

Chicoins at The Hague and may have visited China in 190%

In August 196ó 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.

6. Reference B. requested background information about

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

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

past jear (March 1967 to March 1968) has been copiled in response.

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

may de sent to the Station for use by Dutch CA a88c1s.

---

## Page 6

Distribution:

Orig - DCI

1 = DDP, ADDP

1 - A/DCI

1 - Eur/Netherlands

l - Office of General Counsel

-Office of Security

C/CI, DC/CI

- R&A chrono

1 - DP reports file

S.

---