Switzerland: Destination for the Kennedy Assassins?

A question posed to Rolf was whether he thought, believed (or knew) whether any of the JFK assassins had fled to Switzerland, or entered the country at any time after Nov. 22, 1963.  Much speculation, for example, had already abounded that the assassins had received  Swiss bank account numbers in exchange for their dastardly deed and fled the U.S. – assisted by having received assorted false identity papers, passports.  None of this would be at all odd or strange, since whoever the architects of the Nov. 22, 1963  Kennedy assassination,  they’d  have ensured that the killers were remunerated enough so they wouldn’t talk or blow their covers. Also, they’d be ensconced a long way from the US of A.

Me (left) and Rolf discuss the JFK assassination in St. Gallen.

Switzerland would be a natural choice of destination – if even temporary – given the hyper –confidentiality of Swiss bank accounts, the fact that numbers are the only identifiers, and the strict neutrality of the country. But as I noted in my Sept. 16^th  post, that neutrality is really armed neutrality. The Swiss aren’t prepared to allow any manjacks to cross their borders without knowing who they are and where. It thus seemed natural to discuss the issue with Rolf,  a former Spezialdienst  in the 1960s, and familiar with the workings of Projekt 26 – which aim was to keep Swiss security foremost in mind.

 Basically, from what I could glean while we were discussing it in St. Gallen, at least two Kennedy assassins made their way into Switzerland: one the notorious “Oswald Double” and the other the hired assassin Jean Souetre aka “Michael Mertz”, the “badge man” assassin who fired from behind the stockade fence of the grassy knoll. Like the Germans I referenced from a visit to Garmisch-Partenkirchen last year, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/germans-tom-hanks-wasting-his-time-with.html

Rolf was well aware of the details, also that SD records indicated Mertz and the Oswald Double (who he referred to as “Leon”) were in St. Gallen at least temporarily. Mertz entered Switzerland from the south around Nov. 26th, via Italy (“likely from Domodossala”) and “Leon” via Konstanz, Germany and a small unregistered craft over the Bodensee ca. Nov. 29th. Rolf suggested “Leon” had taken a train from Stuttgart to Konstanz. The pair arrived mainly to ensure the opening of their Swiss bank accounts and the necessary collection mechanisms.  Both used aliases, bogus passports, IDs. The bottom line is the SD was not fooled and knew all along the entrants were CIA-assisted “mechanics” with “high cover”.

                         Jean Souetre - The grassy knoll assassin - left Switzerland by 11/29/63



"Leon" (Rolf's name for him), left side - and the actual Oswald (right),  showing dissimilarities.

 Rolf was also familiar with the background history of “Leon”. He knew, for example, from James Douglass' account ('JFK and the Unspeakable') that U.S. Air Force Sgt. Robert Vinson was trying to return  to Colorado Springs on Nov. 22, 1963 and en route encountered the Oswald look-alike. (Vinson in his official account claimed to have taken a bus to Andrews AFB in Washington, DC, and got on a C-54 - the first available flight to the Springs, but was informed it was about to depart for Lowry AFB near Denver instead.)

Vinson’s official account included a diversion to Dallas and the Trinity River area - where  two men boarded just after 3:30 p.m. central time:  one a "Latino", 6' or 6'1" weighing 180-190 lbs. and wearing a mustache, the other 5'7" to 5'9" and Caucasian, 150-160 lbs.  Only later, i.e. when press photos materialized did Vinson realize the latter guy was the spitting image of Lee Harvey Oswald.  

 None of this astonished Rolf who also knew the SD (and its affiliate Projekt 26)  readily exploited what they called “doppelgangers” for assorted tasks. He theorized other clandestine services also did this and a “doppelganger” might have played a role in the April, 18, 1990 assassination of Herbert Alboth. (He even half-joked that an aged “Leon” might have had a hand in it,  perhaps as the price of remaining in Switzerland.)

I also found it useful to pick Rolf’s brain, as an expert marksman. He assured me that Oswald’s rifle could never have made the shots attributed to him on Nov. 22, 1963 and that the Warren Commission Report was little more than a “PR job” mainly done to “cover Johnson’s ass”. Like me, he is convinced LBJ had a hand in orchestrating the hit, clearly to protect himself as he faced certain prosecution in the Bobby Baker scandal. He also offered that it was “sad” that no U.S. investigation had come near to the truth but “How could they if an agency of the government itself was involved?”  

Could Mertz have made the kill shot from a building? I asked Rolf (right). Yes, he replied, but he would have demanded the sure kill shot, i.e. from the knoll.

How long were these assassins in Switzerland? Rolf opined that “Leon” hid in plain sight in St. Gallen “for many years”  albeit using a false identity. The Swiss left him alone to preserve neutral relations with the U.S. (they knew of the CIA Staff D assassinations project and the pair's involvement under William Harvey and the NSA). Also they had no idea whether “Leon” was one of the actual killers or only played the role of a double to divert attention and implicate Oswald. The SD leaned to the latter. As for Mertz, they were prepared to grab him from a hotel in Lugano on Nov. 29^th but by then he’d fled the country. Rolf suspects he went to Croatia or Albania.  Rolf added that it was “well known” that Jean Souetre was a stone killer and the Swiss had no use for keeping such OAS trash within their borders.

 Did Mertz- Souetre  make the kill shot from a tall building?  Rolf assessed it and shook his head: “Nein”.   Instead he’d have wanted the sure shot with highest percentage of success: the kill shot – from the knoll. Not that he couldn’t have done it, Rolf assured me, it’s just that Souetre was more “a lone wolf”  and would have preferred to operate by himself. Rolf accepts Souetre likely made the kill shot while wearing a Dallas PD uniform – to “make the getaway much easier”.

Why would any of the assassins or mechanics want to stay in a place like St. Gallen? Rolf laughed: “A city! Easy to hide, to conceal oneself – also everyone coming here generally goes to the mountains, you know?”

Did he believe any of the assassins were still alive or living in Switzerland?

“Not likely. To close the wound after this many years it is better that all the remaining ones are killed – you know, permanent silence. And they’d be running out of money and that spells problems for those needing to preserve silence.”    

Who’d take care of such a job? Rolf smiled and replied: “Can’t you guess?”

After this heavy discussion, deliberately done on the streets of St. Gallen and in English, we began our sojourn to the Abbey of St. Gallen Library and its hidden medieval treasures. The JFK assassination was now in the “rear view mirror” to use Rolf’s apt term. He added: “If and when you write about this in your blog, please kindly no last names – or close in facial photos!”

St. Gallen, Switzerland - An Unforgettable Time Amidst Medieval Books

Of course, Switzerland is not all about just majestic mountains, as our long time Swiss friend Rolf pointed out. Given that,  we were pleased to be taken to the northeastern Swiss city of St. Gallen - an urbane center of high education as well as the location for the Abbey Library of St. Gall which is not only a much visited museum but a well -equipped professional library for the study of manuscripts, medieval history and monastic life.

After walking around the city we ventured into a courtyard bearing the sign:

Which described the history of the Abbey we were about to enter.  The place actually being located on the spot of a hermitage founded in the year 612 by an Irish monk known as Gallus - after whom the city is named.  It was then around the year 719 that the Aleman Otmar extended the original hermit's cell into an abbey which rapidly flourished.  This then grew to become the Benedictine monastery of St. Gall.  Thanks to its schools and library, the Abbey of St. Gall subsequently became one of the leading cultural centers of the Western world.

Things were not always peaceful as we later learned. In the 13th century, the abbey and the town became an independent principality, over which the abbots ruled as territorial sovereigns, i.e. Princes of the Holy Roman Empire. As the Abbey became more involved in local politics, it entered a period of decline.  During the 14th century Humanists were allowed to carry off some of the rare texts. But the Humanists were the least of the Abbey's worries. A vastly more formidable threat emerged with the oncoming reformation spurred by firebrands like Johannes Kessler. Much more of the history can be read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Gallen

In the late 14th and early 15th centuries, the farmers of the Abbot's personal estates (known as Appenzell, from Latin: abbatis cella meaning "cell (i.e. estate) of the abbot) began seeking independence. In 1401, the first of the Appenzell Wars broke out, and following the Appenzell victory at Stoss in 1405 they became allies of the Swiss Confederation in 1411. During the Appenzell Wars, the town of St. Gallen often sided with Appenzell against the Abbey. So when Appenzell allied with the Swiss, the town of St. Gallen followed just a few months later. (During one dinner in Appenzell we met a waitress who - to this day- will not step foot in St. Gallen because of the vitriol between her reformationist Protestant religion and the Catholics that erupted hundreds of years earlier.)

Today the Abbey Library contains nearly 170,000 works among which are no fewer than 2,100 manuscripts featuring at least 400 that date before the year 1000. The library, in other words, may justifiably be said to be among the most important repositories of ancient manuscripts in the world,

We entered the library through a special entrance on the third floor of the Abbey bldg. after first placing all our belongings (including cameras) in a locker. (The images of the interior you will see on this page came from postcards purchased at the Abbey Library store). We then took an elevator down to the main entrance where we were led to a foyer featuring enormous slippers, and inserted our shoes inside them (one size fits all). From there we could enter the main great Hall greeted by the ancient globe showing the Earth's surface in the early 1500s.

We then turned to our right to see the entire panorama of ancient manuscripts and books laid out before us:

Of course, you could not remove any of the books. All were secured behind firm hard wire mesh, though you could identify the authors and usually the titles.  A section of the books I examined (titles, authors only because books were kept behind wire mesh)  can be seen in the stacks on the left sight of the image above. A near view of the books displayed on one set of shelves appears below:



I was able to identify the Omnia Patria of St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as a vast series of documents from the ancient Church known as the Patrologia of Migne.  These have actually been digitized and can now be accessed online:

http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/1815-1875,_Migne,_Patrologia_Latina_01._Rerum_Conspectus_Pro_Tomis_Ordinatus,_MLT.html

They are interesting to peruse and disclose the mindset of the era. Just seeing the ancient books - even from behind a wire mesh - conveyed the spooky feeling of being lost in time. We must have spent at least the better part of an hour in the library when we left and a group of school children in blazers entered single file.  Rolf told us they were likely from the nearby elite school of the Institut auf dem Rosenberg, e.g.
http://www.instrosenberg.ch/

We were happy to leave the ancient books to these kids and hoped they would soak up as much of the past as we had. After retrieving our belongings in the lockers we repaired to an outside 'bistro' where we enjoyed some delicious Swiss-made coffee with kuchen (bakes).

Rolf felt it important that we see another side of Switzerland and we agreed. He also admitted St. Gallen was partial to him because he grew up here before joining the Spezialdienst or Special Service, the Swiss intelligence counterpart of the American CIA.  On leaving the Abbey, he reminded us we hadn't seen everything. There was still the 'Lapidarium' located in the vaulted cellar of the library wing. This housed an important collection of Carolingian, Ottonian and Gothic architectural sculpture - originating from the former church built on the site.

The whole Abbey library became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983. The Library today is administered by the Catholic administration of the Canton of St. Gall.

It is a very special place, and no one who visits Switzerland should miss it. It is one thing to say that one is a part of "Western civilization", it is another to behold the roots of that civilization up close.