Dirk Kunert

[Richard Smith]

Anyone have some information on this individual?  In "Mrs. Paine's Garage" he is identified as the person that Ruth Paine gave her "first testimony" on Dec. 5, 1963.  The author indicates that Kunert was part of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and that the interview took place in Irving.  But some documents suggest he was a German student studying at the University of Dallas at the time.  He is identified as a "right-winger" and his name is mentioned in relation to the German newspaper article linking the Walker and JFK assassination.  Nothing about being associated with the Senate.  Just curious what the backstory is with this guy.  I would think he is good fodder for the conspiracy types but don't recall any mention of him.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32319380.pdf

[Tom Scully]

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=58982&search=kunert_and+walker#relPageId=11&tab=page
...and prior page.

Kunert died in 1991 and it is extremely douubtful he was associated directly with any US Senate investigative body
less than three months after his Sept. 11, 1963 arrival in the U.S. at age 23.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Anyone have some information on this individual?  In "Mrs. Paine's Garage" he is identified as the person that Ruth Paine gave her "first testimony" on Dec. 5, 1963.  The author indicates that Kunert was part of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and that the interview took place in Irving.  But some documents suggest he was a German student studying at the University of Dallas at the time.  He is identified as a "right-winger" and his name is mentioned in relation to the German newspaper article linking the Walker and JFK assassination.  Nothing about being associated with the Senate.  Just curious what the backstory is with this guy.  I would think he is good fodder for the conspiracy types but don't recall any mention of him.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32319380.pdf

A German exchange student - apparently not a US citizen - is used by a major Senate committee to investigate the assassination of the President? And interviewing key witnesses? That makes no sense.

My guess is that either he pulled a con job on Ruth Paine or Thomas Mallon got it wrong (maybe Paine did too).

I guessed wrong. It's apparently in the NARA collection but I can't pull it up. It's a 27 page transcript of Kunert's interview of Ruth.

AGENCY INFORMATION
             AGENCY : SISS
      RECORD NUMBER : 204-10001-10006
     RECORDS SERIES : EXECUTIVE SESSION TRANSCRIPTS
 AGENCY FILE NUMBER : DECEMBER 5, 1963

DOCUMENT INFORMATION
         ORIGINATOR : SISS
               FROM : PAINE, RUTH HYDE

                 TO : [No To]
              TITLE : [No Title]
               DATE : 12/05/1963
              PAGES : 27
      DOCUMENT TYPE : TRANSCRIPT
           SUBJECTS : PAINE, RUTH HYDE; OSWALD, LEE, POST-RUSSIAN
PERIOD,
                      RESIDENCES; OSWALD, LEE, POST-RUSSIAN PERIOD,
                      ASSOCIATES AND RELATIVES; OSWALD, MARINA,
POST-RUSSINA
                      PERIOD; OSWALD, MARINA, ASSOCIATES AND RELATIVES

     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
     CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 11/04/1997
           COMMENTS : Box 1

[Tom Scully]

A German exchange student - apparently not a US citizen - is used by a major Senate committee to investigate the assassination of the President? And interviewing key witnesses? That makes no sense.

My guess is that either he pulled a con job on Ruth Paine or Thomas Mallon got it wrong (maybe Paine did too).

I guessed wrong. It's apparently in the NARA collection but I can't pull it up. It's a 27 page transcript of Kunert's interview of Ruth.

AGENCY INFORMATION
             AGENCY : SISS
      RECORD NUMBER : 204-10001-10006
     RECORDS SERIES : EXECUTIVE SESSION TRANSCRIPTS
 AGENCY FILE NUMBER : DECEMBER 5, 1963

DOCUMENT INFORMATION
         ORIGINATOR : SISS
               FROM : PAINE, RUTH HYDE

                 TO : [No To]
              TITLE : [No Title]
               DATE : 12/05/1963
              PAGES : 27
      DOCUMENT TYPE : TRANSCRIPT
           SUBJECTS : PAINE, RUTH HYDE; OSWALD, LEE, POST-RUSSIAN
PERIOD,
                      RESIDENCES; OSWALD, LEE, POST-RUSSIAN PERIOD,
                      ASSOCIATES AND RELATIVES; OSWALD, MARINA,
POST-RUSSINA
                      PERIOD; OSWALD, MARINA, ASSOCIATES AND RELATIVES

     CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED
       RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL
     CURRENT STATUS : OPEN
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 11/04/1997
           COMMENTS : Box 1

Asst Spec. Counsel Albert Jenner, personal attorney of Dorfman initial labor union medical insurance "customer"
M. Frank Darling of a large Chicago electrical worker union local chapter, as well as Henry Crown and Crown controlled
General Dynamics quickly dropped his initial question of Ruth's AFTER contact with anyone she recalled meeting at
the Everett Glover party. Was Dirk Kunert the name Ruth could not fully recall, and was Kunert actually a 1962 guest
of Glover?

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ../testimony/paine_r1.htm
....Mrs. PAINE - It was an evening party.
Mr. JENNER - It was held in Mr. Glover's home was--
Mrs. PAINE - Yes, it was.
Mr. JENNER - Where is his home?
Mrs. PAINE - At that time he was living in the Highland Park section of Dallas.
Mr. JENNER - How far from your home is that?
Mrs. PAINE - Half hour drive.
Mr. JENNER - By what means did you get to Mr. Glover's home?
Mrs. PAINE - I drove.
Mr. JENNER - You owned or then had, or maybe you still have a station wagon?
Mrs. PAINE - That is right.
Mr. JENNER - Is it the same car still?
Mrs. PAINE - It is the same car.
Mr. JENNER - And when you arrived, were either of the Oswalds present?
Mrs. PAINE - I am not sure I recall accurately. I think they came a little after I arrived.
Mr. JENNER - Would you give us your best recollection of all the people, couples if you can remember them that way, and then single persons or persons there without their wives or husbands, as the case may be, that evening?
Mrs. PAINE - Well, I will try. The Oswalds, two were there, Marina and Lee, Everett Glover, the host, Mr. and Mrs. De Mohrenschildt who were the friendship link between the Oswalds and Glover.
Mr. JENNER - Could I interrupt you there? Had you known the De Mohrenschildts?
Mrs. PAINE - I had never met them. I have not met them since.
Mr. JENNER - That is the only occasion?
Mrs. PAINE - That is right.
Mr. JENNER - That you ever saw either Mr. or Mrs. De Mohrenschildt?
Mrs. PAINE - That is right.
Mr. JENNER - You had no conversations, no letters, no contact whatsoever with them either before or after this party?
Mrs. PAINE - That is correct, no contact whatsoever before or after. There was a roommate of Everett's. Dirk, I think, I forget the name.
Mr. JENNER - Are you attempting to recall his first name or his last name?
Mrs. PAINE - His first name. I may be wrong. It was a young German fellow.
Mr. JENNER - Schmidt?
Mrs. PAINE - Do you know the first name?
Mr. JENNER - No, I don't recall the first name.
Mrs. PAINE - And he had two roommates, so that is two other single men, and I don't recall their names.
Mr. JENNER - Was each of them there?
Mrs. PAINE - They were both there.
Mr. JENNER - There were two roommates.
Mrs. PAINE - Two roommates and they were both present at the party. I should remember their names but I don't.
Mr. JENNER - All right.
Mrs. PAINE - And there was a couple who lived in Irving; again I don't recall the name. I don't believe I have seen any of these people since with the exception of one of the roommates once, and again I don't recall the name.
Mr. JENNER - Did you see the roommate the second--
Mrs. PAINE - I may have seen him since. All these people were new to me when I came to the party with the exception of Everett.
Mr. JENNER - Did you see the roommate the second time before or after November 22, 1963?
Mrs. PAINE - Oh, it was before.
Mr. JENNER - But it is a fact that none of these people who were at the party other than Mr. Clover had you seen or heard of?
Mrs. PAINE - Before.
Mr. JENNER - Up to the time that the party was held.
Mrs. PAINE - That is fight.
Mr. JENNER - Have you exhausted your present recollection as to the people who were present on that occasion.
Mrs. PAINE - I can't get a name. The couple were living in Irving, I recall that, but I don't--I have forgotten their name.
Mr. JENNER - Now the Oswalds arrived shortly after the party began or at least after you arrived?
Mrs. PAINE - I believe they came with the De Mohrenschildts. .....

[Richard Smith]

Mallon quotes from a transcript of the Dec. 5 interview in his book.  Does anyone have a copy of that transcript?  It might be interesting given its proximity to events.  At the very least, Kunert looks to be an interesting character.  By the age of 22, he is studying in Dallas and apparently writing articles for German newspapers.  And within two weeks of the assassination, he is interviewing Ruth Paine possibly on behalf of the US Senate.  I wonder if as a "right winger" he had some political connection to any Texas politician? The intelligence agencies don't be appear to be aware of any work on behalf of the US government as they are interested in interviewing him about the Walker article in the German newspaper as though they knew almost nothing about him as late as April '64.  It would be interesting if Kunert had some prior connections to Walker as fellow right wingers.

[Richard Smith]

Kunert lists a Dr. Kubek as a family or friend in the US on his immigration form.  Kubek was apparently a professor at the University of Dallas who lived in Irving just a couple of miles from Paine.  In addition, he appears to have some foreign policy expertise and a connection to the US Senate via his books.  So he may be Kunert's link to the investigation and Walker.  Interesting that he shows up on a website devoted to "revisionist" historians including Holocaust deniers.  He seems to be known as an anti-communist.


http://www.revisionists.com/revisionists/kubek.html

[Tom Scully]

More likely, it was Dr. Robert J Morris, former president of University of Dallas, chief counsel of SISS twice, and as recently as
in 1958, behind Dirk, if Kunert indeed somehow got a clearance (as a foreigner in the US on a student visa, how is granting
of such clearance even possible?), and attorney to Edwin Walker.

http://quixoticjoust.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-following-are-excerpts-from-mae.html
.....
There were two possible assassination teams in Dallas.

The military from Munich, Germany, that was to take over the YAF, with Robert Morris' help, have yet to be identified or interviewed. (Morris from U.S. intelligence, having to do with USSR covert work.) Gen. Edwin Walker's arrangement with U.S. Military in Germany or, the arrival of such people for Nov. 22, 1963, is open to question. ....

http://www.maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Nazi%20Connection%20to%20JFK%20Assass.html

Dallas 1963
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1455522112
Bill Minutaglio, ‎Steven L. Davis - 2013
FOUND INSIDE
When Schmidt arrived in Dallas the previous fall, soon after the uneasy conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Walker's arrest in the violent rioting in Mississippi, he instantly began trying to meet the real conservative heavyweights in the ...More

...February 2, 1963, Larry Schmidt:
"We have succeeded, the mission with which I was charged in Dallas has been achieved."
"Friday night I attended a gathering of the top conservatives in Dallas."
"The meeting was at the home of Dr. Robert Morris, President of the Defenders of American Liberty."
"Present were Mr. George Ward, Detective for Dallas City Police, Mr. Ken Thompson, editorial writer for the Dallas Morning News, Mr. Clyde Moore, former PR man for H.L. Hunt, former UPI writer. (Eight others)."
"I told them exactly what I wanted."
"Others suggested using an already existing movement, named the Young Americans for Freedom, with already 50,000 members."
"CUSA, as set up in Munich, is now an established fact in Dallas, only we are calling it YAF. I think you catch on."...

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/weberman/nodule10.htm
....ROBERT MORRIS

General Edwin Walker was represented by Dr. Robert Morris, a former Counsel with the McCarran Committee (the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee), who later became a prominent Republican and a member of the American Security Council. Dr. Robert Morris was also a former president of the University of Dallas and a unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for Senator from New Jersey in 1960. Dr. Robert Morris was the candidate of the John Birch Society for U. S. Senate on the Republican ticket. Morris called Walker "America's first political prisoner."...

In The Presence of Our Enemies: A History of The Malignant Effects ...
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1452029660
Ellen McClay - 2006 - ‎Political Science
... in Washington,D. C. Robert Morris, attorney for General Edwin Walker who became a victim, described him as America's ?first political prisoner.? Not quite.

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/02/nyregion/robert-j-morris-is-dead-at-82-crusader-against-communists.html

Robert J Morris Is Dead at 82; Crusader Against Communists
By CONSTANCE L. HAYSJAN. 2, 1997

Robert J. Morris, whose ministrations as counsel for a Cold War Senate subcommittee bent on rooting out Communists marked a long career devoted to conservative causes, died on Sunday at Point Pleasant Hospital in Point Pleasant, N.J. He was 82 and lived in Mantoloking, N.J.

The cause of death was congestive heart failure, said his son Geoffrey, who added that Mr. Morris had been suffering for more than a year from hydrocephalus, a condition that impedes brain function.

Mr. Morris was chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Internal Security from 1951 to 1953, and again from 1956 to 1958, a period when the country was tormented by the specter of Communist infiltration at every level of life.

A graduate of Fordham Law School, he had served on a New York State Assembly committee in 1940 that investigated New York's schools and colleges for Communist activities. He worked various aspects of the Senate hearings, appearing as a witness now and then and serving as a frequent spokesman and defender of its work.

The Internal Security subcommittee was described in 1951 in The New York Times as one that ''far overreaches the House Committee on Un-American Activities, as it far outreaches Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin. The mandate from the Senate is for practical purposes limitless in the whole field of security. The subcommittee may inquire generally into suspected subversion, in or out of the Government.''

Continue reading the main story
As a result, the hearings corralled diplomats, scholars, businessmen, refugees and schoolteachers. It opened investigations into a possible Communist takeover of Hawaii, Communist influence along the New York City waterfront, shipments of propaganda detected in New Orleans and creeping Communist control of American military industries.

Perhaps the subcommittee's darkest moment came in April 1957, when E. Herbert Norman, the Canadian Ambassador to Egypt, committed suicide after learning that the subcommittee was reopening a 1951 investigation that centered on his purported membership in a 1938 Communist study group in Provincetown, Mass. Mr. Norman had been cleared of the charges in 1951, and Canadians angrily attributed his death to a ''smear campaign'' by the subcommittee.

Mr. Morris, who had made the announcement a month earlier that reports showed that Mr. Norman ''is a Communist,'' insisted that there was plenty of material to support the investigation.

In the opinion of another legendary figure from that era, Mr. Morris may have been more McCarthyesque than the Senator himself. In a letter to William F. Buckley Jr. published in ''Odyssey of a Friend,'' a collection published in 1969, Whittaker Chambers, the self-reported Russian spy who implicated Alger Hiss, said:

''The Senator in my opinion did the right more mischief than he ever did the left, and he keeps right on doing it. It does no good to plead that the left was mean to him. I would say that Bob Morris really accomplished much of what the Senator is credited with.''

Mr. Morris's interest in politics was part and parcel of his upbringing in Jersey City, where his father was known for organizing opposition to Frank Hague, the entrenched Hudson County boss. That interest sharpened while Mr. Morris served in the Navy during World War II.

Turned down at first because of his inability to recognize the color red, an anecdote he repeated with delight through the years, he became a commander of counterintelligence and psychological warfare. At one point, his son said, he was in charge of writing the threats, printed in Japanese on what looked like money, that were dropped by the planeload on Japanese cities.

He also interrogated prisoners, and began believing that Communism was a greater threat to world security than most leaders realized -- an opinion that would influence the rest of his life.

Politics continued to attract him after he left the subcommittee. In 1958, he made a bid for the Republican Senate nomination from New Jersey, running on a conservative platform that stressed his subcommittee work. Like all but one of his attempts to win public office -- he was elected a municipal judge in New York City in 1954, and resigned two years later to rejoin the Senate investigations -- it was unsuccessful.

Turning his eye to education, Mr. Morris moved to Texas in 1960 to become president of the University of Dallas. He continued speaking out against Communism and on other issues, which became a source of friction at the university, which he left in 1962.

That summer, he founded the Defenders of American Liberties, a group he described as modeled after the American Civil Liberties Union, ''but with emphasis on different positions.'' The group quickly gained public attention with its defense of former Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, who was accused of inciting unrest at the University of Mississippi at Oxford as James Meredith, its first black student, was attempting to start classes there.

In 1964, he founded the University of Plano, now defunct, in Plano, Tex., which was intended to teach mildly disabled young people through ''patterning,'' controversial at the time. It involved putting students through a series of physical exercises, including crawling and creeping, to stimulate nonphysical development in the brain.

Mr. Morris was prompted to do so by the difficulties of one of his children, William, whom he enrolled in the university. He remained at the university until 1977, and it closed a short time later.

He continued to be a vocal foe of Communism and to speak out against disarmament. While in Texas, he made two runs at the Senate, in 1962 and 1970, positioning himself as a conservative Republican. Both times he was defeated in the primary by George Bush.

He was the author of five books, all but one dealing with the prospective unraveling of the world order. One, ''Disarmament: Weapon of Conquest,'' became something of a best seller after it appeared in 1963.

He also wrote a column, ''Around the World,'' which was published from 1960 to the early 1980's in newspapers, among them The Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader and The New York Tribune. Among his interests were the politics of Africa, and he became a chairman of the American Zimbabwean Association.

In 1984, he made one last bid for the New Jersey Senate nomination, campaigning on the same platform as President Ronald Reagan but losing nonetheless. Until last year, his son said, he remained active, writing and giving lectures to groups in the New York area.

He is survived by.....

[Tom Scully]

Consider that Dirk Kunert was born in 1941 and Volkmar Schmidt and Ruth Paine were both nine years older than Kunert ....
...and that Kunert supposedly did not arrive in the U.S. until September, 11 1963, begging the question, how many
young German fellows named Dirk, did Ruth Paine encounter in the Dallas area, 1962 - 1963?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Paine
Ruth Hyde Paine (born September 3, 1932)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/90159112/volkmar-schmidt
Dr Volkmar Schmidt Birth 27 August, 1932.....

....

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ../testimony/paine_r1.htm

...Mr. JENNER - You had no conversations, no letters, no contact whatsoever with them either before or after this party?
Mrs. PAINE - That is correct, no contact whatsoever before or after. There was a roommate of Everett's. Dirk, I think, I forget the name.
Mr. JENNER - Are you attempting to recall his first name or his last name?
Mrs. PAINE - His first name. I may be wrong. It was a young German fellow.
Mr. JENNER - Schmidt?
Mrs. PAINE - Do you know the first name?
Mr. JENNER - No, I don't recall the first name.
Mrs. PAINE - And he had two roommates, so that is two other single men, and I don't recall their names.
Mr. JENNER - Was each of them there?
Mrs. PAINE - They were both there.
Mr. JENNER - There were two roommates.
Mrs. PAINE - Two roommates and they were both present at the party. I should remember their names but I don't.
Mr. JENNER - All right. ..

.....

Remind me of the rules explaining Ruth Paine testimony. If it is disagreeable, isn't it explained away as
simple mistakes, or....she was confused, or....there is no reason to not give Ruth the benefit of the doubt....or?

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/glover.htm
TESTIMONY OF EVERETT D. GLOVER

The testimony of Everett D. Clover was taken at 11 a.m., on March 24, 1964,
....Mr. JENNER. And you remarried when?
Mr. GLOVER. I remarried August the 26th of this same year, 1963.
Mr. JENNER. And remained in the same quarters, did you?
Mr. GLOVER. No; I moved about April 20 to 5723 Southwestern Boulevard after having sold the house at 4449 Potomac, which I owned, and made the divorce settlement.
Then I moved to 5723 Southwestern Boulevard where I rented a house with two colleagues of mine where I worked, who were all unattached, since I had to move from 4449 Potomac. One moved in on December 1, 1962, and another one on January 1, 1963.
Mr. JENNER. Now when you and your wife separated, that is when she went to Pennsylvania, Hershey, Pa., with her son for this period, did anyone join you in your quarters as roommates or persons living with you?
Mr. GLOVER. Well, these are the people I just referred to. One man, Richard L. Pierce, who works with me in the same section of my laboratory, joined me December 1, of 1962, and the second man, Volkmar Schmidt, who came from Germany and worked with the company as a geologist, came to live with me approximately January 1.
It was an arrangement we tried out to see if there would be mutual satisfaction.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have a German derivation?
Mr. GLOVER. I do not.
Mr. JENNER. What is yours?...

BTW, David Kaiser  also cites the SISS December 5, 1963 interview of Ruth Paine