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William Bast
Bill Bast (met bril) met partner Paul Huson in Hollywood
On Februari 1957, I was en route from Jakarta, via Manilla and Hawai to New York to attend a forthcoming debate on the dispute between Indonesia and Holland over New-Guinea. In Manilla I bought a pocket biography about the actor James Dean written by a former roommate William Bast. (Ballentine Books, New York, 1956) I read the book on a stratocruiser flight with Pan American Airways to Honolulu. I was convinced that the real story about intimate relations between them had not been told. Once in Manhattan, I traced Mr. Bast and in the evening of March 3, 1957 we met in his apartment. I left at 04:45 in the morning. (Memoires: 1953-1957, In den Toren, Baarn, 1986, p.p. 232-233). Bill - and his partner for dozens of years, Paul Huson - became friends for life. That is to say, until my last visit early in 2001, like with my friends the Kelloggs
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in California, till about six months prior to the 09-11 disaster. After I send Bill and Paul my brochure, Who are the no. 1 War Criminals? they, too, thought I had gone crazy. In 1993 Bill contributed already with this piece to my book of friends which I print here. Incidentally: my hunch, that Bill had told only part of the friendship with Dean proved correct. After all, in 1957 homosexual friendships were not discussed openly as they are now in the 21ste century.
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Reflections on a mad Dutchman
by William Bast
Nothing would surprise me about Wim Oltmans. Absolutely nothing. I've known him too long and too well to be amazed or shocked by anything he might do, say or write. Over the years, I've gone from referring to him as the Flying Dutchman to Wim the Wonderman to Mad Man Oltmans. But time and circumstance alter one's perspective, and I now refer to him simply as... my dear friend Wim. You see, we have grown old together, Wim and I. (I, not nearly as old as he, of course.)
I first heard the name Willem Oltmans in 1957. I had written a biography-cum-autobiography of my recently deceased friend James Dean, and my publisher phoned me to say that a rather aggressive Dutch journalist wanted to interview me... at once. It seems only moments later there burst into my life this tall, robust creature with hearty laugh, square jaw and booming voice, a loping giant who appeared to be in a state of perpetual motion, except to settle down from time to time to make entries in what he called his journal, or to laugh over-appreciatively (or so it seemed to me) at something moderately amusing I said. At first he struck me as rather dashing, boldly outspoken, yet surprisingly gentle, a sort of great, exuberant flower. A sunflower. An outrageous sunflower with a big heart. Eventually I was to learn how tough the sunflower can be, but for the moment I found him quite captivating. He said he had picked up a paperback copy of my book in Manila the night
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before and read it on the flight to New York. He wanted to know all about James Dean.
By the end of the interview I realized I had a rare specimen on my hands, so when he invited me to lunch with him the following day at the United Nations, where he was a correspondent for the Dutch press, I quickly accepted. It was one of the wisest decisions of my life.
As I recall, the un was electric with excitement at that time because Kruschev was in town to address the General Assembly. Sitting there in the bustling un dining room amid high-powered diplomats from every corner of the world, I was very impressed with my new Dutch acquaintance. But not nearly as impressed as when he leaped up from the table, collared a member of the Soviet delegation and asked if it was true that Kruschev was flying to Ghana en route back to the ussr. The Russian confirmed his information. Whereupon this brazen Dutchman, without batting an eye, said, ‘Good! Then you can take me along. There's plenty of room. Your Ilyushin has a couple hundred seats and there are only 21 in Kruschev's party.’ To my utter amazement, the Russian laughed and said okay.
Wim flew off soon afterward, and I didn't see him for months, I suppose. But I got postcards. From Ghana, from Moscow, from Jakarta, from Tokyo, from Dallas. Short, illegible scrawls, presumably bringing me up to date on his activities and itinerary. I learned years later that this Global Gadfly kept all his friends abreast of his movements through the medium of the postcard. Over the years he'd come and go, but the postcards never stopped coming whenever he was on the wing. And he never stopped coming back, to touch base, to fill me in on his latest adventures and conquests, to reaffirm our friendship. For which I am eternally greatful.
My gratitude, however, has cost me some anxiety, apprehension even, at times, but never so much as the time Wim failed to show up in Los Angeles for a visit he had planned. I'm not particularly
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good at dates, but it must've been sometime in the late '70s. Having made plans for his visit, I was anticipating his arrival with considerable pleasure, so it was a disappointment when he phoned and, in strangely hushed and guarded tones, said he was on his way back to the Netherlands due to an unexpected turn of events.
Years before, the Dutch clairvoyant Gerard Croiset had persuaded Wim that he would be the one to solve the mystery of the Kennedy assassination and urged him not to give up until he succeeded. Now, it transpired, there was finally a breakthrough in the story. After years of working on him, Wim had convinced one of the key players who had been close to Lee Harvey Oswald, George de Mohrenschildt, a Russian ex-patriot and purported former cia operative in Dallas, to give him an exclusive on the ‘true story’ behind the assassination. De Mohrenschildt had been reticent with the fbi, the Warren Commission, the American press, but now he was ready to talk... to Wim. They were holed up in Dutch tv's suite at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Wim had spirited the skittish informant there from Dallas en route to the Netherlands, where a formal interview was to be taped.
Speaking in whispers so that De Mohrenschildt would not overhear in the next room, Wim explained that, once in New York, his source was having second thoughts. What would the fbi, the House Committee on Assassinations do to him for withholding evidence? Would those involved in the assassination retaliate? Would he even live to tell the tale? Every time they started for the airport, De Mohrenschildt would get cold feet and make the taxi turn around and go back to the hotel. It was a ticklish situation, so Wim was sure I would understand. He apologized and promised to be in touch as soon as possible.
Some weeks later, when Wim finally did show up in L.A., I got the end of the story. As I recall it, De Mohrenschildt did a skip after they got to Amsterdam. On the eve of the television taping of his deposition, he had vanished when Wim's back was turned and hadn't been seen or heard from since. When questioned by the
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lawyers for the House Committee on Assassinations months earlier, Wim had promised to keep them appraised of anything that might come of his relationship with De Mohrenschildt. Fearing that De Mohrenschildt might not have disappeared voluntarily, but have been kidnapped or worse by those who wanted to stop him from talking and that he, Wim, might somehow become implicated, Wim wisely notified the House lawyers that the man had vanished. Appreciative, they assured him that they would notify the proper authorities and asked him to let them know the minute he heard anything from or about De Mohrenschildt. He gave them his word.
At some point during his stay in L.A., Wim got a call from a young friend in Dallas, who informed him that De Mohrenschildt had just phoned him from his sister's home in Florida and offered to pay him to drive his car down for him. True to his word, Wim notified the lawyers for the House Committee on Assassinations that De Mohrenschildt had surfaced and told them where. Realizing there was no more he could do, Wim settled down to enjoy his stay in L.A. The rest was in the hands of the House Committee, he figured.
Wim left L.A. on a Friday, explaining that he was going to stop off in Minneapolis en route to Boston, where he was lecturing at Harvard on Monday. It was his intention, he confided, to spend the weekend with a particularly attractive young man he had met recently. He promised to phone from Boston on Monday, but left no phone contact in Minneapolis.
The first call came at about 3 am Saturday morning. I think it was Dutch tv. They were desperately looking for Wim. Even half asleep, I had enough wits not to tell them he was off fucking some guy in Minneapolis, so I told them to try Harvard on Monday. The second call came a half hour later, from nbc News in New York. Where was Willem Oltmans? And so it went through the rest of the night - cbs News, abc News, the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc. What the hell was going on?
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Having finally got to sleep about daybreak, I was awakened by my alarm radio. On the news was the story of George de Mohrenschildt's murder. Initial reports told of how he had been found with his head blown off by a shotgun at his sister's home in Florida. Within an hour or two, it became a ‘suicide,’ with a rather complicated and contrived-sounding tale about how the maid discovered the body. To me at least, it appeared someone had gotten to De Mohrenschildt. It also appeared that it was someone who knew exactly where to find him.
The rest of the weekend was a nightmare. The phone never stopped ringing and people from the media were practically climbing over the fence. As my alarm and panic mounted, I could only imagine Wim, gayly romping in the bed of some hunk in Minneapolis, oblivious to it all.
I was having breakfast Monday morning when Wim called from Boston's Logan airport, sounding very chipper and refreshed by his weekend of love. He was oblivious to it all! Calmly, I asked if he'd seen the papers yet. He explained that he hadn't had time to pick them up at the airport in Minneapolis. ‘Well, Scoop,’ I said, ‘welcome back to the real world. De Mohrenschildt's dead.’
Wim went to Washington immediately and volunteered to testify before the House Committee. The initial headlines and lead stories on national tv largely commended this little known (in the us) Dutch journalist who had so doggedly pursued the mystery of the Kennedy assassination for so many years and come so close to solving it. But within twenty-four hours, the jealous us press turned on him. Badgering him as he emerged from the committee hearings, they tried repeatedly to discredit him by referring to him as ‘a known homosexual’. I was never more proud of my friend, the Don Quixote of the Dikes, as he stood up to them. With his killing smile, he wondered how - though possibly true - that was relevant. And when they questioned his motives for pursuing the story of the Kennedy assassination so persistently all this time, he simply smiled and pointed out that he felt it was the greatest story
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of the century... and there wasn't one major American journalist actively following it. The attacks were relentless. Ultimately, even Time tried to discredit him as an agent for the kgb, a label that simply wouldn't stick to one as compulsively outspoken as Willem Oltmans. Through it all, however, he survived... and persisted.
It's been like that since I've known him, perhaps a bit less melodramatic, but certainly never dull. (Ask Oliver Stone!) He's been tilting at windmills all his career - and government corruption and injustice and hypocrisy and intolerance - and he's a bit battered for the wear. But he's still going strong, this great, this awkward, this big-hearted, this surprisingly tough sunflower I call my dear friend Wim.
Los Angeles
August 1993
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