On that evening of November 22, 1963, Gary Underhill was a deeply troubled man. What he had learned, and the fact that they knew he had learned it, were too much for him. He had to escape. Once he was out of Washington, he could regain his equilibrium. Then he would decide what to do. He had friends in New York he could talk to without fear of the word getting back to Washington.

Only hours after Kennedy was shot, CIA agent Gary Underhill left Washington, D.C., and drove to the home of friends on Long Island, N.Y. Underhill says he fears for his life and he must leave the country. "This country is too dangerous for me. I've got to get on a boat. Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done something outrageous. They've killed the president! I've been listening and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but they did. They've gone made! They're a bunch of drug runners and gun runners - a real violence group.I know who they are. That's the problem. They know I know. That's why I'm here.''

Posner writes that there is no source for the claim that Gary Underhill was a former CIA agent, and "no corroboration that he ever said there was CIA complicity in the assassination." I hate to plug my own work, but in Destiny Betrayed, Posner would have learned there are several sources for Underhill's wartime OSS career and his later CIA consulting status, including Underhill himself. As for his accusations about the CIA and the murder of JFK, he related them quite vividly to his friend Charlene Fitsimmons within 24 hours of the shooting. She then forwarded a letter to Jim Garrison relating the incident in detail.

Assassination of John F. Kennedy Encyclopedia

Gary Underhill was a writer and researcher in the area of military affairs who is alleged to have had high-level Pentagon connections. Friends say that he did assignments for the CIA. A close friend was shocked when he barged into her home the day after the assassination in a highly agitated state. He had just come from Washington, D.C.

Underhill allegedly said "that the Kennedy murder wasn't as cut and dried as it might appear." According to the friend, "Underhill said that he knew the people involved (and that they knew he knew) and he fled Washington for his life." He indicated that "A small clique in the C.I.A. were responsible" who "were conducting a lucrative business in the Far East" in "gunrunning and other contraband, manipulating political intrigue to serve their ends." Underhill told his friend "Kennedy had gotten wind of something going on so he was killed before he could blow the whistle." The friends at first did not believe this fantastic story and assumed that "he had gone completely mad," despite their respect for his credentials and intelligence.

On May 8, 1964 Gary Underhill was discovered dead, shot through the head. The death was ruled a suicide by District of Columbia police. Some friends wondered if his death was really a suicide since two people who first examined the body indicated that he had been shot behind the left ear but was right-handed. Several friends began to wonder about the frightened claims he had made about the assassination less than six months earlier. Other friends however accepted the death as a suicide indicating their belief that he had been troubled by personal problems and under the care of a psychiatrist. In any event he is dead, and without Gary Underhill to question it is impossible to know if his claims are pure fantasy or based in fact.