Oswald LeWinter (born 1931) is an Austrian-born American author, poet,[1] self claimed former CIA agent and a conspiracy theorist. He is also an alleged hoaxer, most notably he tried to sell forgeries to Mohamed Fayed in 1998, suggesting that the British intelligence service was involved in the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.[2][3][4]
In the early 1990s, LeWinter was exposed when he was used as source in many publications regarding the October surprise conspiracy, including the works of Barbara Honegger, Richard Brenneke and Gary Sick.[2][4] Gary Sick, who cited him in his book October Surprise, later repudiated him.. He almost certainly was the man who purchased an almost random set of clothing in Paul Gauci's shop in Malta, which was found at the site of the Pan Am 103 crash.
LeWinter also appeared in two Allan Francovich movies, Gladio (1992) and The Maltese Double Cross (1994).
LeWinter claims he was born in Vienna, Austria
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LeWinter claims to have studied at Columbia University, before obtaining degrees from UC Berkeley (B.A. 1960) and San Francisco State College (M.A. 1961). From 1961 to 1963 he worked as an English instructor at the Penn State University.[5][6][7] LeWinter supposedly received a doctorate of social sciences from the University of Tübingen in Germany. He has supposedly taught the History of Ideas at Jagiello University in Poland, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, the University of Würzburg, Germany, among others.
In May 1960 LeWinter was present at the "Black Friday" protest against the House Un-American Activities Committee at the San Francisco City Hall.[5] He would later condemn the propaganda film Operation Abolition in a letters to the editors of the Penn State University campus journal.[5]
In 1969 LeWinter was named vice president and director of marketing at Systems Simulation, Inc.[8]
In 1976 and 1977 LeWinter served as head of the annual Labor Day weekend book fair at the Mark Twain Library in Redding, Connecticut.[1][9]
LeWinter is widely believed to have worked for the CIA, possibly for over 30 years.[10]
In 1990, when interviewed as a CIA operative by Italy's RAI Television, he used the alias Ibrahim Razin.[10][11][12] He is also said to have used the alias George Cave.[12]
Oswald LeWinter is a poet, and has also written two books that were published in Portuguese, Desmantelar a America (2001) and Democracia e Secretismo (2002). His most recent books of poems are "More Atoms of Memory" (2006), and "Ages of Chaos and Fury: Selected Poems 1949–2005" (2005). In 1963 he published and anthology of writings on Shakespeare by Europeans, which he edited and translated, titled "Shakespeare in Europe,". The book was initially published by Meridian Books[13] and later became part of the Penguin Shakespeare Series in England, chosen by Professor Spencer. I has also been translated into Portuguese. He has written a major article for The Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare (Crowell, 1966)..
LeWinter has received the International Rilke Prize in Poetry (1997)[14] He has supposedly won the Asher Prize, the Coolbrith Prize, the Shrout Short Story Prize, the New American Library Poetry Prize, and was awarded a traveling research grant by the American Philosophical Society.
Oswald Lewinter was left behind by his parents in Vienna, and deported with his aunt to Auschwitz. His aunt died and Lewinter found the remains of her skin on a lamp in an antique store. He was 'bought' by a New Jersey philanthropist and saved from extermination along with 999 highly intelligent Jewish children.
He claims to have worked for the CIA who denied him a pension.
Oswald Lewinter was married to Marcia Dale Lewinter, and had two sons from that marriage David Lewinter. His second wife was Elke Zeller, and they had one son, Simon Lewinter.