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Yomiuri Shimbun
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
The CIA Reveals More of Its Connections to Lee Harvey Oswald
For more than 60 years, the CIA claimed it had little or no knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald's activities before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. That wasn't true, new documents unearthed by a House task force prove. The revelation adds fuel to the long-simmering questions around what the agency knew about the plot to murder the president, and what else it may be hiding. The documents confirm that George Joannides, a CIA officer based in Miami in 1963, was helping finance and oversee a group of Cuban students opposed to the ascension of Fidel Castro. Joannides had a covert assignment to manage anti-Castro propaganda and disrupt pro-Castro groups, even as the CIA was prohibited from domestic spying. The CIA-backed group known as DRE was aware of Oswald as he publicly promoted a pro-Castro policy for the U.S., and its members physically clashed with him three months before the assassination. And then, a DRE member said, Oswald approached them and offered his help, possibly to work as a mole within his pro-Castro group, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The CIA had long denied any involvement with the Cuban group, or any awareness of Oswald's pro-Cuba advocacy. After the most recent release of documents, the agency did not respond to a request for comment. The House Oversight Committee created a task force on 'federal secrets' to revisit the executive orders by President Trump, in both of his administrations, requiring the release of assassination files by government agencies. After the task force held hearings on the JFK assassination this spring, Chairwoman Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) led a push for the CIA to revisit its archives, which produced some significant discoveries, including new details about Joannides, who had previously only been identified with the alias of Howard. That's the name members of the DRE in Miami had for the CIA contact they kept apprised of their actions, but the CIA informed both the Warren Commission in 1964 and the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 that Howard didn't exist. In 1998, after the formation of the Assassination Records Review Board, the CIA again said it had no records related to Howard and the name may have been 'nothing more than a routing indicator.' Documents from Joannides' CIA personnel file were released earlier this month showing he had obtained a phony D.C. driver's license. The name on it: 'Howard Mark Gebler.' 'This confirms much of what the public already speculated: that the CIA was lying to the American people, and that there was a cover-up,' Luna said in an email. The documents also show the CIA gave Joannides a career commendation medal in 1981 in part for his handling of the Cuban group and also for his role as a liaison to the House assassinations committee, in which researchers have said that Joannides stonewalled them when they dug deeper into CIA files. The commendation noted his assignment as 'Deputy Chief of the Psychological Warfare Branch' in Miami in 1962, and said 'He did particularly well with the handling of exile student and teacher groups.' 'It's a breakthrough, and there's more to come,' said Jefferson Morley, a longtime JFK researcher and former Washington Post reporter, who first sued the CIA for their assassination files in 2003. 'The burden of proof has shifted. There's a story here that's been hidden and avoided, and now it needs to be explored. It's up to the government to explain.' There is no indication in any of the files that the CIA was involved in the assassination of Kennedy, which the Warren Commission declared in 1964 was the work of Oswald as a lone gunman. The House in 1976 launched a select committee to investigate the assassinations of Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and concluded that Oswald worked as part of a 'probable conspiracy,' but they could not determine who else was in the conspiracy. Staff members for the committee have said they were making progress on unearthing documents from the CIA in 1978 until a new agency liaison was installed: Joannides, whom they had no idea was at the center of what they were trying to uncover. 'Joannides began to change the way file access was handled,' committee staff member Dan Hardway testified before Luna's task force in May. 'The obstruction of our efforts by Joannides escalated over the summer [of 1978]. … It was clear that CIA had begun to carefully review files before delivering them to us for review.' After the movie 'JFK' launched new questions about the slaying, Congress in 1994 created the Assassinations Records Review Board, which again tried to recover key documents from federal agencies, and again probed the CIA. The CIA responded with its memo about 'Howard,' saying he didn't exist. 'My memo was incorrect,' said J. Barry Harrelson, a former CIA official who wrote the memo. 'But this wasn't deliberate.' He said he wasn't provided Joannides's personnel file, but that it was provided to the review board. Morley said the review board received the file, but seeing no references to Oswald, didn't realize its relevance. Harrelson said the release of the D.C. driver's license notes was 'the first time I'd seen it.' In an interview, Harrelson also said Howard was not listed in the 'registered alias' database of the CIA. Morley said that was an indicator that Joannides's Miami operation was 'off the books,' and not formally recognized by the agency. Harrelson disagreed, saying 'he had a public driver's license' and that the Cuban students knew his name, though not his real identity. Harrelson's memo also noted that progress reports on Joannides's Miami operation were missing for the 17 months he was there, which Morley said was another indicator that the anti-Castro program was secret even within the CIA. The search for Howard began in the 1990s when Morley interviewed members of the Cuban group DRE, short for Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil, or Student Revolutionary Directorate. Among them was Jose Antonio Lanuza, now 86, who told The Post that 'Howard' dealt only with the DRE's leader, Luis Fernandez Rocha, and Rocha would pass on direction from 'Howard.' Previously released records show that the CIA had begun reading Oswald's mail in 1959, when he defected to the Soviet Union, a move that attracted American media attention. Oswald returned to the U.S. in 1962 with a new wife and daughter in tow and settled in Dallas. Morley has found that the CIA continued to monitor Oswald. 'At least 35 CIA employees handled reports on Oswald between 1959 and 1963,' Morley said, 'including a half dozen officers who reported personally to [counterintelligence chief James] Angleton or deputy director Richard Helms.' The files included State Department and FBI reports about his defection and his activities with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro group in the U.S. for which he launched a one-man chapter in New Orleans in August 1963. When Oswald publicized his involvement in the pro-Castro group, the DRE swung into action and confronted him on the street in New Orleans, leading to a brief altercation and police involvement. One of the DRE members challenged Oswald to a debate, which was broadcast on the radio in the Crescent City. Rocha sent a tape of the debate to Howard, DRE records show. Not long after that, Oswald approached one of the DRE members in New Orleans and offered his help, Lanuza said in an interview. 'He indicated he might be interested in helping us train for military operations,' Lanuza said. Then, Oswald sent a letter to the DRE, Lanuza said. 'It was handwritten, two pages,' Lanuza recalled. 'It was crap. A ranting thing. 'I am willing to go to Miami to help you guys.' It was all building up a legend. I was constantly getting letters from gringos who wanted to come in and dress up in military garb and show up in my office.' He filed it away. Was Oswald secretly offering to spy on Fair Play for Cuba, something the CIA had other operatives doing? Lanuza thinks so, but the DRE didn't follow up with Oswald. 'Lee Harvey Oswald was trying to get in the good graces of the CIA,' Lanuza said. 'He said 'I'll do whatever.'' But when the news hit that Oswald had been arrested three months later, Lanuza and Rocha called Howard. Lanuza said Howard told them to call the FBI and provide the letter, and then alert the media to Oswald's pro-Cuba leanings. The FBI came and took Oswald's letter with a promise to return it, Lanuza said, but never did. Lanuza then phoned his contacts in the news media, who promptly added Oswald's political leanings to their coverage. The Fair Play for Cuba Committee soon imploded from its association with Oswald, a massive victory for the CIA – and for Howard. Morley and other researchers always suspected Howard was Joannides, who died in 1990, but it wasn't confirmed until the driver's license documents were released July 3. 'Why couldn't they say that [before 2025]?' Morley asked. 'I think the only reason is there's something nefarious going on. If it's something innocent, just say this is what happened.' Oswald said 'I'm a patsy' when speaking to journalists in Dallas police headquarters after his arrest, and many disbelieve the Warren Commission conclusion that he was a lone gunman. 'He really wasn't alone, he had the CIA looking over his shoulder for four years,' Morley said. Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA counterintelligence officer who has delved deeply into the case, said, 'This looks a hell of a lot like a CIA operation.' He said a plausible theory was rogue CIA officers created the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, unknown to the agency, and that 'the CIA covered it up not because they were involved, but because they were trying to hide the secrets of that period.' He said many in the CIA were angry with Kennedy after he withdrew support for the agency's Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 as well as for his gradual move toward peace with the Soviet Union after the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. 'The question is what was Joannides doing for the CIA monitoring Oswald?' Mowatt-Larssen said. 'The people who were orchestrating this had access to Joannides's reporting. They used that to monitor Oswald. His bona fides are being set up to be a lone gunman,' a cover story for other shooters. 'We are getting closer to the truth about Oswald and the CIA, but I do think there is more to come,' said Senior U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim of Minneapolis, who chaired the assassinations review board in the 1990s. 'The Joannides disclosures are most important, I think.' Tunheim said he didn't see any CIA complicity 'at this point. I see hiding information to avoid embarrassing questions, information that proves past lies.' He noted that Congress passed the JFK Records Act in 1992. 'Where are Howard's monthly reports and progress reports? Howard's files must exist, probably apart from Joannides's files.' Luna agreed with Mowatt-Larssen that 'there was a rogue element that operated within the CIA, outside the purview of Congress and the federal government, that knowingly engaged in a cover-up of the JFK assassination. I believe this rogue element intentionally turned a blind eye to the individuals that orchestrated it, to which they had direct connections. I think this rogue element within the CIA looked at JFK as a radical. They did not like his foreign policy, and that's why they justified turning a blind eye to his assassination and those involved.'
NZ Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
The CIA reveals more of its connections to Lee Harvey Oswald in newly unearthed documents
The CIA-backed group known as DRE was aware of Oswald as he publicly promoted a pro-Castro policy for the United States, and its members physically clashed with him three months before the assassination. And then, a DRE member said, Oswald approached them and offered his help, possibly to work as a mole within his pro-Castro group, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The CIA had long denied any involvement with the Cuban group, or any awareness of Oswald's pro-Cuba advocacy. After the most recent release of documents, the agency did not respond to a request for comment. The House Oversight Committee created a task force on 'federal secrets' to revisit the executive orders by President Donald Trump, in both of his administrations, requiring the release of assassination files by government agencies. After the task force held hearings on the JFK assassination this northern spring, chairwoman Anna Paulina Luna (Republican-Florida) led a push for the CIA to revisit its archives, which produced some significant discoveries, including new details about Joannides, who had previously only been identified with the alias of Howard. That's the name members of the DRE in Miami had for the CIA contact they kept apprised of their actions, but the CIA informed both the Warren Commission in 1964 and the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 that Howard didn't exist. In 1998, after the formation of the Assassination Records Review Board, the CIA again said it had no records related to Howard and the name may have been 'nothing more than a routing indicator'. A document declassified by the CIA shows that agent George Joannides obtained a phony DC driver's licence in 1963 as 'Howard Gebler'. Photo / National Archives and Records Administration Documents from Joannides' CIA personnel file were released this month showing he had obtained a phony DC driver's licence. The name on it: 'Howard Mark Gebler'. 'This confirms much of what the public already speculated: that the CIA was lying to the American people, and that there was a cover-up,' Luna said in an email. The documents also show the CIA gave Joannides a career commendation medal in 1981 in part for his handling of the Cuban group and also for his role as a liaison to the House Assassinations Committee, in which researchers have said that Joannides stonewalled them when they dug deeper into CIA files. The commendation noted his assignment as 'Deputy Chief of the Psychological Warfare Branch' in Miami in 1962 and said: 'He did particularly well with the handling of exile student and teacher groups'. 'It's a breakthrough, and there's more to come,' said Jefferson Morley, a longtime JFK researcher and former Washington Post reporter, who first sued the CIA for their assassination files in 2003. 'The burden of proof has shifted. There's a story here that's been hidden and avoided, and now it needs to be explored. It's up to the Government to explain.' There is no indication in any of the files that the CIA was involved in the assassination of Kennedy, which the Warren Commission declared in 1964 was the work of Oswald as a lone gunman. The House in 1976 launched a select committee to investigate the assassinations of Kennedy and Martin Luther King jnr, and concluded that Oswald worked as part of a 'probable conspiracy', but they could not determine who else was in the conspiracy. Staff members for the committee have said they were making progress on unearthing documents from the CIA in 1978 until a new agency liaison was installed: Joannides, whom they had no idea was at the centre of what they were trying to uncover. 'Joannides began to change the way file access was handled,' committee staff member Dan Hardway testified before Luna's task force in May. 'The obstruction of our efforts by Joannides escalated over the summer [of 1978] … It was clear that CIA had begun to carefully review files before delivering them to us for review.' George Joannides (centre) receives a Career Intelligence Medal from the CIA for his activities with the agency. Photo / National Archives and Records Administration After the movie JFK launched new questions about the slaying, Congress in 1994 created the Assassinations Records Review Board, which again tried to recover key documents from federal agencies, and again probed the CIA. The CIA responded with its memo about 'Howard', saying he didn't exist. 'My memo was incorrect,' said J. Barry Harrelson, a former CIA official who wrote the memo. 'But this wasn't deliberate.' He said he wasn't provided with Joannides' personnel file, but that it was provided to the review board. Morley said the review board received the file, but seeing no references to Oswald, didn't realise its relevance. Harrelson said the release of the DC driver's licence notes was 'the first time I'd seen it'. In an interview, Harrelson also said Howard was not listed in the 'registered alias' database of the CIA. Morley said that was an indicator that Joannides' Miami operation was 'off the books' and not formally recognised by the agency. Harrelson disagreed, saying 'he had a public driver's licence' and that the Cuban students knew his name, though not his real identity. Harrelson's memo also noted that progress reports on Joannides' Miami operation were missing for the 17 months he was there, which Morley said was another indicator that the anti-Castro programme was secret even within the CIA. The search for Howard began in the 1990s when Morley interviewed members of the Cuban group DRE, short for Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil, or Student Revolutionary Directorate. Among them was Jose Antonio Lanuza, now 86, who told the Washington Post that 'Howard' dealt only with the DRE's leader, Luis Fernandez Rocha, and Rocha would pass on direction from 'Howard'. Previously released records show that the CIA had begun reading Oswald's mail in 1959, when he defected to the Soviet Union, a move that attracted American media attention. Oswald returned to the US in 1962 with a new wife and daughter in tow and settled in Dallas, Texas. Morley has found that the CIA continued to monitor Oswald. 'At least 35 CIA employees handled reports on Oswald between 1959 and 1963,' Morley said, 'including half [a] dozen officers who reported personally to [counterintelligence chief James] Angleton or deputy director Richard Helms.' The files included State Department and FBI reports about his defection and his activities with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro group in the US for which he launched a one-man chapter in New Orleans in August 1963. When Oswald publicised his involvement in the pro-Castro group, the DRE swung into action and confronted him on the street in New Orleans, leading to a brief altercation and police involvement. One of the DRE members challenged Oswald to a debate, which was broadcast on the radio in the Crescent City. Rocha sent a tape of the debate to Howard, DRE records show. Not long after that, Oswald approached one of the DRE members in New Orleans and offered his help, Lanuza said in an interview. 'He indicated he might be interested in helping us train for military operations,' Lanuza said. Then, Oswald sent a letter to the DRE, Lanuza said. 'It was handwritten, two pages,' Lanuza recalled. 'It was crap. A ranting thing. 'I am willing to go to Miami to help you guys.' It was all building up a legend. 'I was constantly getting letters from gringos who wanted to come in and dress up in military garb and show up in my office.' He filed it away. Was Oswald secretly offering to spy on Fair Play for Cuba, something the CIA had other operatives doing? Lanuza thinks so, but the DRE didn't follow up with Oswald. 'Lee Harvey Oswald was trying to get in the good graces of the CIA,' Lanuza said. 'He said 'I'll do whatever.'' But when the news hit that Oswald had been arrested three months later, Lanuza and Rocha called Howard. Lanuza said Howard told them to call the FBI and provide the letter and then alert the media to Oswald's pro-Cuba leanings. The FBI came and took Oswald's letter with a promise to return it, Lanuza said, but never did. Lanuza then phoned his contacts in the news media, who promptly added Oswald's political leanings to their coverage. The Fair Play for Cuba Committee soon imploded from its association with Oswald, a massive victory for the CIA – and for Howard. Morley and other researchers always suspected Howard was Joannides, who died in 1990, but it wasn't confirmed until the driver's licence documents were released on July 3. George Joannides was posted in Miami when an anti-Castro group he oversaw was in contact with Lee Harvey Oswald. The CIA resisted revealing Joannides' identity until this month. Photo / National Archives and Records Administration 'Why couldn't they say that [before 2025]?' Morley asked. 'I think the only reason is there's something nefarious going on. If it's something innocent, just say this is what happened.' Oswald said 'I'm a patsy' when speaking to journalists in the Dallas police headquarters after his arrest, and many disbelieve the Warren Commission conclusion that he was a lone gunman. 'He really wasn't alone, he had the CIA looking over his shoulder for four years,' Morley said. Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA counterintelligence officer who has delved deeply into the case, said, 'This looks a hell of a lot like a CIA operation'. He said a plausible theory was rogue CIA officers created the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, unknown to the agency, and that 'the CIA covered it up not because they were involved, but because they were trying to hide the secrets of that period'. He said many in the CIA were angry with Kennedy after he withdrew support for the agency's Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 as well as for his gradual move towards peace with the Soviet Union after the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. 'The question is what was Joannides doing for the CIA monitoring Oswald?' Mowatt-Larssen said. 'The people who were orchestrating this had access to Joannides' reporting. They used that to monitor Oswald. His bona fides are being set up to be a lone gunman,' a cover story for other shooters. 'We are getting closer to the truth about Oswald and the CIA, but I do think there is more to come,' said senior US District Judge John R. Tunheim of Minneapolis, who chaired the assassinations review board in the 1990s. 'The Joannides disclosures are most important, I think.' Tunheim said he didn't see any CIA complicity 'at this point'. 'I see hiding information to avoid embarrassing questions, information that proves past lies.' He noted that Congress passed the JFK Records Act in 1992. 'Where are Howard's monthly reports and progress reports? Howard's files must exist, probably apart from Joannides' files.' Luna agreed with Mowatt-Larssen that 'there was a rogue element that operated within the CIA, outside the purview of Congress and the federal government, that knowingly engaged in a cover-up of the JFK assassination'. 'I believe this rogue element intentionally turned a blind eye to the individuals that orchestrated it, to which they had direct connections. 'I think this rogue element within the CIA looked at JFK as a radical. They did not like his foreign policy, and that's why they justified turning a blind eye to his assassination and those involved.'
The Independent
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
CIA has spent decades saying it knew little of Oswald before he killed JFK. New docs show that isn't true
The CIA has released bombshell new documents that reveal Lee Harvey Oswald was on their radar months before he assassinated former President John F. Kennedy. For the first time since JFK 's 1963 assassination, newly released files reveal that a surveillance officer ran a group that had contact with Oswald before the killing – something the agency had long denied. The disclosure was buried in a batch of 40 documents, which were unearthed by the House Oversight Committee 's 'federal secrets' task force earlier this month. It's the latest revelation that undermines the CIA's longstanding claims and lends new weight to theories of a broader cover-up. The release confirmed that CIA officer George Joannides had led U.S. efforts to infiltrate anti-communist Cuban student groups opposed to Fidel Castro in the months before JFK was shot dead riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963. Joannides, who directed 'all aspects of political action and psychological warfare' at the CIA's Miami branch, ran a covert operation to disseminate anti-Castro propaganda and disrupt pro-Castro groups. It included funding and directing the Cuban student group, commonly referred to as DRE. Members of the group reportedly clashed with Oswald, who publicly promoted pro-Castro policy for the U.S., about three months before JFK's assassination in August 1963. A DRE member later claimed that Oswald approached the group with an offer of support, possibly intending to double-cross his own organization, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. A CIA memo from January 1963 revealed Joannides was directed to use an alias and a fake driver's license bearing the name 'Howard Mark Gebler.' The DRE members in Miami used the name Howard for the CIA officer they kept updated on their activities. But the CIA told investigators in 1964 and again in 1978 that no such person existed. In 1998, the agency stated that it had no records of anyone named Howard and suggested the name might have been 'nothing more than a routing indicator.' Despite concealing his involvement, the CIA honored Joannides in 1981 with the Career Intelligence Medal. Investigators later testified that Joannides withheld critical information about his role in 1963, effectively stonewalling their efforts. 'This confirms much of what the public already speculated: that the CIA was lying to the American people, and that there was a cover-up,' said Anna Paulina Luna, overseeing the House committee examining the newly released JFK document, in an email to the Washington Post. The newly released documents don't reveal any additional details on JFK's shooting or settle the controversy over whether Oswald acted alone. In March, the Trump administration released thousands of classified documents related to the JFK assassination. On his third day in office, Trump ordered a 'full and complete release of all John F. Kennedy assassination records,' with researchers anticipating some 3,500 documents that had never been shared with the public. While experts noted that it was an 'encouraging start,' they said that the release didn't include two-thirds of the promised files, any of the 500 IRS records, or the recently discovered FBI files.
New York Post
07-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Shadowy CIA operative interacted with Lee Harvey Oswald months before JFK assassination, newly released docs show
A shadowy CIA operative specializing in psychological warfare interacted with Lee Harvey Oswald ahead of President John F. Kennedy's assassination — and then ran interference against congressional investigators probing whether the US spy agency was connected to the killing, newly disclosed documents show. CIA officer George Joannides assumed the alias 'Howard Gleber' in January 1963, and led an American effort to infiltrate anti-communist Cuban student groups in the year leading up to JFK's killing that November, according to government documents released Thursday and reviewed by Axios. Oswald, 23 at the time, got into a fight with members of one of those student groups — the DRE, an organization vehemently-opposed to dictator Fidel Castro's rule over Cuba — while he was handing out pro-communist leaflets in New Orleans nearly four months before the JFK assassination in Texas. 3 Lee Harvey Oswald was on the CIA's radar months before he shot JFK dead in Dallas in Nov. 1963. © Tom Dillard/Dallas Morning New That fight publicly exposed Oswald as a Castro-sympathizer — with news outlets covering a hearing that followed, and the soon-to-be killer later debating DRE members on a local television broadcast, according to Axios. A year before that exposure, the Pentagon was looking for excuses to attack Cuba — including plotting a false flag plan known as Operation Northwoods, which drew-up a fake assault on the US that would be blamed on the communist nation. Joannides was in charge of 'all aspects of political action and psychological warfare' at a Miami CIA office that funded the DRE when it encountered Oswald, and the name of a shadowy operative named 'Howard' who worked with the group has circulated in JFK assassination conspiracy theories and investigations for decades. But until Thursday's disclosure, the CIA has always maintained 'Howard' was not one of theirs — and Joannides himself even denied it point-blank until the day he died in 1990 after earning a Career Intelligence Medal. 3 JFK was shot in the head and killed as he drove through Dealy Plaza on November 22, 1963. Bettmann/CORBIS Joannides was assigned to be the CIA's liaison with the House Select Committee on Assassinations as it probed the president's murder in 1976, and he openly lied about the identity of 'Howard' when questioned. 'Joannides assured me that they could find no record of any such officer assigned to DRE, but that he would keep looking,' the House Committees chief counsel Robert Blakely testified in 2014, according to Axios. And a former investigator with the committee, Dan Hardway, testified in June that Joannides was behind a 'covert operation' to throw Congress off the CIA's trail. 'The cover story for Joannides is officially dead,' author and JFK assassination' expert Jefferson Morley told Axios. 'This is a big deal. The CIA is changing its tune on Lee Harvey Oswald.' Thursday's release is just the latest trove of information to emerge as the government works through a mandated disclosure of its files related to JFK's killing. 3 Oswald was fatally gunned down in public after he arrested for the assassination. AP The 1992 Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act decreed that all files would be released by 2017, but by 2018 there were still tens of thousands of documents withheld. President Biden released more in 2022, and in March President Trump released another trove. Previous releases have indicated the CIA knew more about Oswald than they told the public after the shooting, with documents disclosed in March showing 'three top CIA officials lied' to investigators about their knowledge of the assassin beforehand. The files on Joannides don't indicate why the CIA lied about his involvement with the DRE. '[The CIA] has fully complied and provided all documents — without redactions — related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy to NARA consistent with President Trump's direction in an unprecedented act of transparency by the agency,' a spokesperson for the agency told Axios.
Axios
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Axios
CIA admits shadowy officer monitored Oswald before JFK assassination, new records reveal
For the first time since President Kennedy's assassination nearly 62 years ago, the CIA has tacitly admitted that an officer specializing in psychological warfare ran an operation that came into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald before the Dallas killing. Why it matters: The disclosure Thursday — nestled in a batch of 40 documents concerning officer George Joannides — indicates the CIA lied for decades about his role in the Kennedy case before and after the assassination, according to experts on JFK's slaying. The linchpin document: A Jan. 17, 1963, CIA memo showing Joannides was directed to have an alias and fake driver's license bearing the name "Howard Gebler." Until Thursday, the agency had denied that Joannides was known as "Howard," the case officer name for the CIA contact who worked with activists from an anti-communist group opposed to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro called the Cuban Student Directorate. For decades, the agency also falsely said it had nothing to do with the student group, which was instrumental in having Oswald's pro-Castro stances published soon after the shooting. The bottom line: "The cover story for Joannides is officially dead," said Jefferson Morley, an author and expert on the assassination. "This is a big deal. The CIA is changing its tune on Lee Harvey Oswald." The information comes to light as part of President Trump's order that the government meet its obligations to disclose all documents under the JFK Records Act of 1992. Little was known of Joannides' involvement in the case until disclosures in 1998 under the records act. New disclosures of previously hidden records keep adding slices of information to the story. Zoom in: Joannides was the deputy chief of the CIA's Miami branch, overseeing "all aspects of political action and psychological warfare." That included covertly funding and directing the Cuban student group, commonly referred to as DRE for its Spanish-language initials. On Aug. 9, 1963, more than three months before Nov. 22 assassination, four DRE operatives got into a scuffle with Oswald in New Orleans when he was passing out pro-Castro "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" pamphlets. The subsequent court hearing was covered by local news media. On Aug. 21 , 1963, Oswald debated DRE activists on local TV, providing more media attention to him as a communist. After the assassination, DRE's newsletter identified Oswald as a pro-Castro communist, and the Miami Herald and Washington Post covered the story. A year before Oswald became known as pro-Castro, the Pentagon formulated a plan called Operation Northwoods to stage a false-flag attack in the United States, blame Cuba and then attack it. Zoom out: The new documents don't shed any additional light on Kennedy's shooting or settle the controversy over whether Oswald acted alone. Nor is there any evidence showing why the CIA covered up Joannides' ties to DRE. All the records disclosed so far show how the CIA lied about financing or being involved with DRE. That includes the agency's interactions with the Warren Commission (1964), the Church Committee (1975), the House Select Committee on Assassinations (1977-78) and the Assassination Review Board (until 1998). The intrigue: Joannides didn't just have knowledge of Oswald before the assassination — afterward he played a central role in deceiving the House Select Committee on Assassinations. At the time, the CIA appointed Joannides to be its liaison with the committee. But he and the agency hid the fact that he was involved with DRE and therefore the Kennedy case, slow-walked the CIA's production of records, and lied. The committee's chief counsel, Robert Blakey, testified in 2014 that he asked Joannides about "Howard" and DRE, and that "Joannides assured me that they could find no record of any such officer assigned to DRE, but that he would keep looking," Blakey said. A former committee investigator, Dan Hardway, testified before a House Oversight committee last month that Joannides was running a "covert operation" to undermine the congressional probe into the assassination. Two years after stonewalling the committee, Joannides was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal by the CIA in 1981. He died in 1990. What they're saying: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican overseeing the House committee examining the newly released JFK documents, said Joannides was "1,000 percent" involved in a CIA coverup. Morley and some others who've written extensively about Kennedy's assassination believe rogue CIA agents might have been involved in the killing, but Morley's not ready to say Joannides was one of them. Others, such as author Gerald Posner, believe Oswald was the lone gunman. But all are in agreement that the CIA acted in bad faith after Kennedy was killed. "It's vintage CIA. They never provide transparency. They don't tell the truth. They obscure. They obfuscate. And when the documents come out, they look bad," Posner said. A CIA spokesperson told Axios the agency "has fully complied and provided all documents — without redactions — related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy to NARA consistent with President Trump's direction in an unprecedented act of transparency by the agency."
