Almost 62 years after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Central Intelligence Agency has revealed that one of their officers had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald before and after the November killing, documents released this week and first reported by Axios have revealed.
The documents concern a CIA officer who specialized in psychological warfare known as George Joannides. The crux of the revelation is in a document dated Jan 17, 1963 revealing that Joannides had an alias and fake driver’s license under the name “Howard Gebler.” Prior to Thursday’s document revelation, the CIA had denied that “Howard” was in fact Joannides, who had been in contact with an anti-communist activist group working against Cuba’s dictator Fidel Castro.
The CIA had claimed for decades their operatives had no connection with the Cuban Student Directorate, which is where the activists published Oswald’s pro-Castro writings following the assassination. The student group was often referred to as DRE for its Spanish-language initials. Jefferson Morley, an expert on the assassination told the outlet, “The cover story for Joannides is officially dead. This is a big deal. The CIA is changing its tune on Lee Harvey Oswald.”
The CIA’s Miami Division oversaw “all aspects of political action and psychological warfare” and was where Joannides served as deputy chief. The agency funneled money to the anti-Castro student group and covertly directed their actions. In August of 1963, four DRE members got into an altercation with Oswald in New Orleans while he was passing out pro-Castro “Fair Play for Cuba Committee” literature. Weeks later, Oswald debated DRE activists on local television, giving his communist leanings more public exposure. Both incidents were portrayed in Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “JFK.”
While the new revelations do not offer any new insight into additional assassins or the Warren’s Commission’s finding that Oswald was the lone gunman, the revelations of Joannides identity add further doubt to the government’s narrative.
In March, President Donald Trump ordered all previously withheld classified documents released that pertained the assassinations of Kennedy, King, and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. The release of the documents has long been a campaign promise of Trump, who noted in his order, “I have determined that the release of all records in the Federal Government’s possession pertaining to each of those assassinations is also in the public interest.”
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