Axios on JFK Facts: CIA Admits Agent Monitored Oswald Before JFK Assassination

Revelations in the release of a long-suppressed file of a Miami-based undercover officer in 1963

George Joannides, decorated CIA officer who served as chief of covert action operations in Miami in 1963. (Credit: Chad Nagle)

After more than a decade of resistance, the CIA on July 3 released portions of the personnel file of George Joannides, an undercover officer whose agents publicized accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, three months before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

From Marc Caputo’s groundbreaking July 4 report in Axios:

"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."

Caputo’s article captures some of the main revelations in the Joannides file, but there is much, much more to the story.

Read the Joannides File Yourself

Judge for yourself. You can look at all the document ins the Joannides file, and supplementary material is now available on the Mary Ferrell Foundation website (maryferrell.org).

Doc. No. 1: The complete Joannides file in chronological order. Easiest to understand.

Three key documents in the file:

• Doc. No. 28: Identifies Joannides’ operational specialty in 1963, which is relevant to his reporting on the pro-Castro defector named Lee Harvey Oswald. Joannides was expert in "P[ropaganda] P[olitical] Action via Clandestine and Controlled Channels.”

• Doc. No. 47: A fake D. C. driver’s license for Joannides using his alias “Howard Gebler” refutes the CIA’s 1998 disavowal of any knowledge of his actions in 1963.

• Doc. No. 6: In a memo recommending Joannides for a Career Intelligence Medal, the CIA cited his handling of Cuban student agents in 1963 and his stonewalling of congressional investigators in 1978.

As we absorb the implication of the Joannides file, JFK Facts will publish a detailed report later this week about what the file does (and does not) tell us about the causes of JFK’s assassination.

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