New JFK File: A Spy Called 'Howard' Publicized Oswald, Targeted Americans, and Recruited Assassins

George Joannides also won a CIA medal for stonewalling JFK investigators

A Spy Called “Howard”: George Joannides (center) obtained a fake driver’s license in January 1963 for his off-the-books operations, in which his agents exposed accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s one-man chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) in August 1963 (upper right), then advertised for assassins to kill Castro (lower left), triggering an explanation from his agents (lower center), who generated headlines about Oswald and the FPCC in the wake of JFK’s murder (lower right).

With the release of a portion of a long-suppressed CIA file on July 3, the saga of the JFK assassination files has entered a new phase. The longtime gatekeepers of CIA records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 have been replaced by Director John Ratcliffe. CIA records related to JFK’s assassination not previously shared with the National Archives are now being released. For the first time since 2017, the CIA is coming into compliance with the 1992 JFK Records Act, which mandates “immediate” release of all JFK files in the government’s possession.

The first of these disclosures (now available on the website of the Mary Ferrell Foundation and, in less accessible form, on the CIA’s Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room) confirms the previously denied role of a CIA officer in the surveillance of leftist activist Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin who denied killing Kennedy and was killed in police custody.

In response to a request from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), chair of the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, the CIA has declassified 62 previously redacted pages from the personnel file of officer George Joannides, who served as chief of the covert action branch of the Agency’s Miami station in November 1963.

The Joannides file is a breakthrough in the understanding of how the 35th president was shot dead in public and no one was ever brought to justice for the crime. It reveals the existence of a covert operation involving Oswald, authorized by senior CIA officials, that was not disclosed to any investigation of Kennedy’s murder.

A fake driver’s license shows how Joannides’ operation targeting the accused assassin was taken “off the books” in early 1963.

A declassified memo reveals that Joannides was honored for stonewalling congressional investigators looking into his agents’ contacts with the ex-Marine-radar-operator-turned-leftist-pamphleteer.

The file and other recently released JFK records tell a tale unknown to the Warren Commission, which concluded Oswald killed JFK “alone and unaided.” They provide a glimpse into the world of the CIA in the months before JFK was killed.

The Joannides file documents the work of a highly regarded undercover officer running an aggressive “off the books” CIA operation in the fall of 1963 that illegally targeted U.S. citizens, generated propaganda about an accused assassin, triggered an anti-Castro riot in New York City, possibly recruited assassins to kill Castro, and, after JFK was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, shaped news coverage of Kennedy’s murder.

While major news organizations have concluded, almost unanimously, that there is nothing in the latest JFK files to change anyone’s mind about the official finding that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK alone and unaided,” that was before the release of the Joannides file.

The Joannides file, along with other recently released JFK material, revises the narrative of a “lone gunman” with the revelation that Oswald and his Cuba-related activities were the target of sustained attention by the chief of the covert action branch of the CIA’s Miami station in the last months of JFK’s life — an interest that was never disclosed to investigators, to the public, or to the Agency itself.

Whether or not Oswald killed the president, the story in the Joannides file had to be hidden — and was — for 62 years.

The file raises new questions about Joannides, one of three CIA officers known to have lied about their knowledge of Oswald while JFK was alive.

Did Joannides target Oswald for anti-Castro propaganda purposes and fail to see he posed a threat to JFK?

Or did Joannides and his agents manipulate Oswald into the role of “patsy” for the men who ambushed the president in Dealey Plaza?

Or is there some other explanation for these long-denied events?

The Joannides file does not answer those questions, but it does identify other still-classified files that will shed new light on the CIA’s role in the events leading to JFK’s assassination.

“It’s one thing for the CIA to tell you they will release something; it’s another thing when they actually do it,” said Rep. Luna, a second-term Republican, in a phone interview. Luna’s task force held two hearings on the JFK files in April and May.

The release of the Joannides file, she said, “is a good symbol of the new transparency the CIA and the intelligence agencies are trying to achieve.”

The Joannides personnel file is available for download further down in this article.

George Joannides through the ages, left to right: New York City Stuyvesant High School graduate in 1940; as a CIA officer in 1960, 1962, 1964, and 1973, serving undercover in Athens, Miami, and Saigon; and retiring with a Career Intelligence Medal in 1981. (Photos from New York Public Library, CIA, private collection, and CIA)