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The CIA covered up encounter with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to JFK's assassination

Documents recently revealed also show that the agency maintained contact with a student group opposing Cuban communism—a connection it had denied for decades. “Today is a historic day for America,” said Representative Anna Paulina Luna, president of a working group focused on declassifying information related to the assassination.

Declassified document on George Joannides.

Declassified document on George Joannides.CIA.gov/VOICE.

Santiago Ospital
Published by
Santiago Ospital

An agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), involved in an operation on U.S. soil, crossed paths with Lee Harvey Oswald before the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy. The agent was later rewarded for withholding this information from Congress—a fact kept hidden for over 60 years until it was revealed last week in a series of declassified documents about agent George Joannides.

The document in question, dated January 17, 1963, instructs Joannides to obtain a driver’s license under the alias "Howard Gebler." It includes further details of this false identity: Gebler was described as a white male born in 1922 in Alexandria, Virginia, with brown eyes, black hair, glasses, a Washington, D.C. residence, and a legal profession.

Below is the full document:

Memo George Joannides by Santiago Adolfo Ospital

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As first reported by Axios, the CIA denied until last Thursday that Joannides was Gebler, as well as any contact he had with the anti-Castro group Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE). The DRE is notable because one of its members, Carlos Bringuier, confronted Oswald in a public dispute before the assassination in Dallas and, afterward, published information highlighting Oswald’s pro-communist views—the only suspect in the crime.

A wave of files released by the National Archives in March provided deeper insight into his fascination with Cuba and Fidel Castro. 

Two other documents that have recently gained attention were highlighted by the specialized site JFK Facts. One reveals that the agent was an expert in “Propaganda Political Action via Clandestine and Controlled Channels,” while the other shows he was awarded a Career Intelligence Medal.

Among his merits, the latter document cites his dealings with Cuban students and, in the words of JFK Facts, “his stonewalling” of House Select Committee on Assassinations investigators in 1978. Axios also lists three other occasions when the CIA concealed its involvement with the DRE: before the Warren Commission (1964), the Church Committee (1975), and the Assassination Review Board (until 1998).

"Twenty-eight years of devoted and effective service"

The declassified document recommending Joannides for a medal provides an overview of his life and career. Born in Greece in 1922, his family emigrated to New York the following year. According to the author of the recommendation, Joannides “performed more than twenty-eight years of devoted and effective service to the Agency.”

He was posted to Greece, where he worked for several years and utilized his native Greek language skills. In 1962, he returned to the United States, where he “did presumably well with the handling of exile student and teacher groups.”

In 1963, he became section chief in Greece and later took on assignments in both Greece and Vietnam.

“He continued in this assignment until June 1978, when he was selected to assist the Agency’s senior coordinator for work with the House Select Committee on Assassinations,” the document states. “He was rated Outstanding for his handling of this unusual special assignment, which he continued until his retirement on January 12, 1979.”

Joannides passed away in 1990.

"Today is a historical day for America and a step forward to help mend the broken bonds of trust between the US Gov and the American people," said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, chairwoman of a Congressional task force dedicated to declassifying federal secrets. Luna described the finding as a the revelation of "a decades long secret."

The Republican also thanked President Trump, who, just days after taking office, signed an executive order mandating the declassification of files related to the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. During his campaign, the president had promised his now-Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, that he would allow public access to records on his uncle, the former president, and his father, Robert F Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968. Congress had already passed a law in 1992 requiring the collection and disclosure of federal records connected to the assassination.

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