If you were interested in Real History Lisa’s recent diary on the CIA suppressing history, you should read Jeff Morley’s immensely important (and long) 2003 article What Jane Roman Said. Trust me, stick through it until the end for the information about George Joannides. As a little primer, George Joannides is the most promising person for breaking open the JFK assassination investigation. In 1963, he was in charge of the anti-Castro Cuban organization Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE) in Florida and in New Orleans. Oswald tried to penetrate the group and then was later arrested when the Cubans saw him passing out pro-Castro literature and started a fight. He never told investigators that he knew about Oswald before the assassination. In fact, he did something incredibly suspicious. In 1976, Congress created the House Select Committee on Assassinations [HSCA] . They re-opened the JFK case and were empowered to access all CIA documents related to the case. Joannides came out of retirement to act as the liaison between the congressional investigators and the CIA for document collection. He never once mentioned that he was in charge of the Cubans in 1963 that had had dealings with Oswald.
When Joannides’ real occupation came to light in the late 1990’s, it sent the head of the HSCA on a tirade:
I was not told of Joannides background with the DRE, a focal point of the investigation. Had I known who he was, he would have been a witness who would have been interrogated under oath by the staff or by the committee. He would never have been acceptable as a point of contact with us to retrieve documents. In fact, I have now learned, as I note above, that Joannides was the point of contact between the Agency and DRE during the period Oswald was in contact with DRE…
We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency.
Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story.
I am now in that camp.
If you haven’t read What Jane Roman Said then you don’t know what you need to know about what happened back in 1963. And you need to know, because history has a tendency to repeat itself. Read more about Jeff Morley’s FOIA request for information about George Joannides’ career at the CIA.
