JFK File Expert Skeptical of Blakey's Joannides Claims

Introduction

Editor's Note: Scroll down to the bottom of the page if you prefer to see bullet points on this article.

I have always heard that you call (or email) an expert when you have a problem.

So, I contacted JFK file guru Robert Reynolds regarding the May 20th testimony of former HSCA staffer Dan Hardway. Reynolds is a professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Chi Nan University in Puli, Taiwan who researches the JFK assassination in his free time. Reynolds specializes in the JFK Assassination Records Collection—particularly the new file releases. Reynolds writes at his blog and elsewhere time permitting, but he frequently helps lost souls like myself by providing files and interpretations of the same.

Throughout this article, Reynolds' comments will appear in blue blockquote.

Much of the testimony at both the April 1st and May 20th Luna hearings centered around CIA officer George Joannides who served as both a DRE case officer in the sixties and a liaison to the HSCA in 1978. The testimonies of conspiracy author Jefferson Morley and one-time House Select Committee on Assassinations staffer Dan Hardway were generally well-received by the media even though they lacked significant new information. Both men leveled accusations regarding Joannides' alleged stonewalling of Congress by not providing pertinent information to investigators.

First, let's deal with the low-hanging fruit. As is often the case, much of what Morley said about Joannides may be dismissed because it is not accurate. Morley declared in his April 1st written statement to the Luna Committee that "Three top CIA officers lied under oath about JFK’s assassination." Setting aside Helms and Angleton, whom I discussed in a previous blog post, note that Joannides could not have lied "under oath" simply because he never testified or provided an affidavit to any government body about the JFK case.

As far as I can tell, Morley is also wrong when he claims that Dan Hardway made a "direct request" to Joannides for the name of the DRE case officer in 1963. Hardway never claimed in his Luna statement that he made such a request. Indeed, Hardway admitted that he "did little, if any, research that I recall into the [DRE]." So, obviously, he would have no reason to ask Joannides about a DRE case officer. Especially when you consider that his primary assignment was Oswald and Mexico City. And Reynolds and I both came up empty when searching earlier Hardway statements for any such declaration. Hardway has only said Joannides obstructed their investigation—not that he lied directly to him about the identity of the case officer. If Morley has evidence to back up his claim, he should provide it.

When looking at Hardway's claims, one realizes they are based as much on what Morley says about an "Oswald Operation" and the assertions of his old boss at the HSCA G. Robert Blakey, who served as the committee's Chief Counsel, as they are on his own memories. Indeed, even Morley's Luna statement mentioned Blakey's opinion that Joannides committed a "felony" by withholding evidence. Similarly, when reading the declarations of Hardway and his HSCA partner Edwin Lopez submitted for a lawsuit against the CIA in 2017, Blakey's assertions are again a key component.

This reliance on Blakey's comments sparked a few questions in my skeptical mind. What is the nature of the claims that Blakey has made regarding Joannides and the DRE? How long has he been making them? How accurate are Blakey's claims and is there documentation to back up his statements? Finally, have his statements been consistent through the years or do they show an evolution of thought? To unpack all of this, Reynolds helped me take a deep dive into the bowels of the HSCA files.

First, let's address the elephant in the room. No, Joannides did not volunteer any information about the DRE to Hardway or Blakey or anyone else. His purpose was to serve as a liaison to the HSCA and deal with reasonable requests for information (one clearly unreasonable request will be discussed later). CIA officers of the time took a secrecy oath and were serious about maintaining the agency's private affairs. And there is no indication that Joannides' secrecy oath was waived as was the case with a few CIA officers who testified under oath. So, as far as Joannides was concerned, he was there to do a job and certainly did not intend to divulge any agency information without prompting. And it is not reasonable, in my view, to expect him to do so.

Having said this, if Joannides provably denied a specific request from Blakey or Hardway for the identity of the DRE case officer, that could be significant. It could also mean that Joannides simply didn't want to expose his covert work to scrutiny for non-nefarious reasons.

Breckinridge is Hired as HSCA Principal Coordinator (PC)

Before looking at Blakey's claims, it would be useful to establish why, how, and when Joannides started working as the HSCA liaison. It is also instructive to look at the animus that existed between the CIA and the HSCA and the causes of that conflict as seen by both sides. Who better to tell the story from the agency perspective than Scott Breckinridge, the man who hired Joannides. Breckinridge published a book titled The CIA and the Cold War: A Memoir which, among other things, details his time with the HSCA. Portions of the book were kindly provided to me by Reynolds. Breckinridge wrote the following about how he got the job as PC to the HSCA:

In mid-1978 HSCA leveled a blast against the agency's performance in response to its requests. The strident quality of the complaint led to the decision that the agency had best establish a special staff to deal with the committee’s investigators, as had been done with the Rockefeller Commission and also with the previous congressional inquiries. Someone remembered that I had been involved in the earlier episodes, and I was tagged to do it.

Blakey was informed of the Breckinridge appointment as PC on May 19. Reynolds adds the following detail:

Blakey addressed HSCA's written requests to Patrick Carpentier [Breckinridge's predecessor as liaison coordinator] up until the end of May, 1978. He first addressed a request to Breckinridge on 5/26/78, and continued to do so from then on, until the HSCA officially closed in December 1978. As for Joannides, Breckinridge hired him in June 1978, soon after he became PC." (See Breckinridge's "Memo in lieu of fitness report").

The Breckinridge book continues:

To say I was not enthusiastic about the assignment is to put it mildly. I did have some conditions for taking the assignment, if it was to be done properly. I wanted two officers assigned to me, along with clerical and secretarial support, and adequate space of our own. That was forthcoming. This new staff was to be attached to the Office of the Legislative Counsel, which was quite appropriate; however, I felt I must have direct access to the Director’s office, which took the form of the Special Assistant to the Deputy Director.

The two officers chosen by Breckinridge were Rodger Gabrielson, who was already working with the HSCA investigators, and, of course, Joannides. Reynolds picks up the story:

Breckinridge recalls hiring Joannides because he wanted someone from [the Directorate of Plans] as his assistant, someone who knew his way around the Directorate. He surely must have known that Joannides had worked in JMWAVE. I think he might well have thought of that as an advantage, not as some kind of treachery [to purposely hide documents or other evidence of a conspiracy to kill JFK]. Another somewhat similar case was that of Paul Garbler, who was of interest because he worked at Moscow station immediately after Oswald left I think. ARRB later interviewed him to find out specific details about the station and employees. He too served as liaison to the HSCA in the early days (1977).

Breckinridge's book discusses the problems that existed between the HSCA and the CIA from the perspective of the agency:

I was particularly interested in what had set off the fireworks of the HSCA complaint. It was important to understand that if we were to deal with those folk successfully. While there was a lot of static in the descriptions of what happened, the main details were fairly clear. The agency had received a very heavy number of requests. They had all been properly logged in as soon as possible after being received and passed on to those parts of the agency where the requested information was to be found, if it existed. However, the volume was such that a backlog had developed initially, but that part of the record-keeping had been brought up to date. However, when materials were brought to the reading room, not all of it was recorded when received there.

The following passage from Breckinridge's book describes what Reynolds calls "the first of a number of confrontations" he had with HSCA staff.

... it developed that the HSCA people had asked for a meeting. It appeared that they had some problems with their own records and wanted to compare theirs with ours. The log sheets were made available to them, with the explanation that they were not up to date. I spoke separately with each of the agency people at that meeting, who were unanimous about what transpired. They had no concern with the purely administrative records being seen by the HSCA people, especially if it might help with their records. The HSCA elected to interpret the agency records as up to date, so far as showing nondelivery of files to the reading room. They charged that the agency was at least dilatory in responding to requests, with ill-concealed overtones of bad faith as well

Breckinridge continues:

After I had been on the job a few weeks ... an HSCA representative came in to ask for access again to our records: the log sheets on their requests and delivery to the “reading room.” I said they would not be made available. They were our administrative records for the purpose of knowing where we stood, with no substantive significance so far as their mission was concerned. We had extended them the courtesy of looking at those records earlier, and they had abused the privilege, misrepresenting the status of things. HSCA had been told our logging of actions was not up to date, but they had chosen to state that they were, attacking on the false statement of facts. He was offended, saying that he had been told that the records were current. I told him I had interviewed the agency people who were present during that exchange, and that simply was not so.

For those who are interested in reading more about the conflicts between Breckinridge and Blakey, Reynolds found this document which is a memo by Breckinridge regarding Blakey's complaints about late requests.

A more explicit example of the "fireworks" mentioned by Breckinridge comes in the form of a confrontation between Joannides and Hardway. What follows is Morley's presentation of Hardway's version of events from Morley v. CIA (p. 32):

“You wrote in your Miami New Times piece that Joannides was a nice guy,” [Hardway] said. “That’s not the man I dealt with. He was a total asshole.” Joannides was an elusive phantom to me, a spook. Hardway had known the man, looked him in the eye. He said he’d had a shouting match with him. Hardway submitted an affidavit to the court in support of my records request. He did not mince words. “I am now certain that Joannides was hiding evidence of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy,” he wrote. “This conspiracy involved CIA officers in the DRE and organized-crime figures.”

Breckinridge's version of what was likely the same event makes Hardway's anger even more understandable:

On one or two occasions when some young investigator would come in and assert what he felt was his manhood, George simply and directly cooled him off; George had been where the action was and had limited time for immature theatrics. They tested him a couple of times and thereafter dealt with him properly.

Summing up the conflicts between HSCA and CIA, on one hand you have Breckinridge vs. Blakey. A career agency man vs. a law professor. One man tasked with obtaining information and the other with keeping secrets—even those that had nothing to do with JFK—while complying with legitimate requests. So, it is not too hard to see how problems could arise. On the other hand, the potential for conflict is even more apparent in the case of Joannides and Hardway. The latter was just twenty-four years old at the time of his HSCA service while Joannides was fifty-six. The impeccable Joannides was wearing tailored suits—Hardway reportedly not so much. According to Morley's unpublished manuscript, "The Perfect Man for the Job," Joannides was skeptical of JFK conspiracy theories while Hardway was obviously a firm supporter of them. So, a significant cultural and generational gap between the two men exacerbated the problems.

Blakey Circa 1998

Now, let's begin our examination of Blakey's statements over the years. Has there been an evolution or has he always said essentially the same thing?

According to Morley's eBook Morley v. CIA, he informed Blakey in late 1998 that Joannides had been the DRE case officer in 1963 shortly after receiving the information from the CIA via the ARRB. Blakey was reportedly "stunned" and "angry." Morley wrote (p. 18):

He explained to me what he would later say at greater length in an interview with PBS Frontline: Joannides had personally obstructed Congress’s 1978 reinvestigation of JFK’s murder.

But Joannides only obstructed the investigation if it can be proven that he lied to investigators. I don't believe withholding information that he may have deemed irrelevant meets that standard. Others may disagree, but in any case, we will try to determine later if Joannides lied directly to investigators or not.

So, in 1998, Blakey was angry and believed Joannides had obstructed Congress.

Blakey Circa 2001

In 2001, Morley published his well-known article "Revelation 19.63" in the Miami New Times. Blakey is quoted as saying:

If I had known then what Joannides was doing in 1963, I would have demanded that the agency take him off the job [of responding to committee inquiries] ... I would have sat him down and interviewed him. Under oath ... None of us knew that he had been a contact agent for the DRE in 1963. That was one of the groups we had targeted for investigation ... He was a witness, the assassination happened on his watch.

The 2001 Blakey is certainly more verbal on the matter. He would have put Joannides on the stand which was his right to do. Blakey also claims that the DRE was a group "targeted for investigation." But what sort of investigation was really done on the DRE?

Gaeton Fonzi, a journalist who firmly believed in conspiracy narratives, was the member of Blakey's staff who was credited as principal author of the report on the DRE. The document covered a less than impressive eight pages including footnotes. After a two-and-a-half page summary of the group's history, Fonzi spent much of the remainder of the report discussing the allegations of Clare Boothe Luce whose dubious claims were surprisingly deemed to be of "special interest" to the committee. Luce had told a journalist a tale about Lee Harvey Oswald offering to kill Castro and the Secretary of the Navy among other things. Miami DRE member Jose Lanusa's story of what the DRE did when they realized after the assassination that their delegate, Carlos Bringuier, had interacted with Oswald made it into Fonzi's report, but apparently only because Lanusa had met Luce. So, I guess you could say the DRE was targeted for investigation relating to conspiracy theories at least. In the end, neither Lanusa or Fonzi believed Luce.

Speaking of Fonzi, let's return to Morley's 2001 piece in which he wrote the following about his conversation with Fonzi:

When [Fonzi] had asked who'd handled contacts with the Directorate in 1963, the committee was informed -- via the CIA general counsel's office -- that the agency did not know. "We got the runaround from day one on the DRE," says Fonzi ... "The Joannides revelation just reconfirms that the CIA deceived the American people about who really was responsible for Kennedy's death."

Fonzi is clearly making a more serious allegation regarding a denial of the identity of the DRE case officer than Blakey has so far although he does not specifically mention Joannides as the source. Breckinridge told Morley that he "couldn't recall" if he was aware of Joannides' position in 1963 when he hired him to be HSCA liaison but knew that Joannides was "a man who had a good reputation." So, it would not be incriminating if Breckinridge told Fonzi that he didn't know who the 1963 case officer was as Fonzi seems to be claiming.

So our 2001 version of Blakey is still not saying much in the way of damning accusations against Joannides. Not even as much as his investigator Fonzi is.

Blakey Circa 2003

Blakey was so upset by the Morley revelations regarding Joannides that in 2003 he created an addendum to his statements made to PBS Frontline for their 1993 documentary "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald." Blakey's relevant assertions are in bold followed by my reply.

Outrageously, the Agency did not tell the Warren Commission or our committee that it had financial and other connections with the DRE, a group that Oswald had direct dealings with!

Author Vincent Bugliosi wrote the following about this Blakey assertion in the endnotes (p. 682) of his 2007 Reclaiming History:

Even volume 10 from Blakey’s own HSCA way back in 1978 says that “the leaders of the DRE were kept on a regular monthly retainer by the U.S. Government, as were all members engaged in training for paramilitary operations and propaganda dissemination. They were also supplied with weapons and ammunition on occasion.”

The source of the HSCA volume 10 statement is listed as simply an interview conducted by the HSCA. But information that Bugliosi likely was unaware of further strengthens this point. The interview was of DRE case officer Ross Crozier by Fonzi (p. 11), who was certainly in a position to know that the agency funding the DRE was specifically the CIA. Indeed, in an earlier draft of the DRE report the identity of the funding entity was changed from "CIA" to "US Government."

I was not told of Joannides’ background with the DRE, a focal point of the investigation.

There is no proof that Breckinridge was aware of Joannides' tenure as the DRE case officer. In fact, in Morley's unpublished manuscript "The Perfect Man for the Job" discussed below, Morley wrote that Breckinridge "says that he did not know of Joannides' Miami assignment in 1963."

The committee’s researchers immediately complained to me that Joannides was, in fact, not facilitating but obstructing our obtaining of documents.

The problems between the CIA and the HSCA have been discussed above.

For these reasons, I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the Agency and its relationship to Oswald.

That is Blakey's belief; fair enough. But note that this statement could also be interpreted as an convenient way to fend off criticism of the committee's work.

Anyone interested in pursuing this story further should consult the reporting by Jefferson Morley of the Washington Post. See, e.g., Jefferson Morley, “Revelation 19.63” Miami New Times (April 2001).

One thing is clear. Blakey's thinking on the matter has been heavily influenced by Morley's conspiracy-oriented work.

Blakey "Perfect Man"

Morley again quotes Blakey in his unpublished and undated manuscript titled "The Perfect Man For the Job." This article probably dates from about 2004-2005, and shows Blakey's developing views as he learns more about Morley's FOIA lawsuit against CIA. Blakey's comments are general in nature and in line with his PBS addendum. But Blakey does add a new acusation. "Joannides compromised our investigation and thwarted the will of Congress which was to have [a] full investigation. He committed a felony." Later in the piece, Blakey said, "Joannides was in a position where he could control our investigation. We only saw what he wanted us to see."

By 2005 then, Blakey's Joannides claims, while significant, were not as serious as what was to come.

Blakey Circa 2006

In the year 2006, by way of Blakey's declaration in Morley's FOIA lawsuit against the CIA, we are presented with the first bits of evidence for a Joannides denial of the DRE case officer's identity. But Blakey is merely the reporter of the information. The author is really Gaeton Fonzi. Blakey stated:

Significantly, my request [for the identity of the DRE case officer] was directed to George Joannides, who was the agency's liaison officer with our investigation at the time. As one of my investigators, Gaeton Fonzi, recently wrote, Joannides said "he could not find any records indicating the name of the DRE's control officer or documents revealing his operational activities. But, Joannides said, he would continue looking for the agency's DRE files as well as any records that would help him identify and locate the agency's control officer, the one man who would have the most information about the DRE and its contact with Lee Harvey Oswald."

Note that Blakey says his request was "directed to" Joannides, not that he made it directly to Joannides himself. Blakey is relying not on his own memory of the events but rather on Fonzi's remembrances of the situation which were published in Gold Coast Magazine in an article entitled "The JFK Assassination Redux" in 2005.

Robert Reynolds adds:

Blakey says "my request was directed to George Joannides." This seems to contradict the idea that Blakey spoke directly to Joannides. Elsewhere, Blakey says, "The HSCA tenure expired before Joannides or the Agency responded." This seems to contradict Fonzi's statement that Joannides reported he could not find records on the DRE "control officer" but would continue looking. Quite a kettle of contradictions.

Let's look at some of the other Blakey claims (in bold) from this court document:

The DRE was a target of our investigation because of contacts between its members in its New Orleans delegation and Oswald in August 1963. In fact, the Committee specifically focused on this incident in its final report, and its findings reflect the Committee's extensive investigation of the DRE and its activities. HSCA Final Report, p. 141

Agreed. Blakey and the committee were interested in LHO and his interaction with the DRE and the report discusses this. So far, so good.

In particular, on May 23, 1978, I personally requested that the CIA provide photographs of DRE members Juan Manual [sic] Salvat Roque and Tony Lanuza. I also requested a photograph of Ross Crosier, a CIA contract officer who had worked with the DRE in 1961-62 before Joannides took over handling of the group.

Here is the link to the May 23, 1978 request. This is one of three requests cited by Blakey at different times to back up his various claims. But I'm not sure what Blakey hopes to prove by this request for photos other than he wanted to know what these men looked like. Note that in his 2014 statement (discussed below), which was intended for consumption by the conspiracy-oriented AARC group, he didn't mention that the request was merely for photos. The agency replied to the request on July 3rd, providing the requested photos. But there was no request for documents on DRE case officers here. Note that the CIA provided the 201 file on Crozier who was the first DRE case officer. But Reynolds says " no one bothered to look at [it]."

In a related matter, Reynolds points out that the July 3rd release of photos debunks another Morley claim from his "Perfect Man" piece. Morley wrote, "The committee wanted photographs of DRE leaders Manuel Salvat, and Tony Lanusa. Once upon a time, Joannides knew these men personally. He said nothing and told the committee that the CIA had no photos."

On July 11, 1978, I specifically requested documents on the DRE. This request was recorded by the office of Legislative counsel, as was the agency's response: to provide "misc. documents." See Attachment 1.

When searching for the alleged July 11 request, Reynolds first came up empty. He was eventually able to find a request by Blakey from the date in question, but as he told me, "As far as I know, none of these people are DRE, and the name DRE does not appear on this request." Reynolds was also unable to locate the "Attachment 1" referred to by Blakey in Morley's court documents. But after more searching, Reynolds believes he has solved the mystery of the "missing" July 11 request. The clue which aided him in his discovery was Blakey's odd use of the term "misc. documents" since Reynolds was aware that the documents provided by the CIA were specific and extensive. He told me:

ARC 104-10067-10162 ("LOGS OF HSCA REQUESTS") is a chronological list of HSCA requests to CIA-for information. At the top of page 154 there is a row that gives the date 22.3.78 and the OLC number 78-1179/1. The request subject is "Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil." Action office is IMS, response date is 11.7.78, and the comments say "Misc documents".

Here is the link to 104-10067-10162. Reynolds continues:

"If this is really the document Blakey has in mind, he slipped up here, switching the date of the CIA response with the date of the HSCA request. As the log shows, the date of the HSCA request for the DRE docs was 3/22/78, and the CIA responded on 7/11/78. The "misc documents" mentioned here are in fact an extensive set of DRE docs, consisting of over a dozen files totaling almost 1500 pages. There is a 14 page CIA letter (ARC 104-10063-10130) enumerating all the files and docs they produced in response to the massive 3/22 HSCA request.

ARC 104-10063-10130 may be found HERE

HSCA investigators under my supervision interviewed three former leaders of DRE about the group's contacts with Oswald: Jose Antonio Lanuza, Juan Manuel Salvat Roque, and Carlos Bringuier. In particular, [the HSCA] sought to identify the DRE's CIA case officer in 1963.

But was the HSCA really that concerned about the identity of the case officer? Bringuier has always denied that he knew the identity of or had any contact with the case officer in 1963. When interviewed by Fonzi, Lanusa stated that he couldn't remember the case officer's "code name." So, Fonzi was at least asking about the identity of the case officer or Lanusa offered it without prompting.

But, when Fonzi interviewed Salvat, the latter provided several code names of "CIA officials" he had known after Crozier. One of these, "Howard," was indeed the code name for their DRE contact who Morley believes is Joannides (The Mary Ferrell Foundation website, based at least partly on analysis by Morley, says only "probable"). Salvat mentioned four individuals but didn't characterize any of them beyond being "CIA officials." And since there were only two DRE case officers after Crozier, not all of names could be case officers. So, the HSCA would have had no reason to believe that "Howard" was anyone special. And there is no indication that Fonzi followed up on "Howard" or any of the other names provided by Salvat. Additionally, Reynolds told me, " I can find no record of a written or oral request by Blakey, or Hardway, for info on the DRE case officer."

Furthermore, consider the fact that Fonzi knew from his interview with Crozier that there had been a 1963 DRE case officer whose name the latter couldn't remember. If Blakey was really so interested in identifying the case officer, he could have put Crozier on the stand after waiving his secrecy oath. Even if Crozier couldn't remember the name of the case officer, he could have directed Blakey to someone who would.

Blakey Circa 2014

In a 2014 address before the Assassination Archives and Research Center, Blakey added a new information request to his previously mentioned May and July requests in support of his accusations:

When working as Chief Counsel for the HSCA, I requested all the Agency files on the DRE and its members as early as March of 1978. That request included a demand that the Agency identify any employees who had, in the period from 1960 to 1964, worked with the DRE

Here is the March 22, 1978 request from Blakey to Breckinridge's predecessor Patrick Carpentier. Blakey asked for information on 75 separate organizations and individuals. Only a few of these are pertinent to our discussion:

• Carlos Bringuier (DRE delegate)
• Ross Crozier (first DRE case officer)
• Jose Lanusa (Miami DRE member)
• Juan Manuel Salvat (Miami DRE member)
• DRE (general request)

To make sure his bases were fully covered, Blakey inserted the following paragraph near the end of the document:

In addition please identify, for purposes of interview by Select Committee staff, any employees/agents/contacts you had during the period of 1960 through 1964 who were providing to you results and/or reports of surveillance, investigation, and/or interviews of the activities and leaders of the active Cuban anti-Castro groups in Miami and New Orleans.

At first blush, this paragraph could be broadly be interpreted as a request for the identity of the DRE case officer if one were inclined to be generous. But the problems with the query are soon apparent. Commenting on this final all-encompassing paragraph, Reynolds says:

As far as I can tell, the CIA did not respond to this part of the request. To do so, they would have had to provide the names and addresses of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. Remember that JMWAVE was the largest CIA station in the world for many years, with hundreds of people working there at any one time.

And as we have established, Joannides was not yet working for the HSCA at the time of this March request so it is impossible for this to qualify as a request to Joannides for information on the DRE case officer. Morley apparently tries to get around this prickly problem in "The Perfect Man for the Job" by referring to Blakey's query as a "standing request" although he provides no explanation of why this is so.

Therefore, the March request by Blakey cannot reasonably be seen as a request to Joannides for the identity of the DRE case officer. Note that the CIA responded to the request on July 11.

The Agency repeatedly assured the Committee that they had no contact with the DRE in 1963, having severed all contacts in April of that year.

Reynolds responds:

"I can't find any document from CIA to HSCA claiming that they broke off contact with DRE in April of 1963. It makes no sense to claim that. The records that CIA provided to HSCA include two files on CIA-DRE operations in 1963, plainly labeled as such. Why would CIA tell a lie contradicting the cover sheets on their own files? Moreover, HSCA staff knew about these files; HSCA researcher Betsy Palmer, who helped write the HSCA chapter on DRE, signed out both of them. Yet the DRE chapter mentions nothing about any contradictory claims."

The leaders of the DRE, in interviews with the Committee's staff, indicated that they worked with a CIA case officer in 1963. The Agency assured me they would search their records to try to identify such an officer. The Agency employee who contacted me to advise that they could find no record of any such case officer was George Joannides. He did tell us, however, that he would keep looking ... he also lied directly to me.

Note the language used by Blakey. He first says Joannides contacted him to deny knowledge of the case officer. However, he then says "he did tell us ... that he would keep looking" (emphasis added). "Us" implies members of Blakey's staff. "Keep looking" sounds an awful lot like "continue looking" which comes from Fonzi's Gold Coast article. It would seem that Blakey is still pulling his information from Fonzi's article rather than a documented source or his own recollections.

Blakey Circa 2017

If Blakey's statements from 1998 show an evolution, one 2017 assertion in particular could be called a quantum leap.

This Blakey assertion and several others come from a declaration in support of a lawsuit filed against the CIA by Blakey, Hardway and the latter's HSCA partner Edwin Lopez seeking records. Before considering the quantum leap, there are several other Blakey assertions to discuss including a particularly thorny one:

In the Nelson Declaration [a reply from Delores Nelson of the CIA during Morley's multi-year lawsuit against the agency], made under penalties of perjury as a person “authorized to sign declarations on behalf of CIA” Ms. Nelson averred that CIA acknowledged Joannides had only worked on covert projects during his career with CIA on two occasions. Those two occasions admitted were when he was working “during the years 1962 through 1964 and 1978 through 1979 – time periods for which the CIA previously acknowledged Joannides’ participation in covert projects, operations, and assignments.” Id. Joannides assignment in 1978 through 1979 was as liaison with the HSCA. This simply means that Joannides’s work as liaison with the HSCA was a covert operation of the CIA. His office seems to have been to cover up evidence, not facilitate its production. CIA has already admitted as much.

Reynolds has studied this issue closely and gave this opinion:

Here is the source of Blakey's quote, paragraphs 15-16 of the Nelson declaration, to show the complete context:

15. In its 22 December 2004 letter [to Morley], the CIA also asserted a GLOMAR [neither confirm nor deny] response "with respect to that portion of [Plaintiff's] request seeking records regarding Mr. Joannides' participation in any covert project, operation, or assignment, unless of course previously acknowledged." (Id. at 2.) The CIA stated it could "neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to this part of Plaintiff's request." (Id. at 2.) The CIA'S GLOMAR response applies to Joannides' covert projects, operations, and assignments except those occurring during the years 1962 through 1964 and 1978 through 1979 -- time periods for which the CIA previously acknowledged Joannides' participation in covert projects, operations, and assignments.
16. The CIA based its GLOMAR response in 2004 upon the understanding that the CIA had previously acknowledged Joannides' participation in only two specific covert projects, operations, or assignments. The CIA made these acknowledgments in conjunction with its release of JFK-related records pursuant to the JFK Act. First, the CIA acknowledged Joannides participated in a covert action codenamed JM/WAVE or JMWAVE from 1962 through 1964. Second, the CIA acknowledged Joannides served as a CIA representative to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations from 1978 through 1979. Joannides served undercover in both of these assignments. Joannides also served undercover in projects, operations, and assignments before and after the two acknowledged time periods. Based upon its understanding of Joannides' cover status and the fact that answering Plaintiff's FOIA request in the categorical manner in which it was framed would disclose classified information, the CIA determined it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of records relating to Joannides' covert projects, operations, or assignments outside the years 1962 through 1964 and 1978 through 1979.

Blakey treats the phrase "covert project, operation, or assignment" as if it meant there was only one type of work that undercover CIA employees do, but Paragraph 16 does NOT characterize Joannides as doing the same kind of work in 1962-1964 and 1978-1979. It says: "First, the CIA acknowledged Joannides participated in a covert action codenamed JM/WAVE or JMWAVE from 1962 through 1964. Second, the CIA acknowledged Joannides served as a CIA representative to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations from 1978 through 1979. Joannides served undercover in both of these assignments."
Blakey's declaration ignores the distinction CIA drew, asserts what CIA did not assert, and thus claims CIA admitted that Joannides' job was to cover up evidence, not provide it. All this is quite wrong. CIA did NOT admit that when Joannides served as a CIA representative to HSCA it was part of a covert action. It draws a clear distinction between JMWAVE and HSCA liaison. JMWAVE was acknowledged as a covert action. Liaison was NOT acknowledged as a covert action.

In contrast to the complex issue of Joannides' cover, here are a few Blakey claims which are easily refuted.

In 1977 and 1978, I was repeatedly (and falsely) assured by CIA as an organization, and Joannides personally, that CIA had no operational interest in or connection to the Directorio Revoucionario Estudantil (“DRE”), an anti-Castro Cuban exile group operating in Miami, New Orleans, and Dallas in 1963 with whom Lee Harvey Oswald had public and prominent encounters.

Blakey was (or should have been) aware that the DRE was indeed "connected" to the agency. Reynolds explains:

... as Fred Litwin discovered, HSCA interviewed Lanusa in April 1978, and he directly referred to meeting the DRE case officer in November 1963 after the assassination. Apparently Blakey was not there for the interview."

Litwin's article may be found HERE (scroll down to "Dan Hardway").

Additionally, The HSCA was aware that CIA agent Crozier was a DRE case officer and Blakey requested information on him by his own admission.

So, it would make absolutely no sense for the CIA to tell Blakey they had no connection to the DRE.

I was also assured that there was no CIA case officer assigned to work with DRE in 1963.

Again, this is nonsense as Lanusa's statement shows. Now, the quantum leap:

At one point I gave Joannides information about the alias, Mr. Howard, that members of DRE said their CIA contact used in 1963 to aid his search for information in regard to CIA contacts with DRE. Joannides assured me that they could find no record of any such officer assigned to DRE, but that he would keep looking. See, e.g., Letter from G. Robert Blakey to Patrick Carpenter, CIA Office of Legislative Counsel, 03/22/1978, RIF 180-10140-10065, attached hereto as Exhibit 20.

Of all the exaggerations, misstatements and inaccurate claims by Blakey regarding Joannides and the DRE from 1998 to 2017, this one stands out.

First, there is no credible evidence that anyone in the DRE told the HSCA that their contact was code named "Howard." As mentioned, Salvat did tell Fonzi about the name "Howard" but he never said that he was the case officer who followed Crozier. Salvat simply stated that he was a "CIA Official" whom he had met. Morley broke the story of "Howard" back in 2001. In order to believe that Blakey asked Joannides about "Howard," one would have to believe that Blakey somehow became aware of this information back in the day, but said nothing about it for years and years to Morley or anyone else. In all of his numerous public statements about the Joannides matter prior to 2017, Blakey inexplicably never thought to say anything about his discussion with Joannides regarding "Howard."

Equally amazing is the citation that Blakey provides to prove his claim. It is the March 22, 1978 request for records that Reynolds and I have previously discussed in detail. At the time of this request, Joannides was not yet employed by the CIA as HSCA liaison. And the request says nothing about Joannides or "Howard." Nor does it even ask for information on the unknown 1963 case officer. It asks for information on Bringuier, Crozier, Lanusa, Salvat and the DRE in general.

It is clear that Blakey's statements on Joannides and the DRE have evolved greatly over many years. Blakey at first angrily accused Joannides of obstructing Congress. By 2006, he was saying Joannides lied directly to him. By 2017, Blakey was claiming that he asked Joannides about "Howard."

Conclusion

I believe Reynolds and I have made a strong case for the following:

• Morley is wrong when he says Hardway made a "direct request" to Joannides for the name of the DRE case officer.
• Despite learning in 1998 that Joannides was the 1963 DRE case officer, Blakey never stated that Joannides lied directly to anyone until 2006. Even then, he was merely reporting the undocumented assertions of Fonzi.
• Bitter disagreements between the CIA and the HSCA resulted in Blakey and Hardway being non-objective witnesses.
• There is no known documentary evidence of a specific written or oral request from anyone at the HSCA to Joannides for the identity of the 1963 DRE case officer.
• The May 23rd records request is not relevant to most of Blakey's claims about the DRE.
• The July 11th request cited by Blakey almost certainly never existed.
• The identity of the 1963 DRE case officer was not a major focus of the HSCA investigation as their report on the DRE shows. They instead focused on the dubious allegations of Clare Boothe Luce.
• The CIA did not admit that Joannides' service as liaison to the HSCA was a covert action. Rather, the agency drew a clear distinction between Joannides' tenure in the JMWAVE period and his HSCA assignment.
• It would make absolutely no sense for the CIA to tell Blakey they had no connection to the DRE or that their was no case officer assigned to the group in 1963 since these claims are easily refuted.
• Blakey's claim that he gave Joannides information about "Howard" which he obtained from the DRE is not worthy of belief.

I would again like to thank Robert Reynolds for his fine work on this article. I certainly could not have done it without him. I hope more researchers will take a look at his work. I would also like to thank Paul Hoch who provided several helpful suggestions.

Morley Must Clarify the Record on Joannides

Conspiracy author and researcher Jefferson Morley, who testified before a Congressional Task Force on April 1st, needs to do something to clarify the record. In a prepared statement submitted to the Task Force, Morley stated the following:

Three top CIA officers lied under oath about JFK’s assassination.

In the statement, Morley went on to identify the CIA men as James Angleton, Richard helms and George Joannides. I have previously addressed Morley's allegations concerning Helms. Fred Litwin has a five-part series discussing Morley and Angleton.

That brings us to Joannides. Morley claims:

In response to a direct request from HSCA investigator Dan Hardway, Joannides denied knowing who ran the AMSPELL program in 1963 — when, in fact, he himself had run it.

It is true that Joannides was the case officer for the DRE in 1963. But what evidence is there that Hardway asked Joannides about the DRE either "under oath" or informally? According to Robert Reynolds, who is an expert on the JFK file releases and has studied Joannides extensively, the evidence is just about non-existent for a Hardway request to Joannides regarding the identity of the DRE chief. He told me the following in a group email:

There are several lists of HSCA requests to CIA for information, There were hundreds of requests, and CIA kept close track of them, because they were accused by HSCA of delay and bad faith more than once. The CIA lists include both written and oral requests. Last year I looked through these and found no requests for the identity of the case officer of DRE, either written or oral.

Reynolds continues with a series of questions of his own:

Let's be specific about what Hardway is saying. He says he asked Joannides and Joannides gave him what would have been an evasive answer ... Did Hardway ever put down in writing his question to Joannides and Joannides response? If not, can he give us any specifics about when he asked Joannides? What were the circumstances, i.e. WHY did he ask Joannides this question? Was he researching DRE? Was he writing about DRE? When did Hardway research the DRE? Did Hardway sign the log sheets for DRE files? I've found at least 13 log sheets for DRE docs, and the only name on them is Betsy Palmer's, who looked at them all in August 1978.

There is a section on DRE in the HSCA report. Who wrote that? I'm sure Betsy Palmer at least assisted. Did Hardway assist in the writing of that? If Hardway is not researching the DRE, and not writing about the DRE, under what circumstances did he ask Joannides about the case officer of DRE?

The report mentioned by Reynolds was indeed written By Palmer and Gaeton Fonzi with Palmer listed as "researcher."

Reynolds finished his analysis with the following statement:

There are lots more questions I have about Hardway's claim. At this point, I don't find Hardway's statement credible.

It would seem that Morley needs to clarify the record. What specifically is the source of his statement that Joannides denied knowing who ran the DRE in 1963? Was this statement made "under oath" or not? If it was not, will Morley correct his sworn statement to the House Task Force?

In another matter, Morley is asking for a retraction from CBS News. On X, Morley wrote:

Your reporting about my appearance [at the] JFK hearing is false and defamatory. None of my books argue for “conspiracies.” I intend to sue for libel if this libel is not retracted.

But this may be a grey area at best for Morley. While it is true that he has not written a book whose sole purpose is to argue for a specific JFK assassination conspiracy theory, his 2020 eBook, Morley v. CIA, contained the following passage:

Perhaps now, observant people can understand how JFK’s enemies pulled off the “greatest magic trick under the sun,” [refers to a poem by Bob Dylan] how they made Oswald a patsy for their crime. They did it with covert psychological warfare schemes, like the AMSPELL program, whose workings are still protected by state secrecy.

Morley's belief that JFK's enemies killed him and that Oswald was just a patsy was echoed in his oral testimony before the Luna Task Force.

Debunking Morley's Congressional Statement

On April 1, 2025, conspiracy researcher and author Jefferson Morley submitted a written statement to the House Task Force on Declasification of Federal Secrets headed by Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. Morley's statement provided no new information but instead trotted out some timeworn myths that have been repeatedly debunked on this blog and elsewhere. And at the very least, Morley's claims have alternative explanations.

Morley claims a "fact pattern" demonstrates CIA culpability in the JFK murder. The "tipping point" for Morley was a newly released document about the HTLINGUAL mail opening program. But being a skeptic, I would say that what convinced Morley that the CIA was complicit in the JFK case was the Oliver Stone film JFK which he viewed in the nineties. Let's look at his statements to the Task Force.

Morley Claim: Richard Helms lied under oath to the Warren Commission when he said the CIA had only "minimal" knowledge of Oswald before JFK was killed.

The reality is the CIA certainly had some level of knowledge about LHO before the assassination. How one characterizes that knowledge is a matter of interpretation. But as reported here previously, Morley is mischaracterizing the Helms testimony.

Noted researcher Paul Hoch points out that Morley is taking Helms' remarks "badly out of context." In a discussion on a private email group, Hoch noted "It is quite clear from the context that Helms was referring to what the CIA knew at an early point, around the time of Oswald’s defection. It was not about what the CIA had at the time of the assassination." Hoch adds, "That conclusion is reinforced by two earlier events."

Hoch notes that Helms' testimony was on May 14, 1964. But over two months earlier, Helms had sent the Commission a copy of the “official dossier” on Oswald, which became CD 692. There were 30 documents, plus a sanitized memo covering October and November. "So it makes no sense" Hoch concludes, "to suggest that Helms intended to deceive the commission by referring to “minimal” pre-assassination information." Additionally, Hoch points out that "when Helms testified the Commission staff already knew a lot about the most sensitive late information which was not included in CD 692." This included the Coleman-Slawson-Willens visit to Mexico, on April 8-13.

Morley Claim: Three top CIA officers lied under oath about JFK’s assassination. In response to a direct request from HSCA investigator Dan Hardway, George Joannides denied knowing who ran the AMSPELL program in 1963 — when he himself had run it.

First, there is no documentation that officially states that Joannides (who did, in fact, run the DRE-AMSPELL program) was asked who ran the operation. We have Dan Hardway's claim and he is a reliable individual and good investigator. But he is biased toward conspiracy in the JFK matter and his memories from many years before could be influenced by this. He could be misremembering the situation.

But if Joannides did lie to Hardway, there is an alternative explanation. Joannides had no knowledge of the assassination or that any of his Miami agents were involved in any way. So, like Allen Dulles who did not disclose operations by the JFK administration to kill Castro, Joannides kept his CIA secrecy oath and withheld the information about the DRE and his role in that project. But he did so, not out of an effort to conceal guilty knowledge, but simply to keep the secrets of the agency.

Additionally, Morley claims that Joannides was one of three CIA men who lied under oath about the JFK murder. But when was Joannides questioned by Hardway or anyone about the DRE "under oath" as Morley maintains? To my knowledge, Joannides was never questioned by any government body under oath about the DRE or anything else.

By the way, while Morley is concerned about the CIA's alleged misrepresentation of information, he shows no indication that he is going to stop his own voluminous misrepresentations. For example, in his congressional statement, Morley says "[Joannides'] agents in New Orleans and Miami engaged in political action against Oswald’s pro-Castro activism, and generated propaganda about him both before and after Kennedy was killed." But Joannides had no "agents" in New Orleans. The individuals who interacted with Oswald in New Orleans, including Carlos Bringuier, were unpaid delegates of the DRE not CIA agents as Morley implies.

It is obvious that the congressional inquisitors were not well versed on the topic of Morley and Joannides. If they had been when Morley advised them to make the personnel file of Joannides available to the public, they could have asked if any government investigator has ever seen the file and what was their recomendation? They would have learned that ARRB investigator Michelle Combs saw the file and said it was not relevant to the assassination.

Morley Claim: CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton lied to the HSCA about mail surveillence of LHO.

First, understand that Morley has been promoting the idea that Angleton was the mastermind behind the assassination for years and wrote a book broaching that subject in 2017. So, his suspicion of Angleton and the CIA is not based on new information.

Secondly, LHO was just one of many individuals who had their mail opened by the CIA. All of these people were put on the list to have their mail checked for a specific reason. In Oswald's case, it was triggered by his 1959 defection to the Soviet Union. And only one piece of mail, a corespondence with his mother talking about potholders among other things, was opened.

But assuming Angleton lied about Oswald's mail being opened rather than just forgetting he was in the program, is there any reason he would prevaricate other than to cover up a massive conspiracy that he orchestrated? Angleton may have been simply seeking to cover-up the extent of the CIA's involvement with the assassin both to protect the agency's secret operations and to avoid speculation that they could have done more to protect the president. One who subscribes to this view is author and researcher Gerald Posner who recently said on X:

I wrote a piece recently that JFK’s assassination might have been preventable if the CIA shared with the FBI all the information about Oswald’s unhinged behavior in Mexico City just 6 weeks before Kennedy visited Dallas. Is the CIA complicit or responsible for the assassination? The evidence is not there, no matter how many times researchers like Jeff wish it were so.

Finally, Fred Litwin has done a series of articles on Morley's views on Angleton that is well worth reading. See also Litwin's take on the Luna hearings.

Morley has been all over the news media recently trying to convince everyone that there are revelations in the new JFK documents. But the evidence against LHO is overwhelming and Morley makes no attempt in this media blitz to explain how the accused assassin fits into a conspiracy or who, if Oswald did not pull the trigger as Morley now claims, did murder JFK. Morley is simply using this congressional hearing as a means to gain attention for his cause which is to blame the assassination on the CIA.

Soviet Timeline Published

The section in my timeline covering Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union is now available: Soviet Union Timeline

The Facts About the Joannides Personnel Files

I have to give Jefferson Morley credit.

He manages to maintain a single-minded devotion to his cause of convincing online followers that a "smoking gun" exists in the unreleased personnel records pertaining to deceased CIA operative George Joannides. He does this without any proof whatsoever and despite the fact that his assertions about the Joannides records and his general assassination claims have been continually debunked at this blog and several others for years now. It seems a brief refresher on the subject is in order.

Morley's latest onslaught of misinformation comes from the first article in a series purporting to advise readers about "Essential JFK Documents." Once again, let's take a look at his claims which appear in blue.

Pro tip: If you want to understand what’s going on with Trump and the assassination files, you’ll want to pay a visit to maryferrell.org. It’s a theory-free zone.)

Although it has nothing to do specifically with the Joannides records I should point out that the reason that Mary Ferrell (a site that is home to much useful information) is a "theory-free zone" is that the most prominent researchers represented there including Morley, Bill Simpich and John Newman do not agree on what happened in the assassination of JFK. Morley and Newman parted ways way back in the nineties after interviewing former CIA employee Jane Roman.

... there is a single batch of records whose disclosure will radically revise popular understanding of how President Kennedy came to die. We call it the Joannides file.

Morley cannot honestly make such a claim and, indeed, he admits "Of course, I could be wrong. After all, I haven’t seen the documents." But ARRB researcher Michelle Combs has and she reported:

The descriptions of [Joannides'] duties and accomplishments in the personnel file are very general and contain no specific reference to his relationship with the DRE. There is no mention of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in the file and no information relevant to the assassination in the file.

[Joannides'] paid agents were involved in the surveillance of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, an ex-Marine with a penchant for left-wing politics.

The words "involved in the surveillance" implies that these agents were in New Orleans surveilling Oswald. But Joannides' "agents" were in Miami working with the agency and had no contact with Oswald although they did receive reports on his activities. The individuals who did interact with Oswald were in New Orleans and were not CIA agents but were unpaid DRE delegates.

I think Joannides was a “clean-up man” for a CIA operation involving Oswald before and after JFK was killed. I think that’s why he received a medal in 1981 and that’s why the reasons he received the medal are still top secret 44 years later.

Morley himself uncovered the medal citation which states clearly why Joannides received his award.

[Joannides'] personnel file is clearly covered by Trump’s order and should be made public immediately.

Trump's order says nothing specifically about JFK records not in the JFK collection. Morley and his cohorts seem to be relying on a very broad interpretation of the order. But the Joannides personnel records are not in the JFK collection and I believe Trump would have to designate them as JFK records in order for them to be released. Trump's knowledge of the JFK assassination would not seem to be extensive enough for him to even be aware of the Joannides records, although Tucker Carlson knows of Morley's claims and could alert the president.

CIA officials, however, are sure to tell director John Ratcliffe and Team Trump that the Joannides file is not an assassination-related record and should not be released. Like too many CIA claims about JFK’s assassination, that is factually false. In December 2022, Judge John Tunheim, chair of the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s, wrote a letter to President Biden calling for full JFK disclosure and asserting that “the Joannides file absolutely needs to be released in full.”

Yes, Tunheim wants the Joannides file released, but that does not prove Morley's claim that the file is "assassination-related." As previously mentioned, researcher Michelle Combs said it was not. Tunheim likely wants to see the records released because he believes it will end unwarranted speculation of the kind that Morley specializes in.

The documents in the Joannides file will shed light on how and why this one CIA field operative came to focus his propaganda and political action activities on the unknown Oswald in the summer of 1963 and what he reported to his superiors.

But Morley admits in his article that he has not seen the Joannides documents. So how could he know what they will show?

When these documents are declassified, I believe we will have evidence of a previously unknown CIA operation, authorized by one or more senior officials, to make Oswald what he said he was before he was killed: “a patsy,” a man framed for a crime he did not commit.

But surely Michelle Combs would consider a CIA operation to make Oswald a patsy to be assassination-related. Why would she then hide it? Morley has never claimed Combs is in on the plot and previously praised her for releasing Joannides' performance evaluations. It is almost a certainty that there is no evidence of an "Oswald operation" in the files.

Here is a video presentation on the Joannides file that I gave at the National Press Club in December 2022.

And here is my critque of that presentation.

The bottom line is that Morley has never seen the Joannides files and has no idea what they contain. Any pronouncements by him are pure speculation. It makes much more sense to rely on those individuals who have seen the records in question such as Michelle Combs and Judge Tunheim who has repeatedly stated there are no "smoking guns" in the records.

The "Old" Morley Critics

You have to give credit to journalist turned JFK conspiracy theorist Jefferson Morley. He is certainly persistent in his promotion of misinformation about the assassination of the 35th President. And he is able to find sympathetic (or just in need of content) media outlets that are willing to provide him with a platform to promote his nonsense.

Morley's latest victim is Flemming Rose, a Danish journalist and author. Rose interviewed Morley after the noise made by his latest JFK "revelation"—an anonymous "whistleblower" who claims to have visited secret CIA archives where he or she saw both a video tape labeled "Mexico City" and a document describing the CIA's intentional obstruction of the House Select Committee on Assassination's investigation.

Morley told Rose that he "called on all the old critics to point out where I am wrong. They don't want to get into the debate that I have a point about the CIA and the Kennedy assassination..." It is unclear who the "old critics" Morley refers to are. They could be people like CIA historian David Robarge who has engaged in informal debates with Morley on several issues in the past. Or Morley could be referring to CIA media representatives who largely ignore him anyway.

The truth is that researchers and authors in the know have been actively engaged in fact checking Morley for some time now. For my part, I have published a detailed FAQ that refutes Morley's most notable claims.

Researcher and author Fred Litwin has written several articles on Morley. Additionally, Litwin has written extensively about New Orleans DA Jim Garrison whose scandalous claims were the basis for the movie JFK and Oliver Stone's ongoing criticism of the lone assassin viewpoint. This is relevant since Morley has expressed admiration for Stone's work.

Researcher and author Dale Myers has also tangled with Morley. Myers wrote the definitive book on the murder of JD Tippit and published work helping to debunk the HSCA acoustics evidence which was the sole basis for that panel's claim of "probable conspiracy." Myers also produced an award-winning animation project that authenticated the Warren Commission's single bullet theory. Myers, working with JFK author Gus Russo, wrote a series of articles circa 2008-2013 refuting many of Morley's claims.

Robert Reynolds is a professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Chi Nan University in Puli, Taiwan. Reynolds' area of study as it pertains to the JFK case is the National Archives Assassination Records Collection. Reynolds has written two articles which were published by author Max Holland's Washington Decoded. The first, Once More 'Round the Plaza, is from 2021 and primarily looks at file releases in compliance with the JFK Records Act but mentions Morley and his claims. The second article, When Is the News Media Going to Catch On? is about media mis-reporting on the file releases but has an extensive section on Morley.

Back in 2022, after the media attention Morley garnered following his "revelation" of a non-existent "smoking gun" in the JFK case, none other than Gerald Posner, author of the classic anti-conspiracy tome Case Closed, penned an article that was skeptical of Morley.

Finally, researchers working behind the scenes have provided information to those who write skeptical articles about Morley. These researchers include Paul Hoch, Steve Roe, Larry Haapanen and Jerry Shinley.

Rest assured that this particular group of "old critics" will continue to inform the public about Morley whether it is through archived articles that anyone can access and which are still totally relevant or through new material. However, speaking for myself as one of Morley's chief critics, I have come to understand a few things. The following is my own personal opinion and not necessarily that of other Morley critics.

First, Morley is no longer the serious journalist who once worked for the Washington Post and said things like he understood that Oswald was likely guilty but he was just asking questions. Morley is now really an activist who promotes far-left causes. One of those causes is the destruction of the CIA. It is likely that Morley was a "wolf in sheep's clothing" all along and was fully invested in the "CIA-did-it" narrative of the assassination. From the period of about 1996-2008 he was simply biding his time to develop a strategy and a vehicle through which he could pursue his ideas. That vehicle is his adoption of the "alternative media" model which takes the form of his Substack page.

The second sober realization I have come to is that Morley will never stop. He can't. He has a subscriber base (some of them paying monthly) and this base has to be fed material (regardless of the quality of said material) on a constant basis or he becomes irrelevant. To prove this there is no need to look further than his anonymous whistleblower "revelation" which was met with shocked silence from the assassination conspiracy community even though he promoted it as "the most important JFK story I’ve ever done."

So, the "old critics" will stay active. But we can't stop Morley nor should we in a free society. But perhaps we can educate the public and the news media who can then look skeptically on his claims, as we do.

Fact Checking the Morley Press Conference

JFK conspiracy researcher and author Jefferson Morley held a press confernce via Zoom on October 7, 2024 to promote his latest JFK "revelation" about an anonymous source who claims to have seen a secret JFK file archive. Morley has made a video of the press conference available to paid subscribers only. Morley stated he was hosting fifteen journalists but only seven bothered to ask questions. One of the inquisitors was likely Fernand Armandi who introduced Antonio Veciana at a 2014 conference of the Assassination Archives and Research Center.

Morley used the beginning of the Zoom call to lanch into a seventeen-minute disertation on his theories. But was the information that he relayed to the assembled journalists really just propoganda? Morley's assertions to the group are in blue followed by my rebuttal.

And I went to [Jane Roman] with John Newman, a historian and army intelligence officer, and we interviewed her. And we showed her the newly declassified records from the Oswald, from the CIA's file on Oswald. And she said some remarkable things. She said that these documents showed, indicated a keen interest in Oswald before the assassination in her office at the highest levels of the CIA. And that that interest had been held on a need to know basis in her judgment, looking at the records. That, I thought, was a very important revelation…

Roman's remarks made after she was shown a series of documents by Newman and Morley out of context. Roman later said "My statements have been seriously contorted, taken out of context or, at best, misinterpreted." She told the Assassination Records Review Board that Morley's article about her was "sensationalistic, scurrilous" and "tendentious."

Read the complete story HERE

...the CIA had basically told the Warren Commission that they knew very little about Oswald before the assassination, that they didn't have an interest in him.

Morley is very fond of repeating this factoid usually mixing in the notion that CIA boss Richard Helms stated the agency's knowledge of the assassin was "minimal." But researcher Paul Hoch points out that Morley is mischaracterizing a discussion between between Helms, Allen Dulles and John McCone and taking Helms' remarks "badly out of context." In a discussion on a private email group, Hoch noted "The discussion was clearly about information provided to the CIA by the State Department relating to Oswald’s defection and time in Russia, It was not about what the CIA had at the time of the assassination."

Click HERE for a full discussion of the matter.

When asked direct questions about who was running the DRE in 1963, Joanides said he didn't know, when in fact, he was the answer to the question.

Morley is correct to the extent that Joannides was the DRE case officer in 1963. But where is Morley's documentation proving that Joannides was specifically asked by the HSCA who the DRE case officer was? To my knowledge, all Morley has are the assertions of HSCA staffers whose conspiracy orientation is well known.

Turned out Joannides had a residence in New Orleans where Oswald lived in 1963. He'd gotten a medal for his work, a career intelligence medal.

Yes, Joannides had a home in New Orleans as did many other people. And the medal was for his cumulative CIA work. It was not, as Morley has falsely claimed on several occasions, for "stonewalling" the HSCA.

Congress mounted in 1976, an investigation which came to the conclusion that Kennedy had been caught in crossfire and was thus the victim of a conspiracy.

Morley is being deceptive at best. What the HSCA concluded was that "Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at President John F. Kennedy. The second and third shots struck the President. The third shot he fired killed the President." Morley's "crossfire" comes from the long debunked acoustics evidence which was the sole justification for their finding of "probable" conspiracy. The committee only said there was a "probable" conspiracy since they could find no other conclusive evidence of a plot and the grassy knoll gunman could have been just another lone nut.

Win Scott wrote a memoir and said, we definitely took pictures of Oswald in Mexico City.

Morley is refering to a document by Scott titled "Foul Foe" with a byline of Ian Maxwell. Scott's exact purpose in writing this document is unknown but given the fact that he used an alias anything that Scott says in it should not neccessarily be taken to be gospel truth. Especially the assertion that the CIA had photos of Oswald which they have always denied and which have never surfaced even though their existence would help the agency which has maintained Oswald was in Mexico.

I asked the CIA for comment And they basically don't dispute any of the facts in this story.

The CIA has a long history with Morley, who has sued them for records, and they mostly ignore him. The fact that they don't respond to any specific request proves nothing.

So that's the import of the story, but along with the Oswald surveillance photos and George Joannides' personnel file, all of this remains off the record.

The Joannides personnel file is not part of the JFK Assassination Records Collection and the CIA is under no obligation to release it. If the agency released a record every time they were sued by an individual like Morley there would soon be no secrets at the CIA. But in this instance, there is more to the story. Michelle Combs, an ARRB researcher who Morley respects, stated after viewing the Joannides files "The descriptions of his duties and accomplishments in the personnel file are very general and contain no specific reference to his relationship with the DRE. There is no mention of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in the file and no information relevant to the assassination in the file (emphasis added)." Combs' evaluation is why the Joannides file was not declared an assassination record.

...the intelligence methods that Joannides was using at the time of his agents were in contact with Oswald...

Joannides' "agents," who were DRE members based out of Miami, were never "in contact" with Oswald. First, It is important to make a distinction between the Miami-based DRE and the New Orleans DRE delegation. The Miami DRE members were the ones on the CIA payroll, the ones who had CIA cryptonyms and the ones who interacted with CIA officials up to and including Richard Helms. And the Miami DRE members were the individuals that were managed by case officer George Joannides. None of these Miami DRE members had any connection whatsoever to Lee Harvey Oswald. It was the New Orleans DRE delegation (Carlos Bringuier and Celso Hernandez) that had the contact with Oswald. Note that the contact between Oswald and DRE delegate Carlos Bringuier was initiated by Oswald not the other way around.