The Real George Joannides

Ironically, although Jefferson Morley has focused on sensational and unproven conspiracy theories, his research has enabled the public to learn many positive facets of George Joannides' biography.

George Joannides was born in Athens in 1922. His parents moved to New York when he was still an infant. His mother was a well known columnist for a Greek language daily newspaper. George graduated from City College in New York in 1948 and earned a law degree from St. John's University in 1950. George and his friend George Kalaris married sisters and moved to Greece where they were employed by the CIA. In the fifties, Joannides and Kalaris were on the rise in a group known as the "Greek Mafia" in the CIA and State Department. The informal group was headed by Tom Karamessines who rose to become the first head of the CIA's Athens station. Karamessines mentored the two Georges and many other Greek-Americans in the CIA.

Soon after Karamessines was appointed assistant to CIA deputy director Richard Helms in 1962, Joannides became the DRE's second case officer. In 1963, Joannides took on the added responsibility of Chief of Psychological Warfare at the Miami JMWAVE station. By 1964, Joannides had returned to the Athens station. In 1966, Joannides shifted to an assignment in Manila and in 1971 he was reunited with JMWAVE boss Ted Shackley in Saigon. By 1972 Joannides was back at CIA headquarters in the Office of General Counsel. In 1975, Joannides retired and went to work in a law firm.

In 1978, Joannides was called out of retirement to serve as liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations working out of the CIA's Office of Legislative Counsel. At the end of that assignment, Joannides retired again, this time for good. Joannides received the Career Achievement Medal from the CIA in 1981. He died in 1990 while undergoing treatment for a chronic heart ailment.

Morley wrote in an unpublished manuscript that Joannides was a "warm father, kindly uncle, a witty companion and a valued colleague." Morley also noted that the multilingual Joannides was an "accomplished, cultured, ethical" man who "thought of others first." In his everyday life, Joannides wore tailored suits, joked in fluent French and smiled easily according to Morley.

In his article, Morley relates a story about the interaction between Joannides and his daughter following the JFK assassination. Stephanie Joannides was a judge in Alaska when Morley spoke to her circa the early 2000s. When she learned of the tragic news of Kennedy's death, Stephanie was "a thousand miles from home" on the campus of St. Thomas College in Minnesota in a "devastated and confused" state of mind. Stephanie spoke to to her father by phone on the evening on the assassination. Even after forty years, she still warmly recalled her father's "gentle words of reassurance and wisdom."

It is apparent that while sensationalism generates interest, an objective study of George Joannides' biography does not point to a man who was involved in any sort of JFK coverup. Rather Joannides was a hard-working family man who, as Morley noted, "thought of others first."