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 we now know was Joannides. 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.

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.

Morley-Revelation or Nothingburger?

UPDATE: The anonymous source referred to by Morley has been identified. He is Dr. Thomas L. Pearcy, a former State Department-CIA historian and conspiracy buff. Fred Litwin further debunks the Pearcy story HERE.

Introduction

On October 4, 2024, conspiracy author Jefferson Morley began promoting a forthcoming article that he called the “most important JFK story I’ve ever done.” On "X" Morley claimed:

I've been reporting on the JFK assassination story for three decades now. Next week, I'll be publishing a revelatory story that penetrates and disrupts the government's 60-year-old account of the assassination. The story adds more detail to what I reported in my Dec 2022 “smoking gun" revelation at the National Press Club: the existence of a top-secret CIA psychological warfare operation involving Lee Harvey Oswald from Jan to Nov 1963 that the CIA still conceals via overclassification.

Of course, Morley’s much ballyhooed 2022 presser turned out to be not a “smoking gun” at all but rather simply more suspicions on his part about an alleged “Oswald operation” conducted by the CIA. At that press conference, Morley displayed a document that some media outlets attached an unwarranted significance to. All of this is explained in my report on the matter.

Despite this history of overstatement, the conspiracy community was abuzz with the news. Even the skeptical (like myself) wondered what Morley might have now. I postulated on one forum that it might be related to Jose Lanuza a DRE member who made the news with comments sympathetic to Morley’s position right about the time of the 2022 presser. An email correspondent speculated that Morley might have discovered the identity of the Cuban man who appeared in a film handing out leaflets with Oswald in New Orleans.

Morley's Revelation

But we were wrong. Morley’s “revelation” concerns the allegations of an unnamed (and apparently still current) government employee Morley calls a “whistleblower.” Morley’s source (hereafter referred to as the source) makes two claims. First, the source says that while at a “CIA declassification facility” in Herndon, Virginia (located at 399 Grove Street according to researcher Joe Backes who is also skeptical of Morley's article) in a special room dedicated for JFK assassination records, they saw a “gray plastic video case” that was marked with the words “Oswald in Mexico, or Oswald in Mexico City.” The video case was allegedly dated September 1963. “The detail is significant,” Morley writes. “If the CIA possesses film or video that depicts JFK’s accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City, it would rewrite the JFK assassination story.”

But who ever said that the CIA had a film of Oswald? What has been alleged by Morley and others is that the CIA photographed Oswald when he visited the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic facilities in the Mexican capital. According to this theory, the CIA is covering up the existence of these photos (or has destroyed them) for nefarious purposes even though they would confirm that Oswald was in Mexico which has always been the position of the Warren Commission and the government in general.

Greta Goyenechea

Later in the piece to bolster his source’s story, Morley mentions the case of Greta Goyenechea, a CIA employee who was chief of LIEMPTY-14, a base charged with surveilling the Soviet Embassy. Morley recently told The Hill’s weekday morning show Rising:

[Andre Goyenechea said his mother Greta told him] I took Oswalds picture coming and going and she remembered the face very clearly she… she attached no significance to it but Andre said you know we knew very well who was an American who was a Russian just by we've been doing it for years we knew all the people who worked in that Embassy so after the assassination when Greta Goyenechea saw Oswald she told her son yeah I took his picture coming and going.

So Greta Goyenechea “attached no significance” to the alleged photo of Oswald yet she immediately recalled photographing him after the assassination? Perhaps she experienced what dozens and dozens of witnesses who spoke to investigators following the assassination did. Those individuals reported seeing Oswald before the assassination but attached no importance to the encounter until after the murder. But it was proven that these persons could not have seen the real Oswald. Granted, Greta was in a position to have seen or photographed Oswald. But that doesn't prove she did.

Other possabilities are that Andre may have simply misremembered or misinterpreted what his now deceased mother told him. Another explanation is that Greta was embarrassed by the lack of photographic production by her base so she told her son a “white lie.” Or perhaps her employees falsely told her they had obtained the photos to cover their own ineptitude. My point is that such common-sense explanations are not considered by Morley. Instead, he refers to the non-existent “CIA surveillance photos of Oswald taken by Greta Goyenechea” as if their presence is now confirmed by his anonyomus source.

A Damning Document?

The second allegation (and obviously most important from Morley’s perspective) from the source is their discovery of a document (in a different facility) supposedly created by the CIA Inspector General’s office in the late seventies. The purpose of this forty-to-fifty-page document was to determine “whether the HSCA [House Select Committee on Assassinations] probe had compromised secret CIA operations.” The source was disturbed by the document because they felt it showed “an attempt to deceive.” According to Morley such a document does not exist in either the material released under the JFK Records Act or the material yet to be fully made public. All of this goes hand in hand with Morley’s favorite topic of a CIA cover-up in the JFK matter.

The problems with the account of the source are numerous. The first is the ostensible purpose of the document. Initially, Morley says that the purpose of the document was to determine “whether the HSCA probe had compromised secret CIA operations.” Fair enough. Such a document would make sense because numerous individuals had access to classified material during the HSCA investigation. But later, the document morphs into a “blueprint for how to hide things from the public and how to prevent investigative committees, appointed by Congress, from seeing documents that might incriminate offices of the government,” which is a less reasonable scenario in my view.

But the source wasn’t finished. “They conducted an investigation to see if they had succeeded in misleading the American public about Kennedy’s assassination and they concluded the lie had worked,” the source maintained. Again, how likely is it that the CIA would document their malfeasance in the JFK case in such a manner? After all, anything put in writing and preserved could turn up someday. And how likely is it that such an incriminating document would be placed in a records facility where any government employee could “inadvertently” discover it which is how the source characterized their finding of the report saying they weren’t even looking for JFK records. Similarly, how likely is it that this explosive document, which essentially incriminates the CIA in a JFK cover-up, could be taken by the source to an "offsite facility" as the article maintains?

An "Intellectually Uncurious" Blakey?

The source said the report mentioned the CIA’s handling of HSCA Chief Counsel Robert Blakey who was demanding “a cache of documents about Mexico.” The CIA skirted the matter by supplying Blakey with a three-volume set of documents regarding Mexico City operations which was sanitized to suit the agency. When Blakey asked for no further documents, the CIA tricksters were relieved with one calling Blakey “the most intellectually uncurious human being I have ever associated with.” All of this in a report whose purpose was ostensibly to determine if agency secrets had been compromised.

Morley provides a memo “declassified in 2005,” as collaboration for his source. But Joe Backes points out the memo has been around since 1998 when many documents were made public. Rather than being any type of proof, the memo simply shows that the information regarding Blakey’s meeting with the CIA to view Mexico City records has been in the public domain for many years.

Additionally, there is the assessment of Morley's handling of the Blakey matter by historian and JFK expert Robert Reynolds who outlined the following issues during an email exchange. In his piece, Morley writes:

[At an August 1978 meeting between Blakey and the CIA’s deputy IG, Scott Breckinridge] Blakey was given a three-volume history of the CIA’s Mexico City station. The memo says Blakey “did not at any time raise any questions” about its contents.

But Reynolds points out that the memo actually says, "Mr. Blakey thanked me [Breckinridge], but did not at any time raise any questions about deletions." Reynolds notes that "Morley alters the context of Breckinridge's comment completely, even changing the word 'deletions' to 'contents'. He does this by using an end quote just before the word 'deletions'."

Regarding the "intellectually uncurious" accusation, Reynolds says, "Under Blakey's command, HSCA played its cards very close to the vest. They wanted the CIA to know as little as possible about their investigation's direction and strategy. Blakey did not ask questions because he did not want to let CIA know what he was looking for in the history. Breckinridge knew this and would never have said Blakey was ‘uncurious’.” So, the “CIA hand” that the source talks about could not be Breckinridge nor anyone else of consequence.

Debunking His Own Story

But possibly the best argument against Morley’s story is his own reporting. All told, Morley interviewed sixteen relevant individuals but only one agreed with the source. Morley spoke with former Assassination Records Review Board Chairman John Tunheim who told him such a document, "should have been shared with the board." Tunheim added, "If we had seen something like that we would have released it." But Tunheim's comment could be interpreted to mean that he is also skeptical of the document's existence.

An anonymous individual identified as a “consultant” stated, “I knew there was a SCIF [Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility] for those [JFK] documents.” But out of six other persons who had been inside the facility in question, only two thought there “might” have been a JFK archive in the SCIF. Four others knew of no such SKIF. Carmen Medina, former director of the Agency’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, told Morley “whoever told you that may have been misinformed.”

Similarly, Kenneth McDonald, a former CIA historian told Morley, “I never heard of any SCIF dedicated to JFK records.” When asked about the plausibility of a CIA investigation into the HSCA, John Helgerson, CIA Inspector General from 2002 to 2009, told Morley, “Well, perhaps, but by no means necessarily.” Helgerson added, “Inspectors generals don’t usually get involved unless there’s reason to believe there’s malfeasance or wrongdoing or criminal activity. … I don’t know what the predicate would be here.”

The rest of Morley’s article is a mix of inaccurate and previously debunked material. Morley writes that the HSCA concluded that “JFK had been caught in crossfire and killed by conspirators who could not be identified.” This is totally false. The HSCA concluded that “Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at President John F. Kennedy; the second and third shots he fired struck the President; the third shot he fired killed the President.” The committee did conclude that a second gunman fired from the grassy knoll, but this conclusion was based on the long-debunked acoustics evidence.

Other missteps by Morley:

• CIA officer Ruben Efron was reading Oswald’s mail for two years.
• Several claims about DRE boss George Joannides.

Conclusion

Rather than being a “revelation” or an “important” story, Morley’s report about his anonymous source is a nothingburger. I am not the only observer who believes this. Conspiracy researcher Joe Backes said in a Substack article, “I was hoping he had something.” Stealing my thunder, Backes concludes:

Is this a bombshell? Nope. So, what are we left with? A single source claiming there were, maybe still are, JFK assassination records in a SCIF at a CIA building in Herndon, VA. If we were reading any of them and they were indeed as claimed, then that would be a bombshell. I would love for this to pan out and be something. But right now it’s not. Sorry.

The fact that Morley believes his story is significant may say more about the state of his research and reporting in 2024 than it does about any JFK cover-up by the CIA. I will go so far as to say that this article is representitive of where the conspiracy community currently finds itself—with many suspicions but no proof.

Gus Russo on the 2021 Document Release

Gus Russo, author of Live by the Sword and Brothers in Arms has just released an article on the ho-hum 2021 JFK documents. "What's really stunning," notes Russo, "is the sensational media coverage and the National Archives' release of informants' personal data."

New JFK Assassination Documents? Meh

The JFK Files: Rhetoric vs. Truth

It’s autumn of 2021 and along with falling leaves, football and apple cider, the time is upon us for the latest round of inflated oratory from the JFK conspiracy theorists clamoring for the release of the “secret JFK files.” President Biden announced on October 23rd that more time is needed to process the records that were due to be released on the 26th. This decision was not greeted warmly by those who are convinced that a conspiracy killed the 35th President.

Leading the way for critics of Biden’s ruling, as always, is former Washington Post editor and gadfly Jefferson Morley. When Morley burst on the assassination scene in the late nineties, he represented himself as an activist for the release of JFK files who was agnostic on the question of conspiracy and indeed leaned toward the idea that Oswald was guilty. But an early “red flag” was Morley’s insistence that we will never know the truth until every scrap of paper even tangentially related to the JFK case is released.

Fast forward about 25 years or so and Morley has (perhaps predictably) morphed into a full-fledged conspiracy theorist. In his recent book, Morley v. CIA: My Unfinished JFK Investigation, he stated this:

The likelihood that there was a conspiracy, that the killing was not the work of a lone assassin, remains the conclusion best informed by the preponderance of the publicly available evidence.

In the same volume, the “new” Morley also at least implies that Oswald was a “patsy.”

Now, Biden’s refusal to release the records immediately and unconditionally has opened the floodgates of rage for Morley and others who evidently believed that the long-awaited release of files was finally imminent. Their tirades are receiving national exposure in respected online publications and on social media.

Shortly after Biden’s decision, Morley took to Twitter with the following outburst:

Last Friday night, Pres. Biden released a ridiculous statement saying he will delay enforcement of the JFK Records Act until Dec. 15. The CIA has annulled a law passed unanimously by Congress. It is a proverbial 'smoking gun’ … The CIA's actions are brazen, arrogant, cunning, and desperate … The Agency seeks eternal impunity for the malfeasance of certain CIA personnel in the death of the 35th president … The intentional nullification of the [JFK Records Act] is the Smoking Gun No.1.

Morley continued:

Confirmation of malicious intent evident in Smoking Gun No. 1 is found in the JFK files that the CIA (and the Pentagon) are concealing. These include the unedited recordings from Air Force One on 11/22/63; files of CIA propaganda operations involving accused assassin Oswald; and perhaps surprisingly, redacted documents related to the Watergate scandal. Huh? "What's Watergate got to do with JFK?" you ask. That's a very good question that Langley is artfully--and shamelessly--dodging.

Then a surprising admission:

I could be wrong, of course …

Call me picky, but shouldn’t one be a little more certain when you say the CIA has “annulled” a law passed by Congress and is seeking “eternal impunity for the malfeasance of certain CIA personnel in the death of the 35th president?”

Nevertheless, Morley ends his missive with a flourish:

The CIA is still with us, an incipient American Gestapo, still hiding the truth about JFK. The smoking gun is Biden's subservient letter & the taboo JFK files it suppresses.

Joining Morley in his incredulity if not his loquaciousness is historian David Talbot, author of Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years and The Devil’s Chessboard. Talbot told Politico:

“Any serious journalist or historian who looks at this seriously comes to the same conclusion: that Lee Harvey Oswald was what he said he was, ‘a patsy,’ and that the Warren Commission was an effort to cover up the crime, not investigate the crime in an honest way.”

A third example of indignation comes from Jacob Hornberger who is President of the Future of Freedom Foundation:

There has got to be a good reason why the CIA does not want people to see those 60-year-old secret records. That’s why they didn’t disclose them during the era of the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s. That’s why they demanded that President Trump continue keeping them secret in 2017. That’s why they demanded that Biden extend the secrecy.

What is Being Withheld and Why

Are Morley, Talbot and Hornberger right? Is the only reason that the CIA and other agencies don’t want the records released is because they are hiding nefarious facts directly related to JFK’s death? Is there a “smoking gun” in these records? Does the weight of the evidence indicate a conspiracy? Was Oswald really just a “patsy?”

That’s a lot to unpack, but fortunately a breath of fresh air appeared amid the madness in the form of Mark Zaid, a national security attorney who is familiar with the case. Zaid advocates for a full release of the documents but recognizes that there are legitimate reasons for withholding some materials. Appearing on CNN, Zaid said:

… there is the possibility there's some information within these files that still needs to be protected … I'll give you one example. Lee Harvey Oswald, the expected assassin, went to Mexico City in September of 1963. We know he visited the Soviet and the Cuban embassies. We might have had, probably did, sources in those embassies, both human and technical, and protecting those sources, especially human, they could still be alive 58 years later. They could be in their 80s right now.

Zaid continued with his take on the “smoking gun” matter:

Look, a lot of the information actually doesn't depend or relate to what actually happened November 22nd. So there's no smoking gun in these documents.

Zaid was also able to see something that Morley, Talbot and Hornberger evidently could not. That is, the bright side of Biden’s order:

… this order that President Biden issued on Friday actually has some good things in it too … he's requiring that the National Archives digitize all the records, a quarter million records. Most of the records are publicly available, but you have to go to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, to see it. So hopefully, sometime within the next couple years, these records will be online so anyone around the world can access them and do their own research.

A second voice of reason emerged in the form of Kel McClanahan, an attorney specializing in national security law who previously served as an associate editor for the American Intelligence Journal. McClanahan agrees with Zaid that many of the records have little to do with the JFK case.

McClanahan told the UK-based Independent that numerous records covered by the JFK Records Act would normally fall under the National Security Act and other classification laws. But in this instance the ARRB:

… scooped up a whole bunch of [not necessarily relevant] records … The farther you get from the assassination and subject matter, [intelligence agencies are] going to keep arguing that whatever minimal national security, law enforcement, foreign relations interest that is served by withholding it is going to trump the increasingly diminishing public interest in disclosure about something that we wouldn’t even be talking about if someone hadn’t been excessively generous in deciding what was responsive to the JFK Act when it was first passed.

Additionally, McClanahan provided an example of the type of thing that the CIA and other agencies seek to protect. The agency fought to withhold a document captured from Imperial Germany during World War I because it revealed a method of making invisible ink that was an antecedent of a method still used by intelligence agencies.

To his credit, at least one conspiracy-minded author agrees with Zaid’s assessment of no “smoking gun.” David Kaiser, a former history professor at the Naval War College and author of The Road to Dallas, told Politico:

Do I believe the CIA has a file that shows former CIA Director Allen Dulles presided over the assassination? No. But I’m afraid there are people who will believe things like that no matter what is in the files.

Oswald An Innocent Patsy?

What about the accusations of conspiracy and claims of Oswald’s innocence? Contrary to what Morley and Talbot say, Oswald was not a “patsy.” Nor is it true that the sole purpose of the Warren Commission (WC) was to cover up the evidence or that most of said evidence indicates a conspiracy.

Certainly, evidence exists that, when viewed out of context, could lead a reasonable person to a belief that a conspiracy in the death of JFK occurred. But the preponderance of the data supports the same position first postulated by the WC all those years ago. Oswald alone killed Kennedy and he was no patsy.

The easiest myth to debunk is that the WC was merely a vehicle used to coverup a vast conspiracy. That notion was put to bed by Howard Willens’ 2013 book History Will Prove Us Right, a work which is not high on the reading list of JFK theorists. Willens worked as a staff member on the WC and his book shows not only the dedication of those involved but the thoroughness of their landmark investigation. The only way to deny the facts presented by Willens is to claim, as some theorists are glad to do, that Willens himself is a cog in the continued coverup.

As for the proof that Oswald killed JFK, government investigations including a preliminary inquiry by the FBI, the Rockefeller Commission, the Clark Panel, the Church Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) reaffirmed all or part of the WC’s conclusions (more on a controversial conclusion of the HSCA later). And authors including Jean Davison, Priscilla McMillan, Gerald Posner, Norman Mailer, Vincent Bugliosi and others have shown that the key to the case lies in a detailed study of the entirety of Oswald’s life. Their work proves that he was a misanthropic loner rather than a secret agent managed by an unseen hand as he is often portrayed in conspiracy books.

Interested readers who do not wish to wade through reams of material can find the case against Oswald HERE.

This page, by the late assassination expert John McAdams, offers illuminating detail about the man himself and debunks numerous myths.

Of course, these resources will not satisfy those theorists who distrust the key evidence developed by the WC, the FBI, the Dallas Police and the Bethesda autopsy doctors. Enter Nicholas Nalli, a senior research scientist who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nalli is the author of a remarkable paper that purports to be a critical review of the book Last Second in Dallas by Josiah Thompson but is really a tour de force that should be read by anyone who considers themselves a scholar of the assassination.

Significantly, Nalli speaks to those individuals whose belief system requires that the comprehensive evidence against Oswald must be identified as fabricated or, at a minimum, untenable. Nalli writes:

Once we start denying key pieces of evidence (e.g., the Zapruder Film, autopsy materials, physical evidence, etc.) without ironclad proof (i.e., other more fundamental evidence), we can then deny all the evidence on the same grounds. And once we have descended to that point, we no longer have any basis for investigation or argument, nor any basis for ‘believing it’—we are simply wasting our time debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”

Additionally, Nalli’s article provides a review of some of the most contentious physical evidence in the case. This includes a discussion of the fatal head shot observed at frame 313 of the Zapruder film and the infamous “back and to the left” motion of JFK immediately thereafter. This movement, first brought to national attention in a 1975 television broadcast moderated by Geraldo Rivera, is often interpreted by theorists as “proof” of a frontal shot or a shot from the “grassy knoll” even though there is no credible supporting evidence for such a shot from either location. This movement by JFK is also one of the most mentioned reasons provided by theorists to justify their continued disbelief in the official version of the case.

Nalli notes the forward motion of JFK between frames 312-313 of the Zapruder film which, by the way, was verified as an authentic depiction of the assassination by Kodak expert Roland Zavada. Nalli postulates this slight movement (about 2 inches) indicates a bullet striking JFK’s head from the rear, which is where Oswald was located and the physical evidence tying him to the crime was found.

Notably, Nalli provides the long-awaited explanation for the motion of JFK right after the head shot. In this regard, he builds on the work of Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez. Put simply, Alvarez postulated that a recoil effect backward toward the shooter was caused by the expulsion of human tissue from the right side of JFK’s head.

A colleague of Alvarez’s, noted assassination researcher Paul Hoch, suggested that Alvarez conduct experiments using a “reasonable facsimile” of a human head (melons were chosen) to provide support for his hypothesis. Nalli writes that, “Hoch noted that the melons consistently exhibited a ‘retrograde motion’ toward the shooter, and Alvarez thus was able to demonstrate that a recoil effect is indeed possible.”

Alvarez was frequently ridiculed for his efforts and labeled a “government shill” by theorists. But, before he had ever heard of Alvarez’s work, Nalli “independently” came to the conclusion that an explosive wound of the type seen in the Zapruder film would indeed cause “a recoil of JFK’s head.” Nalli writes:

a recoil effect of some magnitude had to happen (following the initial forward impulse) given the directional mass expulsion observed in Z313, even if it were the only known case of the phenomenon, because it is an inescapable consequence of momentum conservation [emphasis in original].

Nalli has written his own scholarly paper on the subject.

The conclusion of that paper:

It is therefore found that the observed motions of President Kennedy in the film are physically consistent with a high-speed projectile impact from the rear of the motorcade, these resulting from an instantaneous forward impulse force, followed by delayed rearward recoil and neuromuscular forces.

Next, Nalli tackles the acoustics “evidence” that allowed the HSCA to conclude that a “probable conspiracy” in the death of JFK had occurred.

Before this eleventh hour conclusion was reached, the HSCA could just as easily have been referred to as the WC on steroids. In fact, a draft of the final report that was created before the committee “discovered” the acoustics data found no evidence of conspiracy. Notably, the HSCA verified the WC judgement that Oswald killed JFK (even in their final report) and added considerable new scientific confirmation to that conclusion including authentication of the “backyard photos” of Oswald holding the murder weapon and verification of the autopsy photographs and x-rays that prove JFK was hit from behind.

For those unfamiliar with the subject, two teams of acoustics experts analyzed data originating from a recording of Dallas police communications during the Presidential motorcade on the day JFK was killed. One team found that a 95% probability existed that a shot had been fired from the “grassy knoll.” This led to the unfortunate conclusion of “probable conspiracy” by the HSCA.

Nalli argues that there are three “general categories of arguments” that discredit the acoustics evidence:

• Timing issues.
• Open mic location assumptions.
• Insufficient information-content within the DPD recordings.

A comprehensive discussion of all the acoustics issues is beyond the scope of this article. But as an example, Nalli summarizes the mic location issues, which alone discredit the acoustics evidence:

the location of the transmitting mic was not found to be in the specific place it needed to be (as established by [Dale] Myers), nor in the motorcade (as established by Sonalysts), nor did the suspect impulses occur during the assassination timeframe (as established by Ramsey, Linsker, et al.), and the match was not to the exclusion of all other locations (as established by [Michael] O’Dell). These subsequent facts confirm to us that the Dictabelt waveform patterns (including those attributed to “echoes”) had a non-gunshot source.

Conclusion

The claims by Morley et al are untrue. First, there are legitimate reasons to delay the release of certain files. And claims of a “smoking gun” (literal or otherwise) are doubted by even conspiracy-minded individuals. These and other hyperbolic assertions seem to be mere ploys in the continued quest for an unconditional file release. And when listening to the conspiracy theorists’ rhetoric regarding the “secret” JFK files, it is wise to remember what we know about the assassination and what the files will likely tell us (or not tell us).

We know that Oswald killed JFK and he was not a patsy. However, most contemporary theorists ignore the voluminous evidence and persist in the belief that Oswald was completely innocent of the crime. We know that many of the remaining files are not directly related to the assassination and the release of these files will do little or nothing to enhance the public’s knowledge of the case. Such a release will, however, give theorists and CIA critics new ammunition that they can use to write books and articles that postulate unproveable and mutually exclusive hypotheses carried out by eternally invisible actors. The truth about the JFK assassination is knowable for all but those who continue to debate, “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”

Veciana's Game

During preparation of Part Three of my review of John Newman’s book Into the Storm, I spent a great deal of time thinking about Antonio Veciana’s motive for creating the Maurice Bishop story. Then, I had an epiphany. This article discusses that revelation and acts as a summary of all I have learned about the subject in the last two years. My thesis is that two factors came together to create the Bishop story. The first factor, which Newman references, is Veciana’s incarceration for cocaine smuggling and the effect it had on him. [1] After studying Veciana’s history, I realized that a second factor was his character. A charitable way to describe Veciana is to say that he was a man of action and not content to sit on his hands when a problem existed. To put it another way, he was something of a plotter who sought to manipulate others in furtherance of his own ends. I submit that Veciana’s incarceration was a watershed moment in his life which he believed required immediate action upon his release. The action he chose was to create the Bishop story and, when this part of Veciana’s life is viewed through that lens, his story makes exquisite sense.

Veciana's Cocaine Conviction

Veciana was arrested on and eventually convicted of two counts: [2] conspiracy to possess and distribute narcotics and distribution of 7 kilograms of cocaine. [3] John Newman says that Veciana hated the CIA and I suspect he is right. One of the reasons that he may have hated the agency is that he believed they “set him up” for his drug conviction. [4] But I am not talking about being “setup” in the usual sense of the word. It is possible that Veciana believed that the CIA found out about his drug activities which is at least plausible since it was an international operation. Veciana may have thought that the agency manipulated the situation so he and his co-conspirators, who were clearly guilty, would be caught and convicted. But even if he did believe this, the evidence shows that he did not create Bishop for this reason. In the very first interview with Fonzi, Veciana said he thought Bishop “was working for a private organization, not the government ...” [5] But the fact that he gradually changed the story to say that Bishop was CIA could have partly been because of his dislike of the agency.

The evidence in Veciana’s drug case shows that the conspirators own naivete caused them to fall victim to an undercover sting run by a joint drug task force. According to the Appellee’s Brief, Veciana, Augustin Barres and Ariel Pomares (who worked for Barres) organized a cocaine smuggling operation during the years 1972 and 1973. The motive was recent financial losses incurred by Veciana and Barres. A statement by Max Lesnik, the publisher of the Spanish-language weekly Replica provided confirmation of Veciana’s possible financial motivation for his drug activities. Lesnik was a good friend of Veciana’s and supportive of the anti-Castro cause. On May 30, 1978, Fonzi and his assistant Gonzales interviewed Lesnik and, at one point in the interview, Lesnik was asked his opinion of Veciana’s credibility: [6]

At times I say to myself, Yes, I believe Veciana. At other times, I am not so sure. For instance, do you believe Veciana when he says it is not true about the narcotics charge? If you ask me, I would say Veciana is not the type of man who would have anything to do with narcotics. Not at all. Yet, on the other hand, I know how dedicated Veciana is; I know that more than anything else he is dedicated to overthrowing the Revolution and to killing Castro. So, the question is, could it be that he might have thought that the money that could be gotten from narcotics could be used to a more noble purpose? I don't know..."

In preliminary conversations, Veciana told Barres that he could “put a kilogram of cocaine” on his desk. Veciana provided the connection to the drugs which he developed during his years with USAID in Bolivia. Veciana traveled to Bolivia, purchased the cocaine and delivered it to Bolivian diplomats who then smuggled it into the United States. Barres provided part of the financing and Pomares received the drugs in Florida and sold some of them himself while employing middlemen to handle the remainder. The desire to change middlemen led to the conspirator’s downfall when the man they selected turned out to be an undercover detective named Bruno with the New York City Police. At times, the inexperience of the conspirators made their enterprise look like a comedy of errors. For example, the conspirators believed Bruno was a fearsome mob type so he must have played his part extremely well.

Barres was the chief witness for the prosecution and his testimony was collaborated by numerous government documents, a complete confession by Pomares [7] and by the testimony of four witnesses who confirmed aspects of Barres’ story. Barres testified that, when communicating by phone, the conspirators would use a code. The phrases, “documents signed” or “papers are ready” were to be used in conversation to refer to the cocaine being available for delivery. One of the most compelling pieces of testimony came from a man named Carpio who was an accountant at the business where Pomares worked. Carpio testified that Veciana called at one point and asked for Pomares. When Carpio told Veciana that Pomares was not there and offered to take a message, Veciana said, “Please tell him ... my name is Veciana, I received the documents.” The evidence was so overwhelming that Veciana’s entire defense consisted of a single witness-his daughter.

Fonzi, Veciana and the Bishop Story

Gaeton Fonzi, the government investigator who would be the effective co-author of the Maurice Bishop story, first tried to phone Veciana in February 1976. After determining Veciana was in prison, he made plans to visit his home in order to show his credentials to Veciana’s son Tony. This was so Fonzi could visit the Atlanta Penitentiary and interview Veciana there. But after finding out that Veciana was being released early, Fonzi arranged to interview him at his home on March 2, 1976. [8]

Upon meeting Veciana, what struck Fonzi the most was his “pallor.” Veciana’s face “still had very much a prison pallor … which is something that comes less from not being in the sun, than from something that happens to the spirt.” [9] In other words, prison had not been kind to Veciana and he doubtless had no desire to return there. My thesis is that Veciana was afraid of legal action against him since some of the things he did for ALPHA-66 certainly fell into legal “grey areas.”

Veciana himself confirmed this idea when he told Fonzi, “I am worried about certain things that can be used against me.” [10] And Fonzi admitted in Volume X of the HSCA report which he authored, “[This] investigator speculated that Veciana felt that by revealing his association with Bishop to an official representative of the U.S. Government, he would be providing himself with an element of security.” [11] Additionally, Fonzi wrote in his book “… I assumed he was concerned about some U.S. laws he may have broken during the course of his anti-Castro activity.” [12] And finally Fonzi added, “… as I came to understand, Veciana himself was anxious to use me. Just released from prison, uncertain and confused about what had happened to him, he took my arrival as an opportunity to establish a defense against any other actions which might be taken against him.” [13]

Veciana had a lot of time on his hands during the 26 months he was in Atlanta. In his book Trained to Kill, he said he kept his nose clean and “I read, and I waited, and I tried to understand how an innocent man could end up behind bars.” [14] One of the things Veciana read during his idle hours, in this case the day before Fonzi’s initial visit, was an article in the Saturday Evening Post. That article, co-authored by noted researcher Paul Hoch, speculated that Veciana was one of the three men who visited Sylvia Odio in September of 1963. [15] Fonzi knew from Veciana’s appearance (he has a distinctive facial birthmark) that he could not be one of those men. But Veciana was keeping up with current events as they related to the JFK case. Fonzi and other theorists are quick to speculate that, as Fonzi put it, “there was little reason for Veciana to assume the assassination was my priority.” [16] But as Paul Hoch wrote in the November 3, 1993 edition of his journal Echoes of Conspiracy, “[Veciana] could easily have figured out before they met that Fonzi was pursuing the JFK case.”

It turns out that the Fonzi-Veciana interview was a serendipitous meeting of the minds between one of the biggest CIA-did-it advocates and a man who was looking for someone to shoulder the blame for his terrorist activities. By his own admission, Fonzi wasn’t an objective investigator by the time of his experiences with Veciana. [17] I was never a “conspiracy theorist”, he said. “I went from an agnostic to a conspiracy believer [following a debate with Arlen Specter].” [18] This lack of objectivity made him susceptible to Veciana’s “LHO met with Bishop” tale which, as Paul Hoch notes, “Fonzi immediately accepted.” [19] Indeed, in his book Fonzi said, “I had no doubt then-and have none now-that Veciana was simply and truthfully revealing what he knew.” [20] It seems that the former investigative journalist had become a crusader.

Veciana’s Plan

In view of Veciana’s personality and the evidence that he was concerned about being prosecuted by the federal government, it is not hard to imagine that he devised a plan while in prison to share the blame for his anti-Castro activities with a nonexistent mentor. As mentioned, Veciana did not originally say that Bishop was CIA or even an intelligence man. But early on, Veciana became aware of Fonzi’s anti-CIA bias and realized that a change was needed to help ensure his continued patronage. By the time of his interview with Dick Russell about 3 months later, Veciana, taking Fonzi’s lead, was already saying that “he [Bishop] was part of an American intelligence service ...” [21] This change was fine with Veciana since it was safer and easier for him to finger an agent of an unnamed intelligence service and let Fonzi and others say it was the CIA. By 2017 though, Veciana’s account had changed to the point that he was saying he himself was a CIA operative recruited by David Phillips.

Veciana’s scheme was a clever one. And as a college graduate who had worked in Bolivia as a banking consultant with a starting salary equivalent to about $160,000 in today’s dollars, he was no dummy. [22] If he could make people believe that a CIA mentor who was as imperceptible as the boogeyman had told him what to do, then any illegal acts he might have committed were not his fault and he could not be prosecuted for them. Think of it as the “CIA made me do it” defense. And considering the revelations that were being made public at the time, it was at least plausible that the CIA could do what Veciana was alleging. On the other hand, Army Intelligence, which the evidence shows Veciana worked with, [23] did not have the same public reputation for deceitfulness attributed to the folks at Langley.

Before he could hope for his plan to work, Veciana needed to get Fonzi’s attention and he did so in a big way with his story of seeing Oswald with Bishop. Once Fonzi got a hold of him, Veciana rolled with the flow and mostly went along with Fonzi’s CIA theories. He did draw the line though at naming Phillips as Bishop, as Fonzi hoped he would do, for a couple of reasons. Veciana was smart enough to know that he could not get away with accusing a man of Phillips’ stature of being a cog in the CIA’s wheel of conspiracy without hard proof which he didn’t have. Besides, he didn’t need to do that, and it would serve no purpose for him. With Fonzi as his sponsor, he had what he wanted-protection from government scrutiny and a permanent soapbox from which he could subtly enhance his story as needed. Veciana was content to let the conspiracy books claim that Phillips was Bishop while he continued to deny it with a wink and a nod. And if the Phillips as Bishop canard was ever disproved, he could just say that he never said that Phillips was Bishop in the first place.

Delores Cao

In the nineties, the ARRB wanted to interview Veciana but he refused citing recent heart surgery. [24] However, another reason he may have declined to work with the review board was that they were interested in the alleged intermediary he had alluded to as far back as the first interviews with Fonzi. [25] That intermediary was identified in 1978 during a conversation between Veciana and author Anthony Summers as Delores Cao of Puerto Rico. [26] Both Summers and Fonzi used the codename “Fabiola” in their books when referring to Cao. Summers says he “goaded” Veciana into disclosing this information. But what if Veciana was content to let Summers think that he had gotten the best of him? Perhaps the reality was that Veciana had thought of a plan to get Summers off his back for good. Veciana probably realized that he couldn’t hold out on Summers forever so why not arrange a situation that he could control? In fact, from what I have learned about his personality, I find it hard to believe that Veciana would not intervene to get his desired result.

We know from Fonzi’s book that Veciana contacted Cao before Summers talked to her. [27] During this conversation, Veciana could have engaged in anything from mild suggestion to flat out instructing her what to say. If Veciana was manipulating Summers and did coach Cao, this could neatly dispose of any future interest in her by Summers and other researchers. From Veciana’s perspective, it was one thing for Anthony Summers to interview Cao after he prepared her. But the ARRB’s unanticipated interest in Cao, which in a worst-case scenario could have resulted in her testifying under oath, was a much more serious matter.

Veciana could have learned of the ARRB’s interest in Cao from phone calls staffers made to his son Tony. Or he simply could have anticipated that her name would logically come up during an interview. And his lack of cooperation with the ARRB could have reflected his fear of the review board locating her. According to John Newman, Cao’s name became public knowledge by 1993 so the ARRB should have known who she was without asking Veciana. [28] Or perhaps the review board learned Cao’s name and wanted to query Veciana on Fabiola’s identity to see what his reply would be and thereby access his general truthfulness. In any case, I believe Veciana wasn’t interested in helping the ARRB get anywhere near Cao. And if they became aware of her through Summers or other means, he could always make another phone call.

The Castro Letter Revisited

What evidence is there that Cao was willing to participate in Veciana’s plans? A remarkable report on two FBI interviews of Felix Zabala provides evidence that Cao may have at least lent her name to another Veciana scheme. [29] Zabala was an anti-Castro exile (and eventual double agent) who described Veciana as being, “like his own brother” and said that Veciana was “his son’s godfather.” Zabala apparently felt a tremendous sense of loyalty toward Veciana and did some remarkable things at his behest. For instance, the report provides a detailed account of a scheme involving a letter to Fidel Castro which occurred around September of 1976. This plan was the same one reported by John Newman in his book, but the document I found contains more detail and includes one prominent name left out of Newman’s version.

The letter would contain the basic elements of the Bishop story, name Veciana as a CIA operative and report details about Veciana’s participation in the 1971 assassination attempt against Castro in Chile. A key difference in this version of the story is the addition of none other than Veciana’s former secretary Cao. In this version of the story, Cao was the ostensible author of the letter rather than Zabala and it was signed with her nickname “Margarita.” The report refers to Cao as “Hilda” rather than Delores but also says that Cao is from San Juan and worked as Veciana’s secretary in Cuba and in Puerto Rico from 1961 to 1967 so it certainly seems to be the same individual.

According to Zabala, Veciana originally wanted to transmit the letter through the Czechoslovakian embassy in Washington but Zabala suggested they use his sister, who was married to Cuban doctor, instead. As in Newman’s version of the story, the author of the letter, in this case Cao, was disillusioned with Veciana who “wanted a large amount of publicity due to his appearance before a US government group.” Later in the report, Zabala was questioned about Veciana’s motive for concocting the letter. Zabala said that Veciana “was concerned about his testimony” before what would have been the permanent Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and “for some unexplained reason, wanted to establish himself in the US Cuban community as a former CIA operative.” Veciana was certain that Castro would broadcast the contents of the letter immediately, but that apparently never happened. The letter was allegedly submitted to Castro by Zabala’s sister on or about September 11, 1976.

At some point, it became apparent that the broadcast by Castro would not occur. Veciana then encouraged Zabala, who by now was working with Cuban Intelligence, to request that the contents of the letter be broadcast. Zabala was to imply to the Cubans that the reason for this was his own dissatisfaction with Veciana. Zabala went along with this idea out of friendship for Veciana and because the letter “seemed of the utmost importance” to him. My takeaway from all of this is that Veciana wanted to present himself as a CIA operative to confirm his Bishop story and possibly to enhance his standing in the exile community. And it seems that Ms. Cao, whatever her first name might be, was willing to lend her name to this deception, unless it was done without her knowledge.

The “LHO” Photos

Another contrivance engineered by Veciana using his friend Zabala was reported to the FBI by the latter in April 1977. Veciana alleged that Lee Harvey Oswald attended an ALPHA-66 meeting at which Veciana himself was present. The evidence for this startling claim was photographs provided by Veciana which he said depicted Oswald and himself in separate shots. Zabala had previously taken the photographs to a meeting with Cuban Intelligence in Mexico City, apparently at Veciana’s behest. At a lengthy videotaped interrogation, the Cuban agents had asked Zabala to identify which individual in the photographs represented Oswald. After Zabala did this, the Cubans ended the session. The FBI eventually determined that the individual in the photographs was not Oswald. [30] This incident seems to be a case of Veciana trying to spread misinformation to the Cubans (and maybe the FBI) for reasons that are unclear. Perhaps Veciana thought he would be rewarded by the Bureau in some way for his actions. However, the incident does represent a documented case of Veciana using a story involving Oswald to attempt to further his own ends. It also provides conformation that Veciana recognized the formidable effect of adding Oswald to such a tale as he did in the case of the Bishop story.

Why Phillips Was Not Bishop

The first and most obvious reason why Phillips was not Bishop is there was no Bishop, at least as Veciana described him. Bishop was likely a composite fictional character based on authority figures Veciana had really known such as Jordan Pfuntner, Patrick Harris or his real CIA case officer Cal Hicks. Veciana may have projected their qualities onto Bishop and rationalized this fabrication because of the personal sacrifice he felt he was making to rid the world of Castro. A simple case of the end justified the means. The HSCA made a valid attempt to identify Bishop but could provide absolutely no confirmation of any kind for the alleged CIA mentor. For example, the HSCA report stated: [31]

… not one of his associates--neither those who worked with him in anti-Castro activity in Cuba nor those who were associated with him in Alpha 66 said they were aware of any American directing Veciana or of anyone who had the characteristics of Maurice Bishop.

The infamous sketch of Maurice Bishop is one of the things most often mentioned as “proof” that Phillips was Bishop since theorists believe it looks like Phillips. The sketch was prepared with the help of a professional artist and represented a “pretty good” idea of what Veciana thought Bishop looked like. [32] Of course, a sketch is just an artist’s representation and the interpretation of it is subjective. Show it to a hundred people and you’ll get a hundred different answers as to who it looks like.

Fonzi himself originally thought it looked like Paul Bethel, former head of the US Information Agency in Cuba. [33] Sam Kail was an Army attaché who worked at the US embassy in Cuba and who Veciana said Bishop directed him to for help. Kail, who denied knowing Veciana, also thought the sketch looked like Bethel, a fact that Fonzi left out of his HSCA report. [34] Barney Hidalgo, A CIA employee who was interviewed by the HSCA regarding his claim that a “Bishop” worked at the CIA, thought it looked “a bit” like CIA employee Willard Galbraith. [35] This contradicts what Fonzi wrote in the HSCA report when he said, “B. H. [Hidalgo] could not identify [the sketch] as anyone he recognized.” [36]

Bradley Ayers was a US Army Captain on special assignment with the CIA based out of JM/WAVE near Miami. Ayers thought the sketch looked to be “a very accurate drawing” of Gordon Campbell, another CIA employee. Ayers thought that Bishop was Campbell and not Phillips, [37] but this is unlikely since Campbell died in 1962. [38] Ultimately, I compiled a list of 14 relevant individuals who saw the sketch and only three thought it looked like Phillips. Five people did not recognize the sketch as anyone they knew and the remaining six each identified six different persons. Ironically, one of the people who thought it looked like Phillips was Phillips himself. The others were Senator Richard Schweiker whose identification of Phillips was the beginning of Fonzi’s quest to link Phillips to Bishop [39] and CIA agent Joseph Burkholder Smith.

A second alleged “proof” that Phillips was Bishop is the supposed similarity between Veciana’s description of Bishop and Phillips. Veciana’s description of Bishop, like most aspects of his story, varied over the years. I’ll use the one Fonzi provided in the HSCA report for this discussion. Veciana said when he first met Bishop (1960 in this version) he was about 45 years old, 6 feet, 2 inches tall, weighed over 200 pounds, and was athletically built. [40] Phillips was only 38 in 1960 and CIA records show he was 6 feet tall and weighed 185 pounds. [41] The only similarity to Veciana’s description is that Phillips listed his build as “stocky.”

The rest of Veciana’s account is vague, probably intentionally so. Bishop had grey-blue eyes (Phillips had blue), light-brown hair and a light complexion, although he was supposedly “well-tanned.” Bishop was meticulously dressed and concerned about his diet, traits that there is no evidence Phillips possessed. In fact, in a 1976 piece the Washington Post described him as a “slightly rumpled chap.” [42] Phillips did wear reading glasses as Bishop did, but so do many middle-aged men.

Theorists believe that a meeting between Phillips and Veciana represents a third “proof.” The meeting took place at a conference of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) in Reston, Virginia on September 17, 1976. [43] Fonzi’s idea was to “ambush” the unsuspecting Phillips who was not aware that Veciana would be attending. Phillips merely thought he was doing Schweiker a favor by letting three of his staffers attend the conference luncheon. Jefferson Morley, editor of JFKfacts.org made the case for “Phillips is Bishop” believers in a 2017 article: [44]

Fonzi then brought Veciana to Washington for a meeting with Phillips. Although he had worked with Veciana for a decade, Phillips coolly pretended not to know him, Veciana writes, and to not even recognize his name, which was strange, because the Cuban was very well known to the CIA officers working to overthrow Castro.
Veciana went along with Phillips’s ruse, he says, out of fear of CIA retaliation. He told Fonzi that Phillips was not the man he knew as Maurice Bishop. “I felt bad for lying to a friend,” he writes, “but he could only guess at the stakes involved when it came to breaking my vow of silence.”

But Morley’s bare-bones version doesn’t tell the full story. According to Fonzi’s account, they were escorted to Phillips’ table, and Fonzi introduced Veciana to Phillips by name and waited for his reaction: [45]

I had thought I would be able to tell, keen observer that I deemed myself, if Phillips had exhibited even the slightest hint of having recognized Veciana. Not only did Phillips not display that hint, but his eyes had moved on and off of Veciana so quickly-in the flash of a brief handshake-that it was almost as if Veciana was a nonentity.

During the conference luncheon, Veciana folded his arms across his chest and studied Philips intently, staring at the former agent to the point of making him nervous. Over the years, Fonzi and Veciana have repeatedly cited Phillips’ alleged nervousness as proof he was hiding something. However, Fonzi himself offered the obvious explanation for Phillips’ unease in an HSCA memo. “But maybe I would have gotten nervous also if some guy was just sitting there with his arms folded staring at me like Veciana was doing with Phillips.” [46]

At one point during the keynote speech, Fonzi asked Veciana if Phillips was Bishop and he answered, “No. It is not him.” [47] When the conference ended, Fonzi and Veciana approached Phillips in the hallway. Fonzi asked Phillips if he would answer some questions. When Phillips asked what the questions were about and Fonzi replied the JFK assassination, Phillips stated he would be “glad to talk with any Congressman or representative of Congress … in Congress.” Veciana then asked Phillips a few questions including if he knew Julio Lobo or Rufo Lopez-Fresquet. Phillips said that he knew those men but did not remember Veciana himself. After the conference as Fonzi and Veciana left the building, Fonzi again asked Veciana if Phillips was Bishop. “No, he’s not him” Veciana unambiguously replied. [48]

It should be noted that Phillips probably told the truth when he said he didn’t remember Veciana at all. We know from Fonzi’s description of the incident that Phillips didn’t recognize Veciana’s face. And it had been at least a decade since Veciana was in the news for anti-Castro activities so Phillips may have simply forgotten the name. And if he did know the name-so what? Phillips may merely have wanted to see where the impromptu conversation was heading. After the confrontation, Fonzi’s belief in the “Phillips as Bishop” scenario was shaken, at least for a time. In an HSCA memo he said “… for the first time, I have some doubts about Veciana’s credibility when it comes to Phillips.” [49]

The next “proof” is purely anecdotal. According to an email message written by David Phillips’ nephew Shawn, David allegedly had a conversation with his brother James and related that he was in Dallas when JFK was killed. Setting aside the fact that Phillips was the Chief of Cuban Operations in Mexico City at the time of the assassination and was almost certainly there on that day (as he said he was in his book The Night Watch), let’s look at this claim. James Phillips allegedly called David when the latter was dying of lung cancer and following years of discussions between the brothers about the JFK case. James asked David if he was in Dallas “that day” and David said “yes” and then hung up. According to this theory then, it wasn’t enough for Phillips to be the mastermind of the plot. He had to be on the ground in Dallas directing the operation or perhaps pulling the trigger himself. Of course, logic and common sense tells us that Phillips would be as far away from Dallas as he could get with witnesses to that effect if he were involved in any plot-which he wasn’t. Shawn Phillips said the confession “was not in so many words as such” and he had placed the word “confession” in quotes in the original email. [50]

Some of the “proofs” really don’t require much discussion such as the contents of an unpublished manuscript written by Phillips. That manuscript has a fictional character saying, “I share the blame [in the JFK case]” among other things. If people want to believe that Phillips would make a confession in this manner, they are free to do so. I would only say that Philips was something of a frustrated writer and probably thought there was a market for this type of thing. Apparently, he was right.

Because theorists have made much of a September 21, 1979 attempt on Veciana’s life, I’ll add this final “proof” to the list although it is a minor one at best. The standard line goes something like this: Veciana was shot in the head shortly after he testified before the HSCA in an obvious attempt by the CIA to silence him. But what the theorists don’t explain is this. The details of the Bishop story, based on Veciana’s 1976 statements to congressional investigators, had already been reported by Jack Anderson in January 1977 and Veciana’s last testimony occurred in April 1978. What purpose would be served by the CIA shooting Veciana in 1979?

Veciana made at least one accurate statement in Trained to Kill when he wrote:

But were they [the CIA] so worried about what I had to say that they tried to silence me once and for all? I don’t know. I think there’s another more likely suspect than the CIA. Castro.

Indeed, right after the shooting, Veciana’s wife told the Miami Herald:

The only enemy my husband had in the world was Fidel Castro … This must have been done by infiltrators living in Miami.

Castro had been aware of Veciana and his desire to kill him since the ALPHA-66 press coverage in the early sixties if not sooner. Therefore, the attempt on Veciana’s life was almost certainly the work of Castro acolytes and not an effort by the CIA or any US government agency to silence him.

Veciana’s Reversal

For 37 years, from 1976 to 2013, Veciana insisted Phillips was not Bishop. He said that over and over in numerous interviews and under oath before congressional committees. Then, in 2013, Veciana reversed course and said that Phillips was Bishop after all. Sometime before 2013, Veciana decided to write his memoir. When making this decision, he undoubtedly had discussions with the people at his publishing house and others who assured him that there was no downside to the reversal. Veciana’s probable motive for this was completely self-serving. He had a book to sell and needed a talking point. And at 85 years of age at the time of his revelation, he had nothing to lose. He couldn’t be prosecuted for perjury since the statute of limitations had long expired. And his already secure reputation in the conspiracy world would only be enhanced by the claim as his rock-star-like reception at the AARC conference proved.

Conclusion

I believe the evidence is clear that Antonio Veciana fabricated the Maurice Bishop story. His motive originally was to avoid prosecution for acts he committed as an anti-Castro operative. All that was necessary to achieve this goal was to name an untraceable mentor as the person who directed these acts and to have sympathetic individuals in the government such as Fonzi support him. As time went on, Bishop evolved first into a generic CIA man and then David Phillips specifically. Part of this was to appease Fonzi and the public in general who believed the agency was culpable in the JFK killing. But he may have eventually decided that the CIA, who he evidently disliked, was responsible for his drug “setup” and blaming the CIA and Phillips was a secondary form of revenge. And of course, naming Phillips as Bishop helped create a buzz for his book which served as his “historic” memoir.

There isn’t a speck of evidence aside from Veciana’s allegations that Lee Harvey Oswald met with Bishop or Phillips in Dallas. [51] Oswald was in New Orleans during the late August to early September timeframe that Veciana and Fonzi eventually settled on. And his presence there is verified by library records and unemployment checks that he cashed as well as statements by Marina. Additionally, there is no credible evidence that he boarded a plane or was driven to Dallas. It should be mentioned that even if David Phillips ran Veciana as a CIA operative, without the tie to Oswald, the story goes nowhere. But considering the available evidence, a link between Phillips and Veciana is extremely unlikely.

Gaeton Fonzi immediately accepted Veciana’s story because it provided a connection between the CIA and Oswald. That link helped confirm his own belief that a rogue faction of the CIA killed Kennedy. He participated in the formation of the Bishop story by influencing Veciana through his anti-CIA beliefs. Fonzi tried to verify Veciana’s story in his capacity as an HSCA investigator and writer. He was sincerely hoping to find verification for the story but could not do so. This, of course, did not stop him from writing his book which strongly implied that David Phillips was a conspirator in the assassination of JFK. In the years since then, numerous others have repeated the claim based on Fonzi’s “evidence.” Whatever your opinion of the CIA and the operations it ran during the cold war, the foot soldiers like Phillips were merely following orders. David Phillips certainly did not deserve to be smeared by the likes of Fonzi and others without substantial proof. And such proof currently does not exist.

Notes

[1] Author John Newman, who has done some good work on Veciana, now apparently believes that the Pentagon (who he thinks was behind the JFK killing), somehow arranged to have Veciana’s sentence reduced in exchange for his promotion of the Bishop canard upon his release. We will have to wait for Newman’s next book to see his proof for this. But one problem with this theory is that we know from the first Fonzi interview that Veciana wasn’t initially pushing the CIA or intelligence angle.
[2] In his book, Veciana says it was three counts, an error which others have repeated.
[3] Unless otherwise noted, all information in this section comes from: United States of America, Appellee, vs. Ariel Pomares and Antonio Veciana, Appellants. No. 1127, Docket 74-1219. United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit. Argued June 14, 1974. Decided July 5, 1974.
[4] Fonzi, Gaeton. The Last Investigation: What Insiders Know About the Assassination of JFK. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013. Kindle Edition p. 395. According to Fonzi, Veciana alternated between blaming the CIA (in the form of Bishop) and Castro.
[5] Rough Notes of Fonzi Interview with Antonio Veciana, March 2, 1976. RIF 157-10007-10208.
[6] RIF 180-10065-10373.
[7] Pomares later tried to have his confession thrown out but on appeal it was determined that it was properly obtained.
[8] Fonzi, 119-121.
[9] Ibid., 123.
[10] Ibid., 124.
[11] HSCA Volume X, paragraph 144.
[12] Fonzi, 124.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Veciana, Antonio and Harrison, Carlos. Trained to Kill: The Inside Story of CIA Plots against Castro, Kennedy and Che. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. Kindle Edition, 2017, Chapter 10.
[15] Hoch, Paul and George O’Toole. “Dallas: The Cuban Connection.” The Saturday Evening Post, March 1976.
[16] Fonzi, 124.
[17] See my article “Gaeton Fonzi and the Veciana Allegations” for more information on Fonzi’s bias.
[18] http://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Reply_From_a_Conspiracy_Believer.html.
[19] Paul Hoch, Echoes of Conspiracy, November 3, 1993, p. 3.
[20] Fonzi, 126.
[21] Russell, Dick. On the Trail of the JFK Assassins: A Groundbreaking Look at America’s Most Infamous Conspiracy. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. Kindle Edition, 2008, p. 148.
[22] Veciana started at $22,000 plus housing, travel and baggage allowances. See RIF 180-10104-10396.
[23] See the “Malcolm Blunt DOD documents” at John Newman’s website: https://jfkjmn.com/.
[24] ARRB memo from Tom Samoluk to David Marwell, May 7, 1997.
[25] ARRB, “Interview Format for Antonio Veciana” obtained from the Black Vault.
[26] Newman, John. Into the Storm: The Assassination of President Kennedy Volume III. Kindle Edition, Chapter 3.
[27] Fonzi, 318.
[28] Newman, Chapter 3.
[29] All information in this section is taken from a report of two interviews by the FBI with Zabala, RIF 104-10102-10198.
[30] Memo from FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley to Director of Central Intelligence, June 6, 1977.
[31] HSCA Volume X, paragraph 145.
[32] Ibid., paragraph 169.
[33] Fonzi, 322.
[34] Memorandum from Fonzi to Blakey, RIF 180-10072-10179.
[35] RIF 104-10146-10142.
[36] HSCA Volume X, paragraph 190.
[37] ARRB memo from Christopher Barger to Jeremy Gunn, May 18, 1995.
[38] https://jfkfacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Campbell-death-certificate.pdf.
[39] Fonzi, 157.
[40] HSCA Volume X, paragraph 168.
[41] David Atlee Phillips, “CIA Personal Record Questionnaire” obtained from the Black Vault.
[42] White, Jean M. “Intelligence Gathering: Insiders Meet on the Outside.” The Washington Post, September 18, 1976, p. 1.
[43] Memo from Fonzi to Troy Gustavson, September 20, 1976, RIF 180-10103-10396.
[44] Morley, Jefferson. “The CIA’s Secrets about JFK, Che and Castro Revealed in New Book by Former Operative.” Newsweek Magazine, May 28, 2017.
[45] Fonzi, 166.
[46] Memo from Fonzi to Troy Gustavson, September 20, 1976, RIF 180-10103-10396.
[47] Fonzi, 167.
[48] Ibid, 167-69.
[49] Memo from Fonzi to Gustavson, op. cit.
[50] http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/phillips.htm.
[51] It should be clear to most researchers by now that Wynne Johnson, who “collaborated” the story of Veciana seeing LHO and Bishop, is an after-the-fact Judyth Baker type who is not worthy of belief. For more information see: http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/04/wynne-johnson.html.