By 1963, he was chief of the psychological warfare branch of Central Intelligence Agency's JMWAVE station in Miami, with a staff of 24 and a budget of $1.5 million (equivalent to $15 million in 2023).[3][4] In that role, he was also known as "Howard", "Mr. Howard", and "Walter Newby"[5][6] and reported to then-Deputy Director of Plans Richard Helms.
Joannides directed and financed Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil (DRE), or Student Revolutionary Directorate, a group of Cuban exiles whose officers had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald in the months before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.[7][8][9] By some accounts, fashioned with the "plausible deniability" typical of CIA operations, the plan was designed to link Oswald to Castro's government, without disclosing the CIA's role. He left the agency in 1976 to start an immigration-law practice in Washington, DC.[1]
In 1978 the CIA summoned Joannides to serve as the agency's liaison to the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), in specific regard to the death of President Kennedy. Washington Post reporter Jefferson Morley wrote that, "the spy withheld information about his own actions in 1963 from the congressional investigators he was supposed to be assisting. It wasn't until 2001, 38 years after Kennedy's death, that Joannides' support for the Cuban exiles, who clashed with Oswald and monitored him, came to light."[10]G. Robert Blakey, the Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the HSCA, later said that Joannides "obstructed our investigation" and that if he had known about Joannides' Cuban operations he would have "demanded that the agency take him off the job" and "sat him down and interviewed him. Under oath".[11][12] Joannides retired permanently from the CIA in November 1978.[1] In July 1981, he was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal.[13]
There is a body of documents that the CIA is still protecting, which should be released. Relying on inaccurate representations made by the CIA in the mid-1990s, the Review Board decided that records related to a deceased CIA agent named George Joannides were not relevant to the Kennedy assassination. Subsequent work by researchers, using other records that were released by the board, demonstrates that these records should be made public.[14]
In 2022, the Mary Ferrell Foundation filed a lawsuit in an attempt to secure the release of the Joannides files.[15]
Personal life and death
Joannides was born on July 5 1922, in Athens, Greece. His family immigrated to New York in 1923.[2] In addition to speaking English, Joannides was fluent in Greek and French, and competent in Spanish. He and his wife Violet had three children, and lived in Pinecrest, Florida. In his later years, Joannides had heart problems and moved to Houston, Texas to receive medical treatment from Michael DeBakey. Joannides died on March 9, 1990, aged 67.[1]
Kaiser, D. E. (2009). The road to Dallas: The assassination of John F. Kennedy. Boston: Harvard University Press. ISBN0674039289
Mellen, J. (2005). A farewell to justice. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books. ISBN1597973548
Russell, D. (2003). The man who knew too much. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN0786712422
Sabato, L. J. (2013). The Kennedy half-century: The presidency, assassination, and lasting legacy of John F. Kennedy. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN1620402807
Talbot, D. (2008). Brothers: The hidden history of the Kennedy years. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN1847395856
Waldron, L., and Hartmann, T. (2009). Ultimate sacrifice. New York: Basic Books. ISBN0786735112
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