The CIA's Liaison to Congress's JFK Probe Had Run the Exile Group Tied to Oswald
He told investigators he did not know who was in charge of the exile group in 1963, though he had supervised the CIA's tie to it himself.
Who Killed JFK? · The InvestigationsRobert Blakey thought he had closed the loophole. As chief counsel for the House committee that reopened the Kennedy assassination inquiry in the late 1970s, the attorney and former law professor known for writing racketeering laws went to the top of the FBI and the CIA.
He came back with written statements from both directors. Every agent called before Congress, the statements said, was appearing before a legitimate congressional committee and was not authorized to lie to protect secret sources or methods. When Blakey's investigators sat down with spies, they laid the paper on the table first. The message was to answer truthfully and not use secrecy as an excuse to hold back.
Blakey believed the agencies had complied until 2001, when researcher Jefferson Morley revealed that the CIA had hidden the past of its liaison to the committee.
The CIA had assigned George Joannides to assist the House panel reexamining the assassination. His stated job was to help investigators obtain executive branch files. What the CIA did not tell Blakey was that, during the Kennedy administration, Joannides had led the Miami station's psychological warfare section, overseeing support and payments to anti-Castro Cuban exiles who were secretly scheming to oust Fidel Castro from power.
When Blakey and his investigators asked Joannides directly who had been in charge of the exile group, known as the Cuban Student Directorate, in 1963, he said he did not know. He was the answer to Blakey's question.
Blakey learned the truth only when Morley, the creator of the research site jfkfacts.org, published his account of Joannides's career. Blakey said that, had he known, he would never have used Joannides as a facilitator: "I would have subpoenaed him as a witness."
By then the committee had long since published its report. In January 1979, unaware of the obstruction, the committee said in its report, "President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy," adding, "The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy." It also cleared the FBI and the CIA.
The hidden connection involved Lee Harvey Oswald. Officers who managed the exile program under Joannides had established contact with Oswald, then a former Marine living in New Orleans, in the months before the assassination. That same supervisor later served as the CIA liaison to the committee and obstructed its work revisiting the Warren Report, which had pinned the killing on Oswald.
Asked whether he was mad, Blakey said, "Furious."
Questions people ask
What was the House Select Committee on Assassinations?
It was the congressional committee that reopened the Kennedy assassination inquiry in 1976 and issued its report in January 1979. The report concluded that Kennedy was probably killed as a result of a conspiracy, but said it could not identify the other participants.
What was the Cuban Student Directorate?
It was a group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, largely students, that opposed Fidel Castro after the Cuban Revolution. In the early 1960s it received CIA funding and guidance from the agency's Miami station.
What did the Warren Report conclude?
It was the official inquiry led by Chief Justice Earl Warren that reported in 1964. It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy, a finding the later House committee rejected.