CIA admits shadowy officer monitored Oswald before JFK assassination, new records reveal

For the first time since President Kennedy’s assassination nearly 62 years ago, the CIA has tacitly admitted that an officer specializing in psychological warfare ran an operation that came into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald before the Dallas killing.

Why it matters: The disclosure Thursday — nestled in a batch of 40 documents concerning officer George Joannides — indicates the CIA lied for decades about his role in the Kennedy case before and after the assassination, according to experts on JFK’s slaying.

  • The linchpin document: A Jan. 17, 1963, CIA memo showing Joannides was directed to have an alias and fake driver’s license bearing the name “Howard Gebler.”
  • Until Thursday, the agency had denied that Joannides was known as “Howard,” the case officer name for the CIA contact who worked with activists from an anti-communist group opposed to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro called the Cuban Student Directorate.
  • For decades, the agency also falsely said it had nothing to do with the student group, which was instrumental in having Oswald’s pro-Castro stances published soon after the shooting.

The bottom line: “The cover story for Joannides is officially dead,” said Jefferson Morley, an author and expert on the assassination. “This is a big deal. The CIA is changing its tune on Lee Harvey Oswald.”

  • The information comes to light as part of President Trump’s order that the government meet its obligations to disclose all documents under the JFK Records Act of 1992.
  • Little was known of Joannides’ involvement in the case until disclosures in 1998 under the records act. New disclosures of previously hidden records keep adding slices of information to the story.

Zoom in: Joannides was the deputy chief of the CIA’s Miami branch, overseeing “all aspects of political action and psychological warfare.” That included covertly funding and directing the Cuban student group, commonly referred to as DRE for its Spanish-language initials.

  • On Aug. 9, 1963, more than three months before Nov. 22 assassination, four DRE operatives got into a scuffle with Oswald in New Orleans when he was passing out pro-Castro “Fair Play for Cuba Committee” pamphlets. The subsequent court hearing was covered by local news media.
  • On Aug. 21 , 1963, Oswald debated DRE activists on local TV, providing more media attention to him as a communist.
  • After the assassination, DRE’s newsletter identified Oswald as a pro-Castro communist, and the Miami Herald and Washington Post covered the story.
  • A year before Oswald became known as pro-Castro, the Pentagon formulated a plan called Operation Northwoods to stage a false-flag attack in the United States, blame Cuba and then attack it.

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JFK’s Radical Grandson Accuses Vice President J.D. Vance of ‘Killing the Pope’ in Unhinged Online Rant

Jack Schlossberg—grandson of former President John F. Kennedy—lashed out on social media Monday morning, accusing Vice President J.D. Vance of “killing the pope” just hours after the Vatican announced the death of Pope Francis.

The accusation comes after Pope Francis’s passing, ending his 12-year tenure as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Vance, a Catholic convert since 2019, had a brief private meeting with the pontiff at Casa Santa Marta on Easter Sunday.

The meeting lasted about 15–17 minutes, during which they exchanged Easter greetings.

According to reports, Francis gifted Vance chocolate Easter eggs for his children, a Vatican tie, and rosaries. Vance noted the Pope’s frail health but expressed appreciation for the audience.

The meeting followed an initial rebuff on April 19, when Vance met with Vatican officials instead of Francis, which some interpreted as a snub due to their disagreements, especially on immigration.

Hours after that historic meeting, the world learned that Pope Francis had passed away at the age of 88.

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Witnesses Tell House Task Force To Reinvestigate JFK Assassination

A panel of expert witnesses that included renowned filmmaker Oliver Stone told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets on April 1 that more work is needed to uncover the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Let us see past the lies, and let us hear what happened,” Stone told the task force. “The truth is the greatest treasure a Socratic soul can attain in this lifetime.

The three-time Academy Award-winning director released a movie titled “JFK” in 1991 and followed that with a documentary in 2021 called “JFK: Revisited.”

He questioned the role played by the CIA, saying it “operates arrogantly outside our laws.”

A litany of motives for removing Kennedy existed at the time, including those related to expanding the Vietnam War and securing power for the military-industrial complex, among others, according to the director.

He was changing things, changing too many things too fast. It was a major problem for some, and he was going to win a second election,” Stone told The Epoch Times after the hearing. “And he had a brother, a younger brother, and there was fear of a dynasty. They were terrified of that possibility.

Expressing doubt about the Warren Commission’s findings in 1964, which fingered Lee Harvey Oswald as a lone gunman responsible for Kennedy’s murder, he asked the committee to reopen an investigation into the incident.

Some lawmakers on the dais acknowledged a need to follow up on questions regarding the chain of custody of evidence and discrepancies in testimony and records related to the crime, saying the lack of transparency over nearly 62 years has eroded trust in government.

“For over six decades, questions have lingered, shrouded in secrecy and speculation,” task force chairwoman Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said during opening remarks. “What has been alarming to me is the amount of stonewalling the federal government put forth to hide this information from the American people.”

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JFK files reveal CIA officials ‘lied’ about awareness of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald: researcher

President Trump’s release last month of “long-secret documents” on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy revealed that “three top CIA officials lied” to investigators about the agency’s awareness of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, according to dogged researchers who have studied the tragedy for decades.

Jefferson Morley — an independent journalist and author whose foundation runs the largest online database of JFK records — testified to members of the House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets that the files made public March 18 show the spooks “fooled the Warren Commission.”

Among the documents were nine critical memos on James Jesus Angleton, longtime chief of the CIA’s counterintelligence department, who was one of the trio that obfuscated the agency’s actions before both the 1964 presidential commission and congressional investigators.

Morley, 66, noted that Angleton ran a vast mail interception program out of a New York post office — and then lied about having targeted Oswald as part of the program when questioned by the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Oswald’s letters were intercepted at Angleton’s direction beginning in November 1959, weeks after the future assassin had defected to the Soviet Union.

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The JFK files and the curious case of Israeli exceptionalism

With the recent release of the JFK files, Twitter—sorry, X—is ablaze with amateur detectives sifting through the document dump with more fervour than an especially high Shaggy devouring Scooby Snacks. The question on everyone’s lips: whodunnit? The answer remains elusive, given the lack of a definitive smoking gun, but what is clear is that the lone gunman theory is dubious at best. What is clear is that Kennedy had managed to upset a lot of important people, and the list of suspects remains extensive.

What’s curious, though, is the feeling of uneasiness, a sense of hesitation when considering Israel’s possible involvement in the ‘63 assassination. Discussions about the Mob, the CIA (arguably the same entity in post-war America), the military, and the Fed all feel acceptable within the Overton Window, yet raising the question of Israeli connections feels problematic and that it must be treated with exceptional delicacy. Why does any criticism of Israel provoke an instinctive sense of foreboding, as if any questioning could incite the next Holocaust, invite accusations of antisemitism, and lead to cancellation or social exile, akin to getting a swastika tattooed on one’s forehead? The answer is simple: we have been indoctrinated and propagandised by a Zionist movement determined to pursue its goals without scrutiny, protest, or backlash.

This influence permeates all tiers of society. The CIA, for example, specifically demanded that all mentions of Israeli intelligence be redacted from the JFK files. Thankfully, they weren’t. The documents indicate that Israel, like the other key players, had the means, motive, and possibly the opportunity. This bizarre exceptionalism extends beyond public discourse into the very corridors of power. Trump is now pressuring universities with threats of defunding, arguing that it is antisemitic to protest against genocide. The paradox is staggering: recognising the Holocaust as one of history’s greatest atrocities somehow inhibits criticism of an ongoing holocaust against a minority group, ironically within the nation-state of Israel. The bullied have become the bully. Even asserting that Palestinians are human beings deserving of self-determination is almost as dangerous as being displaced to a refugee camp in the West Bank. Imagine if Putin had deliberately targeted refugee camps, hospitals, and women and children. The media would double down on the Hitler comparisons, yet when Netanyahu does it, we get justifications, sanitised language, and deflection tactics designed to desensitise us to human suffering—so long as the victims are Muslim and not Jewish. Without eyewitness videos capturing the daily brutality in Gaza, the mainstream media would still have us believe that the IDF is the “most moral army in the world”. October 7th, of course, is the official start of history, with Hamas launching an entirely unprovoked and exceptionally evil attack that now somehow justifies the ongoing mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents, mostly children.

Israeli exceptionalism is even evident in the way definitions are constructed. The Stockholm Declaration of 2000 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), adopted by numerous governments, originally referenced only Jewish victims, omitting other groups targeted by the Nazis. Only recently were the Roma added as a secondary consideration, yet most people still equate the Holocaust solely with the murder of six million Jews, forgetting the communists, Slavs, intelligentsia, disabled people, and others who perished. It is also evident in political rhetoric: politicians can discuss Islamic extremism and Asian grooming gangs without fear of career-ending repercussions from Muslim lobby groups. But criticising Zionist influence in domestic politics? That is antisemitic. Al Jazeera produced an in-depth documentary exposing the role of Israeli lobbying in UK politics, demonstrating how a coalition of bad-faith actors—including figures from the UK military, intelligence services, and the Labour Party itself—helped neutralise the “Corbyn threat” due to his pro-Palestinian stance. Luckily, the British public, of course, opted for Boris Johnson instead, another pyrrhic victory in the ongoing destruction of the country to “Build Back Better’. That wasn’t sarcasm. Confessions of an Economic Hitman outlines what would have come next if Corbyn hadn’t been stopped by the PR wing of the establishment, aka the media—something confirmed by leaked emails between then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo and top UK army generals. No one critical of Israel, capitalism, or the poverty gap will ever be allowed to hold real power. That’s not how pseudo-democracy works. The system’s genius lies in making people believe they have agency while using every cog in the machine to propagandise them into voting against their own interests, vilifying any true opposition, and infiltrating grassroots movements to sabotage them from within. Thatcher being Blair’s hero was no coincidence. Nor was it a coincidence that NHS privatisation began under a Labour government.

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Rep. Anna Paulina Luna Accuses NBC of Withholding Bombshell Video Showing Lee Harvey Oswald Near JFK’s Limo — Claims He Wasn’t the Shooter

Chairwoman of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) ) has publicly accused NBC of withholding critical evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

During a recent interview on Fox News, Rep. Luna claimed that an unreleased video, which allegedly depicts Lee Harvey Oswald away from the infamous Texas School Book Depository at the time of Kennedy’s assassination, is in the possession of NBC News.

According to Rep. Luna, this video shows Oswald near JFK’s limousine when the shots were fired in Dallas, a claim that, if verified, would make it physically impossible for him to have been the shooter from the sixth floor of the Depository.

The congresswoman mentioned plans to formally request this footage from NBC, stressing the importance of transparency and accountability in this long-standing national mystery.

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From JFK to Donald Trump: How the USA Became Wedded to Zionist Israel

There are many contrasts between the 35th president, John F. Kennedy, and the 45th and 47th president, Donald J. Trump. One extreme example is regarding U.S. policy toward Israel.

JFK and Israel/Palestine

Unknown to many people today, JFK supported Palestinian rights and sought a sustainable peace in the region.

In 1960, when JFK was campaigning to be president, he spoke at the convention of the Zionists of America. In his speech, Kennedy was complimentary about Israel but frankly said“I cannot believe that Israel has any real desire to remain indefinitely a garrison state surrounded by fear and hate.” That warning, issued when Israel had only existed for 12 years, was ignored.  

Kennedy did not just issue warnings. To the chagrin of the Israelis, JFK established friendly relations with Egypt’s President Nasser. The Kennedy administration provided loans and aid to Egypt.

The JFK administration supported UN resolution 194 which called for the right of return for Palestinian refugees driven out of their homeland. Although Israel committed to abide by UN resolutions when it was admitted to the United Nations in 1949, the Israelis reneged on this commitment and were hostile to the resolution. The day before JFK was assassinated, the New York Times reported (p 19), “Israel Dissents as U.N. Group Backs U.S. on Arab Refugees” and “U.S. Stand Angers Israel.”  The second item begins, “Premier Levi Eshkol expressed extreme distaste today for the United States’ position in the Palestinian-refugee debate.”

John Kennedy’s brother Robert was Attorney General and headed the Department of Justice. For two years, up until the end of 1963, the DOJ made increasingly strict demands that the American Zionist Council (AZC) register as agents of a foreign country. In response, the AZC stalled, delayed, and created the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

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NAT SEC ARCHIVE: Concerned About Nuclear Weapons, JFK Pushed for Inspection of Israel Nuclear Facilities

President John F Kennedy worried that Israel’s nuclear program was a potentially serious proliferation risk and insisted that Israel permit periodic inspections to mitigate the danger, according to declassified documents published today by the National Security Archive, Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.  Kennedy pressured the government of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to prevent a military nuclear program, particularly after stage-managed tours of the Dimona facility for U.S. government scientists in 1961 and 1962 raised suspicions within U.S. intelligence that Israel might be concealing its underlying nuclear aims.  Kennedy’s long-run objective, documents show, was to broaden and institutionalize inspections of Dimona by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

On 30 May 1961, Kennedy met Ben-Gurion in Manhattan to discuss the bilateral relationship and Middle East issues. However, a central (and indeed the first) issue in their meeting was the Israeli nuclear program, about which President Kennedy was most concerned.   According to a draft record of their discussion, which has never been cited, and is published here for the first time, Ben-Gurion spoke “rapidly and in a low voice” and “some words were missed.”  He emphasized the peaceful, economic development-oriented nature of the Israeli nuclear project. Nevertheless the note taker, Assistant Secretary of State Philips Talbot, believed that he heard Ben-Gurion mention a “pilot” plant to process plutonium for “atomic power” and also say that “there is no intention to develop weapons capacity now.” Ben-Gurion tacitly acknowledged that the Dimona reactor had a military potential, or so Talbot believed he had heard.  The final U.S. version of the memcon retained the sentence about plutonium but did not include the language about a “pilot” plant and  “weapons capacity.”

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JFK expert reveals two chilling gaps in assassination files that point to a second shooter

A JFK expert has highlighted two pieces of evidence pointing to more than one shooter that were not debunked by last week’s assassination files release.  

The documents released by the Trump administration fail to explain how Lee Harvey Oswald was able to strike the moving president in the head from six floors up 80 to 100 yards away, JFK scholar Peter Lucas wrote in the Boston Herald

They also fail to explain why footage of the killing shows Kennedy’s head snapping backwards as if he had been shot from the front – even though Oswald was to his rear, aiming from the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository in Dallas. 

‘There had to be another shooter, possibly firing from the grassy knoll to the right of the Kennedy motorcade,’ Lucas wrote.

‘One of the shots in the film of the assassination has Kennedy’s head going backwards as though shot from the front.’

One of the most popular theories asserts there was a second gunman who fired shots at JFK from a now-iconic ‘grassy knoll’ to the right of his car as it passed by.

No definitive proof of that claim has ever been shared, although sleuths have shared grainy grabs over the year that they’ve suggested shows a second shooter. 

More than 63,000 pages of records related to the November 1963 assassination of President Kennedy were released Tuesday following an order by President Donald Trump, many without the redactions that had confounded historians for years and helped fuel conspiracy theories.

The US National Archives and Records Administration posted to its website roughly 2,200 files containing the documents.

They included typewritten reports and handwritten notes spanning decades, including details of a top CIA agent who claimed the deep state was responsible, Oswald being a ‘poor shot’ and that Secret Service had been warned Kennedy would be killed in August, three months before the murder. 

The JFK assassination files released by the Trump administration gave curious readers more details into Cold War-era covert US operations than any credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK.

The vast majority of the National Archives’ more than 6 million pages of records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts related to the assassination have previously been released.

Some were not directly related to the assassination but rather dealt with covert CIA operations, particularly in Cuba. 

And nothing in the first documents examined undercut the conclusion that Kennedy assassin Oswald was the lone gunman in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

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Trump Says Oswald ‘Was Helped’ with Assassination of JFK

President Trump has again stated that he believes that Lee Harvey Oswald “was helped” with the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.

Trump’s statement comes on the heels of 80,000 previously classified documents related to the assassination being released by the U.S. National Archives.

Trump discussed the matter during an interview with OutKick founder and conservative radio host Clay Travis on Air Force One.

“Do you think Oswald killed JFK personally?” Travis asked.

“I do, and I always felt that,” Trump replied. “Of course, he was … helped.”

Trump said the document dump “turned out to be somewhat unspectacular” but concluded, “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

The president did not elaborate on who helped Oswald.

There have long been theories about who else was involved, ranging from Israel, the U.S. government, the Mafia, the CIA, the Cuban government, and the KBG.

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