US intel agency lied for decades? CIA admits secret link between officer and JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald

For the first time in nearly 62 years, the CIA has effectively confirmed that one of its officers, who specialised in psychological warfare, was in contact with Lee Harvey Oswald before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.

The revelation emerged from a declassified memo dated 17 January 1963, showing that CIA officer George Joannides had been instructed to operate under the alias “Howard Gebler,” a name previously linked to an officer who worked closely with anti-Castro Cuban activists.

Until now, the CIA had repeatedly denied that Joannides was “Howard.” The group Joannides helped manage, the Cuban Student Directorate (DRE), was central to spreading Oswald’s pro-Castro image after the assassination.

Who was George Joannides?

Joannides was the deputy chief of the CIA’s Miami station in 1963. His job included running psychological operations and covertly directing the DRE, a group of young Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro.

In August 1963, just months before JFK’s murder, DRE members clashed with Oswald in New Orleans. Oswald had been distributing pro-Cuba pamphlets for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The incident was covered by local media, followed by a televised debate between Oswald and DRE members.

After JFK was killed, the DRE’s newsletter was one of the first to brand Oswald a pro-Castro communist. The story quickly made national headlines.

The long history of denial

Despite Joannides’ obvious connection to DRE, the CIA maintained for decades that he had no involvement. He was even appointed as the agency’s liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s, but failed to disclose his prior role in the very operation the committee was investigating. Robert Blakey, the committee’s chief counsel, said Joannides assured him at the time that no one by the name “Howard” had worked with the DRE. “He lied,” Blakey later testified. Dan Hardway, a former committee investigator, went further last month, calling Joannides’ actions a “covert operation” to undermine Congress.

What the documents reveal, and don’t?

The new documents do not directly link the CIA to the assassination itself, nor do they settle the long-running debate over whether Oswald acted alone. However, they do confirm that the agency lied to multiple government inquiries over the years, including:

• The Warren Commission (1964)

• The Church Committee (1975)

• The House Select Committee on Assassinations (1977–78)

• The Assassination Records Review Board (until 1998)

They also raise fresh questions about why the CIA was so keen to bury Joannides’ role, and what else may still be hidden.

In a twist that has only added to public distrust, Joannides was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal in 1981, just two years after obstructing the congressional probe. He passed away in 1990. But the consequences of his deception and the agency’s cover-up, are only now coming to light.