George Joannides

George Efthyron Joannides (July 5, 1922 – March 9, 1990) was a Central Intelligence Agency officer. In 1963, he was the chief of the Psychological Warfare branch of the agency's JMWAVE station in Miami. In 1978, he was the agency's liaison to the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Early life and education

Joannides was born on July 5 1922, in Athens, Greece. His family immigrated to New York in 1923. He attended the City College of New York and St. John's University School of Law. Besides speaking English, he was fluent in Greek and French, and competent in Spanish.

Career

Before 1949, he worked for the Greek diasporic newspaper '' National Herald''. From 1949 to 1950, he worked in the press office of the Greek Embassy in Washington. In 1950, he joined the Central Intelligence Agency.

By 1963, he was chief of the psychological warfare branch of Central Intelligence Agency's JMWAVE station in Miami under then-Deputy Director of Plans Richard "Dick" Helms, with a staff of 24 and a budget of $1.5 million (equivalent to $ million in ). In that role, he was also known as "Howard", "Mr. Howard", and "Walter Newby".

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. 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. Joannides left the CIA in 1976 to start an immigration-law practice in Washington, DC.Revelation 19.63
''Miami New Times''

In 1978, the CIA summoned Joannides to serve as the agency's liaison to the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), with him focusing on events surrounding the death of President Kennedy. ''Washington Post'' reporter Jefferson Morley wrote: "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." 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." Joannides retired permanently from the CIA in November 1978. In July 1981, he was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal.

In 2013, John R. Tunheim and Thomas E. Samoluk wrote in the ''Boston Herald'':

In 2022, the Mary Ferrell Foundation filed a lawsuit in an attempt to secure the release of the Joannides files.

Personal life and death

Joannides and his wife Violet had three children, and lived in Pinecrest, Florida. In his later years, he had heart problems and moved to Houston, Texas to receive medical treatment from Michael DeBakey. He died on March 9, 1990, aged 67.

References

Further reading

* Kaiser, D. E. (2009). The road to Dallas: The assassination of John F. Kennedy. Boston: Harvard University Press.
* Mellen, J. (2005). A farewell to justice. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books.
* Russell, D. (2003). The man who knew too much. New York: Carroll & Graf.
* Sabato, L. J. (2013). The Kennedy half-century: The presidency, assassination, and lasting legacy of John F. Kennedy. New York: Bloomsbury.
* Talbot, D. (2008). Brothers: The hidden history of the Kennedy years. New York: Simon and Schuster.
* Waldron, L., and Hartmann, T. (2009). ''Ultimate sacrifice.'' New York: Basic Books.

External links

The George Joannides Coverup, Jefferson Morley

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joannides, George
1922 births
1990 deaths
Greek emigrants to the United States
People of the Central Intelligence Agency
People associated with the assassination of John F. Kennedy