George Joannides

[Robert E. Cox]

As Ollie North demonstrated when Iran-Contra hit the fan, often just the suggestion of public scrutiny sends the government paper-shredders into overdrive. Nothing incriminating will be exposed if and/or when any CIA documents become available...because, if there ever was a smoking gun in the CIA files, it was disposed of long ago.

Well, Mark, you agree with Posner, my favorite government apologist, who is quoted at the conclusion of the current Times story: “Most conspiracy theorists don’t understand this... But if there really were a C.I.A. plot, no documents would exist.”

I'm not sure how Posner actually knows this, but he certainly sounds authoritative, doesn't he?

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

http://www.starbulletin.com/news/nyt/20091..._cia_agent.html

www.starbulletin.com > News > New York Times >

NEW YORK TIMES

Mystery over Kennedy assassination still swirls around dead CIA agent

By Scott Shane / New York Times

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Oct 17, 2009

(Single Page View) | Return to Paginated View

WASHINGTON -- Is the CIA covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy?

Probably not. But you would not know it from the CIA's behavior.

For six years, the agency has fought to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The CIA says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But because of the agency's history of stonewalling assassination inquiries, even researchers with no use for conspiracy thinking question its stance.

The files in question, some released under direction of the court and hundreds more that are still secret, involve the curious career of George E. Joannides, the case officer who oversaw the dissident Cubans in 1963. In 1978, the agency made Joannides the liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations -- but never told the committee of his earlier role.

That concealment has fueled suspicion that Joannides' real assignment was to limit what the House committee could learn about CIA activities. The agency's deception was first reported in 2001 by Jefferson Morley, a journalist and author who has doggedly pursued the files ever since, represented by James H. Lesar, a Washington lawyer specializing in Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.

"The CIA's conduct is maddening," said Morley, 51, a former Washington Post reporter and author of a 2008 biography of a former CIA station chief in Mexico. After years of meticulous reporting on Joannides, who died at age 68 in 1990, he is convinced there is more to learn.

"I know there's a story here," Morley said. "The confirmation is that the CIA treats these documents as extremely sensitive."

Morley's quest has gained prominent supporters, including John R. Tunheim, a federal judge in Minnesota who served in 1994 and 1995 as chairman of the Assassination Records Review Board, created by Congress to unearth documents related to the case.

"I think we were probably misled by the agency," Tunheim said, referring to the Joannides records. "This material should be released."

Gerald Posner, author of an anti-conspiracy account of the JFK assassination, "Case Closed," said the CIA's withholding such aged documents is "a perfect example of why nobody trusts the agency."

"It feeds the conspiracy theorists who say, 'You're hiding something,"' Posner said.

After losing an appeals court decision in Mr. Morley's lawsuit, the CIA last year released material confirming Joannides' deep involvement with the anti-Castro Cubans who confronted Oswald. But the agency is withholding 295 specific documents from the 1960s and '70s, while refusing to confirm or deny the existence of many others, saying their release would cause "extremely grave damage" to national security.

"The methods of defeating or deterring covert action in the 1960s and 1970s can still be instructive to the United States' current enemies," a CIA official wrote in a court filing.

An agency spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said the CIA had opened all files relevant to the assassination to Tunheim's review board and denied that it is trying to avoid embarrassment. "The record doesn't support that, any more than it supports conspiracy theories, offensive on their face, that the CIA had a hand in President Kennedy's death," Gimigliano said.

CIA secrecy has been hotly debated this year, with agency officials protesting the Obama administration's decision to release legal opinions describing brutal interrogation methods. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came under attack from Republicans after she accused the CIA of misleading Congress about waterboarding, adding, "They mislead us all the time."

On the Kennedy assassination, the deceptions began in 1964 with the Warren Commission. The CIA concealed its unsuccessful schemes to kill Fidel Castro and its ties to the anti-Castro DRE, the Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, or Cuban Student Directorate, which got $50,000 a month in CIA support during 1963.

In August 1963, Oswald visited a New Orleans shop owned by a DRE official, feigning sympathy with the group's goal of overthrowing Castro. A few days later, DRE members found Oswald handing out pro-Castro pamphlets and got into a brawl with him. Later that month, Oswald debated the anti-Castro Cubans on a local radio station.

Morley's lawsuit has uncovered the central role in overseeing DRE activities of Joannides, deputy director of psychological warfare at the CIA's Miami station, code-named JM/WAVE. He worked closely with DRE leaders, documents show, corresponding with them under pseudonyms, paying their travel expenses and achieving an "important degree of control" over the group, as a July 1963 agency fitness report put it.

Fifteen years later, Joannides turned up again as the agency's representative to the House assassinations committee. Dan Hardway, then a law student working for the committee, recalled Joannides as "a cold fish," thin and bespectacled, who firmly limited access to documents. Once, Hardway remembered, "he handed me a thin file and just stood there. I blew up, and he said, 'This is all you're going to get."'

But neither Hardway nor the committee's staff director, G. Robert Blakey, had any idea that Joannides had played a role in the very anti-Castro activities from 1963 that the committee was scrutinizing.

When Morley first informed him about it a decade ago, Blakey was flabbergasted. "If I'd known his role in 1963, I would have put Joannides under oath -- he would have been a witness, not a facilitator," said Blakey, a law professor at Notre Dame. "How do we know what he didn't give us?"

After Oliver Stone's 1991 film "J.F.K." fed wild speculation about the Kennedy case, Congress created the Assassination Records Review Board to release documents. But because the board, too, was not told of Joannides' 1963 work, they did not peruse his records, said Tunheim, the chairman.

"If we'd known of his role in Miami in 1963, we would have pressed for all his records," said Tunheim. He said he may ask the current CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, to release the records, even if the names of people who are still alive must be redacted for privacy.

What motive could CIA officials have to bury the details of Joannides' work for so long? Did CIA officers or their Cuban contacts know more about Oswald than has been revealed? Or was the agency simply embarrassed by brushes with the future assassin -- like the Dallas FBI officials who, after the assassination, destroyed a handwritten note Oswald had previously left for an FBI agent?

Or has Morley spent a decade on a wild goose chase?

Max Holland, who is writing a history of the Warren Commission, said the agency may be trying to preserve the principle of secrecy.

"If you start going through the files of every CIA officer who had anything to do with anything that touched the assassination, that would have no end," Holland said

Posner, the anti-conspiracy author, said that if there really were something explosive involving the CIA and Kennedy, it wouldn't be in the files -- not even in the documents the CIA has fought to keep secret.

"Most conspiracy theorists don't understand this," Posner said. "But if there really were a CIA plot, no documents would exist."

COMMENTS:

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/honolulu...ICS53OLPN8O732S

Gerald Posner and Max Holland would have you believe that the CIA operates by "word of mouth" or is so thorough that it would be preposterous to suppose documents from past ops could still exist. The file of George Joannides, who probably played a key role, not only in the assassination of JFK but of RFK as well, contradicts their position. The CIA is fighting its release, even though that clearly violates the JFK Records Act. Even Judge Tunheim, who chaired the Assassination Records Review Board, has confirmed that he and the board were misled by the CIA. Bradley Ayers, a former US Army officer who was assigned to JM/Wave from May 1963 through December 1964, identified Joannides in photographs from the Ambassador Hotel, as he has explained in THE ZENITH SECRET (2006). But then these are the same sources who insist that the "magic bullet" theory is tenable, even though it has been refuted by the physical and scientific evidence, as I have explain in "Reasoning about Assassinations" (2005/2006), which was presented at Cambridge and peer-reviewed for publication. Those who want to deny the truth about JFK and RFK continue their subversive activities, where most Americans are hard-pressed to tell the difference, even if it is accessible via google. The only "national security" interests the CIA wants to conceal involve its complicity in some of the most important assassinations in our history.

The New York Times picked up the tale of George Joannides today with a story titled C.I.A. Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery by Scott Shane.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/us/17inq...tml?_r=1&hp

It's a good summary of the issues, with new quotes from Jeff Morley, Judge John R. Tunheim, G. Robert Blakey, Dan Hardway, Gerald Posner, Max Holland, and CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano.

This is undoubtedly the widest publicity for the case so far.

- Steve

[Pat Speer]

As Ollie North demonstrated when Iran-Contra hit the fan, often just the suggestion of public scrutiny sends the government paper-shredders into overdrive. Nothing incriminating will be exposed if and/or when any CIA documents become available...because, if there ever was a smoking gun in the CIA files, it was disposed of long ago.

Well, Mark, you agree with Posner, my favorite government apologist, who is quoted at the conclusion of the current Times story: “Most conspiracy theorists don’t understand this... But if there really were a C.I.A. plot, no documents would exist.”

I'm not sure how Posner actually knows this, but he certainly sounds authoritative, doesn't he?

I suppose Nosenko told this to Posner in one of their top secret meetings.

[Robert Howard]

As Ollie North demonstrated when Iran-Contra hit the fan, often just the suggestion of public scrutiny sends the government paper-shredders into overdrive. Nothing incriminating will be exposed if and/or when any CIA documents become available...because, if there ever was a smoking gun in the CIA files, it was disposed of long ago.

Well, Mark, you agree with Posner, my favorite government apologist, who is quoted at the conclusion of the current Times story: “Most conspiracy theorists don’t understand this... But if there really were a C.I.A. plot, no documents would exist.”

I'm not sure how Posner actually knows this, but he certainly sounds authoritative, doesn't he?

I suppose Nosenko told this to Posner in one of their top secret meetings.

It would not take a great deal of vision to see the ramifications of Joannides and Zenith Technical Services being one part of the chain that operated in a supporting role, to the machinations being carried out regarding Operation TILT, and the elusive Russians ostensibly holed up in a cave in Cuba. The CIA's Mexico City Station with Win Scott, D.A. Phillips, Anne Tarasoff must also be considered when analyzing Joannides activities circa 1962-63. Some researchers may not be familiar with the FBI's Morris Childs see Code Name Solo, who is said to have discovered in 1964 in a mission sponsored by J Edgar Hoover, that "Oswald" if indeed it was really Lee Harvey Oswald, had stated in front of Cuban Embassy officials that he would kill Kennedy, "perhaps I'll do it." I am one of the few persons who is not impressed, much less persuaded, by the report of an FBI agent, who reports that Oswald did or said anything when it comes to killing Kennedy.

What is interesting is the dynamic of the Kennedy Administration's ideal of a post Cuba leadership, being fought by the CIA behind the scenes, best remembered by the various anti-Castro Cuban groups in the charge against the administration of Fidelissimo Sin Fidel.

It is a fact that the key groups which were viciously anti-Administration were the DRE, Alpha-66, Interpen, Commandos-L, the MDC and Ejercito Liberatador De Cuba.

Less than a week before the assassination of JFK the MDC held a meeting, which is recounted as follows

Home/Archive/Documents/JFK Assassination Documents/JFK Documents - Central Intelligence Agency/LA Division Work File/

NARA Record Number: 104-10309-10027 dated 11/16/63

CABLE

1. AMOT-174, in 6 NOV 63 Report DD-482 said MDC Executive member Marcos Rodriguez Menendez reported on 2 Nov meeting held by Jose Cenal Cueto, MDC Vice-President, and attended by Laureano Batista Falla. Growing activities KUBARK re PBRUMEN discussed. Batista Falla said he pessimistic at time of Bay of Pigs invasion, but now believes KUBARK

one who will overthrow Castro.

2. Batista Falla, after initial analysis MDC’s military potential concluded it almost nil, since no ship could move out from Miami River without problems. Batista Falla added that MDC does not have sufficient financial resources move to Central America either.

It was agreed at meeting to continue keep MDC members entertained so they will not learn truth.

3. Batista Falla believes it convenient MDC join military section of Prio’s Cuban Committee Liberation which has financial resources with Carlos Marquez Sterling and Commandos-L

Santiago (Alvarez) Rodriguez. Cenal said this would be negative, because Prio’s Committee apparently following anti-Yankee policy and Cenal saw possibilities of MDC approach with ODYOKE or KUBARK in political aspect. According Cenal, position to be followed by Committee would be to vegetate that is, not act in any manner.

4. Cenal upheld opinion thast interests of MDC and PBPRIME would coincide politically, and that day not far when KUBARK would offer them financial assistance [to] enable them function properly.

5. MDC also discussed whether to accept or reject assistance were it offered, concluded that if liberation of PBRUMEN were matter of few months, as it seems be, the aid should be accepted. Maximum activity should be carried out in political aspect, and form Christian Democrat Party, however if liberation long-term affair assistance should not be accepted and MDC maintain thesis of war being waged by PBRUMENS.

6. Meeting also touched on great concern executive members re ODACID tactics of aid to AMBANG-1who enjoys no sympathies among PBRUMEN’s and who has leftist tendencies.

If AMBANG-1 were to appear in Cabinet capacity in future free Cuba, this would bring chaos and civil war among PBRUMENS because situation would revert to point when Batista left and AMTHUG entered scene.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=2

Robert: Laureano Batista Falla is a significant player in the JFK saga, if, for no other reason than there are 151 HITS at NARA when performing a simple search, it is not known by myself how many documents, if any are still classified, but there appear to be many documents re Falla with Alexander Rorke in the title also, at least before the RIF consolidation process. One is 51 pages dated 11/4/63

See

http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/23197/jfksnew.txt

[Mark Knight]

As Ollie North demonstrated when Iran-Contra hit the fan, often just the suggestion of public scrutiny sends the government paper-shredders into overdrive. Nothing incriminating will be exposed if and/or when any CIA documents become available...because, if there ever was a smoking gun in the CIA files, it was disposed of long ago.

Well, Mark, you agree with Posner, my favorite government apologist, who is quoted at the conclusion of the current Times story: “Most conspiracy theorists don’t understand this... But if there really were a C.I.A. plot, no documents would exist.”

I'm not sure how Posner actually knows this, but he certainly sounds authoritative, doesn't he?

I didn't say what I said in order to agree with Posner; I said it because I believe it. Like the [phony] Oswald 201 file, nothing of interest there...while the actual 201 file disappeared long ago. Certainly you don't think the Agency didnt shred any incriminating information long ago...or at least 6 years ago, when this legal case began?

I think you give the Agency too much credit for integrity, which frankly isn't in evidence up to this point. The CIA has little credibility, and I firmlybelieve their lack of integrity extends to their files. If the info WAS there prior to the lawsuit, it damn sure won't be there afterwards.

[Robert Howard]

As Ollie North demonstrated when Iran-Contra hit the fan, often just the suggestion of public scrutiny sends the government paper-shredders into overdrive. Nothing incriminating will be exposed if and/or when any CIA documents become available...because, if there ever was a smoking gun in the CIA files, it was disposed of long ago.

Well, Mark, you agree with Posner, my favorite government apologist, who is quoted at the conclusion of the current Times story: “Most conspiracy theorists don’t understand this... But if there really were a C.I.A. plot, no documents would exist.”

I'm not sure how Posner actually knows this, but he certainly sounds authoritative, doesn't he?

I didn't say what I said in order to agree with Posner; I said it because I believe it. Like the [phony] Oswald 201 file, nothing of interest there...while the actual 201 file disappeared long ago. Certainly you don't think the Agency didnt shred any incriminating information long ago...or at least 6 years ago, when this legal case began?

I think you give the Agency too much credit for integrity, which frankly isn't in evidence up to this point. The CIA has little credibility, and I firmly believe their lack of integrity extends to their files. If the info WAS there prior to the lawsuit, it damn sure won't be there afterwards.

I would totally agree with Mark's point, and add that to this day, forty-five years afterwards, I do not believe there is anything resembling a "safe repository" of JFK Assassination files. The Secret Service destroyed files in or around 1995 that they were aware were not to be destroyed, CIA files re the death of George Polk were destroyed fairly recently, or the destruction of said files was "noticed" in that same time frame.

After the disgrace of the same topic mentioned prominently in the ARRB's final report, it is worth making the point to say how can you say there was no conspiracy when a mountain of data has went down the proverbial memory hole.

The following is just one area regarding missing documents

c. Possible ONI post-defection investigation.

The Review Board became aware of an individual named Fred Reeves of California, who was reputed to have been in charge of a post-defection "net damage assessment" of Oswald by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) shortly after Oswald's defection to the U.S.S.R. The Review Board contacted Reeves, interviewed him twice by telephone, then flew him to Washington, D.C., where the Review Board staff interviewed him in person.4

In 1959, Reeves was a civilian Naval Intelligence Operations Specialist.5 Reeves told the Review Board that a week or so after Oswald defected to the U.S.S.R., two officers from ONI in Washington, D.C.,6 called him and asked him to conduct a background investigation at the Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro, California, Oswald's last duty station before his discharge from the Marine Corps. Reeves said that he went to El Toro, copied Oswald's enlisted personnel file, obtained the names of many of his associates, and mailed this information to ONI in Washington, D.C. He said that ONI in Washington ran the post-defection investigation of Oswald, and that the Washington officers then directed various agents in the field. Although Reeves did not interview anyone himself, he said that later (circa late 1959 or early 1960), approximately 12 to 15 "119" reports concerning Oswald (OPNAV Forms 5520119 are ONI's equivalent of an FBI FD302 investigative report), crossed his desk. Reeves said he was aware of "119" reports from Japan and Texas, and that the primary concern of the reports he read on Oswald was to ascertain what damage had been done to national security by Oswald's defection. Reeves reported that he also saw eight to ten "119" reports on Oswald after the assassination, and that he was confident he was not confusing the two events in his mind.

In the spring of 1998, Review Board staff members met with two Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) records management officials, one of whom personally verified that he had searched for District Intelligence Office records (with negative results) from the San Diego, Dallas, and New Orleans District Intelligence Offices in 1996 with negative results. This search included "119" reports from the time period 1959-1964, during an extensive search of NCIS record group 181. The search included any records that would have been related to Oswald's defection. Thus, the Review Board ultimately located no documentary evidence to substantiate Reeves' claims.

The Oswald/ONI references above are from the Assassination Records Review Board’s Final Report, and was just one area where missing and/or destroyed documents were recorded. Maybe the point is, that there is no safe place for JFK Documents, destruction of classified and declassified documents has become an American tradition, Helen Gandy, FBI secretary to Hoover's destroyed what were no doubt some of Edgar's files in '73 while Oliver North did the same during the Iran Contra flap. Add that to the missing 18 and a half minutes from the Nixon Watergate Tapes, to the 14 and a half minute missing audio from LBJ's archives and you have quite a laundry list, and not one to be proud of.

Edited October 19, 2009 by Robert Howard

[Robert E. Cox]

I didn't say what I said in order to agree with Posner; I said it because I believe it. Like the [phony] Oswald 201 file, nothing of interest there...while the actual 201 file disappeared long ago. Certainly you don't think the Agency didnt shred any incriminating information long ago...or at least 6 years ago, when this legal case began?

I think you give the Agency too much credit for integrity, which frankly isn't in evidence up to this point. The CIA has little credibility, and I firmlybelieve their lack of integrity extends to their files. If the info WAS there prior to the lawsuit, it damn sure won't be there afterwards.

I beg your pardon. My attempted sarcasm regarding Posner's comment has apparently gone awry. Perhaps I should have added a smiley face, or written "Posner agrees with you" instead. I find it exceedingly ironic that the individual who so hampered the cause of legitimate JFK assassination research with his "Case Closed" proclamation now sides with us in our distrust of the C.I.A. and other government agencies.

Rest assured, Mark, that should "CIA" come up in a word-association game, the word "integrity" would not pop into my mind.

[Robert Howard]

I didn't say what I said in order to agree with Posner; I said it because I believe it. Like the [phony] Oswald 201 file, nothing of interest there...while the actual 201 file disappeared long ago. Certainly you don't think the Agency didnt shred any incriminating information long ago...or at least 6 years ago, when this legal case began?

I think you give the Agency too much credit for integrity, which frankly isn't in evidence up to this point. The CIA has little credibility, and I firmlybelieve their lack of integrity extends to their files. If the info WAS there prior to the lawsuit, it damn sure won't be there afterwards.

I beg your pardon. My attempted sarcasm regarding Posner's comment has apparently gone awry. Perhaps I should have added a smiley face, or written "Posner agrees with you" instead. I find it exceedingly ironic that the individual who so hampered the cause of legitimate JFK assassination research with his "Case Closed" proclamation now sides with us in our distrust of the C.I.A. and other government agencies.

Rest assured, Mark, that should "CIA" come up in a word-association game, the word "integrity" would not pop into my mind.

Home/Archive/Documents/JFK Assassination Documents/JFK Documents - Central Intelligence Agency/HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm)/HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm - reel 26: DRE - JURE)/173 Pages

NARA Record Number: 1994.04.12.15:48:50:530005

Reel 26, Folder F - DRE.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/....do?docId=55222

The above link may be helpful to determine possible linkages in the whole saga of Joannides, Zenith Technical Services...

et cetera

[Steve Rosen]

Jefferson Morley is appearing on the ‘The Cedric Muhammad and Black Coffee Program’ on Wednesday, January 20, 2010, at 2 p.m. EST. The show runs from 12 p.m. and 5 p.m EST.

See http://zh-hk.facebook.com/note.php?note_id...ents&ref=mf

- Exclusive Q & A With Jefferson Morley, Former Staff Writer For The Washington Post Who Has Filed A Lawsuit Against The CIA over the records of George Joannides, the former Chief of Psychological Operations For the CIA’s Miami station

(we’ll discuss the relevance of the case to the assassination of JFK; President Obama’s recent Executive Order establishing a Declassification Center: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office...ity-information ; and COINTELPRO and the news in December that that the Department of Homeland Security improperly spied on the Nation of Islam: http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Na...cle_6682.shtml)

* ‘The Cedric Muhammad and Black Coffee Program Broadcasts Live Each Wednesday from 12 to 5 PM EST (USA) at BlackElectorate.com (http://blackelectorate.com) and Cedricmuhammad.com at: http://www.cedricmuhammad.com/media/

- Steve

Edited January 20, 2010 by Steve Rosen

[Steve Rosen]

Jeff Morley spoke with José Pertierra of Cubadebate in October 2009. Miss Machetera of Machetera published an English translation of the interview on her blog on October 21, 2009. It is a good interview with some new details about the case.

A few quotes:

"The story that we’re told about Joannides is a show. A lie."

"f the documents being hidden truly do not incriminate the CIA, why do they want them to be hidden?"

"The documents I have show that Joannides traveled to New Orleans to complete tasks that the CIA charged him with in 1963 and 1964. We don’t have any information about those operations. Joannides can’t tell us, because he died in 2001. Those are the only documents about what he did in that city with the DRE members."

"The CIA has the legal obligation to declassify those documents, but it does not want to declassify them. It’s locked them up. I believe that the lockup sources from the CIA department in charge of Latin America."

"Washington has a mistaken perception about what is truly national security."

"I am only asking that the CIA obey the law."

English translation:

http://machetera.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/...ght-to-hide-it/

Spanish version:

http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2009/1...bedezca-la-ley/

Jeff will speak about the case on Wednesday, January 20 at 2 p.m. EST on the ‘The Cedric Muhammad and Black Coffee Program’ at BlackElectorate.com (http://blackelectorate.com) and Cedricmuhammad.com at: http://www.cedricmuhammad.com/media/

- Steve

[Steve Rosen]

An brief update on Morley v. CIA is published at Jeff Morley's website World Opinion Search.

WOS is a blog written and edited by Jeff Morley that uses search engines to find the best opinion journalism from all over the world. Definitely worth checking out.

WOS: http://worldopinionsearch.com/v1/

Article link: http://worldopinionsearch.com/v1/2010/02/0...n-morley-v-cia/

- Steve

[William Kelly]

Did Joannides serve with the CIA in Greece?

BK

[Steve Rosen]

Did Joannides serve with the CIA in Greece?

BK

Bill,

George E. Joannides did serve with the CIA in Athens, Greece, his place of birth.

He was stationed in Athens from 1958 to 1962, and from 1964 to 1967.

Joannides was most likely involved in political action (influence, bribery, etc.)

For those just tuning in, Jefferson Morley is currently suing the CIA in federal court for Joannides records.

Steve

See http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2001-04-12/ne...elation-19-63/3 for pre-1963 bio.

See http://www.playboy.com/magazine/features/jfk/jfk-page10.html for post-1963 bio.

See Jeff's blog at http://worldopinionsearch.com. Great site.

[William Kelly]

Did Joannides serve with the CIA in Greece?

BK

Bill,

George E. Joannides did serve with the CIA in Athens, Greece, his place of birth.

He was stationed in Athens from 1958 to 1962, and from 1964 to 1967.

Joannides was most likely involved in political action (influence, bribery, etc.)

For those just tuning in, Jefferson Morley is currently suing the CIA in federal court for Joannides records.

Steve

See http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2001-04-12/ne...elation-19-63/3 for pre-1963 bio.

See http://www.playboy.com/magazine/features/jfk/jfk-page10.html for post-1963 bio.

See Jeff's blog at http://worldopinionsearch.com. Great site.

Thanks,

I remember the foreign film "Z," which is about a political assassination in Greece that is investigated and prosecuted by an honest and independent district attorney and was wondering if Joannidies had anything to do with the real incident that film was based on.

I've also come into some interesting information that when Joannidies was there, he worked under a CIA station chief named John "Jack" Maury, who had previously worked as the chief of CIA covert ops in the USSR and was the case officer for Oleg Penkovsky at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I had never heard of Maury before and for his name to come up twice in two key areas I thought I should start a file on him.

BK

[William Kelly]

I don't know if this has been posted before, but in Nov. 2008 the CIA apparently responded to the Morley FOIA case with a 75 page declaration that includes the fact that there are 1100 CIA records being withheld until 2017 under the JFK Act, and they can be withheld even longer if the CIA requests the President continue to keep them from being released.

They also note that of the 13 records in this group that could relate to Joannides, they total over 1100 pages alone.

Also note that they acknowedge that Joannides was operating "undercover" when he worked with the HSCA, as well as when he was with JM/WAVE (1962-64).

There is also an interesting elaboration on the now typical "GLOMAR" response.

BK

JFFFERSON MORLEY Plantiff,

v.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY Defendant

DECLARATION OF DELORES M. NELSON

...IV. SEARCH OF RECODRS RELEASED TO NARA

40. The Dorn Declaration describes the JFK Act and the Assassination Records Review Board ("ARRB") created there under. See Exhibit A PP 26-30. With the exception of approximately 1,100 documents withheld in their entirety until 2017, all of the CIA's JFK-related documents were released in full or in part to NARA. 7.

7. The approximately 1,100 documents are located in NARA's protected collection and will be released in 2017 unless the CIA appeals to the President to withhold their disclosure. On such an appeal, the CIA would need to argue, and the President would need to certify, that "(i) continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and (ii) the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure." President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, 44 U.S.C. S 2107 note (2000)

page 20 Nelson

page 22 "…The index search yielded thirteen documents that were potentially responsive to Plaintiff's FOIA request. These thirteen documents totally 1,112 pages…..

59. As noted above, in conjunction with its production of the JFK-related recordspursuant to the JFK Act, the CIA previously acknowledged Joannides' participationin two specific covert projects, operations, or assignments: JM/WAVE or JMWAVE from 1962 through 1964 and Joannides' service as a CIA representative to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations from 1978 through 1979. Joannides had been undercover during both of these assignments."

B. The CIA's Failure to Assert a GLOMAR Response Would Damage National Security.

61. In a typical response to a FOIA request, the CIA's answer, either to provide or not provide records sought, in effect confirms the existence or non-existence of CIA records. Typically, this confirmation neither threatens the national security nor reveals intelligence sources and methods. The response focuses on releasing or withholding specific substantive information and the fact that the CIA possesses or does not possess records is not itself a classified fact. However, when the fact that the CIA possesses or does not possess records is itself classified and reasonably could reveal intelligence sources, methods and activities, the CIA cannot confirm that it possesses such information. On the other hand, the CIA also may not deny the Court or in legal proceedings that it does not have responsive records when it in fact does. Thus, the CIA's only permissible alternative is to neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of responsive records. Such a "neither confirm nor deny" response is called a GLOMAR response. 10.

The CIA asserted a GLOMAR response over the unacknowledged time periods in this case because Joannides' participation in covert projects, operations, or assignments during these unacknowledged time periods would itself be classified.

Footnote: 10. The "GLOMAR" term comes from the case Phillippi v. CIA. 546 F.2d 1009 (DC Cir. 1976, which upheld the CIA's use of the "neither confirm nor deny" response to a FOIA request for records concerning the CIA's reported contacts with the media regarding the Hughes GLOMAR Explorer.

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21 November 2008

Delores M. Nelson

Chief Public Information Programs Division

Central intelligence Agency

Thanks to Jim Lesar for sharing this doc with us, and to Jeff Morley for keeping the case going. - BK

Edited March 21, 2010 by William Kelly