The CIA Stonewalls

[Tim Gratz]

Rare indeed when Gerald Posner and John McAdams agree with Oliver Stone and Anthony Summers but a wide cross section of authors interested in the assassination sent this letter to the New York Review of Books. Members will find it interesting. It would be interesting to examine the motion filed by the CIA. Your tax dollars at work.

By Anthony Summers, Don DeLillo, Elias Demetracopoulos, G. Robert Blakey, Gerald Posner, Jefferson Morley, Jim Lesar, John McAdams, John Newman, Norman Mailer, Paul Hoch, Richard Whalen, Robbyn Swan, Scott Armstrong, Vincent Bugliosi

To the Editors:

It is disappointing to learn that the Central Intelligence Agency filed motions in federal court in May 2005 to block disclosure of records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy forty-one years ago.

In response to the journalist Jefferson Morley's lawsuit brought under the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA is seek-ing to prevent release of records about a deceased CIA operations officer named George E. Joannides.

Joannides's story is clearly of substantial historical interest. CIA records show that the New Orleans chapter of a Cuban exile group that Joannides guided and monitored in Miami had a series of encounters with the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald three months before Kennedy was murdered. Fifteen years later, Joannides also served as the agency's liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He did not disclose his role in the events of 1963 to Congress. The public record of the assassination and its confused investigatory aftermath will not be complete without his story.

The spirit of the law is clear. The JFK Records Act of 1992, approved unanimously by Congress, mandated that all assassination-related records be reviewed and disclosed "immediately."

When Morley filed his lawsuit in December 2003, thirteen published JFK authors supported his request for the records in an open letter to The New York Review of Books (www.nybooks.com/articles/16865).

Eighteen months later, the CIA is still stonewalling. The agency now acknowledges that it possesses an undisclosed number of documents related to Joannides's actions and responsibilities in 1963 which it will not release in any form. Thus records related to Kennedy's assassination are still being hidden for reasons of "national security."

As published authors of divergent views on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, we say the agency's position is spurious and untenable. Its continuing non-compliance with the JFK Records Act does no service to the public. It defies the will of Congress. It obscures the public record on a subject of enduring national interest. It encourages conspiracy mongering. And it undermines public confidence in the intelligence community at a time when collective security requires the opposite.

We insist the CIA observe the spirit of the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Act by immediately releasing all relevant records on the activities of George Joannides and any records at all that include his name or relate in any way to the assassination story—as prescribed by the JFK Records Act. The law and common sense require it.

G. Robert Blakey, former general counsel, House Select Committee on Assassinations

Jefferson Morley, journalist

Scott Armstrong, founder National Security Archive

Vincent Bugliosi, author and former prosecutor

Elias Demetracopoulos, retired journalist

Stephen Dorril, University of Huddersfield

Don DeLillo, author of Libra

Paul Hoch, JFK researcher

David Kaiser, Naval War College

Michael Kurtz, Southeastern Louisiana University, author of Crime of the Century

George Lardner, Jr., journalist

Jim Lesar, Assassination Archives and Research Center

Norman Mailer, author of Oswald's Tale

John McAdams, moderator, alt.assassination.jfk

John Newman, author of Oswald and the CIA

Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed

Oliver Stone, director JFK

Anthony Summers, author of Not in Your Lifetime

Robbyn Swan, author

David Talbot, founding editor, Salon.com

Cyril Wecht, former coroner, Alleghany County, PA

Richard Whalen, author of Founding Father

Gordon Winslow, former archivist of Dade County, Florida.

David Wrone, University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, author The Zapruder Film

[Tim Gratz]

It would be interesting to determine who drafted the letter (and what attorney is representing the plaintiffs in the litigation).

[Tim Gratz]

It is interesting to speculate what, if anything, the CIA is trying to hide when refusing to produce the documents.

Speculation to be sure but what if the documents requested included documents that established a relationship between the CIA and Oswald?

[Mark Knight]

Speculation to be sure but what if the documents requested included documents that established a relationship between the CIA and Oswald?

Considering what is known of Oswald's "defection" and "repatriation," it would only confirm something many have speculated upon for decades.

Implications of that? Depends entirely upon what other information might end up being revealed.

[Jim Root]

I am still attempting to understand the relationship of George E. Joannides to Edwin Walker. It seems that they worked together in the late 1940's during the Greek Civil War. Did their relationship continue into the 50's and 60's?

"Oh what a tangled web we weave........"

Jim Root