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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
In 1978, Joannides suddenly reappeared in the JFK assassination story. His return is what especially intrigues scholars of the assassination.
By the late 1970s, the CIA had fallen into political disfavor in Washington. Revelations about Richard Helms' role in plotting to kill Castro and other foreign leaders had prompted Congress to take another look at the Kennedy assassination. In May 1978 Joannides was called out of retirement by CIA general counsel Scott Breckinridge. His assignment: to serve as the CIA's liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which had been charged with reopening the investigation into the murders of Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Breckinridge told me in an interview before his death in 2000 that he did not know of Joannides' 1963 assignment when he chose him for the liaison job.
As he worked with House Assassinations Committee investigators, Joannides again concealed the involvement of his Cuban operatives with Oswald not long before Kennedy's murder. He withheld all records concerning his relationship with the DRE, even when they were specifically requested, according to a log that he kept. The log is now in the National Archives.
"The fact that the CIA didn't tell the committee everything in his background suggests that the purpose of his assignment might have been to protect information, not share it," said Tunheim, the Assassination Records Review Board chair.
Blakey, the Notre Dame law professor who served as the House committee's chief counsel, now says Joannides was guilty of obstructing Congress. "The law says that anyone who corruptly endeavors to influence, obstruct or impede the exercise of the power of inquiry by [Congress] is guilty of a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. That's exactly what he did. He did not give us the information that was manifestly relevant."
The House Assassination Committee's final report, released in 1979, concluded that Kennedy had been killed by Oswald and other conspirators who could not be identified. In the report, Blakey vouched for the CIA's cooperation with the congressional inquiry. He now says he was wrong.
When asked if Blakey had misstated any facts about Joannides' tenure as liaison to the House committee, CIA spokesman Crispell replied, "We are not going to debate Mr. Blakey."
"The JFK records review board examined the issue of Mr. Joannides' work with the [committee] in 1998," he stated.
Tunheim, chair of Assassination Records Review Board from 1994 to 1998, when it issued its final report, disputed Crispell's assertion. He said the board had merely identified Joannides and declassified a handful of documents from his personnel file.
"We did not consider the matter of his obstructing Congress one way or the other," he said. "I don't think we knew enough about Joannides at that point to assess his significance. If the board was in existence now, we would certainly pursue it."
Blakey says Joannides deceived him, and he remains angry about it 25 years later. "When Congress opened its investigation, we were especially interested in the DRE because they had pre-assassination contact with Oswald," Blakey said. "That Joannides never told us those were his people just makes me go ballistic. He was a material witness. He shouldn't have been the liaison. He should have been interviewed under oath."
Blakey does not believe Joannides was part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. He speculates that the CIA man learned something about Oswald that was innocent but difficult to explain when Kennedy was killed.
Dan Hardway, a lawyer in North Carolina who worked as one of Blakey's investigators in 1978, is more suspicious. While attempting to review CIA records relevant to Kennedy's death, Hardway had regular contact with Joannides. He often complained to Blakey that Joannides was deliberately hindering his efforts. Hardway had several angry confrontations with the uncooperative CIA man -- never suspecting Joannides was concealing his own personal knowledge of the events of 1963.
"Now there is no doubt in my mind that Joannides deliberately hid evidence of an assassination conspiracy from us," Hardway said in a telephone interview.
In Miami, the former leaders of the Cuban Student Directorate who worked with Joannides in 1963 remember him with respect. Forty years ago, they were passionate young freedom fighters striving to save Cuba from communism. Now they are successful businessmen and professionals in Miami. They recall a close but combative relationship with the CIA man they knew as "Howard."
"He was an impressive man in many ways," said Luis Fernandez Rocha, a physician who served as the titular leader of the DRE in 1963 and met often with Joannides. "He had clout. He could make decisions on the spot."
The former DRE leaders deny any knowledge of or role in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. They differ on whether their CIA handler was aware of the group's contacts with Lee Harvey Oswald in August 1963.
Bringuier says he did not know Joannides and never spoke to him.
Fernandez Rocha says he "does not recall" talking to the CIA man about the former Marine who attempted to infiltrate the DRE.
Isidro Borja, an engineer who was active in the DRE's military efforts, says that he is "certain" that "Howard" was aware of the group's efforts to expose Oswald as a pro-Castro sympathizer in August 1963.
Whatever Joannides knew about Oswald before the assassination, he took the secret to his grave in 1990. But despite the CIA's denials, assassination researchers suspect that records still locked away at the agency might shed light on the subject.
"It is unfortunate that litigation is necessary to force the Central Intelligence Agency to provide documents and information that the public has a right to know," said Posner.
