For over sixty years, the CIA has denied knowing about Lee Harvey Oswald’s ties to Cuban activist groups. But newly declassified documents now show the agency not only knew about those ties—it may have helped orchestrate them.
At the center of the storm is George Joannides, a decorated CIA officer and expert in psychological warfare. The recently released records reveal that Joannides operated undercover under the alias “Howard Mark Gebler” and had deep ties to the anti-Castro group Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE). He even received a Washington, D.C., driver’s license under his assumed name.
The DRE was no minor player. It was a CIA-funded Cuban exile group operating out of Miami, and Joannides was allegedly its direct handler. Multiple witnesses, including former DRE member Jose Antonio Lanuza, claim Joannides funneled instructions through DRE leader Luis Fernandez Rocha. At the same time, Oswald—infamously involved with the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee—publicly clashed with the DRE in New Orleans.
That clash happened just three months before President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
And here’s the kicker: Oswald reportedly offered to work as a “mole” within the pro-Castro organization. So while the CIA was secretly directing the anti-Castro DRE, Oswald, the man later blamed for JFK’s murder, was engaging with both sides.
Despite this, the CIA denied three separate times that a “Howard” ever existed in relation to the DRE. But the new files—released under President Trump’s JFK records memorandum—prove that not only did “Howard” exist, but he was George Joannides all along.
Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who sits on the House Oversight Committee’s task force for declassifying secrets, told The Washington Post: “This confirms much of what the public already speculated: that the CIA was lying to the American people, and that there was a cover-up.”
The scandal doesn’t end there. After Kennedy’s assassination, Joannides was appointed as the CIA’s liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. He wasn’t just a witness—he was in charge of overseeing what the committee saw.
Dan Hardway, a former committee staffer, testified that Joannides stonewalled their investigation, manipulated access to documents, and escalated obstruction as the investigation progressed. Hardway accused the CIA of carefully vetting and redacting files before the committee could review them.
When the Assassination Records Review Board revisited Joannides’ role in the 1990s, they requested files under his alias. The CIA’s official response? “No such person.” That was later admitted to be false—because Joannides’ alias wasn’t listed in their database. It was so secretive, it was hidden even from internal records.
Rep. Luna says the findings point to a rogue operation within the CIA that intentionally misled both Congress and the American people. “There was a rogue element that operated within the CIA, outside the purview of Congress and the federal government, that knowingly engaged in a cover-up of the JFK assassination,” she said.
For those who’ve long suspected foul play, these new revelations don’t just fuel conspiracy theories—they confirm them. The CIA didn’t just fumble intelligence. It appears they ran interference, buried evidence, and used operatives like Joannides to keep the truth locked away for decades.
Now, the question is no longer whether the CIA lied about Oswald. It’s why—and what else they’re still hiding.
