The Washington Post’s Bomb on George Joannides
Has the tide turned in mainstream media?
By: Paul Bleau
Jefferson Morley spoke with me two days before the story broke. He gave me a scoop. The Washington Post was about to publish an article about a subject he had been working on for years, namely, a story about a mysterious CIA officer named George Joannides. The Post was about to unmask him as an officer who oversaw a Cuban exile group that had direct contact with the alleged lone-nut assassin of JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald. This group, the DRE, had multiple interactions with Lee Harvey Oswald during the all-important summer that preceded the murder in 1963. Joannides would have had to have been informed about these suspicious incidents. This propaganda expert instructed DRE operatives to communicate Oswald’s pro-Castro bona fides to the FBI and media after the assassination. He would later be inserted by the CIA as their liaison for part of the HSCA 1976 investigation. He and the CIA had lied about his profile, and Joannides used his role to obstruct the efforts of HSCA investigators.
Jeff asked for advice and my help in creating a buzz around this. So, I gladly did, not because Jeff and I are close collaborators, nor because I do not have concerns about the Washington Post and mainstream media as a whole when it comes to talking about their bête noire, nor that I do not have some misgivings about the current focus of the Luna task force on declassification. I helped because the Joannides story is newsworthy and helps tilt the playing field even more in favor of those fighting for the truth. I was convinced that the upcoming article would be a milestone because of the position that a world-leading mainstream media outlet would stake.
Very simply, we gave a heads-up to key contacts about a scoop on what was about to break. The reactions were immediate: Jeff received many calls, and I was invited by local media for two interviews about the story. Feedback from researcher contacts varied between expressions of mistrust, interest, and offers to spread the news.
Now that I have seen the article, gone through my interviews, and had a number of exchanges about the pros and cons of the coverage, it seems an opportune moment to discuss the article and the Luna task force’s work.
The importance of the article
This article is quite important, despite what anybody may say to attack it. No matter how much one feels disdain towards mainstream media complacency over sixty years, the fact that one of the U.S.’s most important media outlets on political affairs wrote what they did is nothing short of monumental. It is the suspicious mutism of sixty years on this tragedy by the fourth estate that renders what was written by the Washington Post so very compelling.
Let’s be honest. Mainstream media should have denormalized the Warren Commission narrative of a lone nut assassin scenario still peddled by disinformation artists, history books, and many in the media decades ago. Some instance, in 1975 when the Zapruder film was shown to the world on Good Night America; or a few years later when the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded there was a probable conspiracy; or when declassified documents released by the Assassination Records Review Board the mid-nineties showed that there were a combined total of over 40 witnesses to wounds proving a frontal shot, at both Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where JFK was first treated after being hit, and at Bethesda Medical Center, where the autopsy was conducted; or later when the declassified Lopez Report confirmed that Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City shortly before the assassination and that CIA officials lied and obfuscated about this; and even just recently during the Luna task force congressional hearings where we heard important witnesses and Anna Luna herself decimate the Warren Commission findings with blistering statements…. Mainstream media has largely steered clear of these inconvenient truths.
Researchers know all about Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s program for manipulating the press and gaslighting the public, which likely lost some of its clout with the entry of the new Trump team. Currently, the media must be conflicted by the prospect of exposing their own weak performance on this issue over six decades. With the levy breaking and the traditional malarkey about JFK becoming a growing source of ridicule, the recently declassified Joannides document may have provided an opening to jump ship… Ha! This was not known until now, and it proves the (now defanged) CIA lied and hid stuff… Ergo, it is not our fault, and Luna and Tulsi will not turn on us for saying what is quickly becoming an official government narrative through Miss Luna herself! May as well be the first to spill the beans!
Is this what is happening? Is the Washington Post showing courage or simply reading the writing on the wall? I don’t know! And I don’t care. A Rubicon of truth has been crossed and will be archived forever. The tables have turned. Now, the real whack jobs are the late Vince Bugliosi and his Keystone Cop disciples who are trying to spin this. They are flailing away. Front page news on the U.S.’s third-largest print media, with 130,000 subscribers to their paper edition and 2.5 million digital subscribers, is nothing to scoff at. Jeff Morley and Congresswoman Luna deserve kudos for bringing us to where we now are. The lone-nut apologists are marginalized, if not a laughingstock, and serious researchers who were a target of derision are vindicated.
Unprecedented information quality from a news giant
While the importance of the bearer of news cannot be understated, it is the impact of what was written that will echo far and wide, and hopefully for a long time.
Some are telling me that while WaPo may have been the ones to break the Watergate story, they are also the ones who shielded the CIA from negative fallout by underplaying the significance of just who the burglars were and their ties to intelligence. My answer to them is that no matter what they may have done or omitted to do in the past, this clearly cannot be interpreted as a redux with what we have seen so far. We will ascertain whether this story has legs and where it may or may not go later. But I see no problem with the all-important first impressions.
Consider: The title, subtitle and first paragraph are explosive!
“The CIA reveals more of its connections to Lee Harvey Oswald
New documents show an officer known only as Howard managed a Cuban group that interacted with Oswald in the months before the JFK assassination.
For more than 60 years, the CIA claimed it had little or no knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald’s activities before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. That wasn’t true, new documents unearthed by a House task force prove.”
The reader now knows for certain that Oswald was no lone nut and that he was on the CIA radar, and the CIA lied about this. The article goes on to explain the Joannides, aka Howard, affair described above. The quotes come from a variety of important sources, and they are damaging.
Jefferson Morley, a longtime JFK researcher and former Washington Post reporter, who first sued the CIA for their assassination files in 2003: “The burden of proof has shifted. There’s a story here that’s been hidden and avoided, and now it needs to be explored. It’s up to the government to explain.” And, “At least 35 CIA employees handled reports on Oswald between 1959 and 1963, including a half dozen officers who reported personally to [counterintelligence chief James] Angleton or deputy director Richard Helms.”
“Joannides began to change the way file access was handled,” committee staff member Dan Hardway testified before Luna’s task force in May. “The obstruction of our efforts by Joannides escalated over the summer [of 1978]. … It was clear that CIA had begun to carefully review files before delivering them to us for review.”
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA counterintelligence officer who has delved deeply into the case, said, “This looks a hell of a lot like a CIA operation.” He said a plausible theory was rogue CIA officers created the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, unknown to the agency, and that “the CIA covered it up not because they were involved, but because they were trying to hide the secrets of that period.”
“We are getting closer to the truth about Oswald and the CIA, but I do think there is more to come,” said Senior U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim of Minneapolis, who chaired the assassinations review board in the 1990s. “The Joannides disclosures are most important, I think.”
And how about Congresswoman Luna for a grand finale: “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. I believe this rogue element intentionally turned a blind eye to the individuals that orchestrated it, to which they had direct connections. I think this rogue element within the CIA looked at JFK as a radical. They did not like his foreign policy, and that’s why they justified turning a blind eye to his assassination and those involved.”
Of note: not one single voice still peddling the lone nut fairy tale is heard from in this article. Perhaps the Post did question some and found them to be lacking in credibility, or could not find a credible dissenting voice to come forward, or simply has come to the conclusion that there is no added value for their readers to hear from empty cans that make a lot of noise.
If one has worked many years arguing that there was a conspiracy with slow progress being made, what more can one ask for? I ask the skeptics among us: Do you think punches were pulled so far on this particular story to spare the CIA? Has there ever been an article from mainstream media that has gone this far in discrediting the official narrative and their snake oil sales reps? Do you not prefer this coverage over the lopsided coverage lone scenario peddlers used to get? Who looks like foolish tale spinners now? Chalk this up as a win.
Concluding remarks
For all the reasons mentioned above and my personal experience with media questioning me about the significance of the Post article, I am convinced that this represents a real victory for our side. It reverses the tables on the disorganized opponents of the truth, and it puts pressure on the whole media industry to state their positions and dig deeper.
I do have some concerns about where all this goes.
The article says there is more to come and highlights what Joannides' field reports on Oswald, the DRE, and the Fair Play for Cuba may reveal. When will we get these?
Congresswoman Anna Luna is being attacked by the very same forces that many researchers believe are being backed by the CIA. We know the CIA devised a game plan to counter Warren Commission critics, and there are many signs that they still rear their ugly heads. Luna and those advising her need to take advantage of this singular moment in time to unravel these dirty tricks and hopefully reveal and critique the disinformation network. This will defend Luna’s reputation and agenda and pre-empt the sneaky character assassination attempts before they take hold.
The current information release effort is impressive. Other voices need to be heard, including specialists respected for their knowledge and professionalism, and excluding loose-cannon know-it-alls as well as lone-nut water carriers. There is a legitimate fear, I believe, by some that the Luna task force endeavors are too centric on CIA misdirection and a couple of individuals rather than focused on the mechanics of the conspiracy. My analysis of files, including many recent ones, points in directions worthy of more exploration. They say a lot about the who, what, when and why of it all. Anna Luna needs guidance, and the gatekeepers, yes, this includes you Jeff, need to know what lanes to occupy and who should be brought in. It seems to me that people like Jim DiEugenio and Malcolm Blunt could be credible advisors who could enrich Luna’s sources of information.
It would be an error to try to find a limited hangout to protect the image of the CIA. This will only prolong the pain. On the other hand, the marketer in me understands that perception is reality and reputational risk is high. However, there are more than enough examples of rebranding and new imaging efforts that have successfully saved products and organizations that were in a tailspin. Many have gone on to see these thrive. Old Spice did it, George Bush Junior was born again, and CIA 1963 no longer exists, just like those who created the Gulf of Tonkin incident. In this volatile world, CIA 2025 is needed more than ever.
Finally, this murder is not solved. Investigations have been continuously sabotaged. Obstruction of justice in this case has been around for more than sixty years. There are still many stones that have been left unturned. A new investigation is in order, a genuine one. The Department of Justice right now has serious credibility issues due to the Epstein debacle. To lead one, I nominate Congresswoman Luna. Jefferson Morley needs to be complemented by a synergetic mind who excels in areas where Jeff is less at ease. Here, I would suggest Jim DiEugenio, who, through his research network, knows who the specialists are on the Secret Service, the Tippit assassination, Jack Ruby, the JFK Act, etc. What a formidable team this would be!
(Tom Jackman's Washington Post article may be viewed here, but you may have to create a free account to view)
