The CIA is withholding evidence that it knew Lee Harvey Oswald, the “lone gunman” who allegedly killed then-US president John F. Kennedy in 1963, was involved in anti-Cuban covert ops just months before the assassination, journalist Jefferson Morley has claimed.
Not only was the agency aware of his activities, they never told the Warren Commission – the ostensibly independent body tasked with investigating Kennedy’s killing. They even went so far as to deny they had any knowledge of them at all, Morley – a prominent JFK researcher – stated at a press conference held by the Mary Ferrell Foundation on Monday.
“What the CIA is hiding is what they’ve always hidden, which is their sources and methods as they relate to Lee Harvey Oswald,” he said. “We’re talking about smoking-gun proof of a CIA operation involving Lee Harvey Oswald.”
According to the journalist, Oswald was involved in an operation aimed at discrediting American supporters of Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro.
Morley bases his claims on the files of CIA agent George Joannides, who worked with anti-Castro Cuban exile groups. At least 44 documents in Joannides’ files are still classified by the CIA and, he said, could provide further insight into the apparent effort to present Oswald as an “unhinged pro-Castro figure.”
The Mary Ferrell Foundation sued the Biden administration and the National Archives in October, demanding the release of 16,000 classified documents on the JFK assassination that were ordered unsealed by former president Bill Clinton in 1992.
While most experts don’t believe the trove contains irrefutable evidence of CIA or other government involvement in Kennedy’s murder, many suspect they include information on the agency’s contacts with Oswald prior to the killing. Morley has previously sued the CIA in an effort to have the Joannides files declassified, but has been unsuccessful so far.
JFK had fallen out with the CIA in the months before his death due to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs disaster, which he saw as an attempt to railroad the US into war with Cuba. The agency was deeply involved in the anti-Castro movement in the US, and Oswald, who returned to the US in 1962 after defecting to the Soviet Union two and a half years earlier, was involved in the local “Fair Play for Cuba” movement.