To this day the CIA steadfastly refuses to disclose the Joannides files to the American people, along with some 1,100 other records relating to the assassination, records that consist of tens of thousands of pages.
Whatever strained meaning one puts on the term "national security," how in the world would the disclosure of the Joannides files to the public put America into jeopardy? After all, the Kennedy assassination took place 50 years ago, supposedly by a lone nut communist Marine. Surely the CIA doesn't believe that the disclosure of the files would subject the United States to a communist takeover or that it would start the dominoes falling in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. There's got to be another reason for keeping the Joannides files under wraps, one other than "national security."
When the counsel for the House Select Committee, G. Robert Blakey, and the chairman of the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s, federal Judge John R. Tunheim, learned that the CIA had deliberately kept Joannides's relationship with the DRE secret from both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee, they were outraged over the CIA's misconduct. Both of them held that that the information should have been disclosed to the Warren Commission and to the House Select Committee and that Joannides never have been serving as the CIA's contact man for the House Select Committee. Instead, he should have been testifying as a witness. By the time the CIA's deception was uncovered, however, Joannides could no longer testify because he was dead. The decades of CIA secrecy had inured to the agency's benefit.
So, why is the CIA still fighting to keep the Joannides records secret and, indeed, those 1,100 other records relating to the Kennedy assassination?
Good question!
Update: See "Who Was George Joannides and Why Is His Story Important" by Jefferson Morley, posted November 15 at JFKfacts.org.
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