A newly released CIA memo reveals that George Joannides, an undercover officer specializing in psychological warfare, used the alias “Howard Gebler” while managing an exile group opposed to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The group also interacted with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963—contradicting decades of CIA denials about Joannides’s role in events leading up to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
For years, the CIA maintained that it had no ties to the Cuban Student Directorate (DRE), an anti-communist group that clashed publicly with Oswald in 1963 and played a pivotal role in publicizing his pro-Castro sympathies after Kennedy’s slaying.
However, a CIA memo dated Jan. 17, 1963, released this week under the JFK Records Act, shows that Joannides was issued false identification under the name “Howard Gebler.” The memo notes that CIA’s Miami station, known as JM/WAVE, requested alias documentation for Joannides, including a fake driver’s license….