The CIA has finally released some of the documents on CIA officer George Joannides that writer Jefferson Morley has been demanding for over a decade. The ARRB did not include these documents in the ARC, so they are not a formal part of the JFK Collection, but they are, of course, worth a look. This note will link to copies of the documents and some commentary on them, but at this point I’m not ready to post a research note.
The Joannides docs online
The easiest place to get the docs online is at the MFF website. They are available here in chronological order. There are 44 docs, totaling 62 pages.
Readers should note that during his FOIA suit against CIA, Morley received hundreds of docs from Joannides’ personnel file. Some of these are available in Malcolm Blunt’s archive of JFK docs (the link is on the bottom of this page), but Morley has otherwise failed to make any of them available to other researchers. Morley is closely associated with the Mary Ferrell Foundation, and I’m sure that they would be happy to post these, but so far nothing.
MFF has, however, put up 54 separate docs here, which the heading says were all released in July 2025. Unfortunately, this is an error.
The single docs posted at MFF are most likely from the CIA website, which has a portal for the CREST system. CIA uses CREST to track and release documents that have either been released through FOIA or through CIA’s own historical programs. Type the keyword “Joannides” in the CREST search box and these 54 docs will show up.
Some of the 54 single docs posted at MFF are previous Joannides related releases, a couple of them going back a decade or so. How to tell which of the single docs are the new ones? The 44 new ones all say “APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2025/05/27” (or “05/30”) followed by a number beginning with “C”.
If you want to get the Joannides docs direct from CREST, you can use the chronological version of the Joannides file at MFF and enter each of the C numbers on those docs in the CREST search box, one by one. Slow, but that’s how you can get them.
Doc content
The dates of the Joannides docs range from 1962 to 1981. They are mostly standard personnel forms, but some of the memos and letters are related to Joannides’ personal situation. These are more interesting of course. The long 1981 memo on Joannnides’ receipt of the Career Intellligence Medal gives a detailed summary of his 28 year career in the CIA, and like most such summaries is very interesting reading.
Commentary
Morley has made great claims for these documents in the past. His post on the docs as released this time is up on his JFK Facts substack blog, and the Washington Post thought enough of his claims to do an article.
The Washington Post piece is typical of many such articles; the writer, Tom Jackman, knows nothing about the assassination or the massive collections of government documents released on the assassination, and simply gives an uncritical summary of Morley’s claims.
Tracy Parnell, Fred Litwin, and Gerald Posner know much more about the docs, and have more critical discussions of Morley’s claims. Since they know what they are talking about, anyone REALLY interested in what the documents mean should look at their articles.
My two cents
From 1962 to 1964, Joannides was simply another case officer for another group of anti-Castro Cubans. From 1978 to 1979, Joannides was part of the CIA liaison team with the HSCA. He was not some evil mastermind, and had little to do with what documents were provided to, or denied, the HSCA. This was decided by senior CIA officers, with Primary Coordinator Scott Breckinridge on the front line.
I will eventually write something about Joannides when I get to the DRE, the anti-Castro group Joannides worked with.
Tracy Parnell has already put up an article on many of the exaggerated and error filled claims about Joannides work with the HSCA. I contributed background research to this. I may return to the subject later, depending on how busy I am this summer.