by Jefferson Morley at Public.news
Jefferson Morley Responds To Gerald Posner On The New CIA JFK Evidence
In February, Public published a podcast with investigative journalist Jefferson Morley, author of the critically acclaimed 2018 book, The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton. Since then, the Trump administration released evidence that a CIA agent named George Joannides was monitoring Kennedy’s alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
On Monday, we published a response by Gerald Posner, an American investigative journalist and author of another critically-acclaimed book, the 1993 Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK.
Today, we are delighted to publish Morley’s response to Posner. — Michael
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The release of the personnel file of undercover CIA officer George Joannides shifts the burden of proof in JFK assassination discussions onto the government and the theoreticians of the “lone gunman.” After two decades of CIA obfuscation, JFK researchers do not need to concoct a conspiracy theory to explain the malfeasance of the Agency and Joannides in 1963 and 1978. The Joannides file is smoking proof that the CIA lied repeatedly to investigators, Congress, and the public about Joannides’ actions as they related to Oswald and JFK’s assassination. Even Gerald Posner does not deny that.
Now the burden of proof has shifted to the government and the CIA to explain how the story emerging from the Joannides file—so carefully hidden from JFK investigators for six decades—supports the official narrative of the “lone gunman.” And as Posner is finding out, it’s not an easy burden to shoulder.
If the Joannides file, released by the CIA on July 3, 2025, had been released on July 3, 1964, the revelation that the CIA had monitored Oswald for four years would have been explosive. It would have radically revised the Warren Commission’s conclusions. The “lone gunman,” it turns out, was not so “lone.” He was monitored from the very top of the clandestine service. Posner’s book said nothing about Joannides, chief of the covert action in Miami, who ran the Cuban student group that generated propaganda about Oswald before and after JFK was killed. That’s because Posner didn’t know Joannides existed. Indeed, he believed the CIA’s cover story that he did not exist. Now that the Joannides file confirms he existed and deceived congressional investigators, Posner must recalibrate his narrative on the fly, with mixed results…