CIA FIGHTING FOR RIGHT TO SPIN HISTORY

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JEFREY MORLEY, HUFFININGTON POST - Three appellate judges probed for
explanations of the agency's rationale for withholding records
concerning a deceased undercover CIA officer named George Joannides
whose role in the events of 1963 remains unexplained. For the past three
and a half years, CIA has blocked the release of the Joannides files,
denying my Freedom of Information Act request and spurning scholarly
appeals for full disclosure. At stake is the viability of the 1992 JFK
Assassination Records Act, which mandates the immediate review, and
release of all government records related to Kennedy's murder in Dallas
on November 22, 1963. One of the strongest open government measures ever
enacted, the future of the JFK Act is now in question as the CIA seeks
judicial permission to defy its provisions.

The three-judge panel, chaired by Judge Karen Henderson, heard oral
arguments in the federal courthouse here about whether the FOIA requires
release of the records, most of which are more than 40 years old. These
records were never shared with any JFK assassination investigation. . .

Joannides served as the chief of psychological warfare operations in the
Agency's Miami station at the time of Kennedy's assassination. Using the
alias "Howard," he was the case officer for a Cuban exile group whose
members had repeated contact with accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in
August 1963 -- rendering any records of Joannides' secret operations at
that time potentially relevant to the JFK assassination story.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jefferson-morley/denied-in-full-federal_b_69414.html


LISA PEASE, CONSORTIUM NEWS - What's at stake here matters greatly to
all historians. If the government can simply choose which records to
release, and which to withhold, they can pervert and deliberately
misshape history to serve their purposes.

In this particular case, the CIA appears hell bent on undoing the will
of the people. The JFK Act came into being due to an enormous outcry
from the public when they learned, at the end of Oliver Stone's film
JFK, that many records relating to the assassination were still
classified. . .

Joannides was responsible for kicking out two staffers of the House
Select Committee on Assassinations who had been set up with full access
at CIA to CIA records pertaining to that time period. When the records
they dug up got more interesting in terms of suggesting possible CIA
involvement in a plot to kill Kennedy, Joannides had the two staffers
removed from their temporary office at CIA headquarters.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/102307b.html

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