G. Robert Blakey's 2003 Addendum to 1993 Frontline Interview

[ed. note: G. Robert Blakey was Chief Counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Based on new information uncovered by journalist Jefferson Morley (see Morley's essay on the History Matters website), Blakey issued this scathing attack on CIA obstruction of the HSCA inquiry.]

I am no longer confident that the Central Intelligence Agency co-operated with the committee. My reasons follow.

The committee focused, among other things, on (1) Oswald, (2) in New Orleans, (3) in the months before he went to Dallas, in particular (4) his attempt to infiltrate an anti-Castro group, the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil or DRE.

These were crucial issues in the Warren Commission's investigation; they were crucial issues in the committee's investigation. The Agency knew it full well in 1964; the Agency knew it full well in 1976-79. Outrageously, the Agency did not tell the Warren Commission or our committee that it had financial and other connections with the DRE, a group that Oswald had direct dealings with.

What contemporaneous reporting is or was in the Agency's DRE files? We will never know, for the Agency now says that no reporting is in the existing files. Are we to believe that its files were silent in 1964 or during our investigation?

I don't believe it for a minute. Money was involved; it had to be documented. Period. End of story. The files and the Agency agents connected to the DRE should have been made available to the commission and the committee. That the information in the files and the agents who could have supplemented it were not made available to the commission and the committee amounts to wilful obstruction of justice.

Obviously, too, it did not identify the agent who was its contact with the DRE at the crucial point that Oswald was in contact with a George Joannides.

During the relevant period, the committee's chief contact with the Agency on a day-to-day basis was Scott Breckenridge. (I put aside our contact with the office of chief counsel, Lyle Miller).

We sent researchers to the Agency to request and read documents. The relationship between our young researchers, law students who came with me from Cornell, was anything but "happy." Nevertheless, we were getting and reviewing documents. Breckenridge, however, suggested that he create a new point of contact who might "facilitate" the process of obtaining and reviewing materials. He introduced me to Joannides, who, he said, he had arranged to bring out of retirement to help us. He told me that he had experience in finding documents; he thought he would be helpful to us.

I was not told of Joannides background with the DRE, a focal point of the investigation. Had I known who he was, he would have been a witness who would have been interrogated under oath by the staff or by the committee. He would never have been acceptable as a point of contact with us to retrieve documents. In fact, I have now learned, as I note above, that Joannides was the point of contact between the Agency and DRE during the period Oswald was in contact with DRE.

That the Agency would put a "material witness" in as a "filter" between the committee and its quests for documents was a flat out breach of the understanding the committee had with the Agency that it would co-operate with the investigation.

The committee's researchers immediately complained to me that Joannides was, in fact, not facilitating but obstructing our obtaining of documents. I contacted Breckenridge and Joannides. Their side of the story wrote off the complaints to the young age and attitude of the people.

They were certainly right about one question: the committee's researchers did not trust the Agency. Indeed, that is precisely why they were in their positions. We wanted to test the Agency's integrity. I wrote off the complaints. I was wrong; the researchers were right. I now believe the process lacked integrity precisely because of Joannides.

For these reasons, I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the Agency and its relationship to Oswald. Anything that the Agency told us that incriminated, in some fashion, the Agency, may well be reliable as far as it goes, but the truth could well be that it materially understated the matter.

What the Agency did not give us none but those involved in the Agency can know for sure. I do not believe any denial offered by the Agency on any point. The law has long followed the rule that if a person lies to you on any point, you may reject all of his testimony.

I now no longer believe anything the Agency told the committee any further than I can obtain substantial corroboration for it from outside the Agency for its veracity. We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known.

Significantly, The Warren commission's conclusion that the agencies of the government had cooperated with it is, in retrospect, not the truth.

We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency.

Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story.

I am now in that camp.

Comments

[evan marshall]

so now he was duped-before he was so all knowing and positive of his position. which version are we supposed to believe? there were certainly enough people warning him about the Agency.

Evan Marshall
Detroit Homicide, retired

[Jeff Bumpus]

The problem that I have with this "mea culpa"from Professor Blakey is that this was not the only incidence of CIA tampering with the HSCA investigation(See Blahut,Regis).Blahut was a CIA employee.Its not like this just came out of the blue.The Professor also was the person who assembled knowledgable critics of the Warren Commission and its glaring omissions and errors,to hear their issues.His staff reported in the aftermath that they were ordered to have no further contact with said critics.We would do well to remember this in the future.Can you say"Homeland Security"?