By Jonathan | TruthAlliance.net | April 18, 2008

24-year-old Palestinian, Sirhan Sirhan, was arrested as the lone assassin and notebooks at his house seemed to incriminate him.

Sirhan Sirhan

However, even under hypnosis, he has never been able to remember the shooting and defence psychiatrists concluded he was in a trance at the time.

Witnesses placed Sirhan's gun several feet in front of Kennedy but the autopsy showed the fatal shot came from one inch behind.

Dr Herbert Spiegel, a world authority on hypnosis at Columbia University, believes Sirhan may have been hypnotically programmed to act as a decoy for the real assassin.

Sirhan Sirhan is being represented by William Pepper.  He was the attorney for James Earl Ray, the convicted killer of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, some years after King's death. He believes that Ray was framed by the federal government, and that King was killed by a conspiracy that involved the FBI, the CIA, the military, the Memphis police, and organized crime figures from New Orleans and Memphis. Pepper, a friend of King in the last year of his life, represented James Earl Ray in a televised mock trial in an attempt to get Ray the trial that he never had. Pepper then represented the King family in a wrongful death civil trial King family vs. Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators." During a trial that lasted four weeks, Pepper produced over seventy witnesses. The jury took less than an hour to find in favour of the King family for the requested sum of $100. Jowers never testified.

Pepper wrote an incredible book about Dr. King's assassination showing CIA agents, even though they have a charter to function in foreign lands only, were present in Memphis the morning King was shot.  You can read the startling evidence of a conspiracy in his book, An Act of State, available by clicking here and ordering the book.

Dr. Pepper is heavily involved in Human Rights law, for a time convening the International Human Rights Seminar at Oxford University, during which time individuals such as Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela accepted invitations to address the seminar. He lives primarily in the United States.

Back to Bobby

A new BBC documentary supports the conclusion that the CIA planned and executed the assassination of Robert Kennedy. The new video and photographic evidence -- the result of a three year long investigation --"puts three senior CIA operatives" at the scene of the murder.

Three of these men have been positively identified as senior officers who worked together in 1963 at JMWAVE, the CIA's Miami base for its Secret War on Castro.

This photograph taken of David Morales in 1959 that appeared in a Cuban newspaper in 1978.

David Morales, above, was Chief of Operations and once told friends: "I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard."

Gordon Campbell and George Joannides at the Ambassador Hotel on the night Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated

Gordon Campbell, above, was Chief of Maritime Operations and George Joannides was Chief of Psychological Warfare Operations.

George Joannides, above, was called out of retirement in 1978 to act as the CIA liaison to the Congressional investigation into the JFK assassination. Now, we see him at the Ambassador Hotel the night a second Kennedy is assassinated.

Three of these men have been positively identified as senior officers who worked together in 1963 at JMWAVE, the CIA's Miami base for its Secret War on Castro.

David Morales was Chief of Operations and once told friends:

"I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard."

Gordon Campbell was Chief of Maritime Operations and George Joannides was Chief of Psychological Warfare Operations.

Joannides was called out of retirement in 1978 to act as the CIA liaison to the Congressional investigation into the JFK assassination. Now, we see him at the Ambassador Hotel the night a second Kennedy is assassinated.

BBC Newsight recently aired the evidence which was shown in a report by Shane O'Sullivan, broadcast on BBC Newsnight.

This report was shown on Newsnight on Monday, 20 November, 2006:

It reveals that the operatives and four unidentified associates were at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles in the moments before and after the shooting on 5 June, 1968.

The CIA had no domestic jurisdiction and some of the officers were based in South-East Asia at the time, with no reason to be in Los Angeles.

'Decoy'

Kennedy had just won the California Democratic primary on an anti-War ticket and was set to challenge Nixon for the White House when he was shot in a kitchen pantry.

In the deathbed confession from former CIA operative and watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt, he mentions the name of Morales. Morales connects to previously accused suspect James Files and the Miami operations. Morales and James Files both served in the 82nd Airborne together, as well as operations in Laos.

David Sanchez Morales was born in 1925. He spent his early life in Phoenix, Arizona. A Mexican-American, Morales was later to be nicknamed El Indio because of his dark skin and Indian features. As a boy his best friend was Ruben Carbajal. After his mother divorced his father he was virtually adopted by Carbajal's parents.

It is not surprising that the CIA would be implicated in the murder of RFK. It is tragic that the same scrutiny was not forthcoming sooner --when it might have done some good. It is tragic that the murder of JFK was not likewise scrutinized. It is tragic that the investigation of this murder was left in the hands of an incompetent Los Angeles Police Department about which there is no adjective to describe the utter incompetence given this case. Earlier there was no adjective to describe the criminal neglect given the murder of JFK in Dallas!

The CIA has been accused to have committed acts of terrorism abroad, murdering critics of US foreign and domestic policies and has done it on behalf of an increasingly tiny, privileged American elite. This tiny elite of some one percent owns more than the combined wealth of 95% of the entire population.  On behalf of this tiny, privileged base, the CIA has placed itself above law and supervision. The CIA's war on the world has claimed an estimated 12 million to 20 million victims, far more than the best estimates attributed to Adolph Hitler's 'Holocaust' of World War II.

Morales joined the United States Army in 1946 and after basic training was sent to Germany where he was part of the Allied occupation force. According to Ruben Carbajal, Morales was recruited into army intelligence in 1947. However, officially he was a member of 82nd Airborne of the US Army. It was during this time he began associating with Ted Shackley and William Harvey.

In 1951 became a employee of the Central Intelligence Agency while retaining his army cover. The following year he joined the Directorate for Plans, an organization instructed to conduct covert anti-Communist operations around the world.

In 1953 he returned to the United States and after a spell at the University of Maryland he assumed cover as a State Department employee. Morales became involved in CIA's Black Operations. This involved a policy that was later to become known as Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). This including a coup d'état that overthrew the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 after he introduced land reforms and nationalized the United Fruit Company. After the removal of Arbenz he joined the staff of the US embassy in Caracas (1955-58). During this time he became known as the CIA's top assassin in Latin America.

Morales moved to Cuba in 1958 and helped to support the government of Fulgencio Batista. Later Morales worked behind the scenes with people like David Atlee Phillips, Tracy Barnes, William Pawley, Johnny Roselli and John Martino in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.

In November, 1961, William Harvey arranged for Morales to be posted to JM/WAVE, the CIA station in Miami. In May, 1962, Morales was seconded to ZR/RIFLE, the plot to assassinate Fidel Castro.

Some researchers such as Gaeton Fonzi, Larry Hancock, Noel Twyman, James Richards and John Simkin believe that Morales was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy as well. It has been suggested that others involved included James Arthur Lewis, Roy Hargraves, Edwin Collins, Steve Wilson, Gerry P. Hemming, Herminio Diaz Garcia, Tony Cuesta, Eugenio Martinez, Virgilio Gonzalez, Felipe Vidal Santiago and William (Rip) Robertson.

In 1966 Ted Shackley was placed in charge of CIA secret war in Laos. He recruited Morales to take charge at Pakse, a black operations base focused on political paramilitary action within Laos. Pakse was used to launch military operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trial. In 1969 Morales moved to Vietnam where he officially worked as a Community Development Officer for the International Development Agency.

Gorden Sunderland Campbell was born on 5th July 1905. After serving as a US Army colonel, he was a Central Intelligence Agency contract agent who was based at the CIA's Miami station, of JM/WAVE. According to Bradley E. Ayers, Campbell was a close associate of Theodore Shackley.

Rudy Enders, a retired CIA officer, claims that Campbell helped the agency ferry anti-Castro guerrillas across the straits of Florida.

In a letter sent to John R. Tunheim in 1994, Bradley E. Ayers claimed that nine people based at JM/WAVE "have intimate operational knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the assassination" of John F. Kennedy. Ayers named Gorden Campbell, Grayston Lynch, Theodore Shackley, Felix Rodriguez, Thomas Clines, David Morales, Rip Robertson, Edward Roderick and Tony Sforza as the men who had this information.

Bradley E. Ayers was interviewed by Jeremy Gunn of the Assassination Records Review Board in May, 1995. According to Gunn: “Ayers claims to have found in the course of his private investigative work, a credible witness who can put David Morales inside the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night of June 5, 1968 (RFK’s assassination)."

Bradley E. Ayers and other people who knew them, identified David Sanchez Morales, Gordon Campbell and George Joannides as being three men in the hotel that day. An article about this story appeared in The Guardian and on BBC Newsnight on 20th November, 2006.

David Talbot and Jefferson Morley researched this story in 2007. They reported that: "Gordon Campbell, it turns out, was not the deputy station chief in the CIA's Miami operation, as O'Sullivan reported. He was a yachtsman and Army colonel who served as a contract agent helping the agency ferry anti-Castro guerrillas across the straits of Florida, according to Rudy Enders, a retired CIA officer, and two other people who knew him. He could not have been at the scene of Bobby's Kennedy's assassination on June 5, 1968 because he died in 1962.... Campbell's death certificate, which identified him as a "maritime adviser," states he passed away on Sept. 19, 1962."

George Joannides (centre) in Vietnam in 1973.

George Joannides, the son of a journalist, was born in Athens, Greece, on 5th July, 1922. His family arrived in New York in 1923. After graduating from the City College he received a law degree from St. John's University. He worked for the Greek language National Herald before moving to Washington in 1949 to work for the Greek Embassy Information Service.

He joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951 and later became chief of the Psychological Warfare branch of the CIA's JM/WAVE station in Miami. In this role he worked closely with the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE), a militant right-wing, anti-Communist, anti-Castro, anti-Kennedy, group. This was a group that Lee Harvey Oswald was in contact with in New Orleans in August 1963.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Richard Helms appointed John M. Whitten to undertake the agency's in-house investigation. After talking to Winston Scott, the CIA station chief in Mexico City, Whitten discovered that Lee Harvey Oswald had been photographed at the Cuban consulate in early October, 1963. Nor had Scott told Whitten, his boss, that Oswald had also visited the Soviet Embassy in Mexico. In fact, Whitten had not been informed of the existence of Oswald, even though there was a 201 pre-assassination file on him that had been maintained by the Counterintelligence/Special Investigative Group.

George Joannides in 1973.

John M. Whitten and his staff of 30 officers, were sent a large amount of information from the FBI. According to Gerald D. McKnight "the FBI deluged his branch with thousands of reports containing bits and fragments of witness testimony that required laborious and time-consuming name checks." Whitten later described most of this FBI material as "weirdo stuff". As a result of this initial investigation, Whitten told Richard Helms that he believed that Oswald had acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

On 6th December, Nicholas Katzenbach invited Whitten and Birch O'Neal, Angleton's trusted deputy and senior Special Investigative Group (SIG) officer to read Commission Document 1 (CD1), the report that the FBI had written on Lee Harvey Oswald. Whitten now realized that the FBI had been withholding important information on Oswald from him. He also discovered that Richard Helms had not been providing him all of the agency's available files on Oswald. This included Oswald's political activities in the months preceding the assassination and the relationship Joannides had with the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil.

John M. Whitten had a meeting where he argued that Oswald's pro-Castro political activities needed closer examination, especially his attempt to shoot the right-wing General Edwin Walker, his relationship with anti-Castro exiles in New Orleans, and his public support for the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Whitten added that has he had been denied this information, his initial conclusions on the assassination were "completely irrelevant."

Richard Helms responded by taking Whitten off the case. James "Jesus" Angleton, chief of the CIA's Counterintelligence Branch, was now put in charge of the investigation. According to Gerald D. McKnight (Breach of Trust) Angleton "wrested the CIA's in-house investigation away from John Whitten because he either was convinced or pretended to believe that the purpose of Oswald's trip to Mexico City had been to meet with his KGB handlers to finalize plans to assassinate Kennedy."

In 1976 Thomas N. Downing began campaigning for a new investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Downing said he was certain that Kennedy had been killed as a result of a conspiracy. He believed that the recent deaths of Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli were highly significant. James Files, who confessed to being involved in the murder of JFK, worked for Giancana.  He also believed that the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had withheld important information from the Warren Commission. Downing was not alone in taking this view. In 1976, a Detroit News poll indicated that 87% of the American population did not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who killed Kennedy.

Coretta Scott King, was also calling for her husband's murder to be looked at by a Senate Committee. It was suggested that there was more chance of success if these two investigations could be combined. Henry Gonzalez and Walter E. Fauntroy joined Downing in his campaign and in 1976 Congress voted to create a 12-member House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) to investigate the deaths of Kennedy and King.

Joannides was appointed as the agency's liaison to the HSCA. The CIA did not reveal to the committee that Joannides had played an important role in the events of 1963. Some critics believe that Joannides was involved in a conspiracy to link Lee Harvey Oswald with the government of Fidel Castro.

On 16th May, 1978, John M. Whitten appeared before the HSCA. He criticised Richard Helms for not making a full disclosure about the Rolando Cubela plot to the Warren Commission. He added " I think that was a morally highly reprehensible act, which he cannot possibly justify under his oath of office or any other standard of professional service."

Whitten also said that if he had been allowed to continue with the investigation he would have sought out what was going on at JM/WAVE. This would have involved the questioning of Ted Shackley, David Sanchez Morales, Carl E. Jenkins, Rip Robertson, George Joannides, Gordon Campbell and Thomas G. Clines. As Jefferson Morley has pointed out in The Good Spy: "Had Whitten been permitted to follow these leads to their logical conclusions, and had that information been included in the Warren Commission report, that report would have enjoyed more credibility with the public. Instead, Whitten's secret testimony strengthened the HSCA's scathing critique of the C.I.A.'s half-hearted investigation of Oswald. The HSCA concluded that Kennedy had been killed by Oswald and unidentifiable co-conspirators."

John M. Whitten also told the HSCA that James Jesus Angleton involvement in the investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy was "improper". Although he was placed in charge of the investigation by Richard Helms, Angleton "immediately went into action to do all the investigating". When Whitten complained to Helms about this he refused to act.

Whitten believes that Angleton's attempts to sabotage the investigation was linked to his relationship with the Mafia. Whitten claims that Angleton also prevented a CIA plan to trace mob money to numbered accounts in Panama. Angleton told Whitten that this investigation should be left to the FBI. When Whitten mentioned this to a senior CIA official, he replied: "Well, that's Angleton's excuse. The real reason is that Angleton himself has ties to the Mafia and he would not want to double-cross them."

Whitten also pointed out that as soon as Angleton took control of the investigation he concluded that Cuba was unimportant and focused his internal investigation on Oswald's life in the Soviet Union. If Whitten had remained in charge he would have "concentrated his attention on CIA's JM/WAVE station in Miami, Florida, to uncover what George Joannides, the station chief, and operatives from the SIG and SAS knew about Oswald."

Joannides left the CIA in 1979. He began a law practice in Washington and apparently he specialized in immigration matters. George Joannides died in Houston in March 1990.

It was only after his death that it was revealed that Joannides was in contact with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, was furious when he discovered this information. He issued a statement where he said: "I am no longer confident that the Central Intelligence Agency co-operated with the committee.... 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."

In recent years investigators into the assassination of John F. Kennedy such as G. Robert Blakey, Jefferson Morley, Anthony Summers, John McAdams, John M. Newman, David Kaiser, Michael Kurtz, Oliver Stone, David Talbot, Cyril H. Wecht, David R. Wrone and Gerald Posner have campaigned for the CIA to release the files concerning the activities of Joannides in 1963.

In October, 2006, Judge Richard Leon upheld the CIA's right to block disclosure of records about Joannides's operational activities in August 1963.

Under David Morales worked another suspect in JFK's assissination, Bernando De Torres.

Bernardo De Torres was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1934. He moved to the United States in 1955 and later worked as a private investigator in Miami.

De Torres was a strong opponent of Fidel Castro and during the Bay of Pigs Operation was Chief of Intelligence for Brigade 2506 where he worked under David Sanchez Morales. During the invasion he was captured and was not released until 24th December, 1962.

In 1963 De Torres resumed work as a private investigator. According to Gerry P. Hemming De Torres worked for Charles Siragusa, who was involved in foreign assassinations.

On 25th September, 1963, Silvia Odio had a visit from three men who claimed they were from New Orleans. Two of the men, Leopoldo and Angelo, said they were members of the Junta Revolucionaria. The third man, Leon, was introduced as an American sympathizer who was willing to take part in the assassination of Fidel Castro. After she told them that she was unwilling to get involved in any criminal activity, the three men left.

The following day Leopoldo phoned Odio and told her that Leon was a former Marine and that he was an expert marksman. He added that Leon had said “we Cubans, we did not have the guts because we should have assassinated Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs”. It is believed that De Torres was Leopoldo and Edwin Collins was Angelo.

De Torres later helped Jim Garrison in his search to discover the people behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Garrison eventually discovered that Torres was undermining his investigation and became convinced that he was really working for JM/WAVE, the Central Intelligence Agency station in Miami.

After leaving the Garrison investigation De Torres went to work for Mitch WerBell as an arms salesman in Latin America.

In his book Death in Washington (1980) Donald Freed suggested that De Torres might have been involved in the death of Orlando Letelier. Peter Dale Scott argued in Deep Politics (1993) that De Torres had links to the CIA and the drug trade.

While writing The Last Investigation (1993) Gaeton Fonzi interviewed Rolando Otero. He told Fonzi that De Torres (named "Carlos" in the book) was one of a five men team from Miami who was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

In his book Rearview Mirror (2001), William Turner claims that in 1977 the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) came to the conclusion that De Torres might have played a role in the death of Kennedy. He quotes a HUCA report that: "De Torres has pictures of Dealey Plaza in a safe-deposit box. These pictures were taken during the assassination of JFK".

In an article that appeared in Key West Citizen on 2nd September, 2005, Joan Mellen, claims that Angel Murgado was one of the three men who visited Sylvia Odio in Dallas . She also identified De Torres as "Leopoldo".

Bernardo De Torres now lives in Chile.

"To see how all this connects to John F Kennedy's Assassination, click here to learn the complete story of the Kennedy assassination conspirators"