Scoop: Secret CIA report boasted about tricking Congress in JFK probe, whistleblower says
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A CIA whistleblower, revealing his identity for the first time, tells Axios he saw a secret document in which an agency official bragged about misleading congressional investigators about Lee Harvey Oswald's activities in Mexico before President Kennedy was assassinated.
- "It's a blueprint of a cover-up, how to lie to Congress and the American people," former CIA-State Department historian Thomas L. Pearcy tells Axios.
Why it matters: Pearcy's description of the nearly 50-page document — a CIA inspector general's report — sheds new light on how intelligence agents routinely have covered up facts and records about Kennedy's slaying that still haven't been made public.
Driving the news: The 62nd anniversary of JFK's assassination is Saturday, and President Trump has pledged to disclose all records related to the tragedy in accordance with the JFK Records Act of 1992.
- A CIA spokesperson said the agency "is committed to full transparency" and has made extra efforts to produce JFK records during the Trump administration, which was just made aware of the documents Pearcy referenced.
Zoom in: Pearcy, now a Latin America expert and history professor at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania, told Axios he happened across the document — a CIA inspector general's report — in a secure CIA safe room in 2009. He was researching Latin America policy for the Foreign Relations of the United States series while serving as the joint historian for the CIA and State Department.
- The report, contained in a manila folder that was accidentally included in the file box he ordered, was essentially a damage assessment by the agency to determine how much its reputation had been harmed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HCSA), which investigated the assassination.
- The report included memo from a CIA official who boasted on Aug. 23, 1978, about how he and two others from the agency had misled Robert Blakey, the chief counsel for the HSCA.
- Blakey wanted to see the agency's three-volume series of investigative files from the CIA's Mexico City Station, which Oswald visited before he allegedly killed JFK, officials say.
Between the lines: The memo, Pearcy said, documented how CIA officers gave Blakey duplicates of the original books that removed documents the agency didn't want Congress to see.
- Because the books were so "sanitized," Pearcy said, Blakey had no questions after thumbing through each of them for 20 to 30 minutes.
- In a memo, CIA officer Martin Hawkins seemed to denigrate Blakey as "incurious" for not asking questions, Pearcy recalled.
While in the CIA building in 2009, Pearcy said, he briefly walked into a small room set aside largely for JFK records and saw a gray film canister labeled either "Oswald in Mexico" or "Oswald in Mexico City."
- The CIA inspector general's report, he said, also contained a reference to four Hasselblad cameras and 2,300 photographs taken in Mexico City.
- The CIA has denied having any photographs or film of Oswald in the city when he visited the Cuban and Soviet embassies before the assassination.
The backstory: The HSCA was the second investigative committee to probe JFK's assassination, after the Warren Commission.
- Both panel's reports were seen as whitewashes by historians such as Jefferson Morley, who pens the influential "JFK Facts" website and has advised Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) as she pushes for more disclosure about JFK's death.
- The JFK Records Act of 1992 helped change historians' understanding about the depth of CIA cover-ups over the assassination. It required full disclosure of more records by 2017, a goal that hasn't been met.
- In addition to meeting the requirements of the JFk records act, the CIA told Axios, the agency "has been working with Rep. Luna and the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets and will continue to do so on this important matter."
New discoveries: After taking office, Trump issued an executive order for more disclosure, leading to the discovery of even more records by the FBI, Axios first reported.
- In July, the CIA tacitly admitted that one of its shadowy agents, George Johannides, monitored Oswald before the assassination, Axios reported.
- Johannides also specifically misled the HSCA, which Blakey later learned due to Morley's reporting and disclosures from the JFK Records Act.
- One of those documents, released in 2004, helps confirm Pearcy's recollection of the memo he saw because its title confirmed Blakely was shown "Sanitized Portions of History of Mexico City Station."
"As a historian that really bothered me, that officials are bragging about covering up facts and misleading the American people," Pearcy said.
- Pearcy kept his story to himself but later allowed Morley in 2024 to print what he saw while protecting his identity.
- Morley said Pearcy wanted to remain anonymous because President Biden's administration was more zealous about prosecuting people for unauthorized classified documents disclosures. Trump's administration has signaled it's safer for JFK-related whistleblowers.
What's next: Morley tonight at 7 p.m. will discuss the case with Pearcy via Zoom with the professor's class.
- Morley and Pearcy said the document in question should be easily findable by the CIA because they have an alpha-numeric record locator from the "sanitized" memo.
- "This document should have been released a long time ago," Morley said.
