The DRE's Oswald-Castro story

Timeline

1. Dec 1962 · Context

   Joannides takes on the CIA's relationship with the DRE in Miami, as chief of the psychological warfare branch of JMWAVE.

2. Aug 1963 · Context

   In New Orleans Lee Harvey Oswald approaches DRE member Carlos Bringuier, then is seen handing out pro-Castro leaflets; a confrontation ends in Oswald's arrest. Later that month Oswald takes part in a radio debate with DRE members.

3. Mid-1963 · Context

   The CIA pays the DRE $25,000 a month under the AMSPEL programme, per Morley's report of agency records.

4. 23 Nov 1963 · It worked

   The day after the assassination the DRE launches a public campaign saying Oswald acted for the Cuban government, with a seven-page brief on Oswald and a four-page broadsheet headlined "The Presumed Assassins" above photographs of Oswald and Fidel Castro. Morley says this went ahead against Joannides' instruction to wait.

5. 1978 · It worked

   Joannides, brought out of retirement according to Blakey, becomes the agency's liaison to the HSCA. The CIA assures the committee it had no contact with the DRE in 1963; Joannides' 1963 role is not revealed.

6. 2 Jan 1979 · It worked

   The HSCA summary of findings (the full final report is dated 29 March 1979) concludes Oswald had no significant relationship with the DRE; Blakey wrote in 2014 that he could no longer say so with confidence.

7. 18 Dec 2003 · Exposed

   G. Robert Blakey, Jefferson Morley and others write in The New York Review of Books that the agency did not reveal Joannides' 1963 role to Congress, compromising the committee's investigation.

8. 2014 · Exposed

   Blakey writes that the CIA "repeatedly assured the Committee that they had no contact with the DRE in 1963", and that he can "no longer say with confidence" that Oswald had no significant relationship with the DRE.

The Oswald-Cuba story circulated without the public being told that the group telling it was CIA-funded, and the officer who had run that funding later sat across from the House investigators without saying so.

The playbook

1. 1

   Hidden messenger

   The exile group's account was reported as the view of Cubans in Miami, by a group whose CIA funding, run by a case officer, was not disclosed.

2. 2

   Front group

   The DRE was an independent exile organisation, but it was paid by the CIA through the JMWAVE programme, and the agency did not say so.

3. 3

   Planted story

   The DRE's bulletin and press conference put the Oswald-Castro narrative into circulation within a day, with the group's own materials as the source.

4. 4

   Suppress the correction

   In 1978 the CIA told the HSCA it had no 1963 DRE contact, and the officer who had run the programme served as liaison without saying so.

Through the FATE framework

• Focus6/10

  The bulletin and brief put one framing of Oswald at the centre of coverage on the first day.

• Authority5/10

  Cuban exiles with first-hand contact with Oswald in New Orleans carried credibility the press accepted.

• Tribe6/10

  It cast the matter as Castro's Cuba versus America.

• Emotion6/10

  It spoke into the shock of the first 24 hours after the assassination.

Propaganda techniques used

• Guilt by Association
• Obfuscation/Vagueness

Same playbook today