The CIA’s 1981 medal recommendation says Joannides returned from Athens in 1962 as deputy chief of the Psychological Warfare Branch of Task Force W in Miami, “did particularly well with the handling of exile student and teacher groups,” and “later in 1963” became chief of the branch. A January 1963 memo asked for a backstopped driver’s permit in the alias “Howard Mark Gebler,” requested by cable from the Miami station. [1][2]
The DRE was a student group that had fought Batista and then Castro. The House committee found it accepted U.S. government funding, which gave it outsized influence in the exile community. [3]
Its New Orleans delegate, Carlos Bringuier, confronted Oswald while he handed out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets on Canal Street in August 1963. Both were arrested, and they later debated on WDSU radio. A DRE leader told the committee that the group relayed information about Oswald to the CIA at the time. [3][4]
At the 2025 House hearing Jefferson Morley said Joannides’s agents in the program known as AMSPELL produced propaganda about Oswald’s pro-Castro activity both before and after the assassination. [5]
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