Week in Review: JFK's Secret CIA Agenda, the FBI's Communist Informants, and RIP Mrs. Paine
Description
JFK Facts reporters returned from summer vacations full blast this past week with deeply researched stories from the JFK files and a first-person account of the latest hearing called by the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets.
I’m always pleased to share the discoveries made by writers on our Substack who prove that the release of previously redacted and/or withheld documents validates the decades-long efforts of so many members of the JFK research community to make these records fully open to the public.
Pulling information from this vast archive and piecing together the details involve difficult and time consuming work. It can’t be done in mere hours or days or even weeks from a document drop (or “dump,” as we often call it). But with understanding of the records and their organization, a lot of patience, and skill in presenting information in an engaging and readable manner, the historic narrative can be brought forward, updated, and even changed. And a hat tip to editors who take a story to another level.
What is PFIAB?
You may not have heard of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), now the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB). PFIAB served presidents Kennedy through Carter, was reinstated by Reagan and then renamed by President Bush in 2008 to “reflect the fact that national intelligence does not begin or end at our Nation’s borders.”
The independent Board:
exists exclusively to assist the President by providing him with an independent source of advice on the effectiveness with which the Intelligence Community is meeting the Nation’s intelligence needs, and the vigor and insight with which the community plans for the future. The Board has access to all information needed to perform its functions and has direct access to the President.
Among the most important documents coming out of the National Archives on the JFK assassination are the recorded minutes of JFK’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). This body met 23 times during Kennedy’s presidency, beginning in May of 1961 with the last occurring Nov. 22, 1963.
David Denton studied these minutes and discovered their unique insight into JFK’s attitude toward the CIA and his plans for reforming it — an effort that ultimately died with him in Dallas. The documents make it clear that this advisory board’s objective was to reform the CIA by reining in its covert action capabilities. His story is here.
As an aside, the web page for the current PIAB returns a 404 Page Not Found (whoops!), but the members were named by President Donald Trump in February 2025 in this press release. I’m hopeful they are meeting as is customary.
Who are NY 2354-S, NO T-1, T-694-S and NY 3903-S?
Bill Simpich and Chad Nagle took a deep dive into FBI documents relating to the interactions between accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) that were blacked out for more than 50 years. Even with redactions lifted, the Bureau is still concealing key information about its CPUSA informants at the time of the assassination, informants who are surely almost all dead.
The authors traced the clues within the documents to uncover the possible identities of these informants, as have other investigative reporters credited.
For JFK assassination researchers, one hope for new information may live in diaries or other impressions on the accused assassin left behind by FBI informants to next of kin. As time passes, however, more and more such windows of opportunity close.
On Capitol Hill: Declassification of Secrets on UAPs
Chad Nagle was present on Tuesday when the House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, chaired by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), held its third hearing on Capitol Hill, focusing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), once commonly called UFOs (unidentified flying objects). Those testifying included three eyewitnesses to UAP events, all serving or former military personnel, and a veteran investigative reporter who has covered the issue for decades.
Read about it here and watch it here (with transcript).
Ruth Paine, RIP
Ruth Paine, a Quaker who housed the Oswald family at her Irving, Texas, home in the spring and fall of 1963, and who tipped off Lee Harvey Oswald about a job at the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, died Aug. 31, 2025. Peter Voskamp’s obituary of Mrs. Paine is here.
Max Good, who spent seven years making the documentary “The Assassination & Mrs. Paine,” told JFK Facts:
Ruth Paine remains an enigma. People see her in completely opposing ways depending on their perspective. I never wanted to demonize Ruth Paine, and I want to emphasize that if we think she was being less than completely honest, we must admit that we also couldn’t know all the details or her true motivations. If Ruth was keeping secrets, could she be doing it out of loyalty to an oath of service, threats of retribution, personal values, or protectiveness over the legitimacy of the government?
Also on JFK Facts This Week
Who was Victor Marchetti?
Burleigh on the Epstein Documents
And Coming Soon …
Exclusive Offer for SEE Back Issue
When CIA agents advertised for an assassin to kill Fidel Castro on the cover of a popular men's magazine in the fall of 1963, a spy called “Howard” — aka George Joannides — could plausibly deny any involvement. Jefferson Morley wrote about the SEE magazine November 1963 cover story and its reverberations at Langley and the CIA’s Miami station. JFK Facts has collected a number of copies of this document to share with readers who would like to own a piece of 1963 history. Read Morley’s story to the end for details.
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