The CIA has long denied any involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 or any conspiracy theories suggesting the gunman had accomplices. However, a recently disclosed account from a CIA operative might shed new light on the matter.

Ricardo Morales Jr., the son of Ricardo Morales Navarrete—a Cuban exile who became a CIA operative, also known as “The Monkey”—shared a startling memory from his teenage years. He recalled a moment when his father expressed skepticism about the widely accepted story that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone shooter who killed Kennedy.

During a shooting excursion in 1982, when Morales Jr. was 18, his father disclosed to him and his brother that he had met Oswald at a CIA training facility in Florida, suggesting more to the story than the official account provided.

His father said there was ‘no way’ Oswald could’ve pulled off that shot after seeing him shoot at the camp. 

‘Every time they needed somebody trained, they would bring [my father] in to train them,’ Morales told Daily Mail.   

‘And he, from his shooting ability as a sniper, he didn’t think [Oswald] had the qualifications or the ability to pull it off by himself’. 

Morales explained that his father believed Oswald was at the assassination and took the first shot at Kennedy, but didn’t fire the bullet that killed the president. 

The Warren Commission, which President Lyndon B. Johnson established to investigate the assassination, concluded that Oswald fired three shots at Kennedy. 

The first shot missed the president, while the second two bullets struck him, according to the Commission. 

The second bullet hit Kennedy near his neck to the right of his spine, and exited from the front of his neck, while the last bullet hit the back of the president’s head. 

Due to the nature of how Kennedy was shot, skepticism has grown that there was more than one assassin. 

The Commission’s decision to forego X-rays and photographs to respect Kennedy’s privacy also contributed to doubts that Oswald worked alone. 

A video of the assassination revealed Kennedy’s head was seemingly thrown backward as the front side appears to explode, suggesting that the one bullet came from behind, while the other came from in front. 

Morales said his father also believed that Oswald didn’t act alone and was used as the ‘fall guy’ for the operation. 

‘He believes that Oswald took that first shot and missed, which makes all the sense in the world to him,’ Morales continued. 

‘But he never believed that Oswald took the kill shot’.

Oswald joined the Marines as a teenager in 1956 and was considered a skilled marksman. 

However, Morales noted that marksman training in the Marines differs from what is taught at the CIA training camp. 

‘He didn’t consider him a great shot at moving targets,’ Morales added. 

Morales said that his father never speculated over who took the kill shot or whether the CIA was responsible for Kennedy’s death, but he did reveal the mysterious orders he was given when the president was killed. 

During their shooting trip, his father revealed that he was in Dallas with other CIA operatives the day Kennedy was killed. 

The agents were given orders to wait at a hotel armed for further instructions, which never came. 

His father said they were sent as a ‘cleaning team’, but never disclosed what the cleanup operation was. 

When asked if he believed the CIA was involved in Kennedy’s assassination, Morales told Daily Mail: ‘It could have been.’

‘It’s not like the CIA got together, took a vote, and everybody agreed,’ he explained. 

‘You could have three or four agents that work for the CIA who control a group of, let’s say, seven or eight Cubans who are assassins,’ Morales continued.

‘And the CIA operatives are getting pressure from rich, powerful forces in the United States government and the military industrial complex that they want somebody killed. It doesn’t necessarily take approval from the head of the CIA to get that done,’ he added, citing accounts his father relayed about how the CIA operated. 

Morales noted that his father took orders seriously, as did most agents. He confessed that he believes his father would’ve killed Kennedy if he was told to. 

‘He would’ve done it in a heartbeat because that was his job. That was his mission. He followed orders. He was a military guy, and he did what his handlers told him to do’.

The CIA has long denied any involvement in Kennedy’s assassination or any connection between the agency and Oswald. 

However, recently unveiled classified documents revealed that the CIA had more knowledge of Oswald than they had initially claimed. 

The newly released documents showed that a CIA officer named George Joannides, who oversaw a group of Cuban students, had come in contact with Oswald in Miami the same year that Kennedy was assassinated. 

Oswald had frequently advocated for Fidel Castro and the Communist regime in the US, an issue that defined Kennedy’s presidency with his involvement in the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Morales and his co-author, Sean Oliver, researched this theory in their recent book, Monkey Morales: The True Story of a Mythic Cuban Exile, Assassin, CIA Operative, FBI Informant, Smuggler, and Dad. 

When asked about his theory on the Kennedy assassination, Morales told Daily Mail: ‘Some part of the industrial military complex wanted Kennedy out of the way because they were going to Vietnam. Vietnam was the key. 

‘They wanted to increase war, not decrease war, because that’s where the money was being made’. 

‘And they had a bunch of angry Cubans who were mad about the Bay of Pigs failure, the lack of American support in the Bay of Pigs, and they were mad at JFK because he was president’.

Morales theorized that a plan was devised to assassinate Kennedy, and speculated that operatives like his father could’ve been involved. 

‘My dad could have been lying to me and he could have been one of the ones that was involved. Maybe the cleaning crew was a killing crew. I don’t know,’ he confessed.

‘But if he was given the job, he would’ve done the job’. 

Morales didn’t have many opportunities to ask follow-up questions about his father’s shocking story, as he was murdered later that year. 

Morales Navarrete was killed at the end of 1982 after leaving the witness protection program and starting his autobiography.

He died in a bar fight, which Morales believes was staged. He added that at some point that year, another member of his father’s ‘cleaning crew’ also died. 

‘A lot of people died in that year that my dad died when he started talking,’ Morales told Daily Mail. 

‘They were all out of work for the CIA, and all they were doing was dealing, selling drugs. They had all been caught, they were all snitching on each other, and they were all killing each other off so that nobody would tell on each other,’ he added. 

Morales explained that his father was working on a book about his life as a Cuban exile turned CIA agent when he was killed. 

He had no idea what type of secrets were divulged in the book because his uncle decided to burn it after his father’s death. 

Years later, his uncle confessed on his deathbed that he had killed the man who he believed orchestrated Morales Navarrete’s slaying.  

‘My uncle decided not to go after the shooter because we didn’t know the shooter, he was just a one-time guy,’ Morales explained.

‘But the other one was a long life enemy. So, two years later, he just took him and killed him and dumped him’. 

Morales said his uncle died of natural causes and was never prosecuted for the killing. 

He revisited his tumultuous family history and the complicated relationship he had with his father in his new book Monkey Morales.

The book is dedicated to his brother, Roberto, who was killed in a mass shooting on Florida State University’s campus earlier this year.

Roberto Morales was among the victims of 20-year-old student Phoenix Ikner who opened fire on the Tallahassee campus in April. 

He was a dining coordinator at the campus and had worked there for nine years. 

Ikner is the son of a sheriff’s deputy and had used her gun in his rampage, which killed two and injured six others.

Monkey Morales: The True Story of a Mythic Cuban Exile, Assassin, CIA Operative, FBI Informant, Smuggler, and Dad by Sean Oliver and Ricardo Morales JR is out now published by Post Hill Press