Secret CIA base in Barcelona revealed with release of JFK assassination records

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States had a secret base in Barcelona during the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Released assassination records under the Donald J. Trump administration show a list of around 90 cities categorized into world divisions, with Barcelona and Spain's capital, Madrid, appearing under the EUR DIVISION.

Publicly accessible documents show that the field distribution from BD #5847 also features cities such as Berlin, Brussels, Rome, Vienna, Zurich, and many more across the globe.

The Catalan capital was already mentioned in a previous version of the same document from 2023, but a year earlier, in 2022, the city was crossed.

At the time of the assassination, Spain was going through the second phase of the Francoism dictatorship, predominantly known for its slow openness to the world and its financial push.

JFK assassination records are part of The Papers of Russell Holmes, which featured 50,000 pages of CIA documents maintained by Holmes in his role as custodian of the Oswald 201 file. He was the CIA liaison for all inquiries on the assassination after the end of the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations' investigation until he retired.

Barcelona is mentioned in two more documents, one of which requests "any information" on Manuel Estevez Perez. Authorities were "unable to identify the name." The document, dating to August 16, 1965, reads: Chief WH, Chief of Station, Madrid; and Chief of Base, Barcelona.

The other document is a report addressed to several cities, including Barcelona and Madrid, announcing that LNERGO has "positively identified" the accused assassin, James Earl Ray. LNERGO is the classified term used by the CIA to mention the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Earl Ray was sentenced to 99 years for murdering Martin Luther King.