More on JFK puzzle
Trump will not block documents
US President Donald Trump says he does not plan to block the scheduled release of thousands of never publicly seen government documents related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
“Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK files to be opened,” Mr Trump wrote in a tweet.
The National Archives has until Thursday to disclose the remaining files related to Kennedy’s 1963 assassination in Dallas. The trove is expected to include more than 3000 documents never been seen by the public and more than 30,000 that have been previously released but with redactions.
Congress mandated in 1992 all assassination documents be released within 25 years, but Mr Trump has the power to block them on grounds that making them public would harm intelligence or military operations, law enforcement or foreign relations.
“Thank you. This is the correct decision. Please do not allow exceptions for any agency of government,” tweeted Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Centre for Politics and author of a book about Kennedy.
“JFK files have been hidden too long.”
The anticipated release has had scholars and armchair detectives buzzing. But it is unlikely the documents will contain any big revelations on a tragedy that has stirred con- spiracy theories for decades, Judge John Tunheim said last month.
Justice Tunheim was chairman of the independent agency in the 1990s that made public many assassination records and decided how long others could remain secret.
Sabato and other JFK scholars believe the trove of files may, however, provide insight into assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s trip to Mexico City weeks before the killing, during which he visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies.
Oswald’s stated reason was to get visas that would allow him to enter Cuba and the Soviet Union, but much about the trip remains unknown.
The National Archives in July published more than 440 never-before-seen documents and thousands of others that had been released previously with redactions.
One was a 1975 CIA memo that questioned whether Oswald was motivated after reading an article that quoted Fidel Castro as saying “US leaders would be in danger if they helped in any attempt to do away with leaders of Cuba”. AP