Trump ready to open 3,000 secret f iles on JFK’s killing
IT IS the greatest conspiracy theory of all time –who shot JFK?
Now Donald Trump has ordered the release of 3,100 classified documents which could finally solve the question of who was behind the murder of John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Trump yesterday tweeted that he plans to open up CIA and FBI files about the assassination, saying: ‘Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing the long blocked and classified JFK files to be opened.’ The move, which will take place on or before Thursday, also includes more than 30,000 documents which were previously released with redactions.
Kennedy’s assassination has sparked scores of conspiracy theories over the years, including that the shooter Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone, that there was another gunman on a ‘grassy knoll’ in Dallas, and that the killing was ordered by, variously, the Mafia, Cuban president Fidel Castro, the CIA, the Russians, and even US Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Oswald, a former US Marine, shot Kennedy from a sixthfloor window as the President’s motorcade rounded Dealey Plaza.
The release of the files was prompted by Oliver Stone’s controversial Oscar- winning 1992 film JFK. Public outcry over the cover-up theories put forward in the movie led to the formation of the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act in 1992, and it ordered that all classified documents had to be released by the US National Archives within 25 years. Last night it was reported that both the CIA and FBI had begged Trump to withhold certain documents for security reasons. The official probe into the killing, the Warren Commission, ruled that 24-year-old Oswald – who was shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby two days later – acted alone. Trump’s l ong- t i me confidante Roger Stone said he lobbied the President to release the secret files. Yesterday he tweeted: ‘Yes! Victory!’ He added: ‘This is the holy grail. We need to see all these documents in the interest of truth and transparency.’ But Gerald Posner, author of the book Case Closed, which argues that Oswald acted alone, said last night: ‘Hopefully the release of these new documents will, finally, settle the matter once and for all. There’s going to be no smoking gun there. Anyone who t hi nks t hi s will suddenly show four shooters at Dealey Plaza – it’s not the case.’