JFK documents finally released
The National Archives made public late Thursday more than 2,800 files on President Kennedy’s assassination.
Sketchy testimony from barroom drunks in New Orleans, accounts of parties in Mexico City attended by suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and sniping between CIA officials and congressional investigators marked the release of the final batch of records Thursday related to the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
President Trump authorized the release of almost 2,900 document files through the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which set Thursday as the final deadline to release them. Others were kept secret because of requests from the CIA and FBI, which feared their released would compromise national security.
Long awaited by historians, journalists, researchers and conspiracy theorists, the final batch of secret files shed more light on the Kennedy assassination, which has fascinated Americans for almost 54 years. The 1964 Warren Commission, led by then-Chief Justice Earl Warren, was created by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, as a way to clear up questions about the murder, but it instead spawned multiple conspiracy theories.
While many of the documents pertained to the CIA and FBI investigations into the activities of Oswald, the 24-year-old former Marine sharpshooter identified as Kennedy’s killer, many dealt with the multiple covert operations of the Cold War 1960s and 1970s, including Cuban exile groups, defectors from the Soviet Union and the espionage hothouse that was Mexico City.
Other files included notes from committees that investigated the original investigation of the assassination, as well as the 1968 killing of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Some of the notes were lists of newspaper articles or documents.
Despite his decision to keep some documents secret, Trump said his move provided a new look at old secrets.
“The American public expects — and deserves — its government to provide as much access as possible to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records so that the people may finally be fully informed about all aspects of this pivotal event,” Trump’s memo said. “Therefore, I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted.”
Other records will be held back for further review, and released on a rolling basis with redactions in the coming weeks, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.