Trump to open secret JFK f iles
Conspiracy theorists braced for bombshells about 1963 shooting (…but will they reveal if Oswald had help?)
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has ordered the release of more than 3,000 secret files on JFK’s 1963 assassination – in a move that could finally solve the greatest conspiracy theory of all time.
IT IS the greatest conspiracy theory of all time – who shot JFK?
Now US President Donald Trump has ordered the release of 3,100 classified documents next week that could, finally, solve the question of who murdered President John F Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963.
Trump yesterday tweeted his plans to open up long-sealed CIA and FBI files about the assassination, saying: ‘Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the longblocked and classified JFK Files to be opened.’
The file dump, which will take place on or before Thursday (October 26), 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 shooter Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone; that there was another gunman on a ‘grassy knoll’; that a single ‘magic bullet’ could not have struck both Kennedy and Texas
‘This is the holy grail. We need transparency’
governor John Connally and that the killing was ordered by, variously, the Mafia, Cuban president Fidel Castro, the CIA, the Russians and even JFK’s own Vice-President Lyndon B Johnson.
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, which ordered 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 have begged Trump to withhold certain documents for security reasons.
The official probe into Kennedy’s assassination, The Warren Commission, ruled Oswald – who was himself shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby two days after the killing – acted alone.
But polls in the US consistently show the majority of people believe in a cover-up.
Gerald Posner, author of the book Case Closed, which argues 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 thinks this will suddenly show four shooters at Dealey Plaza, it’s not the case.’ More than 2,000 books have been written about Kennedy’s killing, which took place as his motorcade rounded Dealey Plaza in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Oswald shot the President using an Italian-made rifle from the sixth floor of a book depository overlooking the plaza. Conspiracy theorists have argued that it would have been impossible for Oswald to have shot Kennedy from that range; that the bullet holes in the President’s body do not line up, and that others must have been involved. Trump’s long-time confidante Roger Stone said that he personally lobbied the President to release the secret files saying: ‘We need transparency.’
Yesterday Stone tweeted: ‘Yes! Victory!’
During last year’s Presidential campaign, Trump made the unfounded claim that the father of his Republican rival for the White House, Ted Cruz, was associated with the assassination, a claim that he has never withdrawn or apologised for.
Historians do not believe the documents will contain any new bombshell revelations but they could shed light on a mysterious trip Oswald paid to Mexico City weeks before the murder.
Expert Rex Bradford said: ‘The Mexico trip is one of the keys to this whole affair.’
The US had bugged the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City where Oswald sought a visa to visit the Soviet Union.
The new trove allegedly holds new information on death threats Oswald made against the President. There are also never-beforeseen personal letters to and from widowed First Lady Jackie Kennedy, witness statements and interviews with KGB and CIA agents.
‘This is the holy grail,’ Stone added. ‘We need to see all these documents in the interest of truth and transparency.’