Now Reading: This is what they are saying about assassination
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This is what they are saying about assassination
This is what they are saying about assassination
Donald Trump releases the rest of JFK assassination recordsdata
The ultimate batch of recordsdata surrounding the assassination of John F Kennedy have been launched beneath an government order by US President Donald Trump.
unbranded – Newsworthy
WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday started releasing what it stated have been the entire authorities’s categorized recordsdata on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, making probably tens of 1000’s of pages of unredacted data accessible to the general public for the primary time.
The discharge of the recordsdata comes after Trump signed a day one government order in January geared toward absolutely releasing authorities paperwork associated to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother and presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
The contents of the paperwork, and whether or not any beforehand unreleased info is in them, wasn’t instantly clear. Historians shortly stated they would wish time to evaluate the flood of recordsdata to grasp in the event that they have been considerably totally different from earlier releases.
Thus far, nothing within the paperwork has modified the long-held findings that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 whereas the then-president rode in a motorcade in Dallas.
Trying to learn the JFK recordsdata your self? You could find them on the Nationwide Archives’ web site right here.
A lot of the recordsdata are scans of paperwork, and a few are blurred or have develop into faint or tough to learn within the a long time since Kennedy’s assassination. There are additionally pictures and sounds recordings, largely from the Sixties.
– Marina Pitofsky
One doc dated Nov. 20, 1991 seems to be a teletype of U.S. intelligence reporting on Lee Harvey Oswald, his time within the Soviet Union, his stormy relationship together with his Soviet spouse – and his apparently poor marksmanship.
The doc says {that a} KGB official named Nikonov reviewed recordsdata from the scary Soviet safety service, the KGB, to find out if Oswald “had been a KGB agent.”
Reuters reported that the doc cited a report from an American professor named E.B. Smith who reported he had talked in Moscow about Oswald with KGB official “Slava” Nikonov, who stated he had reviewed 5 thick recordsdata in regards to the murderer to find out if he had been a KGB agent.
“Nikonov is now assured that Oswald was at no time an agent managed by the KGB,” the doc says.
From the outline of Oswald within the recordsdata, Nikonov “doubted that anybody might management Oswald, however famous that the KBG (sic) watched him carefully and always whereas he was in the united states.”
Nikonov additionally commented that Oswald had “a stormy relationship together with his Soviet spouse, who rode him incessantly/”
The KGB recordsdata “additionally mirrored that Oswald was a poor shot when he tried goal firing in the united states,” the doc stated.
Some conspiracy theorists have latched onto bits and items of the CIA’s recordsdata on Oswald, together with these about his erratic habits, as proof he both didn’t act alone – or didn’t even have something to do with Kennedy’s assassination.
– Josh Meyer
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A number of the paperwork additionally embrace references to varied conspiracy theories suggesting that Oswald left the Soviet Union in 1962 intent on assassinating the favored younger president.
Division of Protection paperwork from 1963 lined the Chilly Conflict of the early Sixties and the U.S. involvement in Latin America, making an attempt to thwart Cuban chief Fidel Castro’s assist of communist forces in different international locations.
The paperwork recommend that Castro wouldn’t go as far as to impress a struggle with the USA or escalate to the purpose “that will severely and instantly endanger the Castro regime.”
“It seems extra doubtless that Castro may intensify his assist of subversive forces in Latin America,” the doc reads.
– Reuters
James Johnston, writer of “Homicide, Inc.: The CIA beneath John F. Kennedy” informed USA TODAY that he wasn’t anticipating any bombshells, on condition that just about the entire related companies – together with the CIA – had promised to show over every part that they had years in the past to the Nationwide Archives in 1988.
“If it was going to embarrass the company or inform a distinct story, they would not have turned them over to the Nationwide Archives within the first place,” stated Johnston, who was a employees member of the congressional Church Committee that investigated the CIA in 1975. “And in the event that they have been withholding them earlier than, I’m guessing they’d proceed to withhold them.”
Johnston cited one specific doc that he is aware of exists however that he says hasn’t been turned over to the Nationwide Archives – the primary one-on-one dialog between President Lyndon Johnson and CIA Director John McCone proper after Johnson took workplace after Kennedy’s assassination.
McCone was lengthy suspected of withholding info from the Warren Fee, the panel Johnson created to analyze Kennedy’s homicide, in line with Philip Shenon, writer of “A Merciless and Stunning Act: The Secret Historical past of the Kennedy Assassination.”
McCone was saved on as CIA director by Johnson and pledged full cooperation with the fee, which was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, Shenon wrote in a 2015 Politico article about his guide’s findings. He testified that the CIA had no proof to recommend that Oswald was a part of any conspiracy, international or home, however moderately a former Marine and self-proclaimed Marxist who acted as a delusional lone wolf.
That depiction of Oswald was in the end adopted by the Warren Fee in its ultimate report. However years later, Shenon stated, the CIA itself acknowledged that McCone had withheld info from fee investigators.
A number of of the paperwork launched Tuesday are tied to the Warren Fee: However what’s it?
After Kennedy was shot in 1963, his successor Lyndon B. Johnson created a fee to analyze the assassination. The Warren Fee decided that Oswald, who was arrested and later shot by a nightclub proprietor on dwell tv, acted alone.
Nonetheless, the assassination has fueled intense debate and a myriad of theories difficult the conclusion of the Warren Fee. Polls have proven that many People imagine Kennedy’s loss of life was a part of a wider conspiracy.
– Christopher Cann
A part of Trump’s promise of ‘most transparency’ on the nation’s intelligence companies
Trump himself didn’t instantly put up in regards to the doc launch. However Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of Nationwide Intelligence, hailed their launch, saying it was a part of Trump’s promise for “most transparency and a dedication to rebuild the belief of the American individuals within the Intelligence Neighborhood (IC) and federal companies.”
Critics have lengthy accused the intelligence group, and CIA specifically, of withholding probably revelatory details about the case. Nonetheless, intelligence officers through the years have insisted that they’ve launched every part necessary and that what’s left was withheld solely to guard extremely categorized sources and strategies of gathering intelligence and defending sources.
In an announcement, Gabbard stated that she instantly despatched out a directive throughout the intelligence group after Trump’s Monday announcement ordering everybody to offer all unredacted data inside the assortment of paperwork about Kennedy’s assassination the nationwide archives for rapid launch.
JFK file consultants stated these paperwork virtually actually have all been made public and considered already, however with largely minor redactions.
The paperwork have been launched simply earlier than 7 p.m.
The Nationwide Archives and Data Administration, the keeper of the paperwork, posted them with this assertion:
“In accordance with President Donald Trump’s directive of March 17, 2025, all data beforehand withheld for classification which are a part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Data Assortment are launched.”
The Nationwide Archives stated it partnered with companies throughout the federal authorities to adjust to the President’s directive in assist of Government Order 14176. It stated the data can be found to entry both on-line or in particular person, through onerous copy or on analog media codecs, on the Nationwide Archives at School Park, Maryland.
“Because the data proceed to be digitized, they are going to be posted to this web page,” the Nationwide Archives stated, suggesting that not the entire paperwork have been being launched on Tuesday in digital kind.
The Nationwide Archives additionally stated some info may nonetheless be withheld beneath court docket seal or for grand jury secrecy, and since some tax return info is topic to Inner Income Code prohibitions.
‘Individuals have been ready for many years for this’
The digital doc dump got here sooner or later after Trump introduced the recordsdata could be launched throughout a go to to the John F. Kennedy Middle of the Performing Arts, which he is taken over as board chairman.
“Individuals have been ready for many years for this,” Trump informed reporters.
“We now have an incredible quantity of paper. You’ve got bought a whole lot of studying,” Trump added. “I do not imagine we’ll redact something.”
The CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation, which have been concerned in JFK assassination investigations and within the doc launch, had no rapid remark.
‘An encouraging begin’
JFK assassination scholar Jefferson Morley stated in an announcement late Tuesday night time that the discharge of the primary tranche of paperwork “is an encouraging begin.”
“We now have full variations of roughly a 3rd of the redacted JFK paperwork held by the Nationwide Archives,” or 1,124 of roughly 3,500 paperwork, stated Morley, vice chairman of the Mary Ferrell Basis, a non-profit that promotes entry to historic authorities paperwork
He’s additionally writer of the JFK Information publication and three books on the CIA that painting the company’s involvement within the occasions main as much as the assassination.
“Seven of ten JFK recordsdata held by the Archives and sought by JFK researchers are actually within the public document,” Morley stated. “These long-secret data shed new gentle on JFK’s distrust of the CIA, the Castro assassination plots, the surveillance of Oswald in Mexico Metropolis, and CIA propaganda operations involving Oswald.”
However the launch doesn’t embrace two thirds of the promised recordsdata, or any of 500-plus IRS data or 2,400 lately found FBI recordsdata, Morley stated.
“Nonetheless,” he stated, “that is most optimistic information on the declassification of JFK recordsdata for the reason that Nineties.”
– Josh Meyer
A mad Justice Division scramble to satisfy Trump’s deadline
Trump’s order reportedly set off a scramble inside the Justice Division’s Nationwide Safety Division to satisfy Trump’s deadline, in line with ABC Information and Reuters.
In an e mail simply earlier than 5 p.m. ET Monday, a senior official inside DOJ’s Workplace of Intelligence stated that regardless that the FBI had already performed “an preliminary declassification evaluation” of the paperwork, “all” of the attorneys within the operations part now had to offer “a second set of eyes” to assist with this “pressing NSD-wide undertaking.,” ABC Information reported Tuesday.
The method of releasing the recordsdata was set in movement on Trump’s first day in workplace on Jan. 20, when he signed an government order geared toward absolutely releasing all authorities paperwork associated to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother and presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
A brand new FBI tranche of two,400 JFK data
Final month, the FBI stated it discovered some 2,400 new data linked to Kennedy’s assassination as nicely.
The company stated it was within the strategy of passing the paperwork to the Nationwide Archives and Data Administration. It is unclear what revelations, if any, are contained within the newly found recordsdata.
Kennedy’s assassination has lengthy been the topic of conspiracies after Oswald, the Marine veteran recognized as Kennedy’s murderer, was shot and killed days later.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s Well being and Human Companies secretary, has referred to as for launch of the recordsdata to see if any U.S. officers have been concerned within the assassination or potential coverup. A number of U.S. investigations had discovered no such proof.
Whereas hundreds of thousands of presidency data associated to the Kennedy assassination have been beforehand launched, some info stays categorized and redacted. Trump stated he instructed his director of nationwide intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to supervise the discharge of the remaining recordsdata.
A federal legislation handed in 1992 required the Kennedy assassination data to be absolutely launched by Oct. 26, 2017 until the president on the time decided their launch would trigger “identifiable hurt” to the navy protection, intelligence operations, legislation enforcement, or conduct of international relations of such gravity that it “outweighs the general public curiosity in disclosure.”
Trump was president when the 2017 deadline arrived. He ordered the discharge of almost 2,900 data, however saved others secret due to issues by the CIA and FBI that their launch might harm nationwide safety.
Former President Joe Biden acted in 2021, 2022 and 2023 to offer companies extra time to evaluation the data.
The paperwork launched in 2017 included particulars on the FBI and CIA investigations into Oswald and knowledge on covert Chilly Conflict operations.
Josh Meyer is USA TODAY’s Home Safety Correspondent. You possibly can attain him by e mail at jmeyer@usatoday.com. Comply with him on X at @JoshMeyerDC and Bluesky at @joshmeyerdc.bsky.social.
Contributing: Ed Brackett, Joey Garrison
(This story was up to date so as to add new info.)
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