DALLAS — Newly released documents related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 have provided curious readers with additional insights into Cold War-era covert operations carried out by the U.S. However, they have not lent credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories regarding the identity of JFK’s killer.
The recent release, consisting of approximately 2,200 files by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), comes with a significant caveat: there hasn’t been enough time to review more than a small fraction of them. The bulk of the National Archives’ extensive collection of over 6 million pages of records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings, and artifacts related to the assassination had previously been made public.
According to an initial review conducted by the Associated Press of more than 63,000 pages released this week, many of the documents did not pertain directly to the assassination but rather to covert CIA operations, particularly in Cuba. Nothing so far has contradicted the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone as the assassin in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
‘Nothing points to a second gunman,’ expressed Philip Shenon, an author who published a book on the assassination in 2013. ‘I haven’t seen any big blockbusters that rewrite the essential history of the assassination, but it is very early in the review process,’ he added.
Kennedy was shot while his motorcade was concluding its parade route in Dallas, with shots fired from the Texas School Book Depository building. Oswald, a 24-year-old former Marine, was apprehended by the police after the incident. Just two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald during a live television broadcast.
A year after the assassination, the Warren Commission, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate, concluded that Oswald acted alone and found no evidence of a conspiracy. Nevertheless, critics of the Commission have since speculated about various alternative theories regarding JFK’s assassination.
Historians are hoping the new documents will unveil further details surrounding Oswald’s activities leading up to the assassination and what the CIA and FBI were aware of concerning him.
Shenon highlighted previously released information detailing a trip Oswald made to Mexico City in late September 1963. Records indicate that Oswald intended to reach out to the Soviet Union’s embassy after residing as a U.S. defector in the U.S.S.R. from October 1959 to June 1962.
He suggested that the U.S. government may have withheld details about what it knew regarding Oswald prior to the assassination to protect officials from accusations of ‘incompetence and laziness.’
‘The CIA had Oswald under pretty aggressive surveillance during that time, just weeks before the assassination,’ Shenon stated. ‘There are indications he discussed plans to kill Kennedy while in Mexico City, and others may have overheard him.’
The release of these files has reignited public interest in the details surrounding JFK’s assassination, which has spawned numerous conspiracy theories over the decades involving multiple shooters and potential involvement by various groups such as the Soviet Union and the mafia.
This recent dissemination of documents follows an order by President Donald Trump, although many of the records had previously been made public but with some redactions. Prior estimates indicated that approximately 3,000 to 3,500 files were still unreleased, either partially or wholly. In a recent announcement, the FBI revealed the discovery of about 2,400 additional records related to the assassination.
Jefferson Morley, vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, which archives files concerning the assassination, remarked that a significant amount of the excessive overclassification of trivial information has been eliminated. Timothy Naftali, an adjunct professor at Columbia University, noted that historians now seem to possess more information about U.S. intelligence activities under JFK than under any other president.
An example revealed in the newly released documents shows that in December 1963, the CIA director’s office was receiving messages from operatives in Cuba aiming to undermine Fidel Castro’s regime. One such message from December 9, 1963, stated, ‘Today received the magnum pistols but no bullets.’
Furthermore, Naftali mentioned that prior to this release, the government had made public versions of Johnson’s highly sensitive foreign intelligence checklist from the days following Kennedy’s assassination, albeit with most of the information redacted. With this latest release, it is now possible to explore what Johnson was reading at the time.
‘It’s quite remarkable to be able to walk through that secret world,’ Naftali summarized.
The newly released documents will surely continue to spark discussions on the complexities surrounding the events leading to JFK’s assassination. Historical investigations will persist as scholars delve deeper into the implications of these revelations.
Why do you think the JFK assassination continues to captivate public interest decades later?
