Trump administration releases final batch of JFK assassination files
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Despite the release of these documents, public opinion polls indicate that many Americans continue to believe Kennedy’s assassination was the result of a broader conspiracy.
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President John F. Kennedy waves from his car in a motorcade approximately one minute before he was shot, on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas. Riding with President Kennedy are First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, right, Nellie Connally, second from left, and her husband, Texas Gov. John Connally, far left. (AP)
The US National Archives released the final batch of files on Tuesday related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a case that continues to fuel conspiracy theories more than six decades after his death.
This move follows an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in January, mandating the unredacted release of remaining records concerning the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother and former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
"In accordance with President Donald Trump's directive... all records previously withheld for classification that are part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection are released," the National Archives stated on its website Tuesday evening.
Over the years, the National Archives has declassified millions of pages related to Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963. However, thousands of documents had been kept classified at the request of the CIA and FBI due to national security concerns.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President Kennedy, has publicly stated his belief that the CIA was involved in his uncle’s assassination—an allegation the agency has dismissed as baseless.
The Warren Commission, tasked with investigating the killing of the 46-year-old president, concluded that former Marine sharpshooter Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Yet, this official finding has done little to dispel widespread speculation that a larger plot was behind Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas. The slow release of government documents has further fueled various conspiracy theories.
Historians studying Kennedy’s assassination have suggested that the remaining documents were unlikely to contain groundbreaking revelations or resolve the longstanding theories surrounding the murder of the 35th US president.
A newly released document labeled "secret" contains a typed account with handwritten notes from a 1964 interview conducted by a Warren Commission researcher. The interviewee, CIA employee Lee Wigren, was questioned about discrepancies in information provided to the commission by the State Department and the CIA regarding marriages between Soviet women and American men.
At the time of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald was married to Marina Oswald, a Soviet woman.
Oswald, who defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 but returned to the US in 1962, was fatally shot by business owner Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963—just two days after Kennedy’s killing—while being transferred to a county jail.
Many of the previously released records include raw intelligence, such as numerous FBI reports that ultimately led nowhere. Much of their content was already known, including details about the CIA’s failed and often bizarre plots to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro.
Among the newly disclosed records is a document from January 1962 detailing "Operation Mongoose," also known as "the Cuban Project." This top-secret CIA-led campaign, authorized by President Kennedy in 1961, aimed to destabilize and ultimately overthrow the government of Cuban leader Fidel Castro through covert operations and acts of sabotage.
The document release aligns with a 1992 congressional mandate that required all unredacted assassination records held by the National Archives to be made public in full 25 years later.
Shortly after taking office in January, Trump signed an order related to the release of assassination records, leading the FBI to identify thousands of additional documents connected to Kennedy’s killing in Dallas.
In response to Trump's directive, the US Justice Department ordered some of its national security lawyers to conduct an urgent review of the assassination-related records, according to a Monday evening email seen by Reuters.
Despite the release of these documents, public opinion polls indicate that many Americans continue to believe Kennedy’s assassination was the result of a broader conspiracy.
Read more: FBI: Trump shooter studied JFK assassination prior to own attempt
