Newly declassified JFK assassination files released by Trump administration

President Trump released a cache of unredacted classified documents connected Tuesday related to the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, but experts accidental the documents are improbable to enactment an extremity to speculation astir the infamous killing.

Trump told reporters connected Monday during a sojourn to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that the caller merchandise would beryllium astir 80,000 pages, but helium did not springiness further accusation astir what the files would include.

“People person been waiting for decades for this,” Trump said. “It’s going to beryllium precise interesting.”

The merchandise was published connected the National Archives website astir 4 p.m. Pacific clip and consisted of 1,123 PDF documents, including handwritten and typed reports. Several of the documents are blurry and challenging to read, astir apt due to the fact that of aging and the prime of photocopies.

A cursory reappraisal of the merchandise did not instantly output immoderate large revelations oregon situation the well-established facts that Kennedy was fatally changeable by Lee Harvey Oswald portion traveling successful an open-topped convertible done Dallas. However, the immense trove of documents volition instrumentality important clip for historians and The Times to comb through.

Jefferson Morley, vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, said successful a statement the merchandise was “the astir affirmative quality connected the declassification of JFK files since the 1990s.” The nonprofit instauration keeps a nationalist database of authorities records connected Kennedy’s assassination.

“These long-secret records shed caller airy connected JFK’s mistrust of the CIA, the Castro assassination plots, the surveillance of Oswald successful Mexico City, and CIA propaganda operations involving Oswald,” helium said. Morley noted that the records bash not see immoderate of the 2,400 caller FBI files discovered past month.

Timothy Naftali, a historiographer astatine Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, told the New York Times helium believes galore of the documents had been kept classified to support CIA intelligence-gathering methods and not due to the fact that they contained inflammatory accusation astir the assassination.

Despite the evident deficiency of important caller revelations, the documents bash incorporate galore fascinating tidbits astir the investigations that followed the assassination.

One study describes an probe into Oswald’s connections to the KGB. Oswald lived successful the Soviet Union from 1959 to 1962, and galore conspiracy theorists person posited that helium was acting connected the Soviets’ behalf.

In the document, U.S. prof E.B. Smith states that his longtime Russian person Slava Nikonov, a subordinate of the KGB, reviewed “five heavy volumes” the bureau had connected Oswald and is “now assured that Oswald was astatine nary clip an cause controlled by the KGB.”

Also among the files is simply a memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover successful which helium worries that the information that Oswald was killed 2 days aft the assassination whitethorn marque it challenging to “convince the nationalist that Oswald is the existent assassin.” The memo was dictated connected Nov. 24, 1963, the time Oswald was killed by Dallas nightclub proprietor Jack Ruby portion helium was being transferred by the police.

The records are conscionable a sliver of the millions of pages of assassination-related documents held by the National Archives, astir of which person already been made disposable to the public.

Even six decades aft Kennedy’s death, researchers and the nationalist stay fascinated by the assassination and the events surrounding it. And the anticipation that the documents could uncover important caller accusation astir 1 of the 20th century’s astir shocking killings is enticing for scholars and conspiracy theorists alike.

“It’s astir a Shakespearean infinitesimal successful American authorities erstwhile you person this young, glamorous, charismatic president astatine the highest of his powerfulness — the apical of his crippled — beauteous wife, affluent household ... whose beingness was terminated successful an instant by a struggling, failed drifter,” said John Shaw, a JFK adept and the manager of Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

“The benignant of implausibility of Kennedy’s beingness ending truthful abruptly and truthful seemingly senselessly is conscionable 1 of those things that conscionable stays with you. And it’s evidently stayed with the state for 60-plus years,” Shaw said.

On Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy was riding successful an an open-topped convertible with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Texas Gov. John B. Connally Jr. and Connally’s wife, Nellie, arsenic their motorcade drove done Dealey Plaza successful Dallas.

Crowds lined the streets and waved to the Kennedys arsenic they drove by. As the motorcade was passing the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire was heard successful the plaza.

Kennedy was struck successful the cervix and caput and was pronounced dormant astatine Parkland Memorial Hospital. Connally was changeable successful the backmost but recovered.

Officials arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a publication depository idiosyncratic and erstwhile Marine and Marxist sympathizer who astatine 1 constituent tried to go a national of the Soviet Union, astatine a theatre successful Oak Cliff. Oswald was killed by Ruby during a perp locomotion broadcast connected unrecorded television.

Although the authorities concluded that some men acted alone, theories astir the deaths person proliferated for much than fractional a century. The sidesplitting gave commencement to aggregate conspiracy theories that included the engagement of the CIA, a 2nd gunman connected a adjacent grassy knoll, oregon that the Cubans oregon adjacent Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson played roles successful the shooting.

A Gallup canvass published successful 2023 showed that a bulk of Americans proceed to judge that Oswald did not enactment unsocial but worked with others successful a conspiracy to termination Kennedy.

One crushed different theories person apt persisted is that the government’s communicative that Oswald acted unsocial is conscionable an unsatisfying mentation and communicative for the public, Shaw said.

“These different alternate theses marque the communicative astatine slightest much analyzable and interesting,” Shaw said.

The wide conspiracy theories prompted Congress to walk a 1992 instrumentality mandating that documents related to Kennedy’s assassination beryllium released wrong 25 years but for those that had the imaginable to harm nationalist security. Trump released some of the documents successful 2017 but agreed to hold the disclosure of others. Former President Biden did the aforesaid during his term.

But aft taking bureau for a 2nd term, Trump signed an enforcement bid mandating the merchandise of each authorities records related to the Kennedy assassination. He besides mandated records beryllium released astir the assassinations of Kennedy’s brother, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Shaw said that, adjacent with the merchandise of the documents, statement implicit Kennedy’s decease would endure.

“The communicative volition not end,” helium said. “The discussions volition proceed astir who truly was down the execution of John F. Kennedy. There’s ever going to beryllium the consciousness that, OK, these are the authoritative documents. What other mightiness beryllium retired there?”