US National Archives releases final batch of classified files related JFK assassination

The US National Archives has released the final batch of files related to the assassination of former president John F. Kennedy (JFK) — a case that still fuels conspiracy theories more than 60 years after his death.

The move on Tuesday follows an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in January directing the unredacted release of the remaining files related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother, 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 Archives said in a statement on its website Tuesday evening.

"The National Archives has partnered with agencies across the federal government to comply with the President’s directive in support of Executive Order 14176."

The National Archives has released millions of pages of records over the past decades relating to the assassination of then-president Kennedy in November 1963, but thousands of documents had been held back at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, citing national security concerns.

The Warren Commission that investigated the shooting of the charismatic 46-year -old president determined that it was carried out by a former Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.

But that formal conclusion has done little to quell speculation that a more sinister plot was behind Kennedy's murder in Dallas, Texas, and the slow release of the government files has added fuel to various conspiracy theories.

Soviet Union connection denied

The digital documents included PDFs of memos, including one with the heading "secret" that was a typed account with handwritten notes of a 1964 interview by a Warren Commission researcher who questioned Lee Wigren, a CIA employee, about inconsistencies in material provided to the commission by the State Department and the CIA about marriages between Soviet women and American men.

The documents also included references to various conspiracy theories suggesting that Kennedy assassin Oswald left the Soviet Union in 1962, intent on assassinating the popular young president.

Other documents played down Oswald's Soviet connection. One dated November 1991 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 said he had reviewed five thick files about the assassin to determine if he had been a KGB agent.

"Nikonov is now confident that Oswald was at no time an agent controlled by the KGB," Smith reported.

Oswald was shot by a strip club owner, Jack Ruby, on November 24, 1963 — two days after the Kennedy assassination — while being moved to a county jail.

Fidel Castro

Department of Defense documents from 1963 covered the Cold War of the early 1960s and the US involvement in Latin America, trying to thwart Cuban leader Fidel Castro's support of communist forces in other countries.

The documents suggest that Castro would not go so far as to provoke a war with the United States or escalate to the point "that would seriously and immediately endanger the Castro regime."

"It appears more likely that Castro might intensify his support of subversive forces in Latin America," the document reads.

One document released in January 1962 reveals details of a Top Secret project called "Operation Mongoose," or simply "the Cuban Project," which was a CIA-led campaign of covert operations and sabotage against Cuba, authorised by Kennedy in 1961, aimed at removing the Castro regime.

Hundreds of books and movies, such as the 1991 Oliver Stone film "JFK" have fueled the conspiracy industry, pointing the finger at Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union or Cuba, the Mafia and even Kennedy's vice president, Lyndon Johnson.

Experts doubted the new trove of information will change the underlying facts of the case, that Lee Harvey Oswald opened fire at Kennedy from a window at a school book deposit warehouse as the presidential motorcade passed by Dealey Plaza in Dallas.

Trump's secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a son of Robert Kennedy and nephew of John F. Kennedy, has said he believes the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in his uncle's death, an allegation the agency has described as baseless. Kennedy Jr. has also said he believes his father was killed by multiple gunmen, an assertion that contradicts official accounts.

The release of the documents follows an October 26, 1992 act of Congress which required that the unredacted assassination records held in the National Archives be released in full 25 years later.

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Source: TRT