In keeping with his campaign pledge to provide greater transparency on the 1963 assassination of JFK , U.S. President Donald Trump disclosed documents.
After hours of scrutiny, the Justice Department lawyers made the first batch of more than 80,000 JFK assassination records available online. The archives, which include classified memos, provide insight into the anxiety surrounding relations between the United States and the Soviet Union following the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The National Archives released 1,123 documents on Tuesday, but it was unclear how much new material they contained due to previous redactions.
“You got a lot of reading,” Trump told reporters on Monday, previewing the release. “I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything.”
However, some of the documents unsealed Tuesday night did have blacked-out passages. Others were hard to read due to fading, poor scans, or seemed unrelated to the JFK case, according to specialists.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s (JFK) mysterious assassination
A gunman killed President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, while he was traveling through Dealey Plaza in a motorcade.
Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository while he was with Jacqueline and others.
About half an hour after the motorcade arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital, doctors declared Kennedy dead. Connally was also hurt, but he survived. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office as president on Air Force One at Dallas Love Field two hours later.
Following a ten-month inquiry, the Warren Commission found no evidence of a conspiracy involving Oswald or Jack Ruby and determined that Oswald was responsible for JFK’s death. Jim Garrison, the district attorney for New Orleans, charged businessman Clay Shaw with Kennedy’s murder in 1967, but Shaw was found not guilty.
The Warren Commission’s conclusions were supported by other inquiries, such as the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission. Though they were unable to identify the conspirators, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) declared in 1979 that Kennedy was most likely slain as part of a conspiracy.
The HSCA based this argument on a contested police recording but also raised the possibility that two gunmen were involved.
Many people still circulate conspiracy theories about Kennedy’s killing, and the subject remains hotly debated. Polls show that the majority of Americans believe his death resulted from a conspiracy.
What do the released documents show?
The 1963 Department of Defense documents focus on the Cold War and U.S. efforts to counter Castro’s support for communism in Latin America.
The records show Castro did not intend to provoke the U.S. or endanger his government. Rather, they think he might become more supportive of Latin American subversive groups.
A January 1962 document contains information regarding a top-secret initiative known as “Operation Mongoose” or “the Cuban Project.”
In 1961, Kennedy approved a CIA-led campaign to sabotage and weaken Castro’s government. After Trump’s January order, the FBI found hundreds of new papers on the Kennedy assassination.
The Justice Department and other government agencies have supported the official conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone shooter responsible for Kennedy’s assassination over the years. Still, according to polls, a large number of Americans think his death was the result of a conspiracy.
Additionally, Trump has pledged to make public records pertaining to the assassinations of Senator Robert Kennedy and civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. He has allowed extra time to plan the publication of these documents.
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