In the United States, enthusiasts are studying thousands of recently declassified documents by order of President Donald Trump, which concern the investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However, it is currently difficult to say how much these materials will shed light on one of the most mysterious murders of the 20th century, writes UNN with reference to the BBC.
Details
As experts predicted, this latest release by the new White House chief does not answer all questions about one of the most pivotal events in US history – the assassination of then-President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, in 1963.
But the latest package contains documents that are now almost or completely unredacted. In addition, they show how much the Central Intelligence Agency monitored John F. Kennedy's assassin before the shooting.
The official US government investigation in the 1960s concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a drifter and former US Marine who at one time defected to the then Soviet Union, acted alone when he shot at Kennedy's motorcade from a nearby building.
However, this case still raises questions and gives rise to incredible, almost fantastic conspiracy theories. The release of new materials is unlikely to change this situation.
CIA and Lee Harvey Oswald – a long-standing confrontation
These documents further shed light on the CIA's intense surveillance of Oswald, said Jefferson Morley, a former Washington Post reporter and editor of the JFK Facts blog.
He was the subject of intense CIA interest long before the assassination, and the extent of that has only become apparent in the last few years.
Many new documents have been released before, but more complete versions are now available. Although specialists are still studying them, no groundbreaking stories have emerged.
Nevertheless, experts praised the release of new documents as a step towards transparency. In the past, hundreds of thousands of documents were available but were partially redacted. Others were withheld, with officials citing national security concerns.
Philip Shenon, who wrote a book about the assassination in 2013, told the Associated Press that previously released documents described Oswald's trip to Mexico City in September 1963, months before the assassination. He said the CIA was monitoring him at the time.
In a previously released memo from April 1975, the CIA downplayed what it knew about Oswald's trip to Mexico City. The CIA also recorded three phone calls between Oswald and a Soviet embassy guard, but Oswald admitted to only one.
Intelligence methods revealed
A number of documents shed light on Kennedy's relationship with the CIA before his death and on intelligence gathering methods during the Cold War.
A newly unredacted memo reveals a more complete version of a memo written by Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger.
Harshly criticizing the CIA and its role in shaping foreign policy, the memo shows the agency's massive presence in US embassies, even in allied countries such as France.
Schlesinger warns Kennedy about the agency's influence on American foreign policy. Although the memo does not directly relate to the assassination, it details the complex relationship between the president and the intelligence services.
Villanova University professor David Barrett explained that the CIA traditionally opposes the release of operational or budgetary information.
It's a good thing the government released these documents, even if they can still be redacted.
One document details the use of fluoroscopic scanning – the use of X-rays to show images of the inside of an object.
Return of old theories
Some prominent online posts claimed that recent documents reveal new details about long-standing alleged conspiracies against Kennedy.
Among them are several viral posts about Gary Underhill – a World War II military intelligence agent.
Underhill reportedly claimed that a group of CIA agents was behind the assassination. This theory was widely circulated in 1967. Underhill's death in 1964 was ruled a suicide, but there are doubts about this.
His story has long been discussed online, and a CIA memo mentioning him was first published in 2017. And importantly, this theory is based on a second-hand account published after Mr. Underhill's death and contains no compelling evidence.
Are the files fully redacted?
A 1992 law required the release of all documents related to the assassination within 25 years, but it also provided for exceptions for national security concerns.
The desire for greater transparency has led to the release of more documents over time. President Trump during his first term, and President Biden recently in 2023, have released packages of documents.
Before the new release, President Trump said he had asked his staff to "redact nothing" from them.
This does not seem to be entirely true – the new documents still have some redactions. However, experts largely agreed that the latest release was a step forward for transparency.
It is worth noting that although there may be more releases ahead, as well as promised releases about the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and Martin Luther King Jr., questions about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are unlikely to lose their relevance.
Addition
Earlier, we wrote that US President Donald Trump stated that 80,000 pages of classified documents in the case of John F. Kennedy's assassination would be released on Tuesday.
The FBI found about 2,400 new unclassified documents about President Kennedy's assassination, a total of 14,000 pages of materials. The documents had not previously been submitted to the declassification commission and had not reached the National Archives.
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