The US government has initiated the release of a significant collection of documents regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a historical event that continues to ignite conspiracy theories more than six decades later. This release follows an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January, which mandated that unredacted files related to the case be made public. While historians are examining the newly available records, they do not anticipate any groundbreaking revelations.
President Trump has indicated that approximately 80,000 pages of documents will be unsealed. This marks a continuation of previous efforts by US authorities, who have released hundreds of thousands of JFK documents over the years. However, some files were withheld due to concerns related to national security. The ongoing skepticism surrounding the official narrative persists as many Americans still believe that the gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, did not act alone in the assassination of JFK.
President Kennedy was fatally shot during a visit to Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. The extent to which the recently released materials from the National Archives and Records Administration contain new information remains uncertain. Experts note that many documents have been previously disclosed in a partially redacted format. On Monday, Trump told reporters, “You got a lot of reading,” while previewing the release, adding, “I don't believe we're going to redact anything.” However, reports indicate that some of the documents unsealed on Tuesday night still contained blacked-out sections, and others were difficult to read due to fading or poor scanning quality.
A government commission concluded that President Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine veteran and self-proclaimed Marxist who had defected to the Soviet Union before returning to the United States. Despite this official finding, public opinion polls over the decades reveal that a majority of Americans do not believe Oswald acted alone. The case has been plagued by unanswered questions, leading to numerous theories involving various entities, including government agents, the mafia, and other nefarious characters.
In 1992, Congress enacted legislation mandating the release of all documents related to the investigation within 25 years. Both President Trump during his first term and President Joe Biden have released large volumes of JFK-related documents, yet thousands of files have remained either partially or fully classified. Trump's executive order from two months ago also called for the release of files pertaining to the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy, a presidential candidate, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., both of whom were murdered in 1968. Notably, Trump had promised during his campaign to release JFK files shortly after securing the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., JFK’s nephew and the son of Robert Kennedy, who has since taken on the role of Trump’s health secretary.
