On Tuesday, March 18, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump publicly released a large amount of classified documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. This unprecedented move saw tens of thousands of government records, left unredacted, being made accessible to the public for the first time.
This declassification initiative was triggered by an executive order signed by Trump in January, calling for the full disclosure of government documents pertaining to the assassinations of Kennedy, his presidential candidate brother Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard stated that this declassification aligns with the Trump administration’s commitment to “maximum transparency,” aiming to restore public trust in intelligence agencies. Trump, while announcing the release of the documents at the Kennedy Center on Monday, expressed that “people have been waiting for decades.”
According to USA Today, although the contents of the documents have not been fully analyzed yet, historians believe it will take time to assess if any significant discoveries have been made. As of now, these records have not provided evidence overturning the official conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of Kennedy.
The documents mention that Oswald had a strained relationship with his Soviet wife and performed poorly during shooting training in the Soviet Union, which contradicts the image of a successful assassin of the U.S. President. Some have always believed Oswald could not have acted alone, but the files do not offer any direct evidence to support this hypothesis.
A 1991 U.S. intelligence document indicates that the former Soviet KGB investigated whether Oswald was their spy, but there is no evidence to support this claim. Former KGB official Slava Nikonov is now convinced that Oswald was never under KGB control. Based on the descriptions in the files, Nikonov questions if anyone could have controlled Oswald.
The declassified documents have reignited debates on whether Oswald was supported by the Soviet Union or Cuba in the assassination, yet no conclusive evidence is provided in the files.
Some documents reveal that the U.S. Department of Defense was monitoring Fidel Castro’s communist influence in Latin America in 1963 but believed he was unlikely to directly provoke the U.S., focusing more on strengthening support for local subversive forces.
Author of “Murder, Inc.: The CIA under John F. Kennedy,” James Johnston, remains skeptical of this declassification, suggesting that if there were sensitive contents in the documents, they may have been sealed by intelligence agencies long ago.
He specifically highlights an unreleased record regarding the first conversation between Lyndon Johnson and CIA director John McCone after Kennedy’s assassination. Previous reports suggested the CIA withheld crucial information, although the agency denies this allegation.
Jefferson Morley, a researcher on the Kennedy assassination, stated that only 1,124 documents have been declassified so far, with over 2,400 FBI newly discovered documents yet to be released. These files may involve CIA surveillance operations on Oswald and U.S. plans to assassinate Castro.
Some documents may remain undisclosed due to court sealings, jury secrecy rules, or tax information protection laws. Currently, both the CIA and FBI have not officially responded to this declassification.