The White House Declassified Thousands of Documents on Kennedy's Assassination: What We Learned From Them

On March 18, the federal government declassified tens of thousands of pages related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It is unclear how much they will shed light on the circumstances of the tragedy, writes The Washington Post. Documents confirm Kennedy's alleged killer was under surveillance by Soviet intelligence, reports GB News.

Photo: David Pillow | Dreamstime.com

Donald Trump announced on March 17 that "all of the Kennedy files" would be released on March 18. That set off a rush at the Justice Department, where lawyers spent the night poring over hundreds of pages of documents.

Most of the files contain information already known to experts, but there are also interesting moments: exposed American agents spying on Fidel Castro, Soviet sources transmitting information about Kennedy's killer to American professors abroad, as well as the internal workings of CIA intelligence.

On March 18, the National Archives initially released more than 1100 records, totaling more than 31 pages. Later that day, a second batch of documents was added, bringing the total to nearly 000 records, containing at least 2200 pages, short of the 63 pages promised by Trump. All of the released documents can be found at on the National Archives website.

On the subject: Trump declassified documents on the assassinations of Kennedy and Martin Luther King

The most intriguing documents have not been made public

Attorney Larry Schnapf, who has been seeking to unseal government records on the Kennedy assassination since 2017, believes the most intriguing material has yet to be released. Last month, the FBI told the National Archives that it had found 2400 records, totaling 14 pages, that were never turned over to the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which were created to examine the assassinations of Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

"We have no idea what is in these documents," Schnapf said.

Among the documents published on March 18, there are no completely new files - they were all already known, but now contain previously hidden information.

Philip Shannon, author of "A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination," studied several documents and noted that they did not change his understanding of the event.

"There's always the chance that something sensational will be found, but so far nothing has been found that would change the basic understanding of what happened that day," Shannon said. "It will take days, weeks, even months for serious researchers to fully understand these documents."

How the CIA Worked Half a Century Ago

Some of the newly declassified records confirmed long-suspected facts, such as that the CIA placed spies in foreign countries posing as State Department employees.

Some of the documents confirmed other covert US operations, including interference in elections and labor unions in Brazil, Finland, Cyprus, Greece and Spain.

A 1961 memo prepared for Kennedy titled “Reorganization of the CIA” reveals the agency’s internal intelligence philosophy and its influence on the American government. According to the document, more than 1500 CIA agents worked undercover as State Department employees.

The report was written by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He writes that the use of State Department cover for CIA agents was originally intended to be strictly limited and temporary. However, over time, the agency gave up on finding other ways to penetrate the country because it proved to be a faster and cheaper method.

For example, according to Schlesinger, 128 CIA employees worked at the US embassy in Paris.

"The CIA occupies the top floor of the embassy in Paris, which is well known to locals," he wrote. "On the night of the generals' revolt in Algiers, passersby noted with irony that the top floor of the building was flooded with light."

In the decades before and after Kennedy's assassination, much of the US intelligence activity was directed at the USSR and Cuba, as is also confirmed in declassified documents.

Among them is a 1991 teletype containing information from KGB officer Vyacheslav Nikonov, the grandson of former Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Nikonov told an American professor in Russia that he had "personally studied" five volumes of documents about Oswald.

Oswald was a bad shot.

Nikonov said he was "now certain that Oswald was never an agent under the control of the KGB." Based on the description of Oswald in the files, he doubted that anyone could have controlled him at all. However, Nikonov noted that the KGB "closely and constantly monitored" Oswald during his time in the USSR.

"Documents show Oswald was a poor shot when he tried target shooting in the USSR," the teletype said, an assessment that belies the precision with which President Kennedy was assassinated.

Documents show that Oswald, who assassinated President Kennedy, was "under constant surveillance" by Soviet intelligence while he lived in the USSR. Oswald was a former Marine who defected to the Soviet Union and later returned to Texas.

Some of the previously released documents contained information about Oswald's activities in Mexico City in the weeks before the assassination.

CIA cables and memos discuss his visits to the Soviet and Cuban embassies during this trip.

One CIA memo describes how Oswald, while in Mexico City, called the Soviet embassy to request a visa to travel to the Soviet Union.

He also visited the Cuban embassy, ​​presumably trying to obtain a transit visa that would allow him to travel to Cuba and wait there for a Soviet visa to be issued.

On October 3, more than a month before the assassination, Oswald returned to the United States through a border crossing in Texas.

Another memo, dated the day after Kennedy's assassination, reveals additional details about Oswald's activities in Mexico City.

According to an intercepted telephone conversation in Mexico City, Oswald communicated with a KGB officer while at the Soviet embassy in September 1963. This contact occurred just weeks before the assassination.

A 1991 CIA memorandum provides additional details about Oswald's relationship with Soviet intelligence.

The document says that one of the CIA employees became friends with an American professor, who told him about an acquaintance of his who worked in the KGB.

This KGB officer studied "five thick volumes" of material on Oswald.

After analyzing these extensive documents, he concluded that "Oswald was never an agent controlled by the KGB."

Notes on Cuba

Some files, such as a 1965 memo titled “Cuban Affairs in the Department of Defense,” concern Fidel Castro. The report suggests that Castro had no interest in a conflict with the United States that could jeopardize his own regime.

Some records reveal how the U.S. obtained information about Castro. One declassified document shows that Manuel Machado Llosa, the treasurer of the Mexican revolutionary movement and a “good friend” of Castro, was actually a CIA agent.

"These people are stealing history from future generations"

Vogue correspondent and popular blogger Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy's only grandson and Caroline Kennedy's son, commented on the online publication of the files. Schlossberg, who is critical of Trump, condemned the former president and his great uncle, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"These people are stealing history from the present and future generations. By appropriating the past for their own criminal purposes, they make themselves look normal to those who have no living memory of the events," Schlossberg wrote on X on March 18.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., John F. Kennedy’s nephew, praised Trump in January for ordering the declassification of the documents and opening them to the public. He called it a move that reverses “a 60-year strategy of lies and secrecy, disinformation, censorship and smear.” That strategy, he said, included the Vietnam War, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and their aftermath, as well as the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Thank you, President Trump, for your trust in the American people and for taking the first step toward reversing this disastrous course,” he wrote in X after signing the order to declassify the documents.

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Disclosure of personal data

Some criticized the government for releasing sensitive information that could make people targets for harassment and fraud. In the process, officials released dozens of Social Security numbers, which Mark Zaid, the attorney who pushed for the release, called a “grossly irresponsible” move that “added nothing to what we all want to know — maximum transparency in the murder case.”

Joseph diGenova, a lawyer who worked for Trump’s 2020 campaign, said he didn’t know why his name, birthdate and Social Security number were in the JFK case documents. He called the government’s actions “careless, unprofessional” and “completely outrageous.”

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