President Donald Trump says information associated to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy can be launched Tuesday with none redactions, making good on a promise he made throughout his marketing campaign.
Trump informed reporters Monday that his administration can be releasing 80,000 information, although it’s not clear what number of of these are among the many hundreds of thousands of pages of information which have already been made public.
“We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading,” Trump mentioned whereas on the John F. Kennedy Heart for the Performing Arts in Washington.
He additionally mentioned he doesn’t imagine something can be redacted from the information. “I said, ‘Just don’t redact. You can’t redact,’” he mentioned.
Many who’ve studied what’s been launched up to now by the federal government say the general public shouldn’t anticipate any earth-shattering revelations from the newly launched paperwork, however there may be nonetheless intense curiosity in particulars associated to the assassination and the occasions surrounding it.
Listed below are some issues to know:
Trump’s order
Shortly after he was sworn into workplace, Trump ordered the launch of the remaining categorized information associated to the assassination, which has spawned numerous conspiracy theories.
He directed the nationwide intelligence director and legal professional basic to develop a plan to launch the information. The order additionally aimed to declassify the remaining federal information associated to the 1968 assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
After signing the order, Trump handed the pen to an aide and directed that or not it’s given to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump administration’s prime well being official. He is the nephew of John F. Kennedy and son of Robert F. Kennedy. The youthful Kennedy, whose anti-vaccine activism has alienated him from a lot of his household, has mentioned he isn’t satisfied {that a} lone gunman was solely chargeable for his uncle’s assassination.
Nov. 22, 1963
When Air Drive One carrying JFK and first woman Jacqueline Kennedy touched down in Dallas, they had been greeted by a transparent sky and enthusiastic crowds. With a reelection marketing campaign on the horizon the following 12 months, they went to Texas for a political fence-mending journey.
However because the motorcade was ending its parade route downtown, photographs rang out from the Texas College Ebook Depository constructing. Police arrested 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, who had positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth flooring. Two days later, nightclub proprietor Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald throughout a jail switch.
A 12 months after the assassination, the Warren Fee, which President Lyndon B. Johnson established to analyze, concluded that Oswald acted alone and that there was no proof of a conspiracy. However that did not quell an online of different theories over the a long time.
The JFK information
Within the early Nineties, the federal authorities mandated that every one assassination-related paperwork be housed in a single assortment within the Nationwide Archives and Data Administration. The gathering of over 5 million pages of information was required to be opened by 2017, barring any exemptions designated by the president.
Trump, who took workplace for his first time period in 2017, had mentioned that he would permit the discharge of all the remaining information however ended up holding some again due to what he referred to as the potential hurt to nationwide safety. And whereas information continued to be launched throughout President Joe Biden’s administration, some stay unseen.
Researchers have estimated that 3,000 information or so haven’t been launched, both in entire or partially.
And final month, the FBI mentioned that it had found about 2,400 new information associated to the assassination. The company mentioned then that it was working to switch the information to the Nationwide Archives to be included within the declassification course of.
There are nonetheless some paperwork within the JFK assortment that researchers don’t imagine the president will be capable to launch. Round 500 paperwork, together with tax returns, weren’t topic to the 2017 disclosure requirement.
What’s been realized
A few of the paperwork already launched have supplied particulars on the way in which intelligence companies operated on the time, together with CIA cables and memos discussing visits by Oswald to the Soviet and Cuban embassies throughout a visit to Mexico Metropolis simply weeks earlier than the assassination. The previous Marine had beforehand defected to the Soviet Union earlier than returning house to Texas.
One CIA memo describes how Oswald phoned the Soviet embassy whereas in Mexico Metropolis to ask for a visa to go to the Soviet Union. He additionally visited the Cuban embassy, apparently all for a journey visa that might allow him to go to Cuba and wait there for a Soviet visa. On Oct. 3, greater than a month earlier than the assassination, he drove again into the US by way of a crossing level on the Texas border.
One other memo, dated the day after Kennedy’s assassination, says that in response to an intercepted cellphone name in Mexico Metropolis, Oswald communicated with a KGB officer whereas on the Soviet embassy that September.
The releases have additionally contributed to the understanding of that point interval through the Chilly Struggle, researchers mentioned.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
