Kenya Insights

Tag: John F. Kennedy

  • FBI Discovers Around 2,400 Secret JFK Assassination Records: Report

    FBI Discovers Around 2,400 Secret JFK Assassination Records: Report

    The FBI discovered about 2,400 records tied to US President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, according to a report by Axios on Monday.

    The still-secret records are contained in 14,000 pages of documents the FBI found in a review prompted by President Donald Trump’s Jan. 23 executive order to release all of JFK’s assassination records. The records were never provided through a task force that was supposed to review and disclose the documents, Axios reported.

    Conspiracy theories about Kennedy’s Nov. 22, 1963 assassination at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas have been talked about for 61 years, fueled by the government’s reluctance to release all of the documents.

    The existence of the new JFK documents was disclosed to the White House on Friday, and a further review of those records could reveal more information as to what happened in one of the most scrutinized tragedies in American history. The release of the new documents could also change the federal procedures for vetting and releasing information related to government events.

    “This is huge. It shows the FBI is taking this seriously,” assassination expert Jefferson Morley told Axios.

    Morley is also the vice president of the nonpartisan Mary Ferrell Foundation, the nation’s largest source of online records of Kennedy’s killing.

    “The FBI is finally saying, ‘Let’s respond to the president’s order,’ instead of keeping the secrecy going,” added Morley.

    Under the 1992 JFK Records Act, assassination records were supposed to be handed over to the JFK Assassination Records Review Board and then to the National Archives, which were to be fully disclosed in 2017 during Trump’s first term in the White House. However, the Axios report revealed that the newly discovered records had not been submitted or vetted by either of those entities.

    At the advice of the CIA in 2017, Trump delayed disclosure of the records that the government had identified. President Joe Biden then ordered a limited release of the records, which continued to promote the public’s view of the government’s shroud of secrecy.

    Experts say that the remaining records to be disclosed are unlikely to definitively prove whether Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman who pulled the trigger or if he was part of a broader conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, but it could put to rest the cover-up of documents that critics have blamed on the government for more than a half century.

    Despite Trump’s order to release all of the JFK assassination records, sources told Axios that the various intelligence agencies with records of the assassination are still recommending redactions.

    “When POTUS hears about this stonewalling, he’s gonna hit the roof,” a White House official told Axios.

    Trump’s order also calls for the release of records related to the June 5, 1968 assassination of JFK’s brother, Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), as well as the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) on April 4, 1968. The records of both RFK and MLK are expected to be released by March 9.

  • Trump Signs Executive Orders To Declassify JFK, MLK Assassination Files

    Trump Signs Executive Orders To Declassify JFK, MLK Assassination Files

    U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the declassification Thursday of the last secret files on the assassination of the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy, a case that still fuels conspiracy theories more than 60 years after his death.

    Trump signed an executive order that will also release documents on the 1960s assassinations of JFK’s younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

    “That’s a big one, huh? A lot of people have been waiting for this for years, for decades,” Trump told reporters as he signed the order in the Oval Office of the White House.

    After signing the order, Trump passed the pen he used to an aide, saying, “Give that to RFK Jr.,” JFK’s nephew and the current president’s nominee to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

    The order Trump signed requires the “full and complete release” of the JFK files, without redactions that he accepted back in 2017 when releasing most of the documents.

    “It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay,” the order said.

    Trump had previously promised to release the last of the files, most recently at his inauguration on Monday.

    The U.S. National Archives has released tens of thousands of records in recent years related to the November 22, 1963, assassination of President Kennedy but held thousands back, citing national security concerns.

    It said at the time of the latest large-scale release, in December 2022, that 97% of the Kennedy records — which total 5 million pages — had now been made public.

    The Warren Commission that investigated the shooting of the charismatic 46-year-old president determined that it was carried out by a former Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.

    But that formal conclusion has done little to quell speculation that a more sinister plot was behind Kennedy’s murder in Dallas, Texas, and the slow release of the government files has added fuel to various conspiracy theories.

    A gesture to RFK Jr.

    Trump’s move is partly a gesture to one of the most prominent backers of those conspiracies — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. himself.

    RFK Jr. said in 2023 there was “overwhelming evidence the CIA was involved” in his uncle JFK’s murder and “very convincing” evidence the agency was also behind the 1968 assassination of his own father, Robert F. Kennedy.

    The former attorney general was killed while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president. Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian-born Jordanian, was convicted of his murder.

    Thousands of John Kennedy assassination-related documents from the National Archives were released during Trump’s first term in office, but he also held some back on national security grounds.

    Then-President Joe Biden said at the time of the December 2022 documents release that a “limited” number of files would continue to be held back at the request of unspecified “agencies.”

    Previous requests to withhold documents have come from the CIA and FBI.

    Kennedy scholars have said the documents still held by the archives are unlikely to contain any bombshell revelations or put to rest the rampant conspiracy theories about the assassination of the 35th U.S. president.

    Oswald, who had at one point defected to the Soviet Union, was shot to death two days after killing Kennedy by a nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, as he was being transferred from the city jail.

    Hundreds of books and movies such as the 1991 Oliver Stone film “JFK” have fueled the conspiracy industry, pointing the finger at Cold War rivals Russia or Cuba, the Mafia and even Kennedy’s vice president, Lyndon Johnson.

    King was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

    James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder and died in prison in 1998, but King’s children have expressed doubts in the past that Ray was the assassin.

    (VOA)