The US Government has today released long classified documents about the JFK assassination
KEY POINTS:
300 of the 3100 secret JFK files have been placed under review for six months by Trump
Letter highlights concerns Lee Harvey Oswald was KGB agent
Documents reveal Oswald's six-day trip to Mexico City right before assassination
Thousands of documents from the long-secret John F. Kennedy assassination files have just been released.
President Donald Trump had blocked the release of hundreds of records on the John F. Kennedy assassination on Thursday night US time, bending to CIA and FBI appeals. The National Archives moved to turn over about 2800 other records.
"I have no choice," Trump said in a memo, citing "potentially irreversible harm" to national security if he allowed all records out now.
He was placing those files under a six-month review while letting the 2800 others come out, racing a deadline to honour a law mandating their release.
Officials say Trump will impress upon federal agencies that "only in the rarest cases" should JFK files stay secret after the six-month review.
Part of a web page showing showing a listing of the released records. Photo / AP
The CIA says more than 69,000 of the more than 87,000 CIA records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have already been released in full. Many of the records contain multiple pages.
The agency said none of the 18,000 remaining records will be withheld in full and that the redacted - or blacked out - parts of these remaining records represent less than 1 per cent of the total CIA information in the assassination-related documents.
The UK Telegraph reports some of the files shed new light on the CIA's plans to have Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, assassinated.
In a 1975 "summary of facts gathered by the executive director of the CIA Commission concerning possible involvement in plans to assassinate foreign leaders," it is stated that the CIA explored working with "Mafia resources" as a means of killing the Cuban dictator.
"The commission has determined that agents of the CIA were involved in planning in this country with certain citizens and others to seek to assassinate Premier Castro. The commission has also determined that the CIA was involved in shipping arms from this country to persons in the Dominican Republic, who sought to assassinate Generalissimo Trujillo."
The CIA says the redactions were made to protect information that, if released, would harm national security. The agency says the redactions hide the names of CIA assets and former and current CIA officers as well as specific intelligence methods and partnerships that remain viable to protect national security.
Despite having months to prepare for disclosures that have been set on the calendar for 25 years, Trump's decision came down to a last-minute debate with intelligence agencies - a tussle the President then prolonged by calling for still more review.
Much of Thursday passed with nothing from the White House or National Archives except silence, leaving unclear how the Government would comply with a law requiring the records to come out by the end of the day - unless Trump had been persuaded by intelligence agencies to hold some back.
White House officials said the FBI and CIA made the most requests within the government to withhold some information.
The administration has essentially "kicked the can a bit", a White House aide admitted after a conference call with reporters on Thursday, the Daily Mail reported.
"We can't keep this up forever," he admitted, "but it's better to get it right than to do it quickly."
Trump's memorandum said: "The American public expects - and deserves - its Government to provide as much access as possible to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records so that the people may finally be fully informed about all aspects of this pivotal event. Therefore, I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted.
"At the same time, executive departments and agencies have proposed to me that certain information should continue to be redacted because of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns. I have no choice -today - but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our nation's security.
"To further address these concerns, I am also ordering agencies to re-review each and every one of those redactions over the next 180 days. At the end of that period, I will order the public disclosure of any information that the agencies cannot demonstrate meets the statutory standard for continued postponement of disclosure under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992."
No blockbusters had been expected in the last trove of secret files regarding Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, given a statement months ago by the archives that it assumed the records, then under preparation, would be "tangential" to what's known about the killing.
But for historians, it's a chance to answer lingering questions, put some unfounded conspiracy theories to rest, perhaps give life to other theories - or none of that, if the material adds little to the record.
Researchers were frustrated by the uncertainty that surrounded the release for much of the day.
"The government has had 25 years - with a known end-date - to prepare #JFKfiles for release," University of Virginia historian Larry Sabato tweeted in the afternoon. "Deadline is here. Chaos."
Asked what he meant, Sabato emailed to say: "Contradictory signals were given all day. Trump's tweets led us to believe that disclosure was ready to go. Everybody outside government was ready to move quickly."
The public is getting a look at thousands of secret government files related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination, but hundreds of other documents will remain under wraps for now.
The government was required by Thursday to release the final batch of files related to Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
But Trump delayed the release of some of the files, citing security concerns.
"As long as the government is withholding documents like these, it's going to fuel suspicion that there is a smoking gun out there about the Kennedy assassination," said Patrick Maney, a presidential historian at Boston College.
How many files are there and how can I see them?
The last batch of assassination files included more than 3100 documents - comprising hundreds of thousands of pages - that have never been seen by the public. About 30,000 documents were released previously with redactions.
The National Archives released more than 2800 documents on its website Thursday evening.
But Trump delayed the release of the remaining files after last-minute appeals from the CIA and FBI. Trump cited "potentially irreversible harm" to national security if he were to allow all the records out now and placed those files under a six-month review.
Officials say Trump will impress upon federal agencies that JFK files should stay secret after the six-month review "only in the rarest cases."
Why are they becoming public now
President George W. Bush signed a law on October 26, 1992, requiring that all documents related to the assassination be released within 25 years, unless the president says doing so would harm intelligence, law enforcement, military operations or foreign relations. The push for transparency was driven in part by the uproar in the wake of Oliver Stone's 1991 conspiracy-theory filled film JFK.
Will there be any bombshells?
The chances are slim, according to the judge who led the independent board that reviewed and released thousands of the assassination documents in the 1990s.
The files that were withheld in full were those the Assassination Records Review Board deemed "not believed relevant," Judge John Tunheim of Minnesota told The Associated Press.
But Tunheim said it's possible the files contain information the board didn't realise was important two decades ago.
JFK experts believe the files will provide insight into the inner workings of the CIA and FBI. But they stress that it will take weeks to mine the documents for potentially new and interesting information.
What will the files show?
Some of the documents are related to Oswald's mysterious six-day trip to Mexico City right before the assassination, scholars say. Oswald said he was visiting the Cuban and Soviet Union embassies there to get visas, but much about his time there remains unknown.
The to-be-released documents contain details about the arrangements the US entered into with the Mexican government that allowed it to have close surveillance of those and other embassies, Tunheim said. Other files scholars hope will be released in full include an internal CIA document on its Mexico City station, and a report on Oswald's trip from staffers of the House committee that investigated the assassination.
