President Donald Trump has authorized the release of numerous classified government documents concerning the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a subject of long-standing conspiracy theories.
Thursday’s executive order also covers the declassification of remaining federal records related to the deaths of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. This is one of several swift executive actions taken by Trump during his second term’s initial week.
Addressing reporters, Trump declared, “everything will be revealed.”
During his reelection campaign, Trump promised to publicly release the remaining classified documents surrounding President Kennedy’s assassination, a decades-long point of public fascination. While making a similar pledge in his first term, he ultimately yielded to requests from the CIA and FBI to retain some documents under wraps.
Trump’s new administration includes Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nephew of the slain president, as the nominee for health secretary. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968 while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. The younger Kennedy has expressed skepticism about the lone gunman theory in his uncle’s assassination.
The order mandates that the director of national intelligence and the attorney general create a plan within 15 days for releasing the remaining John F. Kennedy records, and within 45 days for the other two cases. The exact release date remains uncertain.
Trump presented the signing pen to an aide, instructing its delivery to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Only a few thousand of the millions of government records pertaining to President Kennedy’s assassination remain fully classified. While experts suggest the public shouldn’t anticipate groundbreaking revelations, significant public interest persists in details surrounding the assassination and related events.
“The possibility remains that something overlooked could be the tip of a much larger iceberg,” stated Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of “The Kennedy Half-Century.” “That’s what researchers hope to uncover. However, it’s unlikely, though possible.”
Kennedy was fatally shot in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963, as his motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository, where 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald fired from a sixth-floor sniper’s nest. Two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a prison transfer.
In the early 1990s, the federal government mandated that all assassination-related documents be compiled into a single collection at the National Archives and Records Administration. This collection, exceeding 5 million records, was scheduled for public release by 2017, with presidential exemptions allowed.
The order acknowledges that while no congressional act mandates the release of information on the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy or King, making these government records public “is also in the public interest.”
During his first term, Trump claimed he would release all remaining records on the president’s assassination but ultimately withheld some due to concerns about national security risks. Although some files have been subsequently released under President Biden, others remain inaccessible.
Sabato, who mentors student researchers working with these documents, estimates that approximately 3,000 records, many originating from the CIA, remain unreleased, either fully or partially.
Documents released in recent years provide insights into the operations of intelligence services at that time, including CIA cables and memos detailing Oswald’s visits to Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City shortly before the assassination. Oswald, a former Marine, had previously defected to the Soviet Union before returning to Texas.
King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated within two months of each other in 1968.
King was fatally shot outside a Memphis, Tennessee motel on April 4, 1968, while supporting striking sanitation workers and planning further nonviolent protests. He died at a hospital within an hour.
James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to assassinating King, later recanting his plea and maintaining his innocence until his death.
FBI documents released over time reveal the bureau’s wiretapping of King’s phone lines, surveillance of his hotel rooms, and use of informants to gather information against him. The agency’s actions were the subject of the recent documentary, “MLK/FBI.”
Robert F. Kennedy, then a New York senator, was fatally shot on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after his victory speech in the California Democratic presidential primary. His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was convicted of first-degree murder and remains imprisoned.
Some documents within the JFK collection are unlikely to be released, according to researchers. Approximately 500 documents, including tax returns, were not subject to the 2017 disclosure requirement. Researchers also note that documents have been destroyed over the years.
—Stengle reported from Dallas. AP writer Terry Tang contributed from Phoenix.
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