"WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration on Tuesday released more than 30,000 pages of previously classified or censored documents relating to the death of former President John F. Kennedy, potentially providing answers to decades-old questions that helped make the 1963 assassination an emblem of distrust in government.
President Trump said last year on the campaign trail he would disclose those documents if elected, and on Monday said most of the 80,000 remaining pages would be released in full. "You've got a lot of reading," he told reporters while visiting the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Lawyers from the Justice Department's national-security division were tapped to review hundreds of documents each, which they did late into the night on Monday, in preparation for the release, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Warren Commission in 1964 found that Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, who acted alone. In the years since, a raft of alternate theories have bubbled up, including whether the U.S. government itself killed him.
The release, made public by the National Archives, contains at least 31,000 pages of digitized paper documents going back to the 1960s. Some have faded typewritten text and handwritten notes; others contain faint classified "SECRET" markings. The documents appeared to address a range of topics, from a trip Oswald took to Finland, to a $210 rent reminder for a Central Intelligence Agency safe house in Maryland, to the financing of covert operations. One March 1993 memo shows the CIA arranged for two Washington Post reporters to interview Yuri Nosenko, a former KGB agent, about his knowledge of Oswald when he lived in the Soviet Union. "The POST reimbursed Nosenko for expenses and paid him a $250 consulting fee," the memo said.
The secrecy around Kennedy's assassination was in many ways ground zero for the idea of "deep state" bureaucrats acting secretly to undermine elected officials, historians say, an idea that has been crucial to Trump's rise. Before Kennedy's assassination, most American conspiracy theories were about foreign countries meddling in U.S. affairs, said Steven Gillon, a historian on the Kennedy family. Kennedy's killing, U.S. dishonesty about the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal all created "a breeding ground of suspicions that lead to this fear of a deep state," Gillon said.
Documents released Tuesday help explain why some of the materials have remained secret for decades. CIA operations that could be exposed spanned dozens of countries.
The documents, many of them fully unredacted, provide a window into the overlap between covert action and statecraft. One CIA document from 1960 recounts how Mexico's President Adolfo Lopez Mateos, who had spoken publicly against American intervention in Cuba, praised American plans to oust Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Lopez Mateos asked the CIA's local station chief to convey to President Eisenhower that "he is delighted that a decision has now been made to get rid of Castro."
While most Kennedy scholars don't expect any released documents to dispute the notion that Oswald shot Kennedy, they say the documents could shed more light on whether Cuban or Soviet officials knew about the former Marine's intentions to kill the president. The release could also provide more information about whether the CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation ignored warning signs about Oswald's plans.
One previously declassified FBI report showed that, in the months before the assassination, Oswald had tried to defect to Cuba, and sought a visa from Havana's mission in Mexico City. After being rejected for the visa, Oswald was heard screaming that he was going to kill Kennedy, that FBI report alleged. Castro also knew about Oswald's visit and his threat, the report alleged, attributing the comments to an FBI source who spoke to Castro after Kennedy's death.
Another document released Tuesday says that the CIA's station chief in Mexico City asked about an American trying to get a visa and having a problem with the Soviet consul. "Can we identify?" the chief wrote. An officer identified the American as Oswald, pulled the tape of the wiretap of the Soviet consulate that captured his visit, and marked it "urgent," the document said." [1]
1. U.S. News: Trump Releases Files on JFK's Death. Schectman, Joel; Gillum, Jack; Whitton, Brian. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 19 Mar 2025: A3.
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