Last of the classified JFK assassination files to be released Tuesday
About 80,000 documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy are expected to be made public on Tuesday.
Days after taking office, President Trump ordered the release of the files, along with those the National Archives still holds concerning the assassinations of Kennedy’s brother, Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., both killed in 1968.
But the exact timing of the JFK dump only became clear on Monday in remarks the president made to reporters as he toured the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
“While we’re here, I thought it would be appropriate — we are, tomorrow, announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files,” Trump said. “So, people have been waiting for decades for this, and I’ve instructed my people … lots of different people, [Director of National Intelligence] Tulsi Gabbard that they must be released tomorrow.”
While many of the documents related to Kennedy’s death were made public during Trump’s first term, some remained classified under exemptions extended by former President Joe Biden.
Although presidential historians have said the release of the remaining JFK files could shed light on some details surrounding the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination, they are unlikely to upset the accepted narrative — that lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald fired the fatal shots on Kennedy’s motorcade from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas.
Speaking to NPR in January, Northwestern University history professor Kevin Boyle noted that 300,000 pages of material related to Kennedy had already been released and that the remainder was “not going to reveal … something new about John Kennedy’s assassination.”
Fredrik Logevall, a JFK biographer, said he did not believe the new information would “dramatically overturn our understanding of what happened on that terrible day in Dallas,” adding that “even if they don’t alter our understanding in this deep way, I think there’s still useful information potentially in these materials.”
It wasn’t clear when files related to RFK and King — some related to the civil-rights leader that have been sealed by a federal court until 2027 — might be released.
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