By now, it is pretty widely known that government agencies are still withholding thousands of “protected” files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As of 2023, 4,684 assassination records are still “fully or partially” withheld from the public.
All remaining JFK assassination records were supposed to be released in full by 2017. That is the law created by Congress in the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act (JFK Act).
What happened instead?
President Trump ordered a delay of more than 3 years.
Biden took over the task of declassifying the JFK records and actually made things worse.
Biden placed discretion back in the hands of the very agencies that fight so hard to keep these historical records locked away forever.
Both presidents did not comply with the clear language and intent of the JFK Act.
What is the reason for this?
Our government told us through the Warren Commission that only one individual (Lee Harvey Oswald) killed JFK. A “lone gunman” who had no co-conspirators. We were given that story over 60 years ago, and it was (and is still) sold brilliantly by the mainstream media and in school history books. Interestingly, the JFK Act says that an assassination record can only be withheld if it poses an identifiable harm to a living person, a current military operation, a current intelligence operation, law enforcement, or U.S. foreign relations. So, where’s the connection between the “lone nut” Oswald and a legitimate reason to withhold an assassination record in 2024?
What can stop this ongoing cover-up?
A big step forward was taken in 1992 by Congress with the JFK Act. That law created the Assassination Records and Review Board (ARRB). The ARRB was empowered to declassify all JFK assassination records. And that was in 1992, almost 30 years after the assassination! The ARRB declassified several million assassination records. However, the ARRB had a limited shelf life and closed down in 1998. From 1998 to 2017, Congress did nothing to ensure that the ARRB’s purpose was carried out in full. Every president since Clinton ignored the issue. Trump and Biden simply kicked the can down the road when the JFK Act required full and final disclosure in 2017.
In 2013, ARRB chairman Judge John R. Tunheim expressed his frustration with the CIA. To the Boston Globe, Tunheim said, “There is a body of documents that the CIA is still protecting, which should be released. Relying on inaccurate representations made by the CIA in the mid-1990s, the Review Board decided that records related to a deceased CIA agent named George Joannides were not relevant to the assassination. Subsequent work by researchers, using other records that were released by the board, demonstrates that these records should be made public.”
Tunheim pointed out that the CIA had not told the Warren Commission that George Joannides was the CIA lead for the agency’s links with the anti-Castro group Oswald had a public fight with in mid-1963 (in New Orleans); nor had they told the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), of which Joannides was the CIA’s liaison. Tunheim said in a separate interview that “it really was an example of treachery… If [the CIA] fooled us on that, they may have fooled us on other things.”
Tunheim’s comments shed credible light on the reason(s) for the continued secrecy. We know that Trump, when president, announced his intent to release all of the JFK records.
We know that Trump got a visit from the CIA at the eleventh hour and instead authorized a delay of more than three years.
We know that Trump has privately told a friend and advisor that he simply “could not” release the remaining JFK records because of what he was shown and told by one or more intelligence agencies.
Could it be that certain intelligence agencies are still protecting an operation involving Oswald that was not explained (or even investigated) by the Warren Commission?
What can we expect now?
Representative Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) has recently initiated legislation to finish the declassification work required by the JFK Act.
If Cohen’s bill is successful, declassification authority would be turned over to an independent civilian review board—in other words, the ARRB 2.0. This should have been done years ago by congressional oversight committees, but it’s a start. Trump has stated (again) that he will release all JFK records if re-elected, and Trump is of course supported by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in that effort. We do not know what Kamala Harris will do if elected. But at the end of the day, Congress already has the authority in the JFK Act to do this work. The next president simply has to follow the law and only authorize continued postponement for a legitimate reason.
And in all honesty, what reason could there still be for secrecy other than intelligence agencies fighting to cover up their extreme anti-Castro and anti-communist activities from the early 1960s?
Readers should look up “Operation Northwoods,” a Pentagon-CIA “false flag” scheme exposed in 1997, which can be viewed as a blueprint for the attack on JFK in Dallas. Oswald’s journey from New Orleans to Mexico City to Dallas, being portrayed as a “pro-Castro Communist sympathizer” along the way, certainly seems consistent with a Northwoods operation.
