By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-23 20:31:33 | Updated at 2025-01-23 23:24:38
3 hours ago
The last secret files about the assassination of John F. Kennedy can now be published after President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the declassification of all remaining documents about the 1963 murder.
Conspiracy theories continue to swirl 60 years after the killing. And any new information will excite the amateur sleuths who continue to wonder whether there is more to the story than just a lone gunman in the shape of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Trump signed an executive order that directs his Director of National Intelligence to put together a plan within 15 days for the full release of documents about JFK.
'More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Federal Government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events,' reads the Executive Order, obtained by DailyMail.com.
'Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.'
His intelligence chiefs will have 45 days to put together a plan to release the RFK and King archives.
Millions of pages of JFK documents have already been released leaving only a few thousand kept in the archives.
The most recent releases included CIA cable and memos recording visits by Oswald to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City weeks before the assassination.
Conspiracies have swirled for decades claiming JFK's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was not a lone actor and was working with Soviets or Cubans – or even the U.S. CIA
Oswald shown after his arrest. He was later shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in a moment captured live on television
Donald Trump signing executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday
And experts doubt there are any major revelations lurking in the archives that would change the accepted version of events.
Trump promised during his reelection campaign that he would declassify remaining government records surrounding the assassination.
He made a similar promise in his first term but gave way to the CIA and FBI who argued that some documents should be kept from the public for fear they would reveal national security secrets.
Trump teased his plan during his Fox News interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday evening.
'I’m going to release them immediately,' he said.
'We’re going to see the information. We are looking at it right now.'
Trump said he was persuaded by Mike Pompeo, his former CIA director, not to release them during his first term.
'I was actually asked by Mike Pompeo, secretary of State, not to, and I felt he knew something that maybe, you know , when he asked you not to, you sort of say "why?" and he felt that it was not a good time to release them,' Trump said.
The hidden records allowed conspiracy theorists the freedom to speculate on what might be hidden.
Was Oswald in the pay of the Cubans or Soviets? Was he a patsy? Why did nightclub owner Jack Ruby shoot him dead live on TV.
The new executive order, signed by Trump in the Oval Office, says: 'I have now determined that the continued redaction and withholding of information from records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is not consistent with the public interest and the release of these records is long overdue.'
