Washington: The US government on Wednesday released the previously classified documents and files related to the assassination of former President John F Kennedy in 1963, an official said.
He has declassified approximately 80,000 pages of documents pertaining to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, more than six decades after his tragic death in Dallas on November 22, 1963, fulfilling a directive issued by former President Donald Trump aimed at prompting transparency.
The National Archives confirmed that the files, long shrouded in secrecy, are now accessible for in-person consultation at its College Park, Maryland; plans are underway to digitise and upload the full collection to the agency’s official website in due course, as per a report by PEOPLE.
Despite assurances of full disclosure during Trump’s first term and limited follow-through by President Joe Biden, the full declassification process was long mired by bureaucratic delays. The delays since Trump first promised to unseal them in 2017 were largely attributed to government agencies needing more time to review and research the content of the files “to maximize the amount of information released,” according to David Ferriero, the former Archivist of the United States.
In tandem with the JFK documents, Trump also ordered the disclosure of files concerning the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., both of whom were fatally shot in 1968. The rapid succession of these high-profile killings has long fueled conspiracy theories and public scepticism, which many experts believe the release of these files is unlikely to quell.
JFK was fatally shot during a presidential motorcade in Dallas in November 1963. King was fatally shot on a hotel balcony in Memphis in April 1968, and two months later, the former president’s brother RFK was shot and killed in June 1968, just after winning the Democratic primary in California.
On January 19, the eve of his second inauguration, Trump vowed full disclosure of all materials relating to the three historic assassinations, calling it a pivotal step toward reversing the culture of over-classification that has played U.S. Governmental institutions.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the late senator’s son and current Secretary of Health and Human Services under Trump, previously expressed frustration over the delays. In a 2012 interview with PEOPLE, he said, “”They should just release the records. It’s been 58 years. Are they trying to seriously tell us they haven’t had time to read them? … And the White House is saying they haven’t had time to read them in three generations.”
He added, “It just makes people think that the government lies, and it makes Joe Biden look like a liar. He’s doing the same thing Trump did: He promised to release them and now he’s saying no, the same as Trump.”
UNI
