On Tuesday, the Trump administration unveiled more than 2,000 documents concerning the assassination of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, a case that has been shrouded in conspiracy theories for over six decades. Despite limited evidence challenging the initial account of Kennedy’s death, these files provide insight into U.S. intelligence operations during the Cold War era and offer new information on intelligence reports related to Kennedy’s killer, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, by Oswald, a former U.S. Marine, who fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald was subsequently killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby during a jail transfer. Following Kennedy’s death, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Commission, led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, which concluded in 1964 that Oswald acted alone, finding no credible evidence of any other individuals’ involvement.
The recently released documents do not appear to cast any significant doubts on the Warren Commission’s findings, according to experts consulted by Al Jazeera. Professor Marc Selverstone of the University of Virginia stated that the documents he saw were somewhat tangential to the assassination itself and did not validate any alternative conclusions.
The documents do confirm Oswald’s visits to both the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City before the assassination and offer further intelligence on Oswald’s time in the Soviet Union. There are indications that Oswald may have been a poor shot and had been under close surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies upon his return to the U.S.
Other documents released provide details on CIA operations during the Cold War, including the top-secret campaign named “Operation Mongoose,” which aimed to destabilize Cuba’s communist government. The document dump reveals U.S. intelligence’s involvement in attempting to overthrow foreign governments, with details on communication between the CIA director’s office and operatives in Cuba plotting to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government.
As for the number of JFK files released, prior to Tuesday’s release, authorities had already published more than 99 percent of the approximately 320,000 documents reviewed under the 1992 JFK Records Act. Former President Donald Trump promised to disclose all outstanding records during his first term but ultimately released only about 2,800 documents. Former President Joe Biden’s administration released about 17,000 more records, leaving fewer than 4,700 files withheld in part or in full. On Monday, Trump mentioned that “people have been waiting for decades” for these documents.
None of the documents released appear to lend any legitimacy to the decades of conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy’s death. The 2023 Gallup poll revealed that 65 percent of Americans do not believe the Warren Commission’s conclusion. While the document release is seen as a step towards transparency by some experts, others question the motives behind this action and express concern over the handling of similar document dumps in the past.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/20/new-jfk-files-what-was-revealed-about-oswald-cia-operations?traffic_source=rss
