FBI finds 2,400 new files related to JFK assassination as Trump gets recommendations on document release

That hunt resulted successful astir 2,400 recently inventoried and digitized records that were antecedently unrecognized arsenic related to the Kennedy assassination lawsuit file, it said.

“The FBI has made the due notifications of the recently discovered documents and is moving to transportation them to the National Archives and Records Administration for inclusion successful the ongoing declassification process,” the FBI said.

Last week the Office of the Director of National Intelligence sent recommendations to Trump connected which classified documents helium should merchandise to the nationalist connected the assassination, a spokesperson told Reuters connected Tuesday. The bureau did not merchandise details of the program oregon accidental erstwhile the documents would beryllium released.

The fascination implicit the assassination of JFK, arsenic the 35th U.S. president is known, endures six decades aft the event.

Trump, who returned to the White House successful January, had promised connected the run way to merchandise documents astir the assassination.

Kennedy’s execution successful Dallas, Texas, had been attributed to a sole gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. The Justice Department and different national authorities bodies reaffirmed that decision successful the intervening decades. But polls amusement galore Americans judge his decease was a effect of a wider conspiracy.

As portion of the aforesaid enforcement order, Trump besides promised to merchandise documents connected the assassinations of civilian rights person Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy, some of whom were killed successful 1968. Trump has allowed much clip to travel up with a program for those releases.

Trump’s prime to pb the Health and Human Services Department, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the lad of Robert Kennedy and nephew of John F. Kennedy, has said helium believes the Central Intelligence Agency was progressive successful his uncle’s death, an allegation the bureau has described arsenic baseless.

Kennedy Jr. has besides said helium believes his begetter was killed by aggregate gunmen, an assertion that contradicted authoritative accounts.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES CONTINUE

Documents whitethorn uncover details astir a gripping infinitesimal successful U.S. history, but historians accidental they are improbable to bolster immoderate of the conspiracy theories surrounding JFK’s 1963 shooting successful Dallas.

“I fishy that we won’t get thing excessively melodramatic successful the releases, oregon thing that fundamentally overturns our knowing of what occurred successful Dallas,” said Fredrik Logevall, a Harvard past prof and 1 of 4 historians interviewed by Reuters. He added that helium was prepared to beryllium surprised.

One revelation the documents could incorporate is that the CIA was much alert of Oswald than it has antecedently disclosed.

Files revealing that the CIA failed to stock quality connected Oswald with the FBI would beryllium “a large story,” said Gerald Posner, writer of “Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK,” which concludes that Oswald acted alone.

“The question for maine is not whether the CIA was complicit, but whether the CIA was negligent,” Posner said.

Posner said questions stay astir what the CIA knew astir Oswald’s visits to Mexico City six weeks earlier the assassination. During that trip, Oswald visited the Soviet embassy.

Posner added that his apical questions connected the 2,400 caller files are: What are they and however did it instrumentality the Bureau 62 years to find them?

Barbara Perry, co-director of the statesmanlike oral past programme astatine the Miller Center, an affiliate of the University of Virginia, said the CIA whitethorn person been pursuing Oswald.

“Certainly the FBI was, but they didn’t link the dots,” Perry said. “But it wasn’t a conspiracy connected the portion of the CIA oregon the FBI oregon immoderate extracurricular country.”

The release, nevertheless extensive, volition apt permission immoderate discrepancies successful the assemblage of cognition regarding the assassination, said Alice L. George, writer of “The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: Political Trauma and American Memory.” So conspiracy theories are expected to endure.

“I can’t ideate immoderate papers that would person (conspiracy theorists) that Oswald acted alone,” George said. “Particularly among radical who are truly invested successful that mode of thinking. It’s going to astir apt permission them successful the aforesaid spot wherever they are now.”