Per editor: Duan Lian, Yi Qijiang
According to the Beijing News, on December 15, local time, the US National Archives released nearly 13,000 confidential documents related to the Kennedy assassination.
According to the Xiaoxiang Morning News, many of the published sensitive information has been redacted, another 515 documents have been withheld, and 2,545 documents have been partially revised.
The White House said in a memorandum on the same day that the national tragedy of President Kennedy's assassination is still alive in the memory of many Americans, and over time, the need to keep relevant documents secret has weakened. So far, more than 97% of records related to the Kennedy assassination have been made public.
Many US media pointed out that the large-scale release of documents will not bring any explosive new discoveries, but many historians and researchers hope that these documents will let the public know more about the assassination.
At 12:30 Central Time on November 22, 1963, former Marine Lee Harvey Oswald leaned over a 6th-floor window and pulled the trigger of a spiral rifle three times, killing Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States in an open-top vehicle.
Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy Image source: Visual China
The United States released nearly 13,000 classified files on Kennedy's assassination
According to overseas networks, the US "Capitol Hill" reported on the 15th that the US National Archives released 12,879 confidential documents related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, which is the largest number of documents disclosed since 2018.
In 1992, Congress passed a bill requiring the release of all remaining government records of the Kennedy assassination by October 2017, unless the documents would pose a risk to U.S. defense or intelligence, but the U.S. government has repeatedly issued extension orders. U.S. nonprofit organizations dedicated to collecting records argue that the extension order is illegal.
On December 15, 2022, local time, the White House said that nearly 16,000 records are still being revised, and more than 70% of them are approved for publication. However, the published documents do not include an unknown number of "still subject to review" documents. The White House requires federal agencies and the National Archives to make recommendations through May 1, 2023, on whether the documents remain confidential, and to release the remaining documents by June 30, 2023, except in a few exceptional circumstances.
Previously, the National Archives had released about 55,000 related documents. On December 15, 2021, the archive published 1,491 confidential documents.
Three years before the assassination, the CIA filed the murderer
According to Xiaoxiang Morning News, classified documents released on the 15th, including 80 volumes of 201 "personal files" of the murderer Oswald. The CIA said the profile, created in 1960, three years before the assassination, suggested the C.I.A. had long been concerned about Mr. Oswald.
Most of the documents about Oswald have been made public, but some remain secret due to national security concerns. One of the latest chapters, appearing in a document, details Oswald's visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico in September 1963, two months before his assassination.
It was revealed that the CIA once eavesdropped on Oswald's phone as a joint operation after consultation with the Mexican president, and the local intelligence agency did not know about it. Kevin Carroll, a former CIA case officer, said it was an example of how the CIA redacted information to protect sources or relationships with foreign intelligence agencies.
After the operation, he said, agents had been checking with all sources to see if they had the information. "So I bet that in late November 1963, there were numerous operational cables showing front-line officers reporting to headquarters that 'Source X' had no details about assassinating or threatening other U.S. officials," he said. Such operational cables have nothing to do with the Kennedy assassination, but may have revealed which foreign officials spied for the United States in 1963. ”
A CIA spokesman said: "Very little information is retained in the CIA records collected, including the source of the intelligence and the method of obtaining it. Some of the records were provided in the late '90s to give the Kennedy Review Board an overview of the CIA as a whole, and now releasing this information would cause obvious harm to intelligence operations. ”
Many Americans believe that the assassination is related to the CIA
Kennedy's assassination caused a sensation in the United States and also triggered a large number of conspiracy theories between the government and the public.
Screenshot of the U.S. Newsweek report.
According to the Beijing News, CNN reported that for a long time, American polls have shown that most Americans do not believe the official findings of the Warren Commission (the presidential commission responsible for investigating the Kennedy assassination, chaired by then-Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren) that Kennedy was assassinated by Oswald alone.
According to NBC on December 6, a poll conducted earlier by Fernand Amandi, an expert on the history of Kennedy's assassination, showed that more than 70% of respondents wanted the Biden administration to make public all documents related to Kennedy's assassination, 50% believed that the assassination was related to other people, and 31% of respondents believed that the CIA was related to the assassination.
Researchers say it could take days to comb through the documents released by the National Archives to ensure there are no new clues about Kennedy's assassination or any new information about the CIA and FBI's operations at the time.
In fact, some organizations have suggested that the CIA hid records related to Kennedy's assassination.
In October, the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a nonprofit organization, sued the Biden administration for failing to release documents related to the Kennedy assassination on time, as required by a 1992 congressional act. The Mary Ferrer Foundation, which has a vast online database of the Kennedy assassination, requires the Biden administration to make all government documents related to the Kennedy assassination public.
According to NBC, the foundation believes the CIA hid a trove of relevant documents, including records related to a mysterious CIA agent, George Joannides. Jonides was involved in a secret Cuban program and had contact with Oswald four months before Kennedy's assassination. The foundation says records related to Jonides have not even been submitted to the National Archives and have therefore never been made public.
The CIA denied this. The C.I.A. said in a statement that all CIA documents closely related to Jonides had previously been made public, and only a few of them had been revised, such as the names and addresses of CIA employees. The statement said that more than 87,000 documents originally included in the Kennedy assassination compilation have been released by the CIA to date more than 84,000, or more than 95 percent.
The C.I.A. also said the agency "never hired" Oswald and did not hide any information about him from Kennedy assassination investigators.
Editor| Duan Lian Yi Qijiang
Proofreader| Wang Yuelong
Daily economic news is synthesized from overseas network, Beijing News, Xiaoxiang Morning News, public information, etc
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