The Trump administration on Tuesday released more than 2,000 files related to the assassination of former US President John F. Kennedy. This has promoted conspiracy theory for over 60 years.
Although there is limited evidence to suggest that the initial explanation surrounding JFK’s death is inaccurate or misleading, published documents reveal how the United States gathered intelligence during the Cold War. They also detail information reports on Kennedy’s murderer.
Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas, then 24-year-old former US Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald, on November 22, 1963, and shot him from the sixth floor of the book depository in a Texas school. Oswald was killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, just two days later, during the prison transfer.
In the aftermath of Kennedy’s death, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Committee. In 1964, the committee concluded that Oswald had acted alone and found no reliable evidence to suggest the involvement of others.
Do newly released documents raise questions about their conclusions? What new information do these documents reveal? And is the timing of their release important?
Do the released documents shed new light on JFK’s death?
For decades, many Americans have not believed in the official story of Kennedy’s death. A 2023 Gallup poll found that 65% of Americans rejected the Warren Commission’s conclusion.
However, Tuesday’s document dump, according to experts who spoke with Al Jazeera, did not support the validity of the conclusions other than the committee’s findings.
“I really didn’t see anything that would change the narrative that Oswald, as a lonely gunman, was the one who killed John F. Kennedy and that wasn’t the result of the plot,” said Mark Selberstone, a professor of presidential studies at the University of Virginia.
“The documents I saw were, in a way, touching on the assassination itself,” added Selberstone.
Have you learned more about Oswald?
Documents confirm that the assassins visited both the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City before killing JFK.
One document contained an information report containing some details about the Oswald era in the Soviet Union. He eschewed US citizenship in 1959 and relinquished it, moving there before returning to the US in 1962. The document mentioned a KGB agent called Nikonov, who reviewed files from Soviet security services to determine whether Oswald was the agency.
Surveillance reports show that the US intelligence agency also closely monitored Oswald after returning home. A 1990s report, also included in the documentation release, suggests that Oswald may have been a poor shot.
Did the document tell you more about the operation of the CIA?
Other documents have revealed more broad details about US intelligence newsletter and foreign policy efforts during the Cold War era, including a top-class secret campaign called “Operation Mongoose,” designed to destabilize Cuba’s communist government.
Another memo showed that the CIA had deployed 1,500 agents overseas, pretending to be State Department officials, including 128 at the US embassy in Paris. An important aide to Kennedy, named Arthur Schlesinger Jr., warned that the practice could undermine the State Department’s role in foreign policy.
The drop in the document also included details about the involvement of the US intelligence agency to overthrow foreign governments, but many of these details have expanded the US already known efforts to coordinate assassinations or coups. For example, it details communication between the CIA Director’s office and Cuban operatives in 1963.
“We often see things related to assassination plans for leaders of other countries like Castro in Cuba,” David Barrett, a professor of political science at Villanova University, told Al Jazeera.
Another document – the CIA memo reveals details about a secret activity called E4Deed, which aims to remove the government of President Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. “One segment of E4Deed was known as Emslew, the code name for the surgery that removes Trujillo by violent behavior,” the document noted, and then lists the names of CIA officers and others involved in these initiatives.
Trujillo was assassinated in May 1961 – the United States cut diplomatic ties with the Dominican Republic in 1960. The observed CIA note, Trujillo, was known to leave details of his security for these secret rendezvouses.
How many JFK files have been released?
Prior to his release on Tuesday, authorities had already released more than 99% of the roughly 320,000 documents reviewed under the JFK Records Act of 1992, according to the National Archives.
During Trump’s first administration, he promised to disclose all unresolved records of the assassination, but ultimately released only about 2,800 documents after the CIA and FBI demanded that the material withheld thousands of pages of material.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration released another 17,000 records, with fewer than 4,700 files being partially or fully withheld. Last month, the FBI discovered 2,400 additional documents previously withheld.
On Monday, President Donald Trump said “people have been waiting decades.” However, while many of the released documents were also replicas of previously released documents already in public domains, the released documents contained unedited versions of previously edited information.
How about JFK killing conspiracy theory?
None of the released documents appear to provide legitimacy to the decades of conspiracy theory born around the death of the former president.
“I haven’t heard anything yet.
A 2023 Gallup poll found that 20% of those surveyed believed that Oswald had conspired with the US government to kill Kennedy, while 16% suspected that they had cooperated with the CIA. However, no evidence has been released this week to support any of these claims.
Other conspiracy theories range from claims by multiple attackers to suspicions that foreign enemies coordinated the assassination to his vice president, Johnson, in his desire to assume power or claim that it is a mafia hit. The document showed that the Intelligence Agency had investigated these theories, but it turned out to be hollow.
Even Trump promoted conspiracy theories about JFK’s death. During the 2016 campaign, he suggested that then-rival Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination, referring to the stories of enquirers across the country. In 2024, David Pecker, the former publisher of the publication, testified that the story was created.
Transparency or PR stunt?
The latest documentation release follows comparable actions from previous administrators. This is the second large release of the secret document, and the administration claims it is intended to lead to more transparency.
Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, said in X the Kennedy family was not given a “head-up.” He also proposed that the Trump administration dismantle Kennedy’s legacy by revoking his grandfather’s work on civil rights and equality, and instead rolling back diversity, equity and comprehensive initiatives and confronting Moscow by partnering with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, experts still believe that document dumps are a positive step.
“I think (releasing documents) is a very good thing for transparency. The US government ultimately released these documents very late,” Barrett added.
Still, other document dumps under Trump have not been praised for being transparent. Last month, the president released a file related to financial operator Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted sex trafficker and has connections with some of the richest and most powerful people in the world.
Trump fired for the first release of documents given only to a small group of fringe conservative influencers, and it turns out to be composed of information already available in the public domain.
Even some Trump’s Republican allies in Congress expressed disappointment at how Epstein’s files were handled and called for more transparency.