Assessment on US President: US national archive publishes new Kennedy files

According to an arrangement by US President Donald Trump, the National Archive published the files on the murder of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. On Tuesday evening (local time), more than 1,100 PDF documents were found on the website of the National Archives. The new publication comprises about 80,000 pages earlier as a secret documents that would now be published without blackening, said the US secret service office. It is unclear whether these documents provide new knowledge about the assassination attempt.

The documents can be viewed both online and personally in the National Archive near the US capital Washington. Documents that could currently only be viewed on site would be digitized and placed in the online archive in the coming days, it continued. “Other documents that are held back under court decision or are subject to confidentiality (…) must first be released,” it said. However, the content of these documents is largely known.

Fund pit for historians

According to the National Archives, the collection of the files for the murder of Kennedy consists of several million pages, photographs, electronic data carriers, most of which were already accessible to the public before the new publication. However, some files would be kept under lock and key because their approval could endanger military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement or foreign policy relationships.

Historians are now investigating the new documents – but it should take some time for this work to be completed. It is not expected that the documents will bring groundbreaking revelations over the assassination attempt. The murder on the 35th president of the United States has produced numerous conspiracy theories for decades. Kennedy was murdered on November 22, 1963 in Dallas with several rifle shots.

Distrust persists

An investigation commission came to the conclusion that the assassin had acted alone Lee Harvey Oswald. But Oswald was never able to testify in court – just two days after the assassination attempt, he was shot by the night club owner Jack Ruby. To date, there is no valid evidence that contradict the official version. Nevertheless, distrust persists. A number of alternative theses have made the round over the years.

Trump had already announced during his first term that the Kennedy files fully disclose. In 2017, some secret documents were published. But at the urging of the CIA and the FBI, Trump decided to keep certain documents secret because the authorities expressed security concerns. His successor Joe Biden later released thousands of other documents – but not all.