Trump Won't Block Scheduled Release Of JFK Records
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WASHINGTON (CBSMiami) — President Donald Trump won't block the scheduled release of thousands of government documents related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination that were previously sealed to the public.
In a tweet Saturday morning, the president announced his decision to open the JFK files.
The National Archives has until October 26th to disclose the remaining 3,000 documents that have never been seen by the public, as well as about 30,000 other previously redacted documents.
President Trump could have kept these files secret on the grounds that the material could harm intelligence agencies, law enforcement, military options or foreign relations.
For more than five decades, the world has teetered back and forth with the official accounts of the 35th president's murder, with conspiracy theories ranging from the mafia, communists, the CIA, to even President Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's vice president and successor, playing a role.
Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the assassination but didn't live long enough to be tried. A presidential commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren found that he acted alone. However, conspiracy alarms were raised when former CIA head Allen Dulles was appointed as one of seven commissioners to investigate, despite a perceived bias against Kennedy, who previously had fired him.
Infamous points of discussion include the fatal bullet trajectory, which many believe doesn't line up with Oswald's sixth floor position from the Texas School Book Depository, and suggests a second shooter was stationed in front of Kennedy, causing his head to snap "back and to the left."
More broader conspiracies delve into JFK's list of enemies, of which there were many. Mobsters had a beef because of the president's attorney general brother, Robert F. Kennedy, who picked a fight with organized crime, as well as their bootlegging father, who allegedly had mob ties. Rogue CIA agents may have blamed Kennedy for the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion. Russian KGB operatives, at the height of the Cold War, are also suspects. Was Vietnam a factor? The Federal Reserve?
Still, other investigators never jumped on the conspiracy bandwagon and don't believe the new documents will expose anything.
Despite what the new documents reveal or don't, most Americans still think there was a JFK cover up.
Or, as Oswald's killer, Jack Ruby, explained to the media, "The world will never know the true facts of what occurred, my motive. The people who had so much to gain, and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I'm in, will never let the true facts come above board to the world."
"Are these people in very high positions, Jack," a reporter asked.
"Yes," he responded.
