- Biden had promised to make the files public by October but he delayed, claiming COVID back logs stalled the release
- Anonymous phone calls said Russia was behind it, trove of 1,500 documents released by the National Archives reveal
- They include memos by CIA officers in the immediate aftermath of the shooting on November 23, 1963
- One details how Lee Harvey Oswald met with a KGB agent on September 29, 1963, in Mexico City
- Not all of the files will be released; the NSA is holding some back pending further review
- The secrecy has fueled conspiracy theories about JFK’s assassination
- The President was killed in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in his motorcade in Dallas, Texas
- Oswald denied shooting JFK in his interviews with police; he was killed two days later while being transported by police by a nightclub owner who shot him
More than 1,500 previously classified JFK assassination files have today been made public, including documents about killer Lee Harvey Oswald’s contact with a KGB agent two months before the shooting.
The files were released at noon on Wednesday by the National Archives, after months of delays by Biden who had promised to make them public but then stalled, claiming COVID backlogs was the reason.
Not all of them are now public – some are still being held back for further review by the NSA until next December, a move that has been slammed by members of Kennedy’s family.
The documents released on Wednesday include memos detailing anonymous phone calls to the US embassy in Canberra, Australia, a year before the shooting, where the caller said the Soviet Government was plotting to kill Kennedy, and details of Oswald’s meeting with a KGB agent at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City two months before the shooting.
Another call was placed on November 24, two days after the shooting, claiming the Russians were behind it.
Oswald’s wife Marina, who was was Russian, is referenced throughout the files. One details how a Moroccan student contacted the CIA after the shooting and claimed he had been her boyfriend. The relevance of that to the investigation is not known.
There are also memos detailing interviews with communist activists in Mexico, who Oswald had met with, and details of how he tried to renounce his US citizenship to become Russian four years before the assassination.
In September 1963, two months before he killed JFK, Oswald met with Consul Valeriy Vladimirovich Kostikov, a KGB agent in Mexico City,
The meeting has been referred to in previous documents but new details emerged today. It’s unclear who initiated the meeting.
A 1963 memo written by CIA agent Tennent H. Bagley on November 23, 1963, the day after the assassination details how Oswald – whose wife was Russian – met with a KGB agent in September 1963 in Mexico City
JFK and Jackie Kennedy are pictured in his car in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, moments before he was assassinated. Government files about his death that have been kept secret for 58 years will today be released
Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine, was arrested for the assassination. He was then killed two days later while being transported by police. He was shot by a nightclub owner, Jack Ruby
This CIA memo details Kostikov’s background. He was assigned to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in 1961 and had also visited Cuba
An October 1963 memo about Oswald had tried to renounce his US citizenship to become Russian in 1959
‘According to an intercepted phone call in Mexico City, Lee Oswald was at the Soviet Embassy there on 23 September 1963 and spoke with Consul Valeriy Vladimirovich.
‘Oswald called the Soviet Embassy on 1 October, identifying himself by name and speaking broken Russian, stating the above and asking the guard who answered the phone whether there was ‘anything concerning the telegram to Washington,’ a memo, written by CIA officer Tennent H. Bagley wrote on November 23, 1963, the day after the assassination.
The files are not expected to include any bombshells about the 1963 Dallas assassination, but will shed more light on what happened that day and the government’s investigation into it.
The files were collected by a review board that was established by Congress in 1992. Their investigation was finalized in 1997 and they issued a report, but thousands of documents were held back by the government.
The Kennedy family is among those who have repeatedly called for the documents to be made public.
Earlier this year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., JFK’s nephew, fumed that some of the files would remain secret until next year. How the hell is it 58 years later, and what in the world could justify not releasing these documents?’ Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The files that will remain secret until next December have been flagged by national security agencies for further review.
‘It’s an outrage. It’s an outrage against American democracy. We’re not supposed to have secret governments within the government.
‘How the hell is it 58 years later, and what in the world could justify not releasing these documents?’ RFK Jr. told Politico in October.
Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, the son of longtime Biden friend late Sen. Ted Kennedy, also slammed the decision to hold some of the files back.
‘I think for the good of the country, everything has to be put out there so there’s greater understanding of our history,’ he said.
Kennedy said it was a time of ‘a lot of conspiracy theories’ and noted there is ‘a tendency to distrust government in general.’
Conspiracy theorists continue to question why the government wants to keep some of the files redacted.
JFK was sitting in the backseat of a convertible with First Lady Jackie Kennedy when he was shot in the neck at 12.30pm.
President Biden (pictured this morning) had promised to make the files public in October, but he delayed the release citing COVID backlogs at the National Archives
He was taken to the hospital but was pronounced dead 30 minutes later.
Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in a theater a short time later. He denied shooting Kennedy in police interviews, and was also charged with shooting police officer J.D. Tippit.
Oswald, a former Marine and Marxism enthusiast, was shot and killed two days later while being transported by police.
He was killed by local Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, and the murder was witnessed by the media and policemen.
He claimed that his rage over Kennedy’s assassination is what motivated him.
The files were always meant to be made public within 25 years of the assassination under the JFK Records Act, but Biden delayed their release earlier this year, citing COVID back-logs as the reason.
President Trump agreed to make 10,000 public when he was in office, but they were mostly redacted.
Historians and experts do not believe that Wednesday’s dump of files will contain any bombshells or revelations about the assassination but because of the secrecy that has surrounded them, there is still suspicion that the government isn’t telling the public everything.
‘Because it has taken [the government] so long to get these records out, no matter what comes out, no one is going to believe that that’s it,’ one official told CNN on Wednesday ahead of the release.