‘CIA responsible’: Bombshell claim in JFK files

Thousands of papers relating to President Kennedy’s death have been released with startling claims by an intelligence agent who died months later.

A US intelligence officer who was later found dead believed the CIA was “responsible” for the death of President John F Kennedy.

Information on the claim is one of the more notable drops from the release of tens of thousands of previously under wraps files relating to JFK’s death on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.

The release was ordered by US President Donald Trump on Monday leading to a reported scramble by the Department of Justice to prepare the files which were hurriedly released late on Tuesday, US time.

The official investigation into President Kennedy’s death, called the Warren Commission, found former Marine and defector to the Soviet Union Lee Harvey Oswald fired on Mr Kennedy’s motorcade from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

Oswald was assassinated two days later in the basement of the Dallas Police headquarters by nightclub operator Jack Ruby.

But JFK’s death has been the subject of conspiracy theories for decades.

These theories include that Oswald could have been completely innocent or part of a wider plot. There have been claims there were several shooters and that the fatal shot may have come from the famous grassy knoll in the vicinity of the motorcade.

Current US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has said that his father Robert Kennedy — who was also assassinated — was sceptical of the Warren Commission’s findings calling it a “shoddy piece of craftsmanship”.

US President John F Kennedy was gunned down in 1963. (AP Photo/William J. Smith, File)

It was a murder that shook the world.

A total of 63,400 pages in 2182 scanned PDF documents were uploaded to the National Archives website on Tuesday night.

The documents, which were published in two batches, were not indexed or ordered in any coherent way. It’s not clear how many more, if any, will be released.

“As the records continue to be digitised, they will be posted to this page,” the National Archives stated.

Initial reports suggested many of the records appeared to be slightly less redacted versions of documents that were released previously under the former Biden or Trump administrations.

Most historians are doubtful the new release will turn up a major change to what is already known about Mr Kennedy’s death.

Early analysis by experts suggests much of the new information appears to relate to CIA intelligence gathering methods rather than the assassination itself.

But nonetheless, some notable new information has been released.

Jackie Kennedy, the wife of President John F Kennedy, shown on the back seat of car after her husband was assassinated.

‘CIA clique responsible’

One involved a former US Army intelligence officer called Gary Underhill who left Washington DC the day after the killing in a “very agitated” state.

A memo included in the release mentioned that Mr Underhill was “sober, but badly shook,” after the news of Mr Kennedy’s death.

It went on to say Mr Underhill was “on intimate terms with a number of high-ranking CIA officials”.

His death was ruled a suicide.

Mr Underhill reportedly told friends JFK’s death was due to a “CIA clique which was carrying on a lucrative racket in gun-running, narcotics, and other contraband and manipulating political intrigue to serve its own ends.”

The claim is that Mr Kennedy uncovered the plot and was assassinated so he couldn’t “blow the whistle on it”.

US Army intelligence officer Gary Underhill claimed the CIA were involved in JFK’s death.

Mr Underhill died of a gunshot wound in May 1964, less than six months after JFK’s death. The coroner ruled it a suicide but questions have swirled around his death too.

It should be noted that Mr Underhill’s accusations continue to be allegations.

In addition, Mr Underhill’s claims are not new and have appeared in books and newspapers. However the papers give more information about his behaviour at the time of the death.

Mr Underhill, who became a noted military journalist for Life magazine, had been friends with a man called Samuel George Cummings who owned a weapons company called Interarms.

Tuesday’s release revealed that the CIA used to own Interarms and indeed had hired Mr Cummings who later bought the company.

The memo stated Mr Cummings sold guns to the CIA as well as to a Chicago sporting goods store which was where Oswald bought the firearm used in the killing.

What else is new in the files?

Former Washington Post journalist Jefferson Morley, who publishes the JFK Facts blog, said the release was “an encouraging start”.

“Seven of ten JFK files held by the Archives and sought by JFK researchers are now in the public record,” he said in a statement. “These long-secret records shed new light on JFK’s mistrust of the CIA, the Castro assassination plots, the surveillance of Oswald in Mexico City, and CIA propaganda operations involving Oswald.”

ABC News reporter Steven Portnoy said most of what the government released was “not new”.

“In fact, much of what has attracted attention on social media has long been in the public domain, except for minor redactions, such as the blacking out of personally-identifiable information of CIA sources or employees (names and addresses) which have now been disclosed,” he wrote.

“But the newly-declassified versions of these documents also shed light on granular details of mid-20th century espionage that the CIA had fiercely fought to keep secret. President Biden and President Trump had accepted those arguments, until now.”

Here’s an illustration of that, showing what had been previously released — and what we learned for the first time only last night.

The McCord doc on the left was last released with redactions in 2023.

The one on the right was made public last night. pic.twitter.com/PODPxp0X6q

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) March 19, 2025

Full versions of previously redacted documents reveal specific instructions for CIA operatives on how to wiretap, “including the use of certain chemicals to create markings on telephone devices that could only be seen by other spies under UV light”, Portnoy said.

He said one of his favourite finds was the full version of an internal CIA memo from August 1966 recommending a “certificate of distinction” for the head of the technical division, James McCord — later arrested as one of the Watergate burglars while working for Richard Nixon.

“Previous releases of the same document contained redactions striking sentences that described how this individual led a team that ‘conceived and developed’ the use of ‘fluoroscopic scanning’ and X-rays, which allowed the CIA to ‘detect hidden technical listening devices’ for the first time,” according to Portnoy.

Another notable document released was the full text of the 1961 memo by Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger urging the President to rein in the CIA after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

“More than a full page had been blacked out for more than 60 years. Why?” Portnoy wrote.

“We now know Schlesinger argued that the CIA’s reliance on ‘controlled American sources’ had been encroaching upon the traditional functions of the State Department, and that the CIA may have been seeking to infiltrate the politics of America’s allies, particularly France.”

In the newly revealed portion of the memo, Mr Schlesinger wrote that the “CIA today has nearly as many people under official cover overseas as State” and that in certain countries its presence “outnumbers regular State Department personnel”.

“In the Paris Embassy today, there are 128 CIA people,” Mr Schlesinger wrote. “CIA occupies the top floor of the Paris Embassy, a fact well known locally; and on the night of the Generals’ revolt in Algeria, passers-by noted with amusement that the top floor was ablaze with lights.”

CIA ‘bad acts’

Historian David J. Garrow highlighted another notable find – a summary of a 693-page CIA document from 1973 “citing instances wherein CIA may have exceeded its mandate”.

The summary, produced by the FBI, references illegal surveillance of US citizens, including intercepting mail, break-ins and other “operations of an extremely sensitive nature”.

In one instance in 1967, the CIA took over an FBI monitoring post in New York “targeted against the United Nations”.

“This was done at the request of a high official of the Bureau who desired to maintain the capabilities, despite the fact that the FBI Director had ordered the operation terminated,” the document said.

“It’s such a catalog of agency ‘bad acts’,” Mr Garrow told The New York Times.