Kennedys demand release of secret files on JFK assassination
Two nephews of John F Kennedy have called for the release of secret documents on the 1963 assassination after the White House blocked them.
Two nephews of John F Kennedy have called for the release of the remaining secret documents on the 1963 assassination of the former president after the White House blocked them.
The records were due to be made public on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) but the Biden administration delayed them until an interim release on December 15, with most of the material held back until at least December next year. Even then it could still be withheld. Many of the 15,000 records that remain secret are from the CIA and FBI, some of which have been released with entire pages blacked out.
The documents were set to be declassified in 2017 but president Donald Trump postponed the release for four years despite suggesting that he would lift the veil of secrecy. Conspiracy theories abound amid doubt over the official conclusion from the Warren Commission in 1964 that the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, as did his killer Jack Ruby.
One unanswered question that the records could reveal is the travel of Bill Harvey, a CIA officer in charge of the Rome station, who is named in theories and was said to have been in Dallas at the time. Other redactions are believed to cover CIA surveillance techniques.
“It’s an outrage against American democracy. We’re not supposed to have secret governments within the government,” Robert F Kennedy Jr told Politico. “How the hell is it 58 years later, and what in the world could justify not releasing these documents?”
His cousin, Patrick Kennedy, said that the records should be released because Americans had a right to know about “something that left such a scar in this nation’s soul that lost a promise of a brighter future”.
He added: “For the good of the country, everything has to be put out there so there’s greater understanding of our history.”
Joe Biden’s decision came as a surprise to experts because he voted as a senator for the John F Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
Drawn up in response to questions raised by the 1991 Oliver Stone film JFK, the act set up an independent review to collect all government files that might have bearing and make them public.
The act said: “All government records concerning the assassination … should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history surrounding the assassination.”
The White House said that the act also allowed the postponement of disclosure to protect against harm to “the military defence, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest”.
Most of the records were released between 1994 and 1998, with about 10 per cent of the most sensitive classified material remaining secret.
The White House blamed the pandemic for the delay. “The National Archives advised that their review of classified material was severely hampered by Covid-19 since classified material cannot be reviewed remotely and asked for more time,” it said in a statement.
The White House added that the “public will have access to a tranche of previously withheld records and redacted information withheld in previously released records” and that the “Biden administration is setting up a whole-of-government effort to ensure the maximum possible disclosure of information by the end of 2022.”
It also directed the National Archives to come up with a plan to digitise the entire collection of documents, more than 300,000 records.
A spokesman for Mr Trump declined to comment on why he delayed the full release in 2017.
The Times
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