After a week of much intense speculation and public interests, President Donald J. Trump has delayed the release of certain private files on the John F. Kennedy assassination.
President Trump stated on Oct. 26, 2017 that he will be delaying the release of the files.
However, there was a temporary certification submitted for certain records related assassination to be released.
It was because of this certificate that 2,800 of the 3,000 files related to the assassination were released later that evening.
The papers, which were posted online by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) office last Thursday at 7:30 p.m., was in agreement with The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
The Act gave the NARA license to establish and gather all information related to the assassination to help quell much of the mystery and speculation that has come with this case.
There had been many attempts in Congress months prior to block the release of the documents before the 25 year deadline.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963 during a routine political trip. As his motorcade was travelling through downtown, he was shot once in the back and once in the head.
Even after the Warren Commision confirmed that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the shooting in 1964, many continue to speculate on who was really behind the ‘killing’ of President Kennedy.
The rest of the 200 files are being held by the Trump Administration until further review can be done. The request for the delayed files submitted on behalf of the FBI and the CIA.
In a memo to government agencies, President Trump ordered a review of the documents with a deadline of April 18, 2018.
President Trump expounded on commitment to releasing all the files to the public, but not at the risk of governmental backlash.
“I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted,” Trump stated in his memo. “At the same time, executive departments and agencies (agencies) have proposed to me that certain information should continue to be redacted because of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns. I have no choice –today — but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our Nation’s security.”
Scholars, historians, and journalists have stated that it is highly unlikely that there will be groundbreaking information regarding the assassination released in the files.
Yet, there have been some interesting documents within the files that have a given the public a closer view of what happened the weeks and years after the assassination.
J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director at the time, was concerned that the public would not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
In a memo to deputy attorney general, Nicholas Katzenbach, Hoover stated; “The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.”
It is unsure what will be in the rest of the files until they are released next April. Until then, the public will have an abundance of resources to shift through and form their own opinion on what happened that fatal day in Nov. of 1963.
