[anarchist23]

On Thursday, classified files about the Kennedy assassination will be released.
Do you believe there was a conspiracy?

Toni Glover was there, in Dallas, watching by the side of the road. She was 11 years old.
"I had a troubled childhood," she says.
"I thought if I could get Kennedy to look at me, and wave at me, that would mean we had a personal relationship, and everything at home would be perfect.
"It was magical thinking from an 11-year-old."
Toni got to the Dealey Plaza early and found a "perfect" spot to watch the president's parade.
"He came by, he smiled and waved," she says. "Jackie smiled and waved - she was on my side.
"He turned the corner. I thought, 'I'm going to follow this car until it disappears because it's the president - I'm going to watch every second I can.'
"And then his head exploded. It just exploded."
She told her mother that someone had thrown fireworks into the car.
"But really, I knew different," she adds.
Now, 54 years later, Dr Toni Glover is an associate professor at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.
"I believe in facts," she says. "I went to a (JFK) conference where there were a number of conspiracy people. Some of it is insane. Some of it is absolutely crazy."
And yet…
"There are some legitimate investigators that have a question or two that they've almost answered."
John F Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was shot dead on 22 November 1963. He was travelling in an open-topped limousine.
The Governor of Texas John Connally, who was sitting in front of the president, was wounded but survived.
Within an hour, Dallas policeman JD Tippit was also killed. Soon afterwards, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested.
Within 12 hours, he was charged with the killings of President Kennedy and JD Tippit.
On 24 November, Oswald was shot dead in the basement of the Dallas police department by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner. The shooting was captured live on television.
Ruby was convicted of killing Oswald and sentenced to death. He appealed but died of cancer in 1967, before the retrial.
What was the official explanation?
A week after Kennedy was killed, President Lyndon B Johnson set up a commission to investigate the case.
The Warren Commission's report, published in September 1964, said that:
The shots were fired from the sixth-floor window at the south-east corner of the Texas School Book Depository
The shots were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald
There was "no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign".
There were other investigations:
In 1968, a panel of four doctors "supported the medical conclusions of the Warren Commission"
In 1975, the Rockefeller Commission found "no credible evidence of any CIA involvement"
In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations largely supported the Warren Commission - but said there was a "high probability that two gunmen fired at President Kennedy".
In 1992, a law passed by Congress meant all assassination-related records - around five million pages - were transferred to the National Archives.
Around 88% of the records are open in full; 11% are open but with "sensitive portions" removed; and 1% are withheld in full.
According to the 1992 law, all records must be published in full within 25 years, unless the president says otherwise.
The deadline is Thursday.
What other theories are there?
Toni Glover - who saw the killing aged 11 - thinks there may have been a second shooter.
Some people believe the "other" gunman fired from the "grassy knoll", which the president's limousine passed.
Toni thinks the second shooter - if there was one - could have been on the other side of the road.
"There's fairly substantial evidence," she says. "It has some validity to it."
Jefferson Morley is a former Washington Post reporter who has written several books on the killing - including one, out this week, about former CIA counter-intelligence chief James Angleton.
"I've never written about a conspiracy theory," he says. "I report new facts about the assassination."
He "tends to doubt" that Oswald shot JFK. He says it's more likely the fatal shot came from in front of Kennedy - rather than behind.
"Look at the Zapruder film," says Morley. "Kennedy's head goes flying backwards.
"I know there's a theory that if you get hit by a bullet from behind, the head goes towards the source of the bullet. But as a common sense explanation, it seems very unlikely.
"That sure looks like a shot from the front."
JFK and the rise of conspiracy theories
Morley has other reasons to doubt the official story.
A paraffin test on Oswald's cheek, after he was arrested, suggested he hadn't fired a rifle (the test's reliability has been questioned).
John Connally - the Texas governor who was also travelling in the president's car - said he was not hit by the same bullet as Kennedy, contradicting the Warren Commission's findings.
And Morley thinks other parts of the official explanation don't add up.
"The official story - there was this guy Oswald, who nobody knew anything about, who came out of nowhere and shot the president - that story we know, beyond a reasonable doubt, is false," he says.
"Oswald was monitored by the counter-intelligence staff of the CIA and by James Angleton for four years - from December 1959 when they opened their first file, to November 1963."
But Thomas Whalen, an author and associate professor at Boston University, thinks Oswald did shoot JFK.
"And not just me, but in general, historians believe he was the assassin. The big question is - was he involved in a broader conspiracy?"
While the Warren Commission said Oswald acted alone, it did note that he travelled to the Soviet Union in 1959, unsuccessfully applied for Soviet citizenship, and lived there until 1962.
It also found that Oswald - a self-proclaimed Marxist - visited the Cuban and Russian embassies in Mexico City in September 1963, two months before Kennedy was shot.
Whalen says the newly released documents may shed light on this trip.
"What was Oswald doing in Mexico City weeks before the assassination? Did he meet Cuban and Soviet intelligence officials? Did they give him a green light?
"Certainly Fidel Castro (Cuban prime minister, then president) had motive to kill President Kennedy. We - we being the United States government - were trying to kill him."
What might the new documents show?
Bruce Miroglio, a lawyer from St Helena, California, has read "many thousands" of books on Kennedy and his assassination.
"In fact, I'm sitting in my office looking at the 26 volumes of the Warren Report," he says.
Although he says the report made mistakes, he "basically supports" its conclusions.
He does not believe there was a second gunman, is "sceptical" of conspiracy theories, and is not expecting huge revelations in Thursday's documents.
"The number of people that would be involved in the cover-up is so vast, it seems almost impossible they would keep anything earth-shattering under wraps," he says.
Toni Glover says it will be "interesting" to see what emerges. She, though, will remain a witness, rather than an investigator.
"I can't validate anything," she says. "I was at an exuberant presidential parade, everybody hopping up and down, thrilled out of their mind.
"Fifteen seconds later we were in abject dread."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41741216

[The Immortal Goon]

Hiding something?

Probably. This was the Cold War after all. And I would not be surprised a bit if there was an old codger in a smoke filled room somewhere that remembered what happened when a minor heir to a minor throne was assassinated in 1914 in far less contentious times. Because of this, there may have been evidence for a second shooter that they didn't want out there because it was ambiguous or something.

But that's about as deep as the conspiracy would go.

I wouldn't hope to find this:

[anarchist23]

The release of JFK files could be convenient distraction from Donald Trump and his lacklustre presidency.

The Trump administration is expected to release thousands of pages of documents about the investigation into the assassination of President John F Kennedy to the public, the final batch of documents related to the 1963 tragedy that shook American life and politics.

The documents are expected to be released Thursday, and could contain a trove of information related to the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald in the months before he shot the US president during a Dallas, Texas parade.

Of course Trump is releasing the JFK files – the story suits him
First off, the final batch contains more than 3,000 files, and each of those files could contain hundreds of individual documents. Those documents are said to include a handwritten note from Jackie Kennedy after the killing about funeral plans, and other potentially interesting records like that. In total, the remaining files represent just 1 per cent of the total documents.

Reports indicate that the last batch of JFK assassination documents may also contain several references to Oswald’s travels to Mexico City in September 1963, just two months before Kennedy was killed in his motorcade.

The documents could detail the actions of prominent Mexican officials who at the time may have provided information to the CIA and other American agencies just before the assassination.

Others note that the JFK documents could contain information on CIA agents involved in monitoring phone calls in Mexico City, or involved in larger spy operations in Central and Latin America.

Gerald Posner, the author of the 1993 book Case Closed, told USA Today that some details may be embarrassing for informants at the time who have moved on to high profile positions.

“There may not be deep, dark secrets in there, but the release could be embarrassing to people who were involved,” Mr Posner, whose book determined that Oswald acted alone in the killing, said. “You have to remember that Mexico City in the 1960s was a hodgepodge of intrigue where everyone was spying on everyone else.”

“There may be people who were informing to the CIA at the time who have moved on to careers in politics and business, and the revelation that they were informing will be embarrassing to them,” he continued.

Oswald is, by and far, the most frequently blamed. The killer, who spent some time in the US military, and also travelled to Russia, was killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being transferred by police after the shooting. His death sparked speculation, though, that there was something larger at foot — including conspiracies that Kennedy’s death came as the result of a US intelligence plot.

A House investigation report in 1979 concluded that Kennedy was likely killed as a result of a conspiracy. A Senate investigation in 1975 and 1976 led by then-senator Frank Church — known as the Church Committee — found evidence of abuses by the CIA and FBI and many details of plots to kill then-Cuban leader Fidel Castro, a country frequently cited as having reason to try and kill the America president.

Why are these documents being released now?

Longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, who has worked as a political consultant and is an author, told conspiracy theorist Alex Jones last week that he had urged Donald Trump to release the documents, and that CIA Director Mike Pompeo has been lobbying the President to keep the files classified.

The files could potentially reveal sources and intelligence gathering methods used by the intelligence communities, even though they are decades old.

The files were set to be released automatically by October 26, unless Mr Trump decided to stop them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 19446.html

[Finfinder]

The release of JFK files could be convenient distraction from Donald Trump and his lacklustre presidency.





http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 19446.html

Hilarious, you make that statement as if the press is bipartisan.

[anarchist23]

@Finfinder

I don't know about that.
All the press are interested in is their ratings. lol

[Finfinder]

@Finfinder

I don't know about that.
All the press are interested in is their ratings. lol

It's pathetic isn't it, a benign Tweet sells more commercials than mass murder in Las Vegas.?

[anarchist23]

Unless you were around when Kennedy was killed, you wouldn't understand the absolute shock worldwide. The only comparison would be 9/11.

In the persistent, probably eternal whirlwind of conspiracy theories about the November 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy, there is one conspiracy theory that is no longer just a theory – and hasn’t been for years.

That wide-ranging conspiracy was for real. And proof of its existence will almost certainly grow more solid on Thursday with the imminent release of tens of thousands of pages of long-classified, assassination-related documents from the National Archives – supposedly the last of the government’s secret files on Kennedy’s murder.

What conspiracy? Not one involving a second assassin in Dealey Plaza. (All of the most credible evidence continues to point to Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone gunman in Dallas.) Not some sort of mafia plot that resulted in the silencing of Oswald two days later by Dallas strip-club impresario Jack Ruby. (Really, what half-way competent Mob boss would choose a delusional blabbermouth like Ruby to carry out a second Crime of the Century by murdering Oswald?) Not a sprawling coup d’état involving everyone from President Lyndon Johnson to the Pentagon architects of the Vietnam war to a cabal of gay rightwingers in New Orleans. (See Oliver Stone’s hit 1991 film JFK.)

I’m referring to the well-documented, proven conspiracy within the highest reaches of the US government – a criminal conspiracy from the start, involving the destruction of top-secret documents and photographs, the silencing of witnesses and whistleblowers, and the wholesale suborning of perjury – to cover up the truth about what the government had known in advance about Oswald and the clear threat he had posed to one man: President Kennedy.

The word “cover-up” is not hyperbole. Remarkably enough, it is the word that the CIA itself applies to what happened immediately after the assassination. In a once-classified internal report that became public in 2014, the spy agency’s in-house historian acknowledged that the CIA had engaged in a “cover-up” (albeit a “benign cover-up”, he insisted) to hide evidence from the Warren commission and later government investigations. The cover-up was intended to keep investigators focused exclusively on evidence that proved “what the Agency believed at the time was the ‘best truth’ – that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing Kennedy”.

I certainly don’t see the cover-up as benign. And in conspiring to hide evidence of their bungling before the assassination – a conspiracy exposed document by document over the last half-century – the CIA and FBI helped launch the much larger wave of conspiracy theories that followed and are likely to plague us forever. Since the late 1960s, opinion polls have shown consistently that a majority of the American people are convinced that the government has never told them the full truth about the murder of their president. And their skepticism, the evidence shows, has always been justified.

After falling down the rabbit hole of the national debate over the Kennedy assassination – my first book was a history of the 9/11 commission, so I made the grievous mistake of thinking it would be easy to follow up by writing a similar history of the Warren commission – I was saddened and surprised by a central conclusion that I reached by the end of my research: the Kennedy assassination did not have to happen. It could have been prevented – easily – if the CIA and FBI had just acted on the intelligence in their own files in November 1963. Yes, Oswald was a violent, delusional misfit. But he was not the pure “lone wolf” portrayed by the initial government accounts of the assassination – the image that the government was desperate to present after Kennedy’s murder, since it suggested nothing could have been done to stop him.

In fact, both the CIA and FBI had Oswald under aggressive surveillance in the months before the assassination – and knew he was talking to people who, at the height of the cold war, might also have wanted to see Kennedy dead.

Both agencies had strong reason to believe that Oswald, a self-proclaimed Marxist who had years of rifle practice in the Marine Corps, would be a danger when Kennedy’s motorcade passed through Dallas on 22 November 1963. In what I believe was a horrifying coincidence, Oswald had just begun a new job as a laborer in a book warehouse that overlooked Dealey Plaza – the Texas School Book Depository.

The evidence gathered by the CIA and FBI before the assassination about Oswald should have put his name in “red lights” as a threat to Kennedy, former FBI director Clarence Kelley admitted reluctantly after his retirement. If the FBI had just acted on the information, he wrote in his own memoirs in 1987, “without doubt JFK would not have died in Dallas and history would have taken a different turn”.

Instead, immediately after the assassination, panicked officials at both the CIA and FBI tried, desperately, to cover up evidence of the extent of their knowledge of Oswald, fearing their bungling of the intelligence about JFK’s assassin might be exposed – and that they would be blamed for the president’s murder.

All of which brings us to today. It is no surprise that the CIA and FBI are, ultimately, the source of most of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pages, of classified documents that are scheduled to be released by the National Archives on Thursday.

From the bare-bones index of the documents provided by the archives, many of the 3,100 never-before-seen files will reveal new details about the extent of the voluminous information that the CIA and FBI gathered about Oswald in the months and years before Kennedy’s death; previously declassified CIA documents show the agency was monitoring Oswald as early as 1959, the year he tried to defect to Moscow.

This week’s massive government document dump, which Donald Trump has said he does not intend to block unless he sees “compelling and clear” last-minute proof that some documents could damage national security, fulfills a deadline established under a 1992 law passed by Congress to try to stem conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination.

The authors of the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act said they were alarmed, in particular, by the cloud of suspicion kicked up by Stone’s film, which was released the year before. Under the law, all government files related to the assassination must be released, in full, within 25 years of the law’s passage – a deadline reached this Thursday, 26 October.

Many historians and researchers, including this one, will be most intrigued to see the still-secret files that, according to the Archives index, are related to an event that was the focus of so much of the cover-up by the CIA and FBI – Oswald’s six-day trip to Mexico City just weeks before the assassination. He had apparently gone there to try to obtain a visa to defect to Cuba.

Immediately after the assassination, the CIA and FBI acknowledged they had been aware that Oswald had visited the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico. But the agencies insisted they had no information to suggest that Oswald had done anything in Mexico to hint that a plot to kill Kennedy had been hatched there – or anywhere else.

But declassified files from both agencies would become public years later that showed that, during the trip, Oswald met in Mexico with Cuban and Soviet spies, including – incredibly enough – a KGB assassinations expert. He appears to have had a brief affair with a Mexican woman employed at the Cuban consulate there.

Another document declassified in the 1990s: a top-secret June 1964 FBI memo prepared by its director, J Edgar Hoover, for the Warren commission that revealed that Oswald had apparently spoken openly in Mexico City of his intention to kill Kennedy.

In what appears to be another, particularly brazen part of the cover-up, that memo appears never to have reached the commission. While Hoover’s memo eventually appeared in the panel’s digital records at the National Archives, surviving commission staff lawyers told me for my book they never saw it during the commission’s investigation in 1964. They said they would have remembered such a “bombshell” document, and it would have prompted an urgent investigation in Mexico to determine who else heard Oswald talk about killing Kennedy – and if anyone there had offered to help.

In Dallas, the FBI cover-up began the weekend after the president’s death. The first act came on Sunday 24 November, the day Ruby gunned down Oswald at Dallas police headquarters, when an FBI agent in the bureau’s field office across town was ordered to destroy a threatening handwritten note that Oswald had hand-delivered to the office earlier that month – apparently a protest over the FBI’s aggressive surveillance of his family.

What did Oswald write in the note? We’ll never know, because the agent took the note into the men’s room, tore it into pieces and flushed it down the toilet. Years later, the agent admitted to congressional investigators that he and his supervisor had panicked at the thought that the note would been seen as proof that that the FBI had botched the opportunity to save the president’s life.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... l-archives

[Beren]

Unless you were around when Kennedy was killed, you wouldn't understand the absolute shock worldwide. The only comparison would be 9/11.

And it only took a more-or-less ordinary individual with a shitty rifle and a magic bullet to happen.

In my opinion the files won't change much and the release of them won't distract attention from anything. Who or what could compete for the public's attention with Trump successfully anyways?

[anarchist23]

@Beren
How old were you when JFK was killed?
My parents who are English were totally devastated when they got the news of the killing. I was twelve at the time and it was the first time I had seen my parents cry.

Yes. I believe that Oswald killed JFK. But no doubt the US press will make a song and dance of the new info.

[The Immortal Goon]

Of course it will be a money making venture by the media.

The press helping Trump brand a congressional Act from 1992 is part of a way to spin the whole thing. By making it about Trump, the press can sell more junk to misinformed people on either side of the Trump divide.

And no doubt they'll milk it for everything that it's worth. Everything that was in the files and, a moment after, what is suspiciously missing.

It's going to be a thing for as long as they can sell papers about it. This may last two days or two weeks. But the capitalist media is capitalist, to the stunning surprise of some people.

[Beren]

Yes. I believe that Oswald killed JFK.

I'm not really surprised, although it's interesting a bit that as an anarchist you believe the biggest, fattest, and stupidest lies of one of the most criminal governments in history.

[anarchist23]

@Beren
Please note I didn't say that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but he shot JF Kennedy.
The reason I say this is that Oswald was guilty of shooting policeman JP Tippit.
Do you think Oswald killed Tippet?

At approximately 1:11–1:14 p.m., Tippit was driving slowly eastward on East 10th Street — about 100 feet (30 m) past the intersection of 10th Street and Patton Avenue — when he pulled alongside Oswald. Oswald walked over to Tippit's car and apparently exchanged words with him through an open vent window. Tippit opened his car door and as he walked toward the front of the car, Oswald drew his handgun and fired four shots in rapid succession, one bullet hitting Tippit in the chest, one in the stomach, another in his right temple (one bullet hit a button and did not penetrate his skin). Tippit's body was transported from the scene of the shooting by ambulance to Methodist Hospital where he was examined by two physicians, then pronounced dead at 1:25 pm by Dr. Richard A. Liguori. A short time later, a shoe store manager, Johnny Brewer, observed Oswald acting suspiciously as police sirens passed nearby, then ducking into the Texas Theatre without purchasing a ticket. Notified by the theater's cashier, the police responded by surrounding the theater and arresting Oswald after a brief struggle.

The Warren Commission identified twelve people who witnessed the shooting, or its aftermath. Domingo Benavides saw Tippit standing by the left door of his parked police car, and a man standing on the right side of the car. He then heard shots and saw Tippit fall to the ground. Benavides stopped his pickup truck on the opposite side of the street from Tippit's car. He observed the shooter fleeing the scene and removing spent cartridge cases from his gun as he left. Benavides waited in his truck until the gunman disappeared before assisting Tippit. He then reported the shooting to police headquarters, using the radio in Tippit's car. Helen Markham witnessed the shooting and then saw a man with a gun in his hand leave the scene. Markham identified Lee Harvey Oswald as Tippit's killer in a police lineup she viewed that evening. Barbara Davis and her sister-in-law Virginia Davis heard the shots and saw a man crossing their lawn, shaking his revolver, as if he were emptying it of cartridge cases. Later, the women found two cartridge cases near the crime scene and handed the cases over to police. That evening, Barbara Davis and Virginia Davis were taken to a lineup and both Davises picked out Oswald as the man whom they had seen.

wiki

[Beren]

Please note I didn't say that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but he shot JF Kennedy.
The reason I say this is that Oswald was guilty of shooting policeman JP Tippit.
Do you think Oswald killed Tippet?

I don't think Oswald killed anyone, but maybe he killed Tippit, I don't know. However, you only need to watch the Zapruder film to realise that the fatal shot that blew the president's head couldn't come from the Texas School Book Depository because it didn't come from behind. But I don't mean to discuss this, anyone can make his own research and decide whether what he believes or not.

[skinster]

I'm reminded of this.

[anarchist23]

Seems that Trump is not going to release some of the evidence on the advice of the CIA/FBI. What are they trying to hide?

[Potemkin]

What are they trying to hide?

Incompetence, probably.

[Zagadka]

Incompetence, probably.

The assassination of JFK went far too flawlessly to be planned by a group.

/never cared about this anyway

[Beren]

The assassination of JFK went far too flawlessly to be planned by a group.

/never cared about this anyway

It actually didn't. But how would you know if you never cared?

[anarchist23]

The publication of nearly 3,000 previously classified files relating to the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963 reveals that the FBI had warned Dallas police about a threat to kill Lee Harvey Oswald, and claims that Soviet officials feared an “irresponsible” US general could launch a missile strike in the wake of the crisis.
Oswald spoke to a member of a KGB assassination unit in Mexico City in September 1963. A CIA memo calls the consul there, Valeriy Vladimirovich Kostikov, “an identified KGB officer” and a member of Department 13, a unit “responsible for sabotage and assassination”.

JFK documents: what we have learned so far

The US government released 2,891 documents on Thursday, but President Donald Trump delayed the release of others, saying he had “no choice” but to consider “national security, law enforcement and foreign affairs concerns” raised mostly by the FBI and CIA.

One of the first interesting documents to be unearthed, as journalists, scholars and the public pored over them, was a memo written by director J Edgar Hoover that said the FBI had warning of a potential death threat to Oswald, who was then in police custody.

“There is nothing further on the Oswald case except that he is dead,” Hoover saidon 24 November 1963. “Last night we received a call in our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice and saying he was a member of a committee organized to kill Oswald.

“We at once notified the chief of police and he assured us Oswald would be given sufficient protection. This morning we called the chief of police again warning of the possibility of some effort against Oswald and again he assured us adequate protection would be given.

“However, this was not done.”

JFK's assassination

Hoover admitted he did not have “firm” information about Jack Ruby, the man who shot Oswald dead. But he elaborated on the nightclub owner anyway, saying his real name was Rubenstein and noting rumors of “underworld activity”.

The FBI sent an agent to Oswald’s deathbed in the hopes of a confession, to no success. Ruby denied making any phone call to the bureau.

In the same memo, Hoover said he and Nicholas Katzenbach, the deputy attorney general, already feared the spread of conspiracy theories. He noted that Oswald had visited Mexico City, called the Cuban embassy there, and sent a letter to the Soviet embassy about a visa.

The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr Katzenbach, is having something issued so that we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin,” Hoover wrote.

The files amounts to nearly the final 1% of records held by the federal government and their publication follows a release in July when the National Archives posted 3,801 documents online, mostly formerly released documents with previously redacted portions. An administration official told reporters on Thursday that the files that remain secret have information that “remains sensitive depending on its context”.

Trump ordered the agencies to review those redactions over the course of six months, the official said, to ensure more documents reach the public. The next deadline for documents is 26 April 2018.

According to the National Archives, 88% of records related to Kennedy’s murder were already fully open and another 11% released but partially redacted. In total, that makes for about 5m pages.

JFK files: British paper got anonymous call just before assassination

The newly released documents also reveal that Soviet Union leaders considered Oswald a “neurotic maniac who was disloyal to his own country and everything else”, according to an FBI memo documenting reactions in the USSR to the assassination.

The Soviet officials feared a conspiracy was behind the death of Kennedy, perhaps organised by a rightwing coup or JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson.

They also feared a war in the aftermath of Kennedy’s death, according to the memo: “Our source further stated that Soviet officials were fearful that without leadership, some irresponsible general in the United States might launch a missile at the Soviet Union.”

The documents include details of various CIA attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, most frequently Cuban leader Castro. He told American lawmakers in 1978 that his country was not involved in the plot to kill Kennedy.

In 1963, however, the Cuban ambassador to the US reacted with “happy delight” to the murder, according to a CIA memo.

Other information so far uncovered includes:

Oswald spoke to a member of a KGB assassination unit in Mexico City in September 1963. A CIA memo calls the consul there, Valeriy Vladimirovich Kostikov, “an identified KGB officer” and a member of Department 13, a unit “responsible for sabotage and assassination”.

The Dallas division of the FBI was already trying to track Oswald in October 1963, according to memos by the New Orleans division.

Jack Ruby had a “good in” with Dallas police, according to an FBI informant in a memo dated shortly after Ruby shot Oswald dead.

A reporter on the UK’s Cambridge Evening News received an anonymous calltelling him to ring the US embassy for some big news, 25 minutes before the assassination of JFK in Dallas.

We’d like your help too. The JFK files have been published online here. If you’re reading through the documents and you spot an interesting fact or snippet you think we’ve missed, it would be great if you could let us know. We’ve set up a form here for contributions.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... sile-fears

[anarchist23]

For the newly released documents in full.

JFK Assassination Records - 2017 Additional Documents Release

The National Archives is releasing documents previously withheld in accordance with the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act. The records at issue are documents previously identified as assassination records, but withheld in full or withheld in part.

These documents include FBI, CIA, and other agency documents (both formerly withheld in part and formerly withheld in full) identified by the Assassination Records Review Board as assassination records.

https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/2017-release