Staff Reports
Although US President Joe Biden authorized the release of some documents related to the Kennedy assassination, he ordered that certain details remain secret.
The National Archives released about 13,173 documents, which is slightly more than the initial 12,879. Many of these contain previously unknown information. The documents were posted on the agency's website on Thursday, the deadline set by Biden.
The agency noted that the documents in its collection, which includes around five million pages, were made public after the late 1990s. The majority of them were made available to the public without restrictions. As a result, almost a hundred percent of the records have been made available online.
Due to concerns about the potential damage to the US' intelligence operations and foreign relations, some agencies asked that certain documents be kept secret. Under Biden's order, these details will only be made public for a limited time.
In a memo, Biden noted that agencies must only request for further postponements of the public release of documents beyond June 30, 2023.
On November 22, 1963, US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. His killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a former US Marine who defected to the Soviet Union. He was charged with the murder of J.D. Tippit, a police officer in Dallas.
Although he denied killing Kennedy, Oswald was never tried. He was killed on live television by Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner in Dallas.
A law was passed in 1992 to release the documents related to the assassination of Kennedy. However, various delays in the release of these documents have kept conspiracy theories about the killing of Kennedy alive for over 60 years.
During the presidency of Donald Trump, he pushed back the release of the documents. In 2021, Biden ordered the agency to release an interim report and a comprehensive version of the documents.
In a memo released on Thursday, Biden noted that agencies had conducted a comprehensive review of the documents and decided that more than 70% of them could be released in full. He said that this would provide the public with more information about the investigation into the assassination of Kennedy.
A survey conducted earlier this month revealed that over seven in 10 Americans support the release of the documents related to the assassination of Kennedy. The results of the survey were released during an event in Washington. Historian Fernand Amandi, who conducted the study, said that the public's desire to see the documents could be partly due to a new theory that suggests that the CIA was involved in the assassination.
The group behind the campaign to release the documents accused Biden of violating the law. In October, the Mary Ferrell Foundation filed a lawsuit against the government.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Daily Wire.
