Welcome to this week’s Intelligence Brief… following the release of close to 64,000 additional documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, historians, journalists, and the curious-minded have been combing through the files, searching for new insights into one of history’s greatest controversies. In our analysis this week, we’ll be looking at what we have learned so far about 1) the release of the new JFK files and how much “new” information they really contain, 2) CIA secrets and Cold War spying tactics revealed in the documents, 3) how some of the documents appear to have unintentionally revealed sensitive or private information related to American citizens, and 4) the troubling fact that there are still thousands more documents related to the Kennedy assassination being withheld by the U.S. intelligence community.
Quote of the Week
“It would take days, weeks and months for a serious researcher to really understand what’s in these documents.”
– Philip Shenon, author of “A Cruel and Shocking Act”
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Newly Released JFK Files Reveal Intelligence Community Secrets
This week, the release of close to 64,000 documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has captured the public’s fascination amid ongoing speculations that there may have been more that happened on that dark day in Dallas, Texas, so many decades ago.
Although primarily presented as “newly released” files, many documents in the latest batch of declassified JFK material are uncensored copies of documents that had already been made publicly available with some redactions, offering scant additional information compared to their previously redacted versions.
So what, if anything new, do the latest round of JFK files reveal? While journalists, historians, and others are still making their way through the massive trove of documents (which you may also peruse by visiting the National Archives website), a few revelations are beginning to now come to light involving previously secret Cold War espionage, the CIA’s covert intelligence tactics, and other elements of spy craft that were afoot during one of the most troubling periods in modern American history.
A Long-Awaited Document Release
While promises to release additional JFK files became a frequent talking point during President Trump’s recent reelection bid, public speculation about the long-withheld information rose significantly after Trump passed an executive order shortly after resuming office that ordered their release.
On Tuesday, the National Archives released an initial batch of more than 1,100 records, totaling over 31,000 pages. A second release later in the day increased the total to approximately 64,000 pages—still falling short of the 80,000 pages Trump had promised. The National Archives’ latest document dump was preceded by a separate release of files during the Biden administration and an initial trove declassified during Trump’s first term in office.
Although many had hoped for definitive answers regarding conspiracies that have lingered about JFK’s assassination, experts say the newly unredacted material primarily offers a deeper look into the intelligence community’s actions during the 1960s, which includes the extent to which the CIA had been surveilling Lee Harvey Oswald, the man the Warren Commission concluded had been President Kennedy’s sole assassin decades ago.
Intelligence Operations, Not a Second Gunman
Currently, there is little evidence that has surfaced in the new documents pointing to any conflicts with the conclusion that Oswald acted alone. However, the files do offer new insights into the CIA’s surveillance of Oswald while he visited the Cuban consulate and the Soviet embassy in Mexico City.
The CIA hadn’t been the only ones monitoring Oswald’s activity prior to Kennedy’s assassination. The newly released documents also provide insights into how Soviet officials were monitoring Oswald when he visited the USSR, which ultimately led them to question whether he might have been an agent under their control (the Soviet intelligence community later dismissed this possibility).
Beyond just the agency’s monitoring of Oswald, some of the new information offers new insights into the CIA’s increasing influence on the U.S. government during the Cold War, as revealed in a memo titled “CIA Reorganization” included within the latest release.
Unintended Consequences
During Trump’s first term in office, an initial attempt to secure the release of all of the remaining documents related to JFK’s assassination resulted in a request from the intelligence community for more time to review the records. Given the short time frame in which the recent declassification review process occurred, it now seems that some information was left in the documents that had not been intended for release.
Dozens of Social Security numbers belonging to former congressional employees from the 1970s were inadvertently exposed in the documents. Attorney Mark Zaid, who has long advocated for public access to the files, recently criticized the government’s handling of the release, calling it “incredibly irresponsible” and adding that it contributed “absolutely nothing” to improving transparency regarding the assassination, while potentially compromising the personal information of several individuals.
The Washington Post reported yesterday that former Trump campaign attorney Joseph diGenova expressed outrage after discovering his personal information had been included in the documents, telling the Post that “he had no idea why his name, date of birth and Social Security number were in the JFK files.”
“You’re opening people up to identity theft,” he said. “But also the nuts out there who could go after you.”
The New JFK Files: another Chapter in a Long History of Secrecy?
Despite the massive document release, the lingering question for many remains: what is still being withheld?
According to Attorney Larry Schnapf, who has advocated for the full release of the assassination records now for many years, close to 14,000 pages are still being withheld by the FBI, which could contain some of the most critical documents yet to be declassified. Intriguingly, these documents, according to Schnapf, were not provided to the Warren Commission nor the House Select Committee on Assassinations at the time of their investigations into the killings of JFK and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
Although by 2023, the U.S. government was believed to have disclosed close to 99% of the records related to JFK’s assassination, the fact that some information continues to be withheld has kept a few conspiracy theorists asking whether there might not still be significant information the public hasn’t seen.
However, based on the latest document dump, the suspicions of many historians from over the years—that the information being withheld had more to do with protecting Cold War intelligence-gathering methods than hiding details about who killed Kennedy—seem correct. Newly unredacted portions of the files now confirm CIA activities unrelated to Kennedy’s assassination that include covert election interference in various nations, as well as CIA operations involving labor movements and spying activities, which the CIA would have had every reason to want to keep from public view.
Although a significant amount of information has already come to light, there is still much to sift through in the newly released documents, and it is possible that some deeper revelations may still come to light in the days ahead. Whether future releases—if they occur—will do more to change the currently accepted historical narrative or simply reinforce what is already known (as the current document release appears to have done) remains an open question for now.
That concludes this week’s installment of The Intelligence Brief. You can read past editions of our newsletter at our website, or if you found this installment online, don’t forget to subscribe and get future email editions from us here. Also, if you have a tip or other information you’d like to send along directly to me, you can email me at micah [@] thedebrief [dot] org, or reach me on X: @MicahHanks.
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