JFK Documents Released

Thursday was going to be the day when all the documents concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy were going to be released to the public.  President Donald Trump decided not to release the full tranche of records.  This action by the White House totally acquiesced to last minute requests from national security agencies that some of those records remain secret.

The first time that I became aware of the release of these records was after watching Oliver Stone's film JFK.  Kevin Costner, in the role of Jim Garrison makes an impassioned plea to make these records available to the public.

So, what was released on Thursday? A treasure trove to historians: 2,800 documents became public property as of yesterday.  You can read them by going to the web page of the National Archives.

As Kevin Costner says in the concluding moments of Stone's film: "All these documents are yours. The people's property, you pay for it."  Well, at least finally some of it is here.  However, the very fact that 300 documents have been withheld due to national security, will keep alive a host of conspiracy theories about the events that occurred in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Interestingly enough, in a memo from the White House, Trump directed agencies that requested redactions to re-review their reasons for keeping some records secret.