Essential JFK Docs We Expect to See Soon
A dozen assassination-related files that must be released under President Trump's order
In the coming days, JFK Facts and the Mary Ferrell Foundation will identify and explain a dozen key JFK documents covered by President Donald Trump’s Jan. 22 order for “full and complete release” of all assassination-related records in the government’s possession.
The president asked aides to give him a plan by Feb. 6 for the release of JFK files, with plans for the release of records related to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. due on March 6.
Trump’s order, analysts note, has loopholes that could be exploited by secretive agencies determined to protect their interests at public expense.
In a letter to Trump last week, a bipartisan group of congressmen (Reps. Steve Cohen and Tim Burchett of Tennessee and David Schweikert of Arizona) followed up with a set of practical steps to make sure that full JFK disclosure is not postponed yet again by the CIA and FBI. We’re talking about records that, legally speaking, should have been made public eight years ago.
The JFK Facts list of essential documents aims to ensure full compliance with Trump’s order. It is intended to support the efforts of Reps. Cohen, Schweikert, and Burchett.
This is a group effort. These 12 documents are not the only, or most significant, of the outstanding JFK files. The list only reflects a consensus of researchers associated with the Mary Ferrell Foundation. We welcome suggestions from JFK researchers about specific documents that must be released, and will add the best ones to the list. This is a time for crowdsourcing.
Over the next 10 days, I will be publishing a post about each one of these essential JFK documents (or batches of documents). Collectively, these essential documents can serve as a report card on the effectiveness of Trump’s JFK order. If we the people, the general public, obtain all 12 documents, the president gets an A. If we get nine of the 12, he gets a B, and so on.
To repeat, this is a report card. It is not a wish list or a fishing expedition. The essential documents are known to be held in the JFK Collection at the National Archives; at U.S. government agencies; or in possession of the Kennedy family. Scholars with diverse perspectives on JFK’s assassination will agree these records are historically significant.
To understand what Trump will release in coming weeks and months, it helps to understand what we have learned from the JFK files released in recent years.
Is There a ‘Smoking Gun’?
The first of the 12 documents that I will write about is the personnel file of a deceased CIA officer named George Joannides. This file is the closest thing to a possible “smoking gun” in the JFK material that should be released. This file may document a compartmentalized CIA operation involving Lee Harvey Oswald in early 1963 that has never been publicly disclosed.
To be sure, no single one of these documents alone proves a conspiracy to kill the liberal president. Rather these records fill out the fact pattern around the tragic and confusing events of November 1963 that has emerged since declassification of records began in the late 1990s.
The new JFK fact pattern (which can be studied at maryferrell.org) shows that the official story of a “lone gunman” is not supported by the forensic evidence or the testimony of medical personnel. The new fact pattern indicates senior CIA officers engaged in malfeasance concerning the accused assassin Oswald.
JFK researchers have high expectations tempered by hard experience. The CIA has resisted full disclosure of its JFK assassination files for the past 62 years. CIA personnel have repeatedly deceived JFK investigators and issued false or misleading statements to the public. Top agency officials are not likely to change their behavior because yet another president has put certain words on paper. The president’s sweeping rhetoric is welcome but the only measure of his plan are the results.
If these 12 essential documents do not become public soon, then we will know that the CIA and others have been able to water down, neuter, and otherwise evade President’s Trump’s order. I don’t expect that to happen but it might.
That’s why it’s important to start our Essential JFK Documents series with the highly sensitive file of the CIA officer George Joannides. That will be the subject of my next post.
They need to release all versions of the Zapruder film, and all associated chain of custody and communication records related to it. Doug Horne's images were damning and he said in color the alterations to the film are even more egregious.
Please add the films of Darnell and Wiegman, currently being held by NBC Universal, to the list of essential documents. Because they captured the aftermath of the murder, they are important JFKA records under the ARRB's definition: any information, regardless of its form or who possesses it, that helps an understanding of what happened.