The CIA’s Sinister 'Transparency Plan' for JFK Files

The clandestine service is quietly seeking to gut the JFK Records Act

The website of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), where all files in the JFK Collection are housed, now features links to official documentation on a new process governing disclosure of records related to the JFK assassination that is not written into law and not approved by Congress.

By publishing these materials on behalf of executive branch agencies still in control of such files, the National Archives is helping the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency (NSA) and others to evade their legal obligations under the JFK Records Act, passed unanimously by Congress in 1992.

The Act already sets the conditions for disclosure of JFK files. The CIA’s ill-named “Transparency Plan” connives to replace the will of Congress with the priorities of the secret intelligence agencies. And the National Archives is helping them do it.

Having blown the statutory deadline written into the JFK Records Act four times in six years, the CIA and other federal agencies are now seeking to eliminate the deadline altogether. Here’s how the bureaucratic sleight of hand works.