National Archives publishes documents concerning former President Kennedy's murder

The publication of more than 13 thousand documents was not expected to include any new find. The documents are also not expected to change the conclusion reached by the commission led by then Supreme Court Chairman Earl Warren that Lee Harvey Oswald, former Merins and communist activist who had lived in the Soviet Union acted alone when he killed the former president.

However, publishing documents is expected to be useful to historians who focus on the events about the assassination.

Former President Kennedy was shot and killed while traveling with his convoy across Dallas on November 22nd 1963, at the age of 46.

Thousands of books, articles, television shows and movies have suggested that Mr. Kennedy's murder was the result of a well - thought - out plot.

Never have evidence been offered that Mr. Oswald has cooperated with someone else in the murder, although this idea continues to survive time.

Lee Oswald was shot dead by the owner of a nightclub, Jack Ruby, two days after killing the former president.

Many of the documents released Thursday belonged to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including some focusing on Mr. Oswald's movements and his contacts. Other documents deal with requests from the Warren Commission investigating the murder.

The documents show that the American government opened a so-called 201 file for Mr. Oswald in December 1960, about three years before the assassination of former President Kennedy and after Lee Oswald's failed desertion in the Soviet Union in 1959.

A December 1963 document described how CIA officials in Mexico City “heard a call” that Mr. Oswald made in October with the Soviet Embassy in the Mexican capital “using his” and speaking a bad “. Mr. Oswald hoped to travel through Cuba to Russia and was looking for a visa, the documents reveal.

At first, there were concerns that Mr. Ruby, Mr. Oswald's killer, might have had anything to do with him. But a recently drafted memorandum drafted in September 1964 to the presidential commission investigating the assassination said that “Central Intelligence Agency has no indication that Mr. Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald have ever known each other, or had any other” connection.

In 1992, Congress had ordered that all remaining secret files regarding the investigation into the assassination of former President Kennedy should be fully opened to the public through the National Archives 25 years later, on October 26, 2017, except those the president authorized to remain secret.

In 2017, then President Donald Trump published a portion of the data, but the rest decided to release it gradually.

All remaining files of the former US president's assassination should have been published in October 2021. President Biden postponed that planned publication, citing delays caused by the pandemic “CO VID-19” and announced that they would instead be discovered into two groups: one on December 15th, 2021, and another until December 15, 2022, after undergoing an intensive one-year review.

With the latest statement, the total release from the CIA's classified data on President John F. Kennedy has reached 95% that have been discovered overall for the public, a CIA spokesman said in a statement.

No document will remain edited or unpublished after “intense one-year review”.

In a memorandum Thursday, President Biden said that by 1 May 2023, the National Archives and relevant agencies “would jointly review the remaining editings in data that had not been publicly discovered”.

After this review, “any classified information that agencies do not recommend for continuing postponement” will be published by 30 June 2023. / VOA