The U.S. National Archives has released thousands of documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy after President Joe Biden issued an executive order authorizing publication.
The publication of the 13,173 documents was not expected to make any new high-profile claims or change the conclusions reached by the commission, headed by Chief Justice Warren, that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine and Communist activist who lived in the Soviet Union, acted alone. However, the publication of the documents will be a pose to historians concerned with the events surrounding the assassination.
Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in his motorcade through Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, at age 46.
Thousands of books, articles, television shows and films have explored the idea that Kennedy's assassination was the result of an elaborate conspiracy. None of them have provided convincing evidence that Oswald, who was fatally shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby two days after Kennedy's assassination, was working with anyone else.
Many of the released documents belonged to the Central Intelligence Agency, including some relating to Oswald's movements and contacts. Other documents deal with requests from the Warren Commission investigating the assassination.
The documents show that the U.S. government opened so-called Case 201 on Oswald in December 1960, nearly three years before Kennedy's assassination and after Oswald's failed transfer to the Soviet Union in 1959.
A December 1963 document describes how CIA officials in Mexico City intercepted a telephone call made by Oswald in October from that city to the Soviet embassy, under his own name in broken Russian. According to the documents, Oswald hoped to travel through Cuba on his way to Russia and wanted a visa.
Initially, there were fears that Ruby, Oswald's assassin, might have had some connection with Oswald. But a recently released September 1964 memorandum from the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the assassination stated that the Central Intelligence Agency has no evidence that Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald ever knew each other, were related or could have been related in any way.
Congress in 1992 ordered that all remaining sealed files related to the investigation into JFK's death be fully open to the public through the National Archives after 25 years, by October 26, 2017, except for those that the president authorized for further retention.
It was originally expected that all remaining files would be released in October 2021. Biden postponed that publication, citing delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and announced that they would instead be disclosed in two stages, December 15, 2021, the second by December 15, 2022, after an intensive one-year review.
