Among a slew of shock-factor actions which have set the tone for his second term of presidency from its first day on, Donald Trump has ordered the declassification of government documents related to the assignation of President John F. Kennedy, requiring the USA’s security bodies to undertake the necessary manoeuvres to release records.
America’s beloved president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in a convertible in downtown Dallas in 1963, he was killed instantly by a bullet through the head.
Police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald just an hour later. But Oswald, in an improbable turn of events, was killed on live TV two days later, as police were transferring him to a county jail, by Jack Ruby, who claimed that he acted alone — much as Oswald claimed to have done.
General American opinion is that the true circumstances of JFK’s assassination were covered by the American government CIA at the time, though many outlandish theories have been disproven over the years. In any case, it’s become a pivotal moment not just in American, but also world history, with many people around the world remembering exactly where they were when they heard the news of the handsome young president’s gruesome death — not to mention how many books, movies, shows have been produced on the subject.
“A lot of people were waiting for this . . . for years, for decades,” said Trump.
“Everything will be revealed.”
“Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth,” the order states.
This means that the the director of national intelligence and the attorney general are ordered to work with White House officials on a record release plan.
This plan must be given to Trump within 15 days from Thursday, when he signed the order.
A law passed in 1992 required the records to be fully released by Octoctober 26, 2017, unless the president at the time believed “their release identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations… of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure” — and this didn’t happen, obviously.
Even Joe Biden gave agencies more time to review the records in 2021, 2022, and 2023 respectively.
Trump was quick to undo Biden’s work, in many cases.
Meanwhile, the CIA has not commented, but has opposed release in the past, on the basis that it could undermine national security, by revelling insight about how exactly it is that intelligence is gathered.
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