Trump Backs Off Promise To Release All Suppressed JFK Documents Today; Permits Partial Release

In a chaotic chapter of government efforts to suppress research into the evidence regarding President Kennedy's 1963 assassination, President Trump on Oct. 26 suddenly backed away from his promises this week to comply with a 1992 Congressional law and release all remaining documents related to the assassination.

The president released in full via the National Archives website at about 7:30 p.m. some 2,891 remaining documents after a conference call with news reporters beginning at 5:46 p.m. This followed a day in which many in the public long focused on the document release were left wondering until after normal business hours what was happening.

Update: One expert suggested privately to fellow researchers that his preliminary review of the documents and the initial media coverage indicates vast confusion in the news coverage, as follows:

Most journalists who mentioned the numbers of documents in their initial reporting implied that the released documents, 2,891, came from the trove of some 3,100 that had been expected to be released in full on Oct. 26. Instead, the expert said, at least 98 percent of the released documents appeared to be from the larger universe of some 30,000 documents that had been previously released with partial redactions.

In other words, the new information may be far less than implied by initial news reports, even those from major news organizations. A further implication is that staff disorganization in the White House must have been at a monumental level for a 25-year project regarding the murder of a president in broad daylight in what's been called "The Crime of the Century" to crash into such confusion and secrecy on its long-anticipated deadline day. 

The White House issued a statement saying that it was giving federal agencies until March 12 to register objections to remaining documents.The White House scheduling a decision on the those objections by April 26, with some documents to be released on a rolling basis in the meantime.

Earlier in the week, Trump had promised compliance and transparency on the documents. They were supposed to have been released by Oct. 26 as part of a process begun after the U.S. Senate and House each passed by unanimous votes in 1992 the so-called "JFK Act" to release all documents absent compelling national security reasons.

This editor has been monitoring these developments closely for years via the Justice Integrity Project and Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA). Along with more than 200 other reporters and interested parties, I joined a White House conference call that began at 5:46 p.m. (EST) whereby officials described how and why they were only partially complying with their own and congressional timetables. Also, I undertook a number of interviews this week with U.S. and international outlets to describe the importance of developments.

The news is summarized in an appendix to this column. It contains a number of news stories and commentaries arranged in reverse chronological order. Another appendix includes our so-far 43-part "Readers Guide to the JFK Assassination," which helps show how virtually all major U.S. media continue to support the controversial 1964 Warren Report claiming that former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to kill Kennedy in Dallas.

Virtually all major media also couch their coverage in terms of smearing researchers with the term "conspiracy theorists," a term popularized by the CIA in the 1960s to discredit critics of the Warren Report, previously declassified CIA documents show.

Especially notable among the columns this week are those by JFK research experts John M. Newman, Dan Hardway, and Jacob Hornberger. Important also is a  news story by the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette in which noted forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, chairman of CAPA, described medical evidence proving that the accused JFK assassin Oswald could not alone have killed Kennedy, as alleged by the 1964 Warren Commission.

Wecht has been a leader in arranging with CAPA and the South Texas College of Law / Houston a unique mock trial, State of Texas vs. Lee Harvey Oswald, that will showcase at the school top medical experts discussing evidence. Proponents from CAPA believe the evidence will show conclusively on the basis of scientific facts that Oswald could not alone have killed Kennedy, in contrast to claims by government authorities and the vast majority of news reporters..Details of the mock trial are here. Many researchers believe also that Oswald did not fire any shots, but such a conclusion is not necessary to raise doubts about the professed certitude of authorities that he acted alone.

Newman, a historian and national intelligence expert, argues that Oswald was an undercover intelligence operative and that agencies have tried through the years to hide embarrassing information. Hardway, an attorney and former staff investigator for Congress into Oswald's alleged activities, argues in his column that intelligence agencies and the news media have concocted the smear "conspiracy theory" to deter honest investigations into the Kennedy death.

Hornberger, leader of the Libertarian think tank Future of Freedom Foundation and also an attorney and a book publisher, predicted early this week that Trump would back away from his promise to release all documents. Hornberger alleged days ago that Trump, as deal-maker, likely promised transparency in order to frighten secrets-keepers at the FBI and CIA to make a secret deal to help protect his own secrets and viability despite ongoing federal probes into his 2016 presidential campaign and subsequent actions. 

Trump's White House statement contradicting his earlier statements said in part:

The American public expects -- and deserves -- its Government to provide as much access as possible to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records (records) so that the people may finally be fully informed about all aspects of this pivotal event. Therefore, I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted. 

At the same time, executive departments and agencies (agencies) have proposed to me that certain information should continue to be redacted because of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns.  I have no choice --today -- but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our Nation's security. 

To further address these concerns, I am also ordering agencies to re-review each and every one of those redactions over the next 180 days.  At the end of that period, I will order the public disclosure of any information that the agencies cannot demonstrate meets the statutory standard for continued postponement of disclosure under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (44 U.S.C. 2107 note) (the "Act"). 

A CIA spokesperson added:

We welcome the President’s directive to conduct further review of the records in the JFK Assassination Records Collection to identify any additional information that can be released, while still protecting our officers, partners, sources, and methods.CIA has been working diligently to release to the public as much CIA information as possible from the collection.

Pursuant to the JFK Assassination Records Act of 1992, more than 87,000 CIA records were identified as falling within the scope of the collection.

Of those, CIA has already released more than 69,000 records to the public in full, without redaction. Every single one of the approximately 18,000 remaining CIA records in the collection will ultimately be released, with no document withheld in full. 

While some of these 18,000 records currently contain targeted redactions, the information redacted represents less than one percent of the total CIA information in the collection.

CIA’s current redactions were undertaken with the intent to protect information in the collection whose disclosure would harm national security -- including the names of CIA assets and current and former CIA officers, as well as specific intelligence methods and partnerships that remain viable to protecting the nation today. 

The news coverage from mainstream media focused heavily on reporters' claim that "conspiracy theorists" dominate the debate and steer the public away from what the reporters consistently claim is Oswald's guilt. The news organizations bring forward for the most part the same few supposed experts who with near-unanimity allege that Oswald in fact killed Kennedy, acting alone.

CNN -- whose parent company Time-Life played a key role in suppressing the Zapruder film that provided contrary evidence to the mainstream narrative that Oswald killed Kennedy with three shots from the rear -- exemplified the questionable news coverage the evening of Oct. 26. CNN's commentators repeatedly mocked critics of the official narrative. The anchors and experts (clearly cherry-picked to reiterate the death's official narrative) framed their discussion around whether delays in providing evidence would fuel "conspiracy" thinking. That stressed the commentators' theme that the most important documents in the case were those involving Oswald's purported Communist sympathies.

Our immediate goal with this column is to report the evening's breaking news ASAP.

Future reports here will follow up in more depth with analysis of why the U.S. mainstream news media remain so committed to reiterating a narrative that the American public reject by large majorities, according to public opinion polls showing that between 60 and about 75 percent of Americans reject the Warren Report's main conclusion -- and thus the standard news accounts by media elites.

As a further preview, we note that we now know conclusively that the CIA led the way in a secret propaganda campaign against the American public and in violation of the CIA's charter to manipulate the nation's news media to popularize the smear "conspiracy theorist." This is shown by a previously declassified 1967 CIA document, known as "CIA Dispatch 1035-960."

The 50-page CIA memo instructed its agents to contact their media contacts and disparage as "conspiracy theorists" those who were criticizing the Warren Commission findings that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK and acted alone. The 1967 document is here in the original, and here in reformatted text of its summary. Minutes of CIA meeting that same year indicated fear that New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison would win a conviction in his murder conspiracy case naming International Trade Mart executive Clay Shaw as being at the center of a plot to murder the president.

Shaw, the only person ever indicted in connection with the JFK murder, was acquitted after he denied that he was involved with the CIA and after many key prosecution witnesses died in untimely fashion.

Garrison outlined his theory of the case in video that NBC broadcast in 1967 (under rules then requiring a right of reply) in response to NBC's attacks on Garrison to thwart his prosecution. In a 27-minute address to the nation, Garrison

The 1991 film JFK by Oliver Stone portrayed Garrison as a truth-seeker, and led to popular pressure on Congress to order release of suppressed JFK assassination documents. Some four million pages have been released so far. These provide informed researchers fairly clear ideas of what had caused Kennedy's murder and why it still matters.

To be continued. 

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Related News Coverage

Nov. 6

Future of Freedom Foundation, Opinion: The National Archives: Lawbreaker and Cover-Upper, Jacob G. Hornberger, Nov. 6, 2017. On October 26, 2017, the National Archives, an independent federal agency that is headed by a man named David Ferriero, became a federal lawbreaker.

The reason?

On that date, the National Archives became legally obligated to release to the public all of the CIA’s and other federal agencies’ files relating to the JFK assassination in its possession. On that date, the National Archives failed and refused to release those long-secret records in its possession. On that date, the National Archives, under Ferriero’s auspices, became a federal lawbreaker.

In 1991, the movie JFK, directed by Oliver Stone, was released. The movie posited that the assassination of President Kennedy was orchestrated by the CIA and other elements of the U.S. national-security establishment as part of a U.S. regime-change operation designed to protect the country from a president whose policies and practices, they felt, constituted a grave threat to national security. (See FFF’s ebook JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne.)

JFK Facts.org, Where to find a JFK smoking gun: in the coming FBI files, Jefferson Morley, Nov. 6, 2017. (Jefferson Morley (shown at right), Washington bureau chief of AlterNet and editor of JFKFacts.org, has authored two books on CIA executives relevant to the Kennedy Assassination, most recently on Oct. 24: The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton.)

There is at least one potential smoking gun in the new JFK files, and it may soon come into public view. As I explained to the Washington Post: "one of the more interesting documents to emerge involves a CIA cable about Oswald’s contacts in Mexico City that had up until Friday been partially redacted. The Oct. 8, 1963 cable discussed Oswald’s interactions with a Soviet consular official named Valery Kostikov, the reputed head of the KGB’s assassinations operations. On Friday, the CIA cable’s slugline was finally declassified. The title: LCIMPROVE.”

If there is a “smoking gun” in the JFK files, it will be found in the FBI’s curious response to the October 8, 1963 cable. The next day, October 9, 1963, the FBI made a curious decision that has long puzzled JFK researchers and historians. Senior agents in Washington removed Oswald’s name from a list of persons of interest to FBI headquarters. Six weeks later, Oswald was arrested for shooting JFK.

In other words, the day after the CIA’s top counterintelligence official was informed that Oswald had met with possible KGB officer in Mexico City, the FBI decided that Oswald was no longer worthy of close scrutiny. The FBI files, scheduled for release, will likely shed light on this fateful decision. The FBI has previously released internal records about why the so-called “Flash” notice on Oswald was cancelled but they are filled with redactions. If and when those redactions are removed, we may learn who was shielding Oswald from law enforcement attention as he made his way to Dallas.

Oct. 30

Mary Ferrell Foundation, Formerly withheld-in-full documents released on Oct. 26, 2017, Rex Bradford, Oct. 30, 2017. These 52 documents, all formerly withheld in full, were released on October 26, 2017 (25 years after the passage of the JFK Records Act). They come from a variety of agencies. An additional 2839 formerly-redacted documents were also released on that day. See the 2017 Documents project page under the Resources menu for more information.

Sort by: Title     NARA RIF Number           Date               Agency File Number

 1. [No Title] RIF#: 124-10208-10333   (08/05/1964)   FBI#: 105-98177-32   

2. [No Title] RIF#: 124-10291-10043   (11/08/1976)   FBI#: CR 109-12-223-6308   

3. [No Title] RIF#: 124-10291-10044   (06/09/1976)   FBI#: CR 109-12-223-6322   

4. [No Title] RIF#: 124-90089-10094   (01/04/1961)   FBI#: 2-1622-62, etc.

Consortium News, The Deep State’s JFK Triumph Over Trump, Ray McGovern (former CIA analyst, shown in a file photo), Oct. 30, 2017. Fifty-four years after President Kennedy’s assassination, the CIA and FBI demanded more time to decide what secrets to keep hiding – and a chastened President Trump bowed to their power.

It was summer 1963 when a senior official of CIA’s operations directorate treated our Junior Officer Trainee (JOT) class to an unbridled rant against President John F. Kennedy. He accused JFK, among other things, of rank cowardice in refusing to send U.S. armed forces to bail out Cuban rebels pinned down during the CIA-launched invasion at the Bay of Pigs, blowing the chance to drive Cuba’s Communist leader Fidel Castro from power.

It seemed beyond odd that a CIA official would voice such scathing criticism of a sitting President at a training course for those selected to be CIA’s future leaders. I remember thinking to myself, “This guy is unhinged; he would kill Kennedy, given the chance.”

JFK Countercoup, Adam Gopnik/New Yorker Annotated, Bill Kelly, Oct. 30, 2017. JIP Editor's Note: Assassination research expert Bill Kelly, board member of Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA), debunks the pro-Warren Commission, lone-nut-did-it propaganda of New Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik. Gopnik authored The J.F.K. Files, Trump, and the Deep State, published on Oct. 29, in which he reviewed in superficial fashion documents released last week by the Trump administration in partial compliance with a law requiring release of JFK assassination documents by Oct. 26. Gopnik claimed that the documents reaffirm his 2013 analysis that accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and killed President Kennedy with three shots fired from the rear. Kelly (whose comments below are identified with "BK" contradicted Gopnik's claims, beginning with those below:

So far, the newly released documents on John F. Kennedy’s assassination seem only to confirm the wisest conclusions about the President’s death.

BK – Yes, that he was not murdered by one man alone.

The release last Thursday of previously classified, or at least unseen, government files of all kinds relating to the assassination of John F. Kennedy is being heralded as Donald Trump’s decision—though it was simply his decision not to prevent their release, which had long been scheduled. In fact, at the last minute, Trump listened to requests from the intelligence services not to release some three hundred of the remaining three thousand files.

BK: You got your numbers wrong Gopnik – get it right please – this is important.

Georgetowner, Conspiracy Theories Old and New, Peggy Sands, Oct. 30, 2017. It’s Halloween 2017 and, perhaps appropriately, old and new mysteries of murder, collusion and conspiracy involving the highest realms of government — including the White House — have taken center stage.

On Friday, Oct. 27, the National Archives and Records Administration released 2,800 documents, held by the FBI and the CIA for 25 years, relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Hotly anticipated, this final document dump was supposed to definitively confirm or deny the Warren Commission’s official and controversial single-shooter, single-bullet conclusion about who shot JFK and why. But at the last minute on Friday, the National Archives held back the release of some records “for national security reasons”; these will be reviewed, re-redacted and released (perhaps) six months from now.

ABA Journal, JFK assassination documents digitized and made searchable by e-discovery firm, Jason Tashea, Oct. 31, 2017. The legal review software company iCONECT has digitized some JFK assassination records and is offering free access for 60 days. Launched Oct. 30, the company imported 6,701 public documents from the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection to its Xera platform, including audio files. A user can now search various fields to find relevant information. This is an improvement over the National Archives’ repository of these documents, which are in PDF format and non-searchable, according to a press release.

iCONECT also “built a search index, charts, graphs, quick-search folders and word-highlight reports for all the records,” according to the release. A user can even auto-mark CIA cryptonyms found throughout the document set.

The federal government released 2,800 new documents last week, according to CNN, after President Donald Trump declared on Twitter that he would do so.

“I am doing this for reasons of full disclosure, transparency and in order to put any and all conspiracy theories to rest,” Trump tweeted.

Full disclosure has so far proved illusive because of concerns from national security agencies that have kept many documents classified.

Not including the recent release of documents, “five million pages of assassination-related records” and other artifacts were already available online, according to the National Archives. All of the public records in the archive are free to the public.

Oct. 29

Secret Service Special Agent Clint Hill, at top left, seeks to climb onto bumper of President Kennedy's limousine in Dallas after the fatal shooting in 1963. The president's wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, meanwhile reaches for brain matter on the car trunk in forlorn hope it could help doctors.

OpEdNews, Opinion: The Kennedy Assassination, Paul Craig Roberts (conservative scholar and former Reagan Assistant Treasury Secretary), Oct. 29, 2017. J. Edgar Hoover, along with LBJ, Earl Warren and the members of the Warren Commission understood that it was impossible to tell the American people that their president has been assassinated by the US military and US security agencies. At a dicey time of the Cold War, clearly it would have been reckless to destroy Americans' trust in their own government.

Some are pushing me to continue with the Las Vegas shooting story while others are asking to know what to make of the release of files pertaining to President Kennedy's assassination. My answer is that we already know, thanks to exhaustively researched books such as James W. Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable (Simon & Schuster, 2008), far more than is in the released files. My answer is also that it doesn't matter what we know or what the facts are, the official story will never be changed.

Douglass concludes that Kennedy was murdered because he turned to peace. He was going to work with Khrushchev to end the Cold War. He refused the CIA US air cover for the Bay of Pigs invasion. He rejected the Joint Chiefs' Operation Northwoods, a plan to conduct false flag attacks on Americans that would be blamed on Castro to justify regime change. He refused to reappoint General Lyman Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He told US Marine commandant General David Shoup that he was taking the US out of Vietnam. He said after his reelection he was going to "break the CIA into 1,000 pieces."

All of this threatened the power and profit of the military/security complex and convinced military/security elements that he was soft on communism and a threat to US national security.

Oct. 28

 

Mary Ferrell Foundation, Featured: What Happened Thursday with the JFK Records? Rex Bradford, Oct. 28, 2017. Rex Bradford (shown above in a 2013 interview on C-SPAN) is president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, the world's largest private collection of JFK-related assassination documents. It is named for a late Dallas secretary, shown at right, who started it by collecting newspapers and documents out of disbelief in official reports.

A travesty. Most news reports correctly noted the release of about 2800 documents, but added that only a few were held back, in some cases saying "300 documents" remain withheld (see CNN, and Washington Post for example). They are off by a factor of 100. In fact, tens of thousands of documents, possibly as many as 30,000, remain sealed at the National Archives.

If President Trump had gone golfing at Mar-A-Lago and done absolutely nothing on Thursday, the National Archives (NARA) was set to release all the documents. See the relevant language in the Assassination Records Review Board's Final Report, quoting from the 1992 JFK Records Act.

This includes 3,147 "withheld in full" records never seen, and an unknown number of redacted documents estimated at about 30,000. Intensely lobbied by federal agencies including the CIA, Trump instead authorized the withholding of well over 90% of these documents. 52 of the 3,147 withheld-in-full records were released and put online by NARA, less than 2%, and 2,839 of the redacted documents were released, which is probably less than 10% of that set.

From the public metadata available for all these records, it's clear that the most-desired records were held back. Still withheld-in-full records among the 98% of those still withheld include, for example:

Still-withheld Church Committee interview transcripts not included in the 1990s releases, including one with none other than CIA CounterIntelligence chief James Angleton.

Lengthy CIA files on officers who played a role in Castro assassination plotting and/or the JFK story, including William Harvey, David Philips, E. Howard Hunt, James O'Connell, Richard Synder, and several others.

A 167-page CIA document on Valeriy Kostikov, the Soviet agent stationed in Mexico whose name was used as part of the "World War III" scenario that the Warren Commission we now know was created to push back against.

An interview the House Select Committee on Assassinations conducted with Orest Pena, the New Orleans bar owner who told the Committee that Oswald was an FBI informant and he often saw Oswald in the company of a particular FBI agent.

RT, Let's try this again: Trump vows full JFK files release to ‘put conspiracy theories to rest,’ Staff and wire reports, Oct. 28, 2017. Following Thursday's limited declassification of files relating to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, President Donald Trump tweeted on Friday that a complete release is imminent. “After strict consultation with General Kelly, the CIA and other Agencies, I will be releasing ALL JFK files other than the names and addresses of any mentioned person who is still living. I am doing this for reasons of full disclosure, transparency and in order to put any and all conspiracy theories to rest,” Trump tweeted.

Associated Press, Trump frustrated by secrecy with JFK files, Staff report, Oct. 28, 2017. Thursday's release of 2,800 records from the JFK files was anything but smooth. An irritated Trump resisted signing off redaction requests, according to an account by two White House officials. It was a showdown 25 years in the making: With the world itching to finally get a look at classified Kennedy assassination files, and the deadline for their release just hours away, intelligence officials were still angling for a way to keep their secrets.

President Donald Trump, the one man able to block the release, did not appreciate their persistence. He did not intend to make this easy.

The tale of the final hours before the congressionally mandated 25-year release deadline adds a new chapter to the story of Trump's troubled relationship with his spy agencies. He again flashed his skepticism and unpredictability in dealing with agencies long accustomed to a level of deference. Intelligence officials, meanwhile, were again left scratching their heads about a president whose impulses they cannot predict.

And those officials had their own story tell, some rejecting the notion they were slow to act on Trump's expectations for the documents. The CIA began work months ago to get its remaining assassination-related documents ready for release on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the process. The person, who was not authorized to publicly to discuss the process and spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the goal was to have all the agency's documents ready to be released in full or with national security redactions before the deadline.

Late last week, Trump received his first official briefing on the release in an Oval Office meeting that included Chief of Staff John Kelly, White House Counsel Don McGahn and National Security Council legal adviser John Eisenberg. Trump made it clear he was unsatisfied with the pace of declassification. Trump's tweets, an official said, were meant as a signal to the intelligence community to take seriously his threats to release the documents in their entirety.

According to White House officials, Trump accepted that some of the records contained references to sensitive sources and methods used by the intelligence community and law enforcement and that declassification could harm American foreign policy interests. But after having the scope of the redactions presented to him, Trump told aides he did not believe them to be in the spirit of the law.

Los Angeles Times, Opinion: The latest JFK documents still don't show a Russian conspiracy, James Reston Jr., Oct. 28, 2017.  The partial release of the remaining documents in the government’s Kennedy assassination archive has revived an old legend: the Russian orchestration of the president’s murder. All it took was a few new tidbits from CIA and FBI reports about Lee Harvey Oswald’s visit to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City in September 1963.

It is no mystery why the majority of Americans believe that some grand plot, probably orchestrated by a foreign power, was behind the assassination of President Kennedy. For the greatest crime of the 20th century and perhaps of all American history, we demand a conspiracy of equivalent magnitude. That is the comfortable and lazy thing to believe.

Unfortunately, the real answer still lies in the demented mind of a wretched little man with a ninth-grade education, whose life was hopeless, and who was driven by anger, grudges and delusion.

James Reston Jr. is the author of “The Accidental Victim: JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Real Target in Dallas.” A senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, and an Army intelligence officer from 1965 to 1968, his latest book is “A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam Memorial.”

JIP Editor's note: The column above is included here for the sake of illustrating the degree of propaganda, misinformation and fake news still being provided by well-connected pseudo-experts about the death.  Readers are encouraged to use the following Twitter hash tags to flag slanted articles such as this: #JFKFakeNews #MassmediaJFKLies.

Future of Freedom Foundation, The JFK Cover-Up Continues, Jacob G. Hornberger (shown at right), Oct. 27, 2017. While the mainstream media was announcing for the past two weeks that President Trump was going to release the CIA’s long-secret records on the JFK assassination, I took a different position. On Monday of this week, I predicted that Trump would make a deal with the CIA that would enable the CIA to continue its cover-up of the JFK assassination. (See I Predict Trump Will Continue the CIA’s JFK Assassination Cover-Up and No Smoking Guns in the JFK Records?)

Oct. 26

Facebook, Historian John Newman comments pro-war propaganda from media related to suppressed JFK documents, (Dr. John M. Newman, a longtime history professor and author of multiple major books related to the Kennedy assassination, is shown in a photo collage above published by WhoWhatWhy. Full bio below.)  Oct. 26, 2017. As I predicted six months ago, we are up against a full court press by the Castro-killed-Kennedy psych-warfare frame op cooked up by the true perpetrators behind the president’s murder.

And, now, beginning with Shenon (prompted by Arlen Specter) in 2012, followed by other famous amazing experts like FOX’s O’Rilley, MSNBC’s Matthews, and UVA’s Sabato, it has been regurgitated again.

If that wasn’t enough, we are being fed that old canard again today by hundreds of news items written by youngsters whose entire perspective and information about the assassination has taken place in just the last two weeks. They say: “What?? You don’t think Castro was involved??” As if we are the lunatics.

LBJ’s steamrolling of Chief Just Warren to force him to head the commission and rubber stamp the Oswald-did-it-alone FBI cover-up was done at the “Top Secret” level to prevent a world-wide nuclear holocaust and the deaths of 40 million Americans. Decades ago, we were able to listen to the tape recording of LBJ boasting to Senator Russell about how he pulled it off, and watch Warren on Washington Public TV (WETA) confirm the story.

Author's Bio: Dr. Newman served in Army Intelligence in Thailand, the Philippines, Japan, and China. He served as an attaché in China. He served as the Military Assistant to the director of the National Security Agency (NSA). He was a faculty member of the University of Maryland, Honors College (1992-2012), and is currently Adjunct Professor of Political Science at James Madison University, where he teaches courses in International Terrorism, Counterterrosm, and America in the 60s.

Dr. Newman was a consultant for Oliver Stone's film JFK. He was one of the experts called upon to testify the U.S. House of Representatives. He was asked to assist the JFK Assassination Records Review Board. He has been a critic of the 9/11 Commission Report. Newman is the author of "JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power"(1992; 2017); "Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK" (1995; 2008); "Quest for the Kingdom: The Secret Teachings of Jesus in the Light of Yogic Mysticism" (2013); "Where Angels Tread Lightly: The Assassination of President Kennedy, Volume I" (2015, 2017); and "Countdown to Darkness: The Assassination of President Kennedy, Volume II (2017).

Politico, What you won't find in the final JFK assassination records, Bryan Bender, Oct. 26, 2017. Numerous government documents with potential bearing on President John F. Kennedy’s murder have gone missing or were destroyed. Don’t expect an end to the conspiracy theories about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — even after the vast network of JFK-obsessed researchers pore over the final trove of government documents.

That’s because the thousands of files made public by the National Archives late Thursday — and others that President Donald Trump announced will undergo an additional 180-day review — are still vastly incomplete, according to former government officials and leading assassination scholars, including those who believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and the many more who don't.

They insist that much of what the government knew or suspected about people who may have had knowledge of Kennedy’s murder, or who had a motive to take part in a conspiracy or cover-up, remains hidden from the public or was destroyed.

The Secret Service, for example, has acknowledged it destroyed some of its records about the events in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Army and Navy intelligence files on key individuals have never been made available, and in some cases were shielded from a trio of government probes into Kennedy's killing in the 1960s and 1970s.

Also missing, they say, is part of a CIA report on Oswald, an ex-Marine who defected to the Soviet Union before returning to the United States. And much mystery remains about all the files maintained by the late James Jesus Angleton, the top CIA counterintelligence official who took over the agency’s probe of the assassination.

JFK Facts, What the JFK Records Act says about today, Jefferson Morley, Oct. 26, 2017. JFKFacts.org Editor and AlterNet Washington correspondent Jefferson Morley, a major litigant to release JFK materials under Freedom of Information Act law, is a former Washington Post reporter and is the author of two major books about the CIA, most recently, The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton, published this week by St. Martin's Press . Several of his columns today are excerprted below, beginning with the one headlined above: The law is quite explicit about President Trump’s responsibilities today. With each passing hour, he is in danger failing to see that the law on JFK records are faithfully executed.

 White House fumbling as JFK release deadline nears: The long-awaited JFK document release has still not happened. Knowledgable sources are saying that the documents may not be posted today, at least not all of them. That would be a plain violation of the JFK Records Act.

9 things you should know about the JFK file release: In my latest piece for AlterNet, I say the most significant story in the new JFK files will be details of the CIA’s pre-assassination monitoring of Oswald. And, if, contra Posner, Trump approves CIA and FBI requests to withhold some records, the JFK files Trump keeps secret will be more important than the ones he releases.

Gerald Posner predicts full release with no redactions: The anti-conspiratorial writer says President Trump will order the release of all remaining JFK records with no redactions. If true, this is good news.

NSA concealed records on JFK assassination for decades : Two documents provided by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and published for the first time today further underline how closely the intelligence community has held information related to Cuba’s potential role in the killing, indicating that the NSA for decades has kept secret its efforts to monitor Cuban agents’ communications in the aftermath of the event.

Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC), What were they hiding and what should we look for? Dan L. Hardway, Oct. 26, 2017 (Dan Hardway, an attorney and former staff member for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, a prominent JFK assassination researcher).  As we go into the hysteria of a massive JFK document dump, there is one remarkably surviving document that has already been released that we should keep in mind – especially when reading news coverage of the documents scheduled for release today.

On April 1, 1967, the Head of the Covert Action Staff of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sent a dispatch to many of the CIA stations and bases around the world. That the document survived (Dispatch, Countering Criticism of the Warren Report, from Chief of CA Staff to Chiefs of Certain Stations and Bases, April 1, 1967, RIF 104-10009-10022) may be remarkable as it is clearly marked as “Destroy when no longer needed.”

Or, then again, maybe it is not remarkable that it has not been destroyed because the government and intelligence community’s efforts to silence those who question the official story about John Kennedy’s murder has never succeeded and, hence, the dispatch remains needful from their viewpoint.

The dispatch lays out a plan for defending the lone nut theory first advanced as the major theme of the government cover-up of the assassination investigation. The dispatch labels people who question the lone nut theory as “conspiracy theorists.” It plainly states the purpose of the dispatch “is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists…. Our play should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (i) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (ii) politically interested, (iii) financially interested, (iv) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (v) infatuated with their own theories.” 

It goes on to suggest that critics be countered by advancing arguments such as they have produced no new evidence, that they overvalue some evidence while ignoring other evidence, that large scale conspiracies are “impossible to conceal in the United States,” that Oswald would not have been any “sensible person’s choice for a co-conspirator”, and by pointing out the comprehensive work of the Warren Commission which was composed of men “chosen for their integrity, experience, and prominence.”

New York Times, The J.F.K. Assassination: A Cast of Characters, Natalie Reneau and Peter Baker, Oct. 26, 2017 (video). As a new trove of documents about the killing of President John F. Kennedy is released, The Times's Peter Baker walks us through who’s who in this American tragedy.

New York Times, A Half-Century Later, Papers May Shed Light on J.F.K. Assassination, Peter Baker and Scott Shane, Oct. 26, 2017 (print edition). With permission from President Trump, the federal government on Thursday will begin releasing the final documents on the 1963 killing of John F. Kennedy.

Politico, How to Read the JFK Assassination Files, Here are some tips for making sense of all the code names, redactions and confusing jargon, Philip Shenon, Oct. 26, 2017. The government is releasing thousands of long-secret files on Kennedy’s murder. Here are some tips for making sense of all the code names, redactions and confusing jargon.

If President Donald Trump is true to his word, the American public is about to be flooded with thousands of long-secret documents that could help resolve at least some of the conspiracy theories about a turning point in the nation’s history — the assassination in 1963 of President John F. Kennedy.

The files, which are supposed to be released on the Archives website, are being made public under a deadline set by a 1992 law, the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act . The law, which Congress hoped would help tamp down the raging conspiracy theories revived or created by Oliver Stone’s film “JFK” the year before, was responsible for the release of millions of pages of other documents in the 1990s. What has remained secret at the Archives until this week were documents that the CIA, FBI and other agencies felt might somehow damage national security if made public.

But short of Trump’s intervention, all of those documents must be made public, too — every word — to meet the 25-year deadline set by the law. That is the deadline that arrives on Thursday.

How to begin to go through that massive document dump — tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of pages? It will be daunting even for historians, researchers and others who study the assassination and have been eagerly anticipating, for decades, the chance to see the files.

For most people who are not longtime students of the assassination, there will be almost instant frustration with the files because it will be impossible to make sense of most of the documents — at least not quickly.

But if you’re reading this, chances are you’re undeterred by these obstacles and are eager to dive in to what is one of the most highly anticipated document dumps in American history. So what follows, based on years of research for my own 2013 history on the Warren Commission, is a list of 10 suggestions for armchair detectives who are planning to test their patience — and risk their eyesight and even their sanity — by digging into this digital mountain of paperwork:

Oct. 26

New York Times, The J.F.K. Assassination: A Cast of Characters, Natalie Reneau and Peter Baker, Oct. 26, 2017 (video). As a new trove of documents about the killing of President John F. Kennedy is released, The Times's Peter Baker walks us through who’s who in this American tragedy.

New York Times, A Half-Century Later, Papers May Shed Light on J.F.K. Assassination, Peter Baker and Scott Shane, Oct. 26, 2017 (print edition). With permission from President Trump, the federal government on Thursday will begin releasing the final documents on the 1963 killing of John F. Kennedy.

Oct. 25

India America Today, Expert Applauds Trump Promise of Releasing JFK Files, Tejinder Singh (White House correspondent), Oct. 25, 2017. Tweeting from Air Force One, minutes before landing in Dallas, the city where the former president was shot and killed, [U.S. President Donald] Trump said, “The long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow. So interesting!” Trump was in Dallas to address a Republican Party fund-raiser.

Andrew Kreig, Justice Integrity Project Editor (www.justice-integrity.org) told India America Today, “Trump is taking a courageous stand on the side of the large majority of Americans who for decades have express disbelief in the findings of the Warren Commission, according to public opinion polls on the topic consistently reporting such disbelief as ranging from the mid-60s to more than 70 percent of Americans.”

“Release of documents over the needless objections of those obsessing over bogus “national security” implications also conforms with the views of many experts of diverse political views. These include such American conservatives as former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, progressives and several surviving staffers of the Warren Commission itself. My news report earlier this year summarized that impressive array of experts supporting the release that was announced today (JFK Experts Advocate Compliance With Records Release Deadline, published by the Justice Integrity Project and also by Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA) at ),” noted Kreig, who is also CAPA Board member.

Welcoming the decision, Kreig added, “President Trump has upheld values of transparency and democracy in a way that should be applauded by freedom lovers around the world. The problems of political assassination and other persecution are a global problem. So, the unanswered questions surrounding the 1963 murder of America’s young president hold continuing importance around the world.”

The Hill, Trump teases release of JFK files: 'So interesting!' Jordan Fabian, Oct. 25, 2017. President Trump teased the release of thousands of government documents related to the assassination of former President Kennedy on Wednesday, minutes before landing in Dallas, the city where the former president was shot and killed. “The long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow. So interesting!” Trump tweeted.

The president headed to Dallas to attend GOP fundraisers and receive an update on the recovery from Hurricane Harvey. Trump has said he doesn’t plan to block the release of files related to Kennedy’s killing ahead of the National Archives’s Thursday deadline to make them public. Congress passed a law in 1992 mandating the release of the files within 25 years, but the president has the power to stop it in the interest of national security.

Trump’s advisers have reportedly urged him to block at least some of the files. The White House has not said whether the president will do so. “Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened,” Trump tweeted over the weekend.

CrowdSource Radio via YouTube,

Future of Freedom Foundation, No “Smoking Guns” in the JFK Records? Jacob G. Hornberger, Oct. 25, 2017. Most of the mainstream media continues telling their readers not to expect any “smoking guns” in the JFK records that are supposed to be released tomorrow. That’s assuming, of course, that President Trump doesn’t change his mind at the last minute and grant the CIA’s request for continued secrecy. I stand by the prediction I made earlier this week. I think Trump will strike a last-minute deal with the CIA, perhaps one in which the CIA promises to bring its power and influence to bear on Congress to cease and desist about Russia. My hunch is that the deal will be announced in a fundraising speech that Trump is delivering today, not coincidentally, in Dallas.

There are several fascinating aspects to this controversy.

First of all is the mainstream media’s new-found discovery that the records are set to be released tomorrow. For the past year, some of us have been harping on the impending deadline and suggesting that the CIA would beseech Trump to keep its long-secret records secret, perhaps for another 25 years. The entire time, the mainstream media has largely remained silent about the matter … until just recently when the issue exploded into the public arena. Just Google “JFK Records” and you’ll see what I mean.

Most of the media articles, op-eds, and editorials fail to question a central issue: The fact that the CIA wants its 50-year-old records to continue to be kept secret. That should be big news, especially given that the reason the JFK Records Act was enacted in the first place was because of Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, which posited that the CIA orchestrated the assassination of the president as part of its many Cold War national-security regime-change operations. At the end of JFK, there was a blurb about the fact that the U.S. national security establishment was continuing to keep its assassination records secret from the American people. This secrecy created such an uproar among the American populace that Congress was effectively forced to act. That’s what produced the JFK Records Act, which the national-security establishment vehemently opposed.

Oct. 24

Future of Freedom Foundation, Circumstantial Evidence in the JFK Assassination, Jacob G. Hornberger, Oct. 24, 2017. The mainstream media is repeatedly emphasizing that the records will contain no “smoking guns.” Well, duh! Ever since the CIA began specializing in assassinations, one of its principal rules has been never to put any reference to a covert state-sponsored assassination into writing. Given such, it’s no big revelation that the records that are set to be released will not contain a videotaped confession, a memorandum detailing how the assassination was to be carried out and covered up, or any other such “smoking gun” type of evidence.

However, it is a virtual certainty that the tens of thousands of records will contain bits of circumstantial evidence that further fill in the mosaic that the assassination of President Kennedy was one of the CIA’s regime-change operations, no different in principle from those carried out in the 1950s-1970s in such countries as Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Cuba, and Chile.

The problem is that mainstream reporters and commentators, generally speaking, have no understanding of or appreciation for the importance and relevance of circumstantial evidence. To them, all that matters is direct evidence, such as a videotaped confession or a signed memorandum showing how the assassination was carried out.

What is circumstantial evidence? The definition provided by Wikipedia is as good as any other: "Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact — like a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly — i.e., without need for any additional evidence or inference."

It is worth noting that courts consider circumstantial evidence to be of equal value to direct evidence.

Oct. 23

Future of Freedom Foundation, Opinion: I Predict Trump Will Continue the CIA’s JFK Assassination Cover-Up, Jacob G. Hornberger (shown at right), Oct. 23, 2017. What is going on here?

Negotiations. The art of the deal. The CIA desperately does not want to show the American people its long-secret JFK-related records. It has asked Trump to continue keeping at least some of them secret notwithstanding the passage of more than 50 years since the Kennedy assassination.

What Trump has done with his announcement is send a clear message to the CIA: “Give me what I want and I’ll give you want you want. Otherwise, I will let all your cherished long-secret records relating to the JFK assassination be shown to the American people.”

Make no mistake about it: A deal is about to be made. The CIA will cave. It will end up giving Trump whatever it is he wants. Trump is in the driver’s seat because the CIA cannot afford to permit the American people to see the records it wants to continue to be kept secret. And once the CIA gives Trump what he wants, he will cave and give the CIA the continued secrecy it so desperately needs. All this will happen by this Thursday, the date set by law for release of all the JFK records that Trump has not blocked.

Justice Integrity Project / CAPA Readers Guide To JFK Assassination

By Andrew Kreig, JIP Editor, CAPA Board member and Associate Editor and Board member of The Indicter

What follows are excerpt's from our Project's so-far 38-previous segments of a "Readers Guide" to the assassination begun in 2013 to underscore both the 50th anniversary of the death and its continuing relevance, particularly slanted media, government, and academic treatment of the death that serves as a Rosetta Stone to similar slanted coverage sensitive matters extending through the decades to today's news.

The Justice Integrity Project is an active supporter of Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA) and The Indicter, each of which investigates suspected political assassinations around the world. The Project's most recent previous column on these topics for the Readers Guide was JFK Birthday Prompts Inspiration, Art, Advocacy, Snark on June 2, 2017, with this beginning. "The 100th birthday anniversary of President John F. Kennedy on May 29 prompted many memorials about the late president's enduring popularity, the continuing controversies over his murder, and at least one prominent display of mockery of the late president by a big newspaper."

In the Readers Guide below, a red asterisk (*) denotes major articles in the series. Other articles may be regarded as more routine or duplicative treatments sometimes covering specific events.

At right is a photo by this editor in Dallas showing Dealey Plaza. The Texas Book Depository Building where accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald worked is behind the row of trees. The car in the center lane is near the location of President Kennedy's limo at the time of his fatal shooting. The "X" mark is repeatedly painted on the street by author and photographic expert Robert Grodin as reminder of the horrific crime that Dallas authorities seek to expunge by removing the X.

1. Project Launches JFK Assassination Readers' Guide, Oct. 16, 2013.
2. Project Provides JFK Readers Guide To New Books, Videos, Oct. 26, 2013. This is a list of new books and films in 2013.
3. Disputes Erupt Over NY Times, New Yorker, Washington Post Reviews of JFK Murder, Nov. 7, 2013. *
4. Self-Censorship In JFK TV Treatments Duplicates Corporate Print Media's Apathy, Cowardice, Nov. 7, 2013.
5. 'Puppetry' Hardback Launched Nov. 19 at DC Author Forum on ‘White House Mysteries & Media,'  Nov. 19, 2013.
6. Major Media Stick With Oswald 'Lone Gunman' JFK Theory, Nov. 27, 2013.
7. JFK Murder Scene Trapped Its Victim In Kill Zone, Nov. 30, 2013.
8. Project Lists JFK Assassination Reports, Archives, Videos, Events, Nov. 2, 2013. *
9. JFK Murder, The CIA, and 8 Things Every American Should Know, Dec. 9, 2013. *
10. JFK Murder Prompts Expert Reader Reactions, Dec. 19, 2013. Reactions to our Dec. 9 column. 
11. Have Spy Agencies Co-Opted Presidents and the Press? Dec. 23, 2013. *
12. Don't Be Fooled By 'Conspiracy Theory' Smears, May 26, 2014. *
13. Experts To Reveal Secrets of JFK Murder, Cover-up at Sept. 26-28 DC Forum , Sept. 5, 2014. 
14. Washington Post Still Selling Warren Report 50 Years Later, Sept. 22, 2014. *
15. JFK Experts To Explode Myths, Sign Books In DC Sept. 26-28, Sept. 24, 2014.
16. Former Cuban Militant Leader Claims CIA Meeting With Oswald Before JFK Killing, Sept. 27, 2014. *
17. JFK Readers Guide: Assassination Books, Reports, Oct. 15, 2014. *
18. Former House JFK Murder Prober Alleges CIA ‘Lied,’ Seeks Hidden Records, Oct. 18, 2014. *
19. The JFK Murder 'Cover-up' Still Matters -- As Does C-SPAN's Coverage, Nov. 11, 2014. *
20. JFK, Nov. 22 and the Continuing Cover-Up, Nov. 24, 2014. *
21. JFK Assassination Readers Guide To 2013-14 Events, Nov. 28, 2014. *
22. CIA, Empowered by JFK Murder Cover-up, Blocks Senate Torture Report, Dec. 1, 2014. *
23. Nearly Too Late, Public Learns of Bill Moyers’ Conflicts Over PBS, LBJ, Jan. 2, 2014.
24. Why Bill O'Reilly's Lie About JFK's Murder Might Matter To You, March 17, 2015.
25. Free Videos Show Shocking Claims About CIA, JFK Murder Probes, June 29, 2015.
26. Pioneering Black Secret Service JFK Guard Abraham Bolden Warns Of Current Lessons, July 22, 2015.
27. Understanding Hollywood-Style Presidential Propaganda From JFK To Trump, Aug. 18, 2015.
28. Beware Of Wrong Conclusions From New CIA Disclosure On Oswald, Sept. 28, 2015.
29. The JFK Murder Cover-Up: Your Rosetta Stone To Today’s News, Nov. 29, 2015.
30. Austin Kiplinger, David Skorton: Two Civic Giants Going And Coming, Dec. 15, 2015.
31. Trump Alleges Rafael Cruz Tie To JFK Murder Suspect Oswald, May 3, 2016.
32. Revelations Confirm Proof Of JFK, RFK Murder Cover-ups, Nov. 25, 2016.
33. Top Experts To Assess JFK Murder Records, Revelations March 16, March 8, 2017.
34. Speaker Program For March 16 Forum On Secret JFK Records, March 8, 2017.
35. JFK Experts Advocate Compliance With Records Deadline, March 8, 2017.
36. At CAPA Forum, JFK Experts See Need, Momentum For Assassination Records Release, March 23, 2017.
37. Time Magazine, History Channel Ramp Up Oswald-JFK Fake News, April 26, 2017.
38. JFK Birthday Prompts Inspiration, Art, Advocacy, Snark, June 2, 2017.
39. Deep State Killed JFK For His Cuba Policy, Peace Advocacy, Experts Say, June 13, 2017.
40. Newly Released JFK Murder Files Prompt Disputes, 'Jigsaw' Solutions, Aug. 4, 2017.
41. CAPA Challenges Warren Report Defenders Sabato, Shenon, Sept. 22, 2017.
42. Trump Plans Release Of Suppressed JFK Records, Oct. 21, 2017.
43. Trump Backs Off Promise To Release All Suppressed JFK Documents Today; Permits Partial Release, Oct. 26, 2017.

Other News On A Suspected Assassination

New York Times, Theory That Hammarskjold Plane Was Downed Is Bolstered by U.N. Report, Alan Cowell and Rick Gladstone, Oct. 26, 2017 (print edition).  More than 56 years after a plane crash killed Dag Hammarskjold (shown above in his office), the secretary general of the United Nations, an authoritative report released on Wednesday said it appeared plausible that an “external attack or threat” may have downed the airplane carrying him and 15 others on an epochal peace mission in Africa.

The finding by Judge Mohamed Chande Othman, a senior Tanzanian jurist who was asked by the United Nations to review both old and newly uncovered evidence, gave weight to a longstanding suspicion that Mr. Hammarskjold may have been assassinated.

The crash, during the overnight of Sept. 17-18, 1961, remains a painful open wound in the history of the United Nations and one of the 20th century’s most enduring mysteries. Judge Othman’s 63-page report offered a further rebuttal of the idea, advanced in inquiries soon after the crash, that pilot error or some other accident had caused Mr. Hammarskjold’s chartered DC-6 airplane to crash in what is now Zambia.

Moreover, Judge Othman’s conclusion reinforced the theory that the plane had been deliberately brought down, either by what the judge called “direct attack” or a distraction that diverted “the pilots’ attention for a matter of seconds at the critical point at which they were on their descent.” At the time, Mr. Hammarskjold was flying to Ndola, in what was then Northern Rhodesia, for negotiations to end secession and civil war in the neighboring mineral-rich Congolese province of Katanga. The Katangese separatists were supported by Western political and mining interests not eager to see Mr. Hammarskjold’s diplomacy succeed.view of records and archives in their custody or possession, including those that remain classified, for potentially relevant information.”

His remarks seemed to reinforce many earlier suggestions that, for whatever reason, Western governments were loath to disclose their full knowledge about what had befallen Mr. Hammarskjold, a Swedish diplomat killed at a tipping point in African history between colonial rule and independence.