With 17 days to go until President Trump’s April 26 deadline for release of the last of the U.S. government’s assassination files, it is worth recalling what Trump told the head of U.S. government agencies in his October 26, 2017 order.
Full Disclosure
JFK Files Watch: Will Gina Haspel destroy assassination records like she destroyed torture tapes?
Gina Haspel, document destroyer
As the April 26 deadline for release of the last of the JFK assassination files approaches. President Trump will be hearing from his new CIA director Gina Haspel on the issue of what can and cannot be made public.
What will Haspel say? Read more
JFK Files Watch: Will Trump enforce the law?
Will President Trump enforce the law when it comes to JFK assassination files later this month?
That’s the question the Mary Ferrell Foundation put to National Archivists David Ferriero in a March 12 letter. Read more
JFK Files Watch: With 22 days to go, these key files remain secret
As President Trump’s April 26, 2018 deadline for full disclosure looms, key JFK files remain beyond public view.
These files concern a subject the mainstream media coverage has shied from: the pre-assassination surveillance of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald from 1959 to 1963.
JFK Files Watch: With 23 days to go, Trump and CIA face a dilemma
April 26 is the deadline for full disclosure of all of the government’s JFK files, according to this written order of President Trump. Or maybe it isn’t. Read more
“The air … is pungently fragrant with protest, agitation, and citizen pushback…”
A reader responds about Gina Haspel, the would-be CIA director. Read more
Roger Stone’s valid JFK point: CIA is not complying with the law
Roger Stone,
As President Trump’s April 26, 2018 deadline for release of the last of the government’s JFK files, Roger Stone, the sartorial dirty trickster of American politics, makes a legally valid point:
The CIA is not obeying the JFK Records Act.
Stone pointed out that the 1992 law which required the JFK documents be released also required the agency redacting records to justify their redactions in writing and that those explanations be published in the Federal Register.
‘You can make an iron-clad argument that the CIA knew very much about Oswald’
A reader writes perceptively about the “conspiracy v. gross negligence” question in the JFK story. In an email, he explains, perhaps better than I have, why I emphasize this issue.
What Politico doesn’t know about the JFK files
Politico’s Thomas Maier mines the new JFK files to competently retell the oft-told but still-disturbing story of how respectable CIA officials and murderous Mafia dons tried and failed to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the early 1960s.
Along the way, Maier drops this claim:
You’ll want to read this
.. one of the most important JFK assassination records released in the Trump era.
What’s in Cuba’s JFK files?
Kevin Hall’s recent piece for McClatchy News is a good example of how to cover the new JFK files right. The piece provides new information and historical perspective, while avoiding the traps of conspiracy theories. Hall highlights a neglected subject: the importance of JFK assassination records still held by the Cuban government. Read more
Correction: the number of secret JFK files may be less than previously reported
Robert responds to my recent post on JFK files.
Black Vault deserves a thanks for putting on line a pdf and excel file of the latest data provided by NARA, but if you take the Black Vault figures to mean that there are thousands of records still withheld in full, that is not correct.
I’m not certain that Robert is correct but I want to air his concerns so that we get an accurate number of still-secret JFK files. Read more
Q. How many JFK files are still secret? A. More than 3,000
The short answer is, we don’t knows for sure, but BlackVault.com and WhoWhatWhy have the first draft of an answer.
Digging deeper, and with the help and verification of Jimmy Falls of the news agency WhoWhatWhy we came up with the same numbers, using two entirely different methods.It confirms there are 3,082 Documents, totaling 217,114 pages that are not yet released to the public.
Source: J.F.K. Assassination Records – The Black Vault
A couple of caveats are in order.
