Martha Murphy of the National Archives explains the JFK Records Act and the Archives’ plans for declassifying and releasing long secret assassination-related documents held by the U.S. government in October 2017.
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Jefferson Morley’s new ebook, CIA and JFK: The Secret Assassination Files, available on Amazon, provides the fullest account yet of the JFK records that the CIA is still concealing in 2016 and why they should be made public in October 2017.
I, like many globally, anxiously await the release of the files. We stand to learn a lot about LHO & his peers from that period, however, ‘thunder stealing’ is a big problem with the JFK murder case. I, for one, will wait for Jeff Morley to work with & analyze the files first. It’s been Jeff’s crusade to get the secret files released all along. I doubt many have stood by his side helping Jeff Morley in his battle to free the enslaved files. It would be a horrible travesty to abandon the man when his ship arrives at port IMHO.
The CIA was the architect of the JFK assassination. That is why they have fought to keep certain documents secret all these years -to cover up their participation in the “Big Event”, as E Howard Hunt said the CIA operatives liked to call that dark day in November, 1963. I am sure the actual documents linking people like DAP to the assassination have been destroyed and there will be no new conclusions drawn by mainstream historians in the universities after the documents are released in 2017. But, I do applaud the work being done by John Newman, David Talbot, DSL, Bill Kelly, etc.
The principals of the JFk assassination are not all dead. People keep forgetting that Castro is still alive. If Cuba encouraged Oswald, even now revealing that would seriously affect Cuban/USA relationships. “The past isn’t over: it isn’t even past.”
Joining with the Assassination Archives and Research Center, the Mary Ferrell Foundation, and JFKFacts there is a new online resource for all who wish to stay informed about relevant developments as we approach the scheduled release of these materials: http://www.2017JFK.ORG
Over the course of the next twenty-one months citizens concerned about the possible continued withholding of these assassination records must:
Stay informed about the developing situation
Organize in ways to increase and share awareness
Contact representatives and presidential hopefuls
Join with us to ensure that our elected officials will uphold and enforce the terms of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act. Let them know that these records belong to the American people. We are entitled to the truth.
Great reminder Alan. That site is now bookmarked. It was also a pleasure to meet you again at this year’s JFK Lancer conference in Dallas. You’re a great host and master of ceremonies. Thank you for your contribution.
^ Thank you, Gerry. I’m grateful for your participation and your comments. Much appreciated.
“…I imagine that the documents released will prove to be more than interesting for anyone interested in the assassination, but there can be almost no doubt, that after more than 50 years of government complacency and cover-up, nothing of great importance will be released. everything that might embarrass or implicate anyone living or dead, other than those in the official story, has been ‘sanitized’ long ago!
I am seriously afraid, that after this “last generation,’ that is, anyone born either before or at the time of the murder, has died, the official record will become, “the truth,” regardless if it truly is, or not! -DM
…and perhaps this is the case for much of “history.” Hoping otherwise.
It would be a shame if President Trump stepped in and prevented the release of the documents.
Just give Trump an official-looking Private Investigator badge (“I love PIs, they love me!”) and tell Donald “it’s huuuuge” so he should go liberate the JFK files from NARA, then find the bad guys at CIA, and fire them all.
[Dave:]
“then find the bad guys at CIA, and fire them all.”
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Posthumously?
Mitt Romney would do it retroactively.
Actually, this is another reason why they should release the files. Everybody involved back then is dead, or virtually dead save and except for George Bush Sr. (frankly, I wouldn’t care if there was a revelation that he was a part-time CIA asset when he says he wasn’t, if his support was routine in nature, or a patriotic act at that time in history).
Perhaps the CIA should be re-assured that if their ancient history revealed that elements within were out of control, then the only modern day concern would be to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
We must encourage the truth to come out but not necessarily at the expense of the continued and proper functioning of an intelligence agency that’s supposed to protect the USA against domestic or foreign enemies/threats.
There might be some very embarrassing things (like assassination attempts against foreign leaders?), but those disclosures might give context to understanding the assassination of a President, and that admission of operational errors (like alliances with mob assassins whose bosses could blackmail the State?) can only help to prevent them later.
Castro and his brother, are still very much alive.
Whatever these documents reveal, I don’t think there can be any reasonable doubt anymore that one of two things happened at Dealey Plaza that day:
1) The president died because of a massive intelligence failure.
The CIA and FBI have been proven to be well-acquainted if not intimately involved with Oswald in the weeks and months prior to the assassination. An FBI agent in NO met with Oswald in his jail cell at Oswald’s request for an hour. In addition to their many interactions with Oswald, members of the DRE, a group funded, guided and reporting to the CIA, wrote and distributed a frickin’ press release about Oswald, calling him a danger to the country, three months before the assassination.
Oswald’s visits to both Cuban and Russian embassies six weeks prior to the assassination should have put him on the radar screen of the CIA again. But with their memo from HQ telling the Mexico City station Oswald’s a fine guy, essentially, the future alleged assassin was removed from the FBI security watch list, allowing Oswald to go unchecked on the motorcade route. The FBI also had intercepted Oswald’s inflammatory letter to the Russian embassy just two weeks prior to the assassination. This intelligence failure was never fully explained, investigated or made known to the American people.
2) It was a domestic political conspiracy.
The evidence supporting this opinion are more tenuous and circumstantial. And Oswald’s actions that day do, IMO, point to knowledge of guilt of some kind. But following are a few of the dangling, unresolved threads that point to conspiracy:
o The CIA’s ongoing obfuscation over the Oswald Mexico City tapes and photos
o The CIA’s felonious obstruction of the HSCA through George Joannides and continuing withholding of evidence on his relationship with the DRE
o Syliva Odio’s testimony
o CIA contract agent William Gaudet’s claim he saw Oswald with Guy Bannister in NO
o Antonio Veciana’s claim he saw David Atlee Phillips with Oswald in September in Dallas
o The endless multitude of anomalies in the criminal evidence, including the backward snap of the president’s head in the Zapruder film, the Parkland doctors contrary views of the head injury, the failed nitrate test, the Harper fragment, the burning of the first autopsy notes, the FBI destruction of the Oswald note, the many revised witness testimonies by the FBI, the botched autopsy, the Siebert/O’Neill testimony, the credible eyewitness testimony of a shot from the front, Ruby’s connections to organized crime, the suspicious deaths of key witnesses including Johnny Roselli, Santos Trafficante and George DM, the CIA communications by George DM before and after knowing Oswald, the moving of the bullet wound to the neck in drawings by the govt to make a shot from a sixth floor more plausible, the currently expanding view that JFK was not another in a line of Cold War presidents and had intentions to end the Cold War and make peace with Castro, etc., etc., etc.
It would be nice to finally get some candor from our government once and for all.
Very well said Bogman but I believe Santos Trafficante died of natural causes (like Marcello). I think you meant Sam Giancana who was murdered execution style before he was to testify before a Senate-Intelligence Committee (his godson wrote a book postulating that it was a CIA hit and not a mob killing).
Richard Nixon was interviewed by Larry King in 1992, and Nixon was asked the question at hand today regarding declassification in 2017. The link below includes some great discussion by Nixon on JFK and the files, such as this:
KING: And do you agree with keeping the files closed then, for another, I guess, 23 years?
NIXON: Keeping the files closed is another matter. I see no reason to keep the files closed unless there’s a national security problem involved. And I can’t see any national security problem involved because, for example, if the Cubans were involved, or some other foreign power, that is all changed. I think at the present time there would be no reason to keep the files closed.
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/05/lkl.01.html
Interesting comment by Nixon. I feel Nixon knew stuff through the grapevine but couldn’t say publicly (ergo perhaps the tape erasures). His comments also suggest that he’s got nothing to worry about in the form of new revelations or declassified information.
Let’s hope the CIA or bureaucrats don’t go nuts with their black markers.
Correction: …that he HAD nothing to worry about…
Why the last of the JFK files could embarrass the CIA http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/why-last-of-jfk-files-could-embarrass-cia-118233.html via @POLITICO
I had commented on May 12th that I was not sure if the JFK records come under the authority of the Executive Order.
So if I’m correctly understanding what she says in the video clip, the JFK records do not come under the authority of the Executive Order or even the Freedom of Information Act, but are under the authority of the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.
I arrived to the exact same conclusion, Antonio.
[Dave (in his BC parody)]
“Just say no, Hil, just like Ah did”
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Actually, the number of records that were determined by the ARRB and overruled by president Clinton: ZERO.
So, Clinton was a “Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Man” in this instance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0e6GL3c744
Minute 1:50″
What I meant was, the Clintons both say “no” to any agency requesting further retention of their JFK records beyond Oct. 27/17. Which is, as you note, like saying “yes” to their release.
Ah! Now the world makes sense again!
I was puzzled by your post.
Mucho Gracias Ramon and David!!!
We can only hope so.
Some late-night musings on the archival aspects of solving the JFK murder mystery:
1) Will Bill reach across the sheets on the evening of October 25, 2017 and, lightly touching her arm, whisper “Just say no, Hil, just like Ah did”?
2) Weird to think that Martha Murphy may have seen unredacted JFK documents that will blow the cold case wide open on October 26, 2017. If so, it must be really hard for her to walk around with that knowledge for another two and a half years!
3) NARA is hiring extra staff to scan the JFK docs for final release … where do we apply?
NARA has a very bad record when it comes to the annual federal employee surveys about satisfaction with their place of work.
“NARA has a very bad record when it comes to the annual federal employee surveys about satisfaction with their place of work.”
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I spent the summer doing some volunteer, pro bono work for the National Archives and have no complaints whatsoever.
Initially, they tried to block me from accessing the data contained in their computers, but then they changed their mind and allowed me to finish my project unimpeded.
will we ever know how much money to date that the federal reserve has paid for the murder of jfk and its sequential cover up to date…………….is it true a former fed is going to spill the beans on jfk murder???????????????????
“Dave,” i’m afraid to tell you that Martha Murphy is not the deciding factor as to document classification; nor does she necessarily have access to any non-redacted copies!
That is another process altogether. -DM