One thing I like about the JFK assassination story: it’s a place where left and right (and center) can all agree. My friend James Rosen and I have very different politics and we still have illuminating conversations about JFK. For example:
…December 15 is the next deadline for federal agencies to release files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy 58 years ago. What will we see? Last month, I offered some “smoking gun” possibilities in the Miami Herald. The pro-CIA Washington Decoded pooh poohs the idea that the JFK files contain anything of significance.
And that’s the JFK debate in a nutshell. There’s the people, like Harvard professor Cass Sunstein, who say, in effect, A little man killed a big man, get over it. And there’s the people, like Nobel Prize laureate Bob Dylan, who respond, Some big men killed a big man–and they got away with it. Who is right? This week will offer some clues.
…Five Questions About Biden’s Dec. 15 JFK DisclosuresRead More »
Peter writes:
Thanks for making yourself accessible. I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts on Biden following Trump and continuing to withhold classification? Stay well and all the best.
Thanks Peter. The only good news in President Biden’s October 22 letter is the announcement that the National Archives plans to digitize the entire JFK collection, which is welcome and overdue. In the digital age, the Mary Ferrell Foundation says the full record of JFK’s assassination should be available to anybody anywhere.
Otherwise, I have four observations for the press and the interested public on the 58th anniversary of JFK’s death.
…Four Points About Biden’s Decision on the JFK FilesRead More »
I got a nice from The Alarmist after we had this conversation last week:
…Putting the JFK Story in Context for The AlarmistRead More »
James K. Galbraith, is Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations and Professor of Government at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.
I am not accusing Biden, or the agencies whose advice he accepted on these matters, of breaking the law. On the contrary, I take them at their word: that in their view, a full disclosure of all documents would compromise military, intelligence, and foreign relations.
Source: The JFK Cover-Up Strikes Again by James K. Galbraith – Project Syndicate
POLITICO talks to the Kennedy family.
…
‘An Outrage Against Democracy’: JFK’s Nephews Urge Biden to Reveal Assassination RecordsRead More »
That’s the question Larry Sabato, Larry Schnapf and I will answer at a press conference next week after the White House issues its decision on the last of the JFK files on Monday October 26.
The UVA Center for Politics will host a discussion on Wednesday, Oct. 27 at 1 p.m. Eastern Time following the scheduled release of remaining John F. Kennedy assassination records. Joining UVA Center for Politics Director and author of The Kennedy Half-Century Larry J. Sabato will be Jefferson Morley, author and editor of the JFK Facts blog, and Lawrence Schnapf, co-chair of the JFK Records Legal Task Force.
(This article, written by Jefferson Morley and Rex Bradford, was first published in The Intercept, on October 20, 2021.)
President Joe Biden will soon decide an obscure but potent question: Which secret files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should be made fully public?
When President Donald Trump faced the same decision four years ago, he delayed in the name of national security. While releasing thousands of files about the 1963 Kennedy assassination, Trump acquiesced to the demand of CIA Director Mike Pompeo to keep portions of thousands more secret until October 2021, 58 years after Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested as the gunman. For all his “deep state” rhetoric, Trump issued a memo giving the executive branch agencies four more years of secrecy.
…
Biden Faces October 26 Deadline for Release of More JFK Assassination PapersRead More »
The Central Intelligence Agency reclassified portions of once-public JFK assassination files in April 2018, according to a study by the Mary Ferrell Foundation, the largest online archive of government files on JFK’s assassination.
Is this CIA incompetence? Or CIA trickery?
…
Why Did the CIA Reclassify Parts of Some JFK Files in 2018?Read More »
David Minier, former district attorney for Madera County in central California, writes in The Fresno Bee, that the CIA is hiding records of an asset in 1963 named Claude Barnes Capehart. That may well be true, but Minier’s argument thatt Capehart was involved in JFK’s assassination strikes me as weak.
…
Former DA says CIA hides JFK details but are they related to the assassination?Read More »
Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the blog of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, weighs in on President Biden’s upcoming decision on the last of the JFK files. …
The JFK Records Act: Will There Be a Final Chapter?Read More »
Jacob Hornberger gets to the point about President Biden’s upcoming October 26 decision on the last of the JFK assassination files.
…
Why the Mainstream Media Remains Silent on the JFK Records Deadline Read More »
Bryan Bender of POLITICO profiles Ezra Cohen, the chair of the Public Interest Declassification Board, which this week called for maximum transparency around secret JFK assassination files.
Ezra Cohen, appointed by President Trump, gets positive reviews from one Democratic congressman on the board, which advises the president on declassification issues.
…
How a former Trump aide is pressing Biden to loosen national security secrets Read More »
The Public Interest Declassificaton Board is an office within the National Archives that was created by Congress to advise the president on secrecy and declassification issue. The PIDB is supposed to act as a counterweight to secret government agencies. It doesn’t have much real power but it does constitute a presence that other agencies have to take into account.
And its members have written a letter to President BIden about the last of the JFK assassination files.
…
Public Interest Declassification Board Urges Transparency in Release of JFK FilesRead More »
Oliver Stone on the still-secret JFK files that are supposed to be released in October 2021:
Stone believes that no US president since Kennedy died has been “able to go up against this militarised sector of our economy”. Even Trump “backed down at the last second” and declined to release all the relevant documents relating to the assassination. “He announced, ‘I’m going to free it up, blah blah blah, big talk, and then a few hours before, he caved to CIA National Security again.”
Stone is absolutely correct on this point. Read here.
Technical assistance courtesy of the Mary Ferrell Foundation | Designed by iWebResults
