After assuming power as the US President for the second time, Donald Trump has ordered the release of thousands of classified government documents related to the assassinations of former President John F Kennedy, Senator Robert F Kennedy and the Rev Martin Luther King Jr. While the flurry of executive orders has triggered debates in various circles, the release of the classified documents is likely to create ripples in American politics and here we revisit how the prominent American leaders were assassinated.
The Republican leader, during his reelection campaign, had promised the release of the last batches of still-classified documents related to the 1963 assassination of Kennedy in Dallas. The 1963 assassination of Kennedy had transfixed people for decades and several conspiracy theories had propped up after the National Archives made the documents public. It should be noted that only a few thousand of the millions of governmental records related to the assassination of Kennedy are yet to be fully declassified and there is much anticipation surrounding it.
Back in 1990s, the US government had mandated that all assassination-related documents be released in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration. The vast collection of over 5 million records was required to be made public by 2017. Around 500 documents, including tax returns, were not subject to the 2017 disclosure requirement and researchers pointed out that documents have also been destroyed over the decades, AP reported.
While Trump had vowed to release the remaining documents during his previous term, some were held back because of what he termed the potential harm to national security. Even though, some files were released during Joe Biden’s presidency, some are yet to be brought to light.
How was John F Kennedy killed?
The 35th US President, Kennedy was fatally shot in downtown Dallas on November 22 1963 while he was on a motorcade infront of the Texas School Book Depository building. Probe stated 24-year-old assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had positioned himself at a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor of the building. Two days later, while being taken to jail, Oswald was fatally shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
Conspiracy theories alleged Oswald had Cuban links
While thousands of books, articles, TV shows and films implied that Kennedy’s assassination was the result of an elaborate conspiracy, so far there has been no conclusive proof that Oswald had worked with anyone else. The conspiracy theories had linked the assassination to the Cold War rivals — the Soviet Union or Cuba, the Mafia and even Kennedy’s then vice president, Lyndon Johnson.
The documents showed US government opened a so-called 201 file on Oswald in December 1960, nearly three years before Kennedy’s murder and after Oswald’s failed defection to the Soviet Union in 1959. Meanwhile, another document from 1963 narrated how CIA officials in Mexico City “intercepted a telephone call” Oswald made in October from that city to the Soviet Embassy there “using his own name” and speaking “broken Russian”, as per AP report.
Oswald was hoping to travel through Cuba on his way to Russia and was seeking a visa, documents showed, according to AP. It should also be noted that the documents never fully explained Oswald’s visit to the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico city and discussion, in the days following the assassination, of the potential for Cuban involvement in the killing. The Mexican authorities had arrested a Mexican employee of the Cuban embassy with whom Oswald had interacted and she said Oswald had “professed to be a Communist and an admirer of Castro”.
Notably, one CIA document titled “Secret Eyes Only” linked US government plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader at the time, including a 1960 plot “that involved the use of the criminal underworld with contacts inside Cuba”. Another document suggested that Oswald may have been impacted in any way by the publication of Castro’s interview with Associated Press correspondent in a local correspondent. In the interview, Castro had apparently warned of retribution if the US were to take out Cuban leaders, according to AP report.
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr
The Nobel laureate Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The assassination of the civil rights activist led to outbreaks of racial violence in the US and more than 40 people were killed. James Ear Ray, a 40-year-old fugitive later confessed to the crime and was imprisoned for 99 years, according to an article published by Standford University.
Immediately after the assassination, a cop found a bundle containing a 30.06 Remington rifle near the spot where the incident happened and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) teams uncovered Ray’s fingerprints in an apartment in Atlanta. Ray had escaped from a Missouri prison in April 1967, the article said.
Conspiracy theory related to Luther King’s assassination
Following Ray’s identification, an international manhunt was launched to track him down. Ray was extradited to the United States from Britain on July 19, 1968. Conspiracy theories continued to hatch surrounding Luther King’s assassination also. There were doubts related to the adequacy of the case against Ray triggered by revelations of the extensive surveillance of King by the FBI and other government agencies. The House Select Committee on Assassinations re-examined the evidence in the case in 1976 and the final report implied that Ray may have had conspirators. However, the report concluded that there was no convincing evidence of government complicity in King’s assassination. Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998.
–With inputs from AP