Russell B. Holmes, former CIA specialist on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, died of cancer on December 18, 2014. Mr. Holmes was a career intelligence officer with the Office of Strategic Services and the CIA. He was born on September 20, 1923 in Mystic, CT. Mr. Holmes served as an officer in the Navy during WWII. He then enrolled at Brown University, where he met Fiora, his wife of 64 years. At the CIA, Mr. Holmes worked on foreign and domestic affairs, including counter-intelligence issues in Europe and Southeast Asia. He retired in 1979, but continued working as an archivist of CIA documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. These archives came to be known as the “Russell B. Holmes Work File,” one of the most cited sources on the Kennedy assassination. Mr. Holmes supported charities, scholarships at various universities, and was a member of the Kennedy Center Circles for the Performing Arts. Mr. Holmes is survived by his wife and daughter, Jennifer Starr Holmes. Interment will take place at the Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at 2pm. Memorial donations may be made to The Washington Home and Hospice, 3720 Upton St. NW, Washington, DC 20016.
Mr. Holmes was a CIA archivist who maintained an extensive collection of CIA documents on the Kennedy assassination. These documents contain a wide range of materials spanning a time period beginning before the assassination and extending into the 1990s. While a variety of subjects are represented, there is particular focus on Oswald’s trip to Mexico City and the Garrison investigation of the late 1960s. The Russ Holmes Work File was declassified in the late 1990s.