ASSASSINATION ARCHIVES

AND RESEARCH CENTER

Congressman Cohen Asks President Biden to Release Remaining Documents Relating to the Assassination of President Kennedy

March 29, 2022
Press Release
Doing so would restore public trust by promoting transparency

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today led a letter to President Biden asking him to release the remaining records related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The letter was signed by Representatives Anna Eshoo (CA-18) and James McGovern (MA-03).

The letter reads in part:

“We write to express and reiterate our concern regarding the delayed release of the more than 10,000 remaining partially redacted or entirely withheld documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. We urge you to release all remaining documents related to President Kennedy’s assassination pursuant to and in accordance with the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, also known as the ‘JFK Act.’

“The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was among the greatest tragedies in our nation’s history, however, nearly 60 years after that horrific day, the American people are still waiting for the government to fulfill its promise to release the remaining relevant documents. Congress unanimously enacted the JFK Act in 1992 to establish a presumption for immediate disclosure of documents related to the assassination. The purpose of such a law was to restore the public’s trust in government and prevent the spread of conspiracy theories bolstered by secrecy. Fostering transparency and facilitating public scrutiny of the remaining records relating to President Kennedy’s assassination is crucial…

“Although we commend the Biden Administration for the release of a select number of the remaining documents related to President Kennedy’s assassination, we believe it is imperative that the remaining documents be released as soon as possible. We have previously requested a briefing with the appropriate Executive Branch official with knowledge and relevant information of the decision to postpone the release of the remaining records. We write to reiterate that request, and again urge you to reconsider your decision to delay the release of the remaining documents.

“It is our hope that you take this opportunity to exercise the authority vested in you to restore public trust in our government by promoting transparency. We have waited for well over 50 years for the release of these documents, and time is of the essence.”

See the entire letter here.

Professor Gerald D. McKnight, author of Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why has died

31 January, 2021|Alan Dale

Professor Gerald D. McKnight, author of Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why, has died at a Health Center/Retirement Home in Lawrence, Kansas. Professor McKnight was a Korean War veteran serving in Graves Registration, a career educator, a distinguished researcher and author, and a close associate of the prolific litigator and JFK assassination scholar, the late Harold Weisberg. Professor McKnight was an influential teacher and historian, an exceptional person whose friendship, generosity, and depth of understanding was a gift to all who knew him.

Gerald D. McKnight was emeritus professor of history at Hood College, where he had served as chair of the History and Political Science Department.

Professor McKnight quoted for an interview in September, 2005:

I think there are several telltale evasions: 1) The WC’s failure to launch a real investigation into Oswald’s Mexico City trip. This, I believe, is a key to what forces or interests were behind the murder of JFK. 2) The destruction of JFK autopsy materials and the writing of a second autopsy protocol after it was learned that Oswald was murdered—in short, the fabrication of the JFK autopsy protocol. 3) Lastly, the fact that the FBI and the WC had the Atomic Energy Committee (AEC) run sophisticated Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) on Oswald’s paraffin casts and other forensic materials and then failed to include those results in the final Commission Report. The fact that some of the best evidence in the case was never disclosed in the Warren Report leads to one inexorable conclusion: that results exonerated Oswald.

Some people, especially those born after the assassination, seem to think this is “old news.” How do you explain to them that the unanswered questions surrounding that event are still incredibly relevant more than 40 years later?

A president is assassinated—there can be no more de-stabilizing crime in our system of government—and there is no good-faith effort to uncover the facts. What does this say about the legitimacy of our government? Moreover, once JFK was removed, there followed possibly history-altering changes in our foreign policy. Had Kennedy lived, would he have liquidated our involvement in Vietnam? Many credible historians speculate that he would have ended our involvement by the end of 1964. Kennedy’s tentative steps toward a rapprochement with Castro’s Cuba ended with Dallas. Once LBJ heated up our Vietnam involvement, the Soviet-American detente growing out of the peacefully resolved 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was terminated. This raises the foreboding question: Was JFK’s assassination a coup d’etat?

Professor McKnight is the author of the books, The Last Crusade: Martin Luther King Jr., the FBI and the Poor People’s Campaign (1998) and Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why (2005, republished for a 2013 edition).

My JFK Conversations interview with Professor McKnight may be found here:

LISTEN to Alan Dale’s 2014 conversation with Professor McKnight HERE. Duration: 01:09:17

READ a transcript of the above conversation may be read HERE.

WATCH C-Span: Professor McKnight speaking at the 2012 Mid-America Conference on History in Springfield, Missouri.

A CIA Tutorial: How to Avoid Providing Files

13 SEPTEMBER, 2017 © 2017 – Bill Simpich

With the October releases coming up, we should keep in mind what the ARRB has already told us we will not find.

For those of us who research the Mexico City story, it has always been very frustrating to find that there is no organized way to find the cables and dispatches between Mexico City and Headquarters, or between these two entities and JMWAVE in Miami, except within carefully circumscribed dates.

What we have run into amounts to a CIA tutorial on how to avoid providing information that is mandated under the law.

Eusebio Azcue Lopez, former Cuban consul Mexico City

As shown below, the listing of files for JMWAVE begins on November 21, and the listing of files for HQ and Mexico City begins on October 1.  Very unhelpful for putting together the Oswald story, as well as the events prior to the assassination in Miami.

But not all of the files are missing.  A number of the files within this timeframe do exist – simply in a less organized format.  Many memos are tucked away in various other files, such as the files on Cuban consul Eusebio Azcue in CIA microfilm, Reel 2.

In fact, it is probable that most or all of these files could have been provided by the CIA if they had simply cross-indexed the files within their own Records Integration Division.

The National Archives has the duty to index the files themselves, and send a demand to the CIA for the missing files.  The Act is in effect until “the Archivist certifies to the President and the Congress that all assassination-related records have been made available to the public in accordance with this Act.”

This is yet another reason we need a new JFK Records Act with stronger enforcement powers.

From the ARRB Final Report in 1999:

The Review Board determined that, while much of the Mexico City Station cable traffic
existed in the JFK Collection, the traffic contained numerous gaps, particularly in com-
munications between Mexico City and the CIA Station in Miami, JMWAVE.

The Review Board deemed these gaps to be significant because both CIA stations played roles in U.S. operations against Cuba.

The cable traffic that the Review Board reviewed in the CIA’s sequestered collection commences on October 1, 1963, and contains the earliest known communication—an October 8, 1963, cable—between the Mexico City Station and CIA Headquarters concerning Lee Harvey  Oswald.

In 1995, the Review Board submitted a formal request for additional information
regarding the above-referenced gaps in CIA cable traffic. CIA did not locate additional
traffic for the specified periods. CIA completed its response to this request in February

1998 explaining that:

In general, cable traffic and dispatches are not available as a chronological collection and thus, for the period 26 through 30 September 1963 it is not possible to provide cables and dispatches in a chronological/package form.

During the periods in question, the Office of Communications (OC) only held cables long enough to ensure that they were successfully transmitted to the named recipient. On occasion. . .cables were sometimes held for longer periods but not with the intention of creating a long-term reference collection.

The Review Board was not able to locate cables or dispatches from the following periods:

Mexico City Station to Headquarters (September 26–30, 1963);
Headquarters to Mexico City Station (September 26–30, 1963);
JMWAVE to Headquarters (September 26–November 21,1963);
Headquarters to JMWAVE (September 26–November 21, 1963);
and all traffic between the Mexico City Station and JMWAVE for the periods September 26–October 20, 1963 and November 22–December 30, 1963.
In addition, CIA informed the Review Board that it did not have a repository for cables

and dispatches from stations in the 1960s.

Although originating offices maintained temporary chronological files, the offices

generally destroyed the temporary records in less than ninety days.

After the assassination, the Office of the Deputy Director of Plans ordered relevant CIA offices to retain cables that they would have otherwise destroyed.  The HSCA used the remaining cable traffic to compile its Mexico City chronology.

Had CIA offices strictly applied the ninety-day rule, there might have been copies of cable traffic commencing as early as August 22, 1963, rather than October 1, 1963, available to CIA on November 22, 1963.