The public has never before seen reports, memos, and diplomatic cables from the CIA, FBI, State Department, and other agencies. They represent a small portion of federal paperwork that was linked to the assassination of the 35th US president.
The Warren Commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union, was the sole assassin of Kennedy.
Around 10% of the long-classified files were still not released in October because of the impact of the covid-19 Pandemic.
The National Archives said that there are some 14,000 files left.
Each of the remaining files was flagged as potentially containing information that could harm the U.S. national security or diplomatic relations.
The agencies who are custodians of the records have one year to finish a security review of those that are still being held. Some may not be published at all, and will be identified on a public index as the reasons they have been kept out of their entirety.
According to a memo signed by the president, JFK documents are kept secret to protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
The JFK papers have been out for many decades and have undermined the stated purpose of the endeavor which was launched by Congress nearly three decades ago.
A majority of the country still believes that there were multiple conspirators, if not the only one, and that Oswald was the one who killed Kennedy.
