Declassified JFK files and 24 dramatic hours in the US security community

According to the New York Times, President Trump's national security team was stunned and forced to act hastily after the US leader announced on March 17 that he would release 80,000 pages of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy within 24 hours.

Administration officials have been working to prepare for the release of the JFK records since January, when then-President Trump signed an executive order requiring their release. But the process was still underway on Monday afternoon, March 17, when Trump, during a visit to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, announced that the records would be released the following day.

By the evening of March 18, when some 64,000 records had been made public — fewer than the US president had estimated — some of the country’s top national security officials had spent hours trying to assess any potential dangers amid extreme deadline pressure.

John Ratcliffe, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, stressed to senior administration officials that some of the documents had nothing to do with Kennedy and were compiled decades after the assassination, according to four people familiar with the discussions. He wanted to ensure that other officials were fully aware of the files and would not be surprised, but Ratcliffe made clear that he would not seek to block any of the files from being released.

Shortly after Mr. Trump spoke on the afternoon of March 17, officials at the National Security Council quickly convened a meeting to plan what documents still needed to be declassified. The release would be coordinated with the National Archives and Records Administration. Some officials raised concerns about unintended consequences of releasing the records too quickly, including the disclosure of sensitive personal information such as social security numbers of people who are still alive, the person told The New York Times.

Officials involved in the declassification process say the number of files has grown exponentially over the decades because each investigation into Kennedy-related material has also included information unrelated to the assassinated president. In some cases, the archives include documents created decades after his death, according to a person familiar with the process.

"President Trump promised to release all JFK records — and he is delivering on that promise. Anyone surprised by this has either not been paying attention or is being willfully ignorant," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

For his part, when asked on March 17 if he knew what was in the records, President Trump said he had "heard about them" but had not received a summary.

Spokespeople for the National Security Agency (NSC) and the CIA both declined to comment. A spokesman for the US National Archives also did not respond to requests for comment.

For decades, historians and conspiracy theorists have called for more information about the death of President Kennedy to be released. A 1992 law requires the government to release documents related to the famous assassination within 25 years, except for documents that could harm national security.

In 2017, Trump released some additional documents, giving intelligence agencies more time to evaluate the files. Trump associate Tucker Carlson revealed that the president regretted the decision and that Trump only saw his effort to release the JFK documents as fulfilling a long-standing promise the government had made to the American people.

Just a few years ago, Mr. Trump said he had little interest in the records, which historians and many of his associates have wanted to see for decades. In an interview with a New York Times reporter in September 2021, Mr. Trump said he was “not curious” about the records.

“The reason I did it was because I thought it was appropriate,” he said, explaining why he sought to declassify the records during his first term. “When you have something that is considered a sacred secret, it really sounds bad. Let people look at it.”

But many in Mr. Trump’s orbit, including Mr. Carlson and his longtime political adviser, Roger J. Stone Jr., have been lobbying the president for years to order the release of all records.

“The sitting president was assassinated, but every president after that has hidden the reason and the assassin. How can you do that?” Mr. Carlson expressed in an interview on March 18.

The Kennedy assassination has long fueled conspiracy theories, including some that Mr. Trump himself has supported. He has also capitalized on the political interest in the assassination. When Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose father was also assassinated, endorsed the Republican candidate last August, Mr. Trump reaffirmed his promise to release all documents related to the Kennedy assassinations and to establish an independent commission to study assassinations, including his own in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year.

“This is a tribute to Bobby,” Trump said, adding: “I’ve never had so many people ask me, ‘Please, sir, release the Kennedy assassination documents,’ but we’re going to do it.”

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump alleged that the father of Senator Ted Cruz (Texas) was with suspect Lee Harvey Oswald right before President Kennedy was assassinated.

“You know, his father was with Lee Harvey Oswald before Oswald shot him,” Trump told Fox News in an interview in May 2016, when he was running against Cruz for the Republican nomination. “I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this? The moment before he was shot, nobody talked about it. They didn’t even talk about it. It was reported, but nobody talked about it. I think it’s horrible.”

On March 17, President Trump attended a board meeting at the Kennedy Center, an organization of which he is chairman, and made a “big announcement”: “Tomorrow we will be releasing and releasing all of the Kennedy records. Because people have been waiting for this for decades.”