Anyone looking for a “smoking gun” or a new twist into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is likely going to need to have a lot of free time on their hands. The Trump administration followed through on a pledge to release more than 80,000 previously classified files related to the events of November 22, 1963.
That includes tens of thousands of pages of unredacted records that have been made available to the public for the first time. President Donald Trump signed a day-one executive order that called for the full release of government documents related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother and presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The JFK files are now available on the National Archives website.
Bombshells and a Smoking Gun?
The release of the documents is likely to delight conspiracy theorists, who have disputed the official findings of the Warren Commission’s report from 1964 that concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in shooting Kennedy from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository as the president’s motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza.
Numerous theories have been floated in the more than six decades since Kennedy was assassinated, with theories espousing that disgruntled Cuban exiles, members of organized crime or even the CIA (and possibly a combination of the various groups) played a role.
“President Trump is ushering in a new era of maximum transparency,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said of the release. “Per his direction, previously redacted JFK Assassination Files are being released to the public with no redactions.”
In the 1992 Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, Congress had set a 2017 deadline to release the outstanding JFK files. Nearly 19,000 files were released during Trump’s first term in the White House, but many weren’t made public due to pressure from officials over national security claims. In 2022, President Joe Biden also released around 13,000 additional files.
Conspiracy Theories Won’t Go Away
As of Tuesday’s release, the National Archives and Records Administration estimated that nearly 98% of the files have now been made public. Few revelations have been noted, but that isn’t likely to stop the conspiracy theories. This release of documents could have the opposite effect.
“Conspiracy theories will have a resurgence for a while,” suggested Dr. Matthew Schmidt, professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven. “They’re based on the psychological needs of the believer.”
That sentiment was shared by Dr. Cliff Lampe, associate dean at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. He told ClearanceJobs that “new information,” especially in a case so long established as this, rarely changes people’s minds.
“We’ve seen time and again in research something we call belief persistence – where people take new information and shape it to their pre-held beliefs rather than change those beliefs with new information,” Lampe added. “Some people will change their minds if there is some revelatory info in the files, but not as many as one might expect. The less conclusive the information, the more likely people can fit it into their existing narratives.”
The fact that two percent of the files could still be classified will also be enough to convince some that the government is maintaining a cover-up, even as the massive amounts of information presented suggests otherwise.
“Evidence rarely dissuades belief because the belief that one has access to secret truths becomes a core part of a person’s identity – a core part of what they want to believe about themselves – which they’re special and have this special knowledge that others don’t,” Schmidt told ClearanceJobs. “So the release of a bunch of information will act as psychological kindling, it will actually increase conspiracy thinking.”
Occam’s Razor Doesn’t Cut It
The principle of Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is often the correct one. In this case, it would propose that Oswald, angry with the United States, acted alone on November 22, 1963. The Warren Commission stated as much more than six decades ago – but to some people that wasn’t good enough.
From the countless books on the subject to director Oliver Stone’s film JFK, it has been suggested that a complex conspiracy was actually at play. Yet, in the more than 60 years, the evidence hasn’t shown up. Perhaps it could be in these files, but that’s not likely to be the case.
“As for if there’s a smoking gun? Who knows? This event is more than half a century old,” added Schmidt. “It’s very hard to reconstruct crucial contextual details that would be key to any ‘smoking gun’ explanation of his murder. But it’s possible.”
Time to get reading!
