The Daily Star Ireland
In a landmark decision, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order mandating the declassification of all remaining government records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. This move aims to address decades of speculation and conspiracy theories surrounding these pivotal events in American history.
The executive order requires the Director of National Intelligence to come up with a plan within 15 days for declassifying the JFK assassination records and within 45 days for the RFK and MLK records. The move aims at ensuring that comprehensive and expedited releases of the documents are availed to the public for the first time in history.
The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 required that all related records be released in October 2017, unless postponements were certified for identifiable harm. While some documents were released during Trump’s first term in office, others remained classified because of national security concerns. President Joe Biden also postponed the disclosure of certain records during his time in office. A recent executive order by Trump makes good on his 2024 campaign promise to declassify the remaining documents.
The decision has received mixed responses: Jack Schlossberg, JFK’s grandson, said the truth might be more tragic than the existing myths and urged that his grandfather’s legacy not be politicized. On the other hand, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who in the past has pointed to the CIA’s complicity in the murders of his father and uncle, has been nominated by Trump as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, giving a personal touch to the release.
These documents, upon their release, are expected to answer many questions that have been debated for a long time and may even alter the public perception of these events. Though experts warn that the files are unlikely to contain explosive revelations, the move is a significant step toward openness by the government. It underlines the importance of public access to historical records and perhaps the way future administrations will deal with classified information.
There will be many opportunities for historians, researchers, and the general public to fine-tune discourse about American history in relation to the circumstances surrounding these assassinations as declassification proceeds.
