National Archives releases thousands of documents related to JFK assassination

Thousands of previously classified documents that were part of the federal government's review of the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy have been released.

Some 13,100 documents were released Thursday, according to the National Archives. This is the second release of documents association with the JFK assassination that President Joe Biden ordered last year when the White House postponed a public release because of the COVID-19 pandemic. About 2,800 documents also were released in 2017 under former President Donald Trump.

Kennedy was a frequent visitor to the family's Palm Beach compound at 1095 N. Ocean Blvd., which became known as the Winter White House. His family bought the compound in 1933, and for decades after, Kennedy and other family members were frequent visitors to the island during the winter season.

''The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection (the Collection), established by the National Archives in November 1992, consists of approximately 5 million pages. The vast majority of the collection has been publicly available without restrictions on access since the late 1990s. Following today’s release, over 97% of records in the collection are now available," the Archives said Thursday.

Kennedy was shot to death as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas. A lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested but he was shot and killed the next day by local nightclub owner Jack Ruby as he was being transferred from police headquarters to the county jail.

The Warren Commission's finding that Oswald acted alone has long been the source of skepticism. Before the release of the commission's report, a Gallup poll found that only 29% of Americans thought Oswald acted alone, while 52% believed in some kind of conspiracy.

The focus of Thursday's release is the CIA's 80-volume "personality file" for Oswald, Politico reported.

The CIA said in a series of statements Thursday that many of its records released in the latest batch post-date Kennedy’s assassination and do “not change the historical record and has no bearing on the assassination or the investigation itself.”

“Likewise, we are not aware of any documents known to be directly related to [Lee Harvey Oswald] that have not already been made part of the Collection,” an agency spokesperson told CNN.

The White House issued a statement Thursday explaining why the records were released.

“[T]he profound national tragedy of President Kennedy’s assassination continues to resonate in American history and in the memories of so many Americans who were alive on that terrible day; meanwhile, the need to protect records concerning the assassination has weakened with the passage of time,” the White House said. “It is therefore critical to ensure that the United States Government maximizes transparency by disclosing all information in records concerning the assassination, except when the strongest possible reasons counsel otherwise.”

An additional 515 documents have been withheld in full and 2,545 documents partially withheld, according to the National Archives. The National Archives, the CIA, the Justice Department and other agencies have until May to review the remaining withheld documents.

After that, “any information withheld from public discourse that agencies do not recommend for continued postponement” will be released before June 30, according to media sources.

The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (JFK Act) was passed by Congress on Oct. 26, 1992.

Kennedy family ties to Palm Beach

Boston-based Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., the family's patriarch, bought the house at 1095 N. Ocean Blvd.for use as a winter retreat for his family.

The property most recently sold in 2020 for a recorded $70 million by a company controlled by asset manager and billionaire Jane Goldman, who extensively renovated the property. A trust was on the buyer’s side of the off-market sale. Goodman had paid $31 million for the estate five years earlier; she, in turn, had bought it from John and Marianne Castle, who had purchased the estate from the Kennedy family in 1995.

President Kennedy is said to have worked on his 1961 inaugural address there and to have written his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Profiles in Courage," at the house while recovering from back surgery in 1956.

He and his advisers later discussed the composition of his Cabinet at the estate, although the president reportedly spent many nights at a neighbor's home nearby rather than in the house itself, according to the late architectural historian Donald W. Curl.

In November 1963, the president spent the weekend in Palm Beach immediately before heading to Texas, where he was assassinated.

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Daily News reporter Darrell Hofheinz contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: U.S. releases thousands of documents related to JFK's assassination