The Deadline for Release of All JFK Assassination Files is Near; But Don’t Hold Your Breath

In 1992 the Assassinations Record Review Board, a government agency charged with gathering and assessing all documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy, issued a mandate that all classified documents still being hidden away by the CIA and FBI be released no later than October 2017. That day is about 30 months off, and already the struggle to pry the truth loose is underway.

According to an article in Politico magazine, the head of the National Archives Special Access branch, a woman named Martha Murphy, has sent letters to the CIA, the FBI, and other government agencies to alert them that the time is coming for the release of all remaining classified documents pertaining to JFK’s murder.

“Within our power,” said Murphy, “the National Archives is going to do everything we can to make these records open and available to the public. And that is my only goal. There are limits to my powers and the president of the United States has the right to say something needs to be held for longer.” What does that mean? It means the new President (meaning whomever gets elected in 2016) and the CIA could fight to suppress the last remaining 40,000 documents related to the assassination. Why would the new President do that? No reason to, unless, God forbid, the new President is Jeb Bush. (See previous posts for the Bush family involvement in the planning and cover-up of JFK’s murder.) Why would the CIA continue to suppress documents? For the same reason the agency has withheld the truth for the last 50 years—to cover up its own guilt in the murder of the century.

According to Politico, “The withheld CIA files include those on some of the most mysterious and controversial figures in the history of American espionage — particularly individuals who were known to be involved in CIA assassination plots around the world. There are at least 332 pages of material on E. Howard Hunt, an almost mythical spymaster who is most famous for running the ring that broke into Democratic Party headquarters in Washington’s Watergate Hotel in 1972, setting in motion the events that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon."

In 1961 Hunt played a role in the CIA's botched Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. In the aftermath, anti-Castro Cubans and CIA operatives were deeply resentful of JFK's failure to provide air cover for the guerillas. Shortly before he died in 2007, Hunt claimed that Kennedy was killed in retaliation for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Hunt named names and referred to the assassination as "the Big Event."

Also under review by the special team of archivists are at least 606 pages about David Atlee Phillips, another CIA officer who won a medal for his role in overthrowing the government of Guatemala in 1954, went on to run operations in Latin America, and along with Hunt played a leading role in anti-Castro activities in Cuba. Phillips was accused — though never charged — of committing perjury when asked about agency ties to Oswald by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Phillips, too, late in life attributed the JFK assassination to "rogue" CIA officers. It is the type of information that many researchers believe the agency would still like to keep secret.

The Politico article names other CIA suspects. “‘I don’t see the CIA handing out 600 pages on David Atlee Phillips in two years,’ said Jefferson Morley, a leading Kennedy researcher and founder of JFKfacts.org, who has sued the CIA to reveal more information about several key figures known to be the focus of some of the withheld files.

“Another colleague of Phillips at the CIA was Anne Goodpasture. The career agency officer denied to congressional investigators in 1970 that she had any knowledge of recordings of Oswald’s phone calls in possession of the CIA’s Mexico City station, where she worked. But she later admitted in sworn testimony that she had, in fact, disseminated the tapes herself. A 286-page CIA file about her is among the documents that are supposed to be released in two years.”

There’s apparently a lot of dirt in those unreleased files that could, once and for all, definitively expose the CIA’s role in the execution of the 35th President. Don’t expect the agency to just turn over those documents without a fight.

http://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Mortician-Tim-Fleming-ebook/dp/B00I6GNPD4