Overview

John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Declassification refers to the opening of classified documents related to the 1963 assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in late October 2017.^[13]

Background

On October 26th, 1992, the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 was passed, which directed the National Archives and Records Administration to collect files related to the assassination of Kennedy. In July 2017, the National Archives began to release remaining documents that had been previously classified regarding Kennedy's assassination, including interviews with KGB officer Yuri Nosenko regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's time in the Soviety Union. On October 21st, 2017, United States president Donald Trump tweeted that he would be opening up "the long blocked and classified JFK files" (shown below). Within one week, the tweet received more than 213,000 likes and 71,100 retweets. On October 26th, Trump signed a memo to release 2,800 documents in compliance with the 1992 law, with the remaining classified records to be reviewed until April 26th, 2018. The papers were posted online at the National Archives that day.

Developments

Online Reaction

On Twitter

Many Twitter users tweeted jokes about the declassification along with the hashtag "#JFKFiles" (shown below).^[5]

On 4chan

Following the release of the records, several 4chan threads about the files were submitted to /pol/, many of which received hundreds of replies prior to being archived.^[6][7][8]

On Reddit

On October 27th, 2017, Redditor TheLoneGreyWolf submitted a post asking "What is the most interesting thing you've found in the JFK files?" to the /r/AskReddit^[2] subreddit, where it received upwards of 30,700 points (91% upvoted) and 6,200 comments. In the comments section, top-voted comments discussed the mystery of journalist Dorothy Kilgallen's death, which remained classified. Additionally, an unclassified document discussed the KGB possessing evidence that President Lyndon B. Johnson was responsible for the assassination (shown below).

Redditor cheezzy4ever posted a link to a CIA document discussing a report that Adolf Hitler had been seen alive in Colombia after World War II.^[3] Others discussed the reaction of the Soviet Union to the assassination, which appeared to indicate they had no involvement.

News Media Coverage

On October 26th, The New York Times^[9] published an article about the documents, discussing records about FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and reports that the Kremlin suspected Lyndon Johnson was behind the assassination. In the coming days, the records were widely reported by other news media outlets, including CNN,^[10] Fox News,^[11] Express,^[14] The New Yorker,^[15] and The Washington Post.^[12]

Search Interest

External References