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JFK in the Oval Office Alamy Stock Photo

'We have a lot of work to do': No huge revelations so far as historians pore over JFK files

More than 1,100 files have been released, it will take some time to go through all the documents.

THOUSANDS OF PAGES of unredacted documents on the assassination of John F Kennedy were released this week – but historians say that it will take time to go through the files and that that not many revelations are expected. 

The files are being made available following an order by US president Donald Trump earlier this year. 

Experts and historians are combing through the over 1,100 files consisting of in excess of 31,000 pages related to the 1963 assassination. 

Larry J Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Centwe for Politics and author of The Kennedy Half-Century, said “We have a lot of work to do for a long time to come, and people just have to accept that”. 

The vast majority of the National Archives’ collection of more than million pages of records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artefacts related to the assassination have previously been released.

Prior to the release of these files, researchers had estimated that the number of files still to be released either in whole or in part was around 3,000 to 3,500. The files released earlier this week are a fraction of these. 

Jefferson Morley, vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation said: “Rampant over classification of trivial information has been eliminated and there appear to be no redactions, though we have not viewed every document.”

jackie-and-john-f-kennedy-in-the-limousine-open-top-during-the-ride-through-dallas-texas-where-john-kennedy-was-assassinated-1963 Jackie and John F Kennedy in Texas minutes before JFK was assassinated Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Trump announced the release on Monday while visiting the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, saying his administration would be releasing about 80,000 pages.

“We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading,” Trump said.

JFK’s Assassination

There have been countless conspiracy theories spawned regarding the details surrounding Kennedy’s assassination throughout the decades. 

Kennedy was killed on 22 November 1963 on a visit to Dallas, when his motorcade was finishing its parade route downtown and shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository building.

Police arrested 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, who had positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor. Two days later nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer.

Oswald was a former US Marine who defected to the Soviet Union before returning home to Texas.

Files in the release included a memo which described Oswald, as a “poor shot”. The memo also included that a KGB official was “confident that Oswald was at no time an agent controlled by the KGB.”

The documents also confirm that Oswald visited both the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City before killing JFK. 

With additional reporting from Press Association 

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    Mute Frank Whelan
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    May 4th 2013, 2:48 PM

    May as well just downgrade the whole Earth and be done with it….

    78
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    Mute Gary Keegan
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    May 4th 2013, 3:21 PM

    Sad, I have had the pleasure of diving various parts of the reef 13 years ago and it was a spectacular sight to see.

    59
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    Mute Stephen Downey
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    May 4th 2013, 4:36 PM

    Went diving in the reef myself about 10yrs ago. Accidentally squashed a load of plants and marine life with my flippers.
    Time I said sorry.

    43
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    Mute Bridget O'Hanlon
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    May 4th 2013, 5:35 PM

    Australian governments have known about this threat for many years and done almost nothing about it

    14
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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    May 4th 2013, 7:41 PM

    Monitoring data collected annually from fixed sites at 47 reefs across 1300 km of the GBR indicate that overall regional coral cover was stable (averaging 29% and ranging from 23% to 33% cover across years) with no net decline between 1995 and 2009.
    Disturbance and the Dynamics of Coral Cover on the Great Barrier Reef (1995–2009)
    Kate Osborne,* Andrew M. Dolman,¤a Scott C. Burgess,¤b and Kerryn A. Johns.

    The sky is not falling.

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    May 4th 2013, 5:18 PM

    Now that the AGW scare stories have been debunked along with the nonsense about ocean acidification the greens now have a new hobby-horse of pollution.The GBR like all coral reefs goes through periods of renewal.

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    Mute TheHeathen
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    May 4th 2013, 6:44 PM

    Do you dive or even get out at all? If you saw coral around the world, the bleaching and complete destruction of whole reefs then you would know very well it is not renewal. Go back to your Tom Clancy book like a good lad.

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    Mute Michelle Rogers
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    May 4th 2013, 4:53 PM
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    Mute Conor Smith
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    Nov 28th 2014, 1:22 PM

    Much sad.

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    Mute Conor Smith
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    Nov 25th 2014, 6:09 PM

    Test2

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    Mute Conor Smith
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    Nov 25th 2014, 6:04 PM

    Test

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