The National Archives released 2,891 records on Thursday related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that are subject to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (JFK Act). These records are available for download online.
The President has also ordered that all remaining records governed by section 5 of the JFK Act be released, and thus additional records will be released subject to redactions recommended by the executive offices and agencies. NARA will process these records for release as soon as possible on a rolling basis.
Based on requests from executive offices and agencies the President has allowed the temporary withholding of certain information that would harm national security, law enforcement, or foreign affairs. The President also ordered agencies to re-review their proposed redactions and only redact information in the rarest of circumstances where its withholding “is made necessary by an identifiable harm to military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.” These instructions will allow the National Archives to release as much information as possible by the end of the temporary certification period on April 26, 2018.
Following the release yesterday, our website saw nearly 44,000 active users, and our ten most active pages were related to the release of these additional documents.
The National Archives previously released 3,810 related records on July 24, 2017, including 441 records previously withheld in their entirety and 3,369 records previously withheld in part. More information about this release is available online.
In addition, the National Archives is also releasing to the public the unclassified electronic records of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), including 52,387 emails and 16,627 files from the ARRB drives.
The National Archives established the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection in November 1992, and it consists of approximately five million pages of records. The vast majority of the collection has been publicly available without any restrictions since the late 1990s.
Find more information in these online resources:
- JFK Assassination Records Processing Project — Background and FAQs
- Documenting the Death of a President
- JFK Assassination Records Review Board
- The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection
- The work of the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection
- JFK Assassination Records FAQs
- Warren Commission Report
At 75yrs, I have followed the Kennedy Assassination from day-one. Serving in the Marine Corps at the time of his death, I have always considered him to be our finest President! The release of the current set of classified documents continue to paint even broader picture of his assassination and the skullduggery that seem to elude investigators. The last remaining set of classified documents should be declassified and unsealed after all these decades to finally put his honored service to rest unless they gravely impact the family!
Y impacts living family members.