US releases final trove of secret Kennedy assassination files

WASHINGTON

The U.S. National Archives on March 18 released the final batch of files related to the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, a case that still fuels conspiracy theories more than 60 years after his death.

The move follows an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in January directing the unredacted release of the remaining files related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother, former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

The National Archives has released millions of pages of records over the past decades relating to the assassination of then-president Kennedy in November 1963, but thousands of documents had been held back at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, citing national security concerns.

The Warren Commission that investigated the shooting of the charismatic 46-year-old president determined that it was carried out by a former Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.

But that formal conclusion has done little to quell speculation that a more sinister plot was behind Kennedy's murder in Dallas, Texas, and the slow release of the government files has added fuel to various conspiracy theories.

Kennedy scholars have said the documents that were still held by the archives were unlikely to contain any bombshell revelations or put to rest the rampant conspiracy theories about the assassination of the 35th U.S. president.

Oswald was shot by a strip club owner, Jack Ruby, on Nov. 24, 1963, two days after the Kennedy assassination, while being moved to a county jail.

Many of the records already released were raw intelligence, including scores of reports from FBI agents following up leads that led nowhere.