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Will documents clear air on Kennedy's death?
President John Kennedy and wife, Jackie; along with Texas Gov. John Connally and wife, Nellie. Image: Victor Hugo King, via Library of Congress.
The National Archives today released some, but not all, of a trove of documents regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.       
        
        The archives released 2,891 records related to the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of Kennedy, 46, who was shot as his motorcade rumbled through Dallas. The assailant was soon identified as 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, who fired shots from the sixth floor window of a book depository building. Kennedy died, and Texas Gov. John B. Connally, in the same car, was wounded.
    Oswald was arrested, but shot and killed two days later by another man, Jack Ruby, 52, a Dallas nightclub owner. The Warren Commission, so called because it was headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, conducted a nine-month investigation and concluded that Oswald had acted alone. Not everyone agreed, however, and the release of the documents was expected to prompt a feeding frenzy among conspiracy theorists. 
    The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 mandated that assassination-related material be housed at the National Archives and Records Administration. Some of the documents are being withheld as the result of "requests from executive offices and agencies," in regard to security concerns, according to a statement on the archives website.  The archives will release "as much information as possible by the end of the temporary certification period on April 26, 2018."
    Once again, researchers will be looking for answers to these and other questions:  

    First of all, what's in those files?
    And why did the government take so long to release them?

    Was the assassination of Kennedy a conspiracy, or do these files support the finding that Oswald acted alone?
    The Warren Commission found “no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy.” But conspiracy theorists believe that Oswald could not have acted alone.

    Do these documents support the Warren Commission finding that one of the bullets that hit Kennedy also struck Connally?
    The commission's reported: "There is very persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet which pierced the president's throat also caused Governor Connally's wounds."
    Critics have charged that this is improbable. 

    How much did intelligence agencies know about Oswald before the assassination?
    Over the years, more information has been made public about Oswald. In 2013, PBS reported that the CIA attempted to cover up the fact that it had knowledge of Oswald's suspicious activities well before the assassination. (Read the story on the PBS website.) Will these documents tell us more about what was known or suspected about Oswald?

      Related:

      Re-examining Kennedy: 10 books offer insights

      Smithsonian to feature Kennedy photographs

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