United States President, Donald Trump, has issued a directive for officials to draft plans to declassify documents linked to three pivotal assassinations in American history; the deaths of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.
“People have been waiting for this for a long time, for years, for decades,” Trump remarked in the Oval Office on Thursday. “And everything will be revealed.”
The order instructs senior officials to devise a strategy for declassifying the materials within 15 days, though this does not guarantee that the files will ultimately be made public.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Five years later, his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy was killed in California while campaigning for the presidency, just two months after civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee.
Although many documents pertaining to these events have been released over the years, thousands remain redacted—particularly those tied to the extensive investigation into JFK’s assassination.
The official narrative states that Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union before returning to the U.S. A government commission concluded Oswald acted alone, but lingering questions have fueled alternate theories implicating government agents, organized crime, and other entities.
Public skepticism persists, with decades of polls suggesting most Americans doubt Oswald was the sole perpetrator.
In 1992, Congress mandated the release of all assassination-related documents within 25 years.
While both Trump and President Joe Biden oversaw the release of thousands of files, a portion remains classified.
Trump initially pledged full transparency during his first term but later withheld certain files after the CIA and FBI argued for continued secrecy.
The latest executive order emphasizes that withholding these documents is “not consistent with the public interest.”
A former Washington Post journalist and JFK expert, Jefferson Morley, welcomed the development.
“As a statement of intention, it’s great that the president has put his promise into words on paper. That’s important,” he said. “But the details and implementation are everything. This process is just beginning. How exactly this is going to be carried out is not at all clear.”
Recent disclosures have shed new light on aspects of the JFK case, including revelations about the CIA’s close surveillance of Oswald.
In 2023, a former Secret Service agent who was near Kennedy at the time of the shooting, Paul Landis, claimed he removed a bullet from the car after the president was struck.
This detail challenges the official “single bullet theory,” which holds that one projectile struck both Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally, who was also in the motorcade and survived the attack.
Morley believes further disclosures could significantly enhance public understanding of these events, though he acknowledges that officials may resist full transparency.
“This story is not over,” he stated, while cautioning that there may not be a definitive “smoking gun.”
During the White House signing ceremony, Trump handed the pen used to authorize the order to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., RFK’s son and nephew of JFK. RFK Jr., who is also Trump’s nominee for health secretary, has long questioned the official explanations for the assassinations of his uncle and father.
Robert F. Kennedy Sr. was fatally shot in Los Angeles by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian man reportedly angered by U.S. support for Israel.
However, RFK Jr. has spoken with Sirhan in prison and doubts his involvement, though other Kennedy family members dispute this view.
Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder by James Earl Ray has been surrounded by allegations of a broader conspiracy.
The King family has also voiced skepticism about the official account, suggesting Ray was part of a larger plot.
As Trump’s order sets the stage for a deeper dive into these decades-old mysteries, the fight for transparency may continue amid pushback from intelligence agencies.
