The JFK Files

Ken AshfordHistoryLeave a Comment

The federal government just released thousands of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The papers were posted online by the National Archives in compliance with a 1992 law requiring their release after 25 years.

After a chaotic last-minute review in which intelligence agencies lobbied against full disclosure, the White House said it would take more time to process and release thousands more documents that were also supposed to be made public. It set a deadline of late April for the release of those documents.

What is out there from the release?  A few shiny objects::

  • Mexico was a cooperative partner with the United States in many ways — from helping to wiretap the Soviet and Cuban Embassies well prior to the assassination, to thorough attempts to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald’s ties in the country after Kennedy’s murder. Sources told the C.I.A. that Oswald had deposited $5,000 in a Mexican bank. In a document dated March 9, 1964, Mexico was reported to have traced all deposits in Mexican banks, looking for the money. They found no such Oswald transaction.

  • The F.B.I. closely monitored the activities of attorney and conspiracy advocate Mark Lane, who was representing Marguerite Oswald, mother of Lee. According to an F.B.I. source, a bizarre meeting Mr. Lane had with a Polish journalist in January 1964 saw wild conspiracy theories tossed around, including a ridiculous claim in a far-right Italian newspaper that J.D. Tippit, the Dallas policeman killed by Oswald shortly after Oswald shot Kennedy, was the real presidential assassin — and that Jack Ruby had killed Mr. Tippit.
  • A C.I.A. document alleges that Oswald may have been accompanied on his mysterious September 1963 trip to Mexico City by “El Mexicano.” According to another document, “El Mexicano” is believed to have been Francisco Rodriguez Tamayo, the captain of Cuban Rebel Army 57 until he defected to the United States in June of 1959. A third file also identifies Rodriguez Tamayo as the head of the anti-Castro Training Camp at Pontchartrain, La.
  • A British newspaper received a mystery call minutes before the assassination of John F Kennedy. A memo to the director of FBI revealed that a call was made to the senior reporter at the Cambridge News at 6.05pm on the day Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas.The document, from deputy director James Angleton, said: “The British Security Service (MI-5) has reported that at 1805GMT on 22 November an anonymous telephone call was made in Cambridge, England, to the senior reporter of the Cambridge News. “The caller said only that the Cambridge News reporter should call the American Embassy in London for some big news and then hung up.” More strange revelations came from the memo, including that just 25 minutes after the call ended, the President was shot. It continued: “After the word of the President’s death was received the reporter informed the Cambridge police of the anonymous call and the police informed MI-5. “The important point is that the call was made, according to MI-5 calculations, about 25 minutes before the President was shot.