Here Are the Most Interesting Details From the JFK Docs
On Thursday, the US government released 2,891 documents on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and let’s be honest: you probably aren’t going to read them. So here are the tidbits according to people who have already done this.
The Guardian reports that the documents do not contain a “smoking pistol”, a photograph of another shooter waving his hand, or anything of the kind. But there are many interesting details; For example, Edgar Hoover warned the FBI that someone might try to kill Lee Harvey Oswald:
“There is nothing in the Oswald case except that he is dead,” Hoover said on November 24, 1963 . “Last night we got a call at our Dallas office from a man who spoke in a calm voice and said he was a member of the committee set up to kill Oswald.
“We immediately notified the Chief of Police and he assured us that Oswald would be provided with adequate protection. This morning we called the Chief of Police again, warning of the possibility of any action against Oswald, and he again assured us that we would be provided with adequate protection.
“However, this has not been done.”
No kidding.
On a Reddit thread hosted at / r / AskReddit / I wanted to know what the conspiracy theorists combing through the papers with a fine comb found, or at least found the most interesting, and they came up with some good material. For example, / and / heyandy889 directed the attention of all Soviet Union reactions to the Kennedy assassination. The USSR effectively abandoned Oswald (who was considered by some to be a Russian agent) and viewed his actions as part of a larger conspiracy of the “ultra-right” who wanted to overthrow the Kennedy presidency.
On the other hand, / u / Slab_Happy wrote that they enjoyed reading letters from Oswald’s Marilyn Monroe fans, which said, “I wonder if he blamed John F. Kennedy for her death?”
Then there is this from / u / er_meh_gerd (perfect name for this tip):
A reporter for the British Cambridge Evening News received an anonymous call asking him to call the US embassy for important news 25 minutes before the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Also, there are things that don’t really relate to Kennedy’s death at all, but these are just weird little eyes in people’s lives like this s / u / mookdaruch :
I found this somewhat negative review of the effectiveness of CIA officers (asset / agent) in Mexico. This concerns his problems with money management, his quarrels with his wife, who is 25 years younger than him, and his affection for his mother-in-law, who, as the inspector notes, “in this case, does not seem to be a problem that one can imagine.”
But if you want to delve deeper into CIA conspiracy theory (and real history), / u / geeving has some merchandise :
The testimony of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s son John Eisenhower that he believed his father did not approve of assassination plots (mainly aimed at Castro), and did not plan to commit them, based on the fact that his father would tell him, because his father told him about the atomic bomb. Interesting stuff. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32423432.pdf
Also here is a detailed chronological order of the CIA’s provision of weapons, including revolvers, carbines and possibly explosives, to the group that killed Rafael Trujillo (the leader of the Dominican Republic at the time) in the hopes that a more pro-American group would take over. Although some of this was already known. Starts at page 68 https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32112745.pdf
EDIT: Here’s one I found during the explosion of an airplane on flight 455 in Cuban . Apparently Orlando Bosch, the leader of the US-backed Coordination of Revolutionary Organizations, was involved, but assumed that the plane would explode on the ground rather than in the air. One of the other men involved, Hernan Ricardo, also attempted to bomb two other Cuban planes, the Cuban consulate and the planned bombing of Hong Kong. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32297750.pdf
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32297741.pdf
But what I love the most is the story of Dorothy Kilgallen of / u / newsydsyder18 , a reporter who was rumored to be doing Oswald’s research and carrying the sensational story about her all along – and she ended up dead. Apparently, Nixon had a folder with her name, which was not declassified along with other papers. This is the thread that will lead you down the rabbit hole. Enjoy.