United States President Donald Trump has ordered the declassification and release of all remaining files related to the assassination of former US President John F Kennedy, the subject of popular conspiracy theories for six decades.
Trump’s executive order signed on Thursday also calls for the release of the last remaining records on the assassinations of Robert F Kennedy, JFK’s younger brother, and the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
“This is a big one. A lot of people have been waiting for this for years, for decades,” Trump said as he signed the order at the White House.
“And everything will be revealed.”
Under Trump’s order, the Director of National Intelligence must present a plan within 15 days for the “full and complete release” of files related to JFK’s assassination and a plan within 45 days for the release of documents on the other two assassinations.
The circumstances of JFK’s assassination in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, have transfixed Americans for decades, with surveys showing widespread doubt about official explanations of the killing.
In a 2023 Gallup poll, 65 percent of Americans said they did not believe the Warren Commission’s finding that Lee Harvey Oswald, a US Marine veteran arrested over JFK’s death, acted alone in killing the president.
Twenty percent of respondents said they believed Oswald conspired with the US government, while 16 percent said they believed that he worked with the CIA.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s nominee for health secretary and the son of Robert F Kennedy, claimed in a 2023 interview that there was “overwhelming” evidence of CIA involvement in his uncle’s killing and “very convincing” but “circumstantial” evidence that the intelligence agency was involved in his father’s death.