Newly Released JFK Assassination Files Renew Interest in Decades-Old Mystery

(TJV) The long-awaited release of tens of thousands of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has reignited a search for answers in one of America’s most scrutinized crimes, more than 60 years later.

President Donald Trump authorized the declassification of the documents, which were made available on the National Archives website on Tuesday. While most of the files reinforce long-known details, some reveal intriguing insights, including theories of a CIA “clique” possibly involved in Kennedy’s death and a Soviet investigation into whether assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had ties to the KGB.

One memo, dated June 1967, describes how Gary Underhill, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, fled Washington, D.C., in a panic the day after Kennedy’s assassination. He allegedly told a friend that a faction within the CIA was responsible and feared for his own life. Less than six months later, Underhill was found dead in his apartment from a gunshot wound, ruled a suicide—despite concerns raised about the angle of the fatal shot, as he was right-handed.

Another document, a U.S. intelligence report from November 20, 1991, details how KGB official Nikonov investigated Oswald’s possible connection to the Soviet agency. The findings concluded Oswald was never under KGB control, though he was closely monitored during his time in the USSR. The report also noted Oswald’s poor marksmanship in Russia and his troubled marriage to a Soviet woman.

Additional files shed light on Cold War intelligence operations, revealing the CIA’s global reach during the 1960s. One document describes a Cuban agent, AMFUANA-1, who developed a spy network of at least 20 people and produced over 50 reports after infiltrating Cuba in 1961. Another file recounts the CIA’s monitoring of an Italian newspaper’s claims that the agency itself was behind Kennedy’s assassination.

The majority of the documents pertain to the Warren Commission’s 1964 investigation, which concluded that Oswald acted alone when he shot Kennedy from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. Despite this official finding, conspiracy theories persist, with many Americans believing the assassination was the result of a larger plot involving the CIA, organized crime, or Cuban exiles.

The release follows decades of legal and political efforts to make the assassination records public. Under the 1992 Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, all remaining files were supposed to be disclosed by 2017. While Trump declassified thousands of documents during his first term, national security concerns delayed full transparency. President Joe Biden continued the process, declassifying an additional 13,000 records by the end of 2022.

With this latest batch, the National Archives estimates that roughly 98% of the assassination records have now been released—marking another step toward fulfilling long-standing calls for government transparency on the JFK case. However, for those still searching for definitive answers, the mystery remains far from solved.