Jefferson Morley
Appearances
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Well, so if we compare our situation today with that time, you know, We live in a multipolar world now, right? Russia is a superpower. China is a superpower. So in 1962, there were really only two superpowers, Soviet Union and the United States. And they were locked in the stance called the Cold War, which doesn't really evoke the full danger of the situation.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
What you had was two nuclear armed superpowers who really did not talk to each other or negotiate with each other. were armed to the teeth with, you know, extensive, massive nuclear arsenals, which were on a hair-trigger setting. A missile could get from the Soviet Union to the United States in 15 minutes. So if there was a nuclear attack launched, the U.S.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
government would have to decide in 15 minutes whether to respond. And likewise for the Soviet Union. So the world lived in a state of anxiety suppressed anxiety that we really don't feel today.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And those feelings came to the fore in what's called the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, in which the United States discovered that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles south of Florida. And President Kennedy demanded that those missiles be removed. The Soviet Union refused. They said, you have missiles on our border, 20 miles from our border.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
How can you be offended by our missiles 90 miles from your border? And Kennedy said, if those missiles aren't removed, I'm going to attack. We're going to destroy them ourselves. Kennedy was under huge pressure from his generals who said right from the start, just go in and destroy those missiles. Kennedy pursued a peaceful solution and rejected the unanimous recommendation of his generals.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And for two weeks, the world lived in a very real fear that there was about to be a nuclear war in which 10 million people might be killed in a matter of days. And President Kennedy was the president who was going to have to push the button and make that happen. And Kennedy thought, this is crazy. I don't want to go to war over Cuba. It's not an important country. I
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Kennedy got the Soviet Union to back down, and they withdrew the missiles. And Kennedy enjoyed a tremendous boon in his popularity. Peace was popular. And so after that, Kennedy had a new vision of the world. He never wanted to be put in that position again. He saw how dangerous the Cold War was, how it might create a war really over nothing that was very important. Cuba was not important.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Not many people, not important to the U.S. economy, not a threat strategically. You know, it was not important. And yet Kennedy had almost been forced to nuclear holocaust. So that was why he pushed the test ban treaty. That was why he didn't pursue the overthrow of Castro. That was why he put out private feelers. Would Castro be interested in a diplomatic settlement of the country's
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
That was why Kennedy was holding back in Vietnam. And in October 1963, he signs on to a symbolic 1,000-man withdrawal of U.S. troops. So while Kennedy's military and intelligence apparatus favored a very aggressive military approach—overthrow Castro, don't make deals with the Soviet Union, escalate in Vietnam— Kennedy didn't want to do that.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And in June of 1963, he makes a very important speech to the graduating class at American University in 1963. And he says, we do not want a Pax Americana imposed by US weapons. It's a very striking statement for a U.S. president to make, and not one that any president before him had ever made. He was saying, you know, we don't want to be the world's policemen.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
We want to live in peace, even with systems that are very different than ours, like the people who live under the Soviet system. And he said, you know, those people who live under the Soviet system, they are mortal just like us. And so Kennedy made this very eloquent appeal to wind down the Cold War by citing the common humanity of people. And this is why people still honor his name.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And this is why he is the most popular president when people go back and Ronald Reagan runs a distant second. It was because Kennedy had an articulated a strategy for peace. Now, you know, with his death, that strategy for peace was not pursued. Lyndon Johnson did what JFK didn't do. He escalated in Vietnam. He didn't pursue more negotiations with the Soviet Union.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And so Kennedy's dream was not realized, but he articulated it and people remembered it. And over the years, we have seen since the mid-1960s, you know, the United States has been at war pretty much constantly ever since then. 10 years in Vietnam, extensive engagement in Central America in the 80s, although not with US troops, but with US advisors.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And then after 9-11, the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, And now we have a war in Ukraine. So, you know, Kennedy was trying to demilitarize U.S. policy and he didn't succeed. But that dream of a strategy of peace, that's why Kennedy is still popular and that's why he's still relevant.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And people should Google JFK American University speech and listen to it and see. I think they will be struck by a tone that they haven't heard from any other U.S. president in terms of looking at the common good of humanity and how a president should pursue that. It's very important, and it's why Kennedy is still relevant.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Yeah. So in the past year, under President Biden's direction, executive branch agencies declassified some of the JFK documents that had redactions. And so for the first time, we saw some documents in their entirety. And one of the documents that was released in April of 2023, identified for the first time the name of the man who had read Lee Harvey Oswald's mail.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Lee Harvey Oswald was the accused assassin of President Kennedy. And it turned out that the CIA had been reading his mail from 1960 to 1962. And Ruben Efron was the man at the CIA who did that. Now, we had seen portions of Ruben Efron's memo before, but what Ruben Efron wrote a memo in 1962 to a colleague in the CIA, and he had recalled a letter that he had intercepted.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So this is male surveillance. So what the CIA was doing was they were intercepting the letters of people who had been targeted by the agency. They would get the letter, they would steam it open, they would copy it, they would read it, and they would file it, and then they would put the letter back in the envelope, reseal it, and send it on its way. So they're stealing the content of Oswald's mail.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Now, People may wonder, well, why were they reading the mail of the guy who supposedly shot the president? Well, Oswald was a Marine who had moved to the Soviet Union out of sympathy for communism. He lived there for a couple of years, married a Russian woman, and come home. And so the CIA was very interested in him, and they were reading his mail during this period.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
But the important part about the story of Ruben Efron is not only did we not know that the CIA was reading his mail, not only did we not know that it was Ruben Efron in particular, a CIA operations officer who was doing it, but also... Ruben Efron wrote his memo to his colleague after Oswald had returned to the United States.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So the CIA was interested in Oswald even when he was back in the United States, which is a violation of the agency's charter, which says the agency, except in very limited circumstances, cannot target U.S. citizens or conduct operations on U.S. soil. So the CIA in the case of Oswald violated
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
that prohibition against that and they kept track of oswald while he was on u.s soil after 1962. so the importance of the reuben effron story which only came out when i published it in the new york times published it this past july was the cia had the accused assassin under surveillance and under surveillance in 1963, and indeed, right up until the week before Kennedy leaves for Dallas.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So we understand much better now how close the surveillance of Oswald was. You know, in this letter that Ruben Efron intercepted, it's not like... oh, look, he's betraying secrets or, oh, look, he could be a secret agent for us. It's nothing like that. They're interested in the details of his personal life. There was nothing exceptional in the letter.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
There was no sensitive security content in that letter. They wanted to know about Oswald's state of mind. And so the story is important is, well, first of all, the CIA lied about that. They didn't disclose this to assassination investigators. But why were they interested in his state of mind? What was going on? Did they not realize he was a threat to the president?
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And so we still don't have very good answers to those questions. But the Ruben Efron story shows us that he was watched very closely by people at the top of the CIA in 1963, in the weeks before Kennedy was killed.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Obviously, there's a breakdown of security in in Dealey Plaza. What's striking about the JFK story is no one was held accountable for that. OK, so Oswald was accused of the crime, but he has the presumption of innocence. He was never brought into court, so his guilt was never established by a court of law. It was established by a politically appointed commission, which specifically declined the
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
to appoint a counsel to defend Oswald's interests. Mark Lane was a New York lawyer. He came to the Warren Commission and said, look, Oswald's dead, but he deserves counsel to defend his interests in this. And the Warren Commission said no. And so the Warren Commission never gave Oswald the presumption of innocence. He was presumed guilty and they never really investigated any other alternative.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
My name is Jefferson Morley. I'm a journalist, investigative reporter. I'm the co-founder and editor of the JFK Facts blog, which was created in 2012 and is now found on Substack. I'm the author of four books of nonfiction, three of them about the CIA, and I live in Washington, D.C.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And so not only was no one ever brought to justice for the crime, but this, and I think this is equally significant, no one lost their job The head of the Secret Service was not fired after this atrocious failure in Dealey Plaza. The head of the FBI, which had been watching Oswald since his return, was not fired.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
The head of the CIA and the people who had been maintaining the Oswald file at the CIA, none of them were held accountable. No one even knew who they were. Nobody in the Dallas Police Department lost their job. So in the eyes of the government, nobody did anything wrong that day, despite the fact that the president was killed in broad daylight in front of hundreds of people.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
You know, that's very suspicious. Why would that be? How come nobody lost their job? Did everybody do their job? This was just, you know, a thing that happened? That's not plausible. And that's what sticks in people's minds is the whole story that they've been told, you know, it defies credulity on its face.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And then when you drill down on the facts, you see that the case is not very well supported. Some facts are not facts. Some facts are lies, you know, things that the CIA told the Warren Commission. Like, we didn't know anything about this guy. That's what CIA officials said under oath to the Warren Commission. It was, and I say it without fear of contradiction, a bald-faced lie.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
They knew a lot about Oswald, and they knew it right before Kennedy went to Dallas. They knew his politics, his personal life, his foreign contacts. They were reading his mail. To say we only had minimal information about him, that was a cover story to cover the CIA's deep interest in the man who supposedly killed Kennedy.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
The false statements given to the Warren Commission, to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, to the press, you know, people have no confidence at all in the government and no confidence even that there's any process to regain that confidence. So, I mean, I've always looked at the JFK story as an opportunity to establish accountability and to get at a story that
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
is embarrassing to the government or, you know, whatever, but that the people would get the full story. Now, we still don't have the full story. And, you know, and when people say, oh yeah, we know one guy, a little man killed a big man, get over it. You know, I mean, most people don't believe that. They never have believed that. And it's not because of conspiracy theorists.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
It's because of the circumstances of the crime. You know, right after the president was killed, within a week, pollsters went into the field, nationally reputable pollsters, and they asked people all sorts of questions. Where were you when this happened? What did you think? How did you feel? And then who do you think was responsible?
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And one of the questions in the polls was, do you think more than one person was responsible? Okay. This is November, last week of November, 1963. At that point,
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
The White House, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Dallas Police, the New York Times, CBS News, the Washington Post, every national news organization and institution said, that dead guy, Lee Harvey Oswald, did it on his own and there's no politics involved here. That same week, when people were polled, 66% of people nationally said they believe more than one person was involved.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
In Dallas, I think the figure was 62%. Anyway, a solid majority thought that more than one person was involved. At that point, there were no JFK conspiracy theorists. Oliver Stone was a senior in high school, okay? His movie was 30 Years in the Future. OK, there were no conspiracy theorists.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So it is not credible to say that conspiracy theorists created this belief that there was a conspiracy behind Kennedy's death. It's simply factually false. We can see very clearly from the results of those polls done in November 1963 that it was the circumstances of decline. that convinced people that more than one person was involved. It was not conspiracy theorists.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And that figure has pretty much held ever since. 50 to 60% of people over the years fluctuates, but 50 to 60% of the people believe that the president was killed by his enemies. And about 35 to 40% believe the official story. So that disbelief is founded in fact, it was not created by conspiracy theorists.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So... Rex Bradford is the creator of the Mary Farrell Foundation website, which is the largest online collection of JFK records. And is a good friend and has created an indispensable, the indispensable website. source for anybody interested in the Kennedy assassination or frankly, the Kennedy presidency. So he and I were talking and we were looking ahead to the 50th anniversary in 2013.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Yeah, and you make a very important point there. You know, people ask me, why does the CIA care? You know, whoever was responsible, let's say people were responsible, they surely are not alive anymore. You know, why can't they just come clean? And the point is, is that, yes, it's a very important symbolic issue.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And people will say, well, you know, if your people were involved in this, in complicit or let it happen, you know, That's not a historical issue for the CIA today. That means a CIA official might get called up to Congress and say, explain this to us, Mr. Director. How did this happen?
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And Congress might say, well, we're going to cut your budget because you've not been straight with us all these years. We're going to reorganize you. We're going to, you know, there are real world consequences for full JFK disclosure. which is why the CIA is fighting it so fiercely. And I mean, we are now six years past the deadline set by Congress and the CIA is still fighting.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
We do not want to disclose. We do not want to disclose. And for good reasons, they have a lot to lose.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Well, I mean, we are skewed towards, you know, These military intelligence agencies, they get the budget they want, you know, and everybody else comes is in line after them, you know. And this is why the accountability around JFK is important as a symbolic issue and also as a real issue today is, you know, we've been at war. you know, pretty constantly since 1963. Kennedy offered an alternative.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
We don't know exactly what he would have done. And he might have changed course. He might not have been a peacemaker. Of course, there's no way to tell. But he offered the possibility and he defined a choice, another path that was available. And, you know, that path is still available to us. But the entrenched power of these agencies is such that that option is not really on the table.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And look at it. I mean, look at what the CIA did. They rolled Trump and they rolled Biden, two very different presidents with very different attitudes towards the CIA. And the CIA got exactly what it wanted from them. That's how strong they are in the constellation of American power. They get what they want.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
You know, I think that that broader cultural change, the counterculture, the emergence of a counterculture in the 1960s, that had many causes. The affluence after the postwar baby boom, the emergence of a civil rights movement where African-Americans are demanding full citizenship for the first time. Yeah.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
you know, technological changes like the birth control pill, which changes the reality, social reality for women everywhere. You know, there were broad causes behind the cultural change that happened in the 1960s. But I think with Kennedy, what was lost was not so much that cultural change would have happened.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And in fact, we can see Kennedy as kind of a leading edge of that, that, that he's anticipating that there's going to be this movement against militarism in favor of civil rights. And as a politician, he's trying to get in front of that parade so that he can, you know, muster it towards his own ends. So I think that, you know, we would have had a counterculture and all that, but again,
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And we just said, there's so much bad journalism. in major news organizations about the Kennedy assassination, that we need to have a presence there because we know that there's false statements, erroneous statements, misleading statements, a whole ridiculous discourse about conspiracy theories that doesn't interest us because we're researchers and historians.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
You know, if Kennedy had wound down in Vietnam and extracted the US from Vietnam in the way that Charles de Gaulle extracted France from Algeria, and that was a big, you know, geopolitical issue at the time. Algeria had been France's colony for, you know, decades, a century.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And it was very unpopular for De Gaulle to say, no, we're going to let Algeria go be an independent country and we're not going to mess with them. Kennedy was anti-colonial in his thinking. And this is something else that's underestimated about him, but very clear.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
He really sympathized with these new countries that emerged after World War II in Africa and Asia that had been under colonial rule for centuries. and became independent after the war. And Kennedy said, yes, these countries have the right to self-determination. These colonial powers have no right to go in there and dominate these people. And so Kennedy was acting on that anti-colonial impulse.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And if Kennedy hadn't gone into Vietnam, we would have had the cultural change, I think, but you wouldn't have had that bitter division that the Vietnam War engendered. And, you know, we live in a polarized time today, but the late 1960s is the only time comparable to today where you had that kind of bitter polarization and a feeling all around, like, is the country going to survive?
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Can we hang together, you know? And it turned out we did, you know, barely, but... if Kennedy hadn't been killed, or if Kennedy had pulled out of Vietnam, or even if there had been a real reckoning of who caused his death, that division around Vietnam wouldn't have happened. And so, yes, we would be, we would live in a very different country.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So to answer your question, we would have had a cultural change regardless. That was coming for many reasons, but we probably wouldn't have the loss of faith and the bitter divisions that we had in the 1960s and that are, you know, that we still live with today.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Where did the gunfire happen and why did Oswald do this and why did Ruby kill Oswald, that sort of thing?
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Like, yeah, you know, we really focus on completing the record. You know, people are going to have strong feelings about this. And, you know, we're not out to convince anybody. Our position is let's get all the records out and then we can sort it out. We debate among ourselves, you know. Yeah. You know, was the CIA behind manipulating Oswald? Was it maybe a Pentagon operation?
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Was it just some little faction within the government that nobody knew about? Did somebody at the top give the nod? You know, all of those types of questions. We talk about that among ourselves and, you know, and, and frankly, we disagree. It's like, nah, I don't think that's right. Yeah. I think, you know, to me though, that sort of conversation is,
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
You know, I'm a working journalist and an author. So I look at, you know, those are interesting conversations. Buy me another beer and I'll give you another theory. But in terms of what I'm going to write and say actually happened, you know, I don't spend a lot of time with that because I want to focus on what I can say absolutely for sure happened.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And in this very complicated story of like, what, why, why... You know, you're not going to be able to establish every fact. And, you know, people say, well, did Oswald kill Officer Tippett? And I'm like, you know, I think so. But, you know, I'm not I don't stake anything on that. You know, I'm not an expert in that. My beliefs in the JFK story don't hang on that factual question.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And so we just wanted to have a presence in the continuing discussion of JFK's assassination. For me, it's a great story. I pay attention to it because it's very important in American history. It's of continuing interest to lots and lots of readers. And there's key questions and issues that are unresolved. And subject, you know, the ripe subject for good investigative reporting.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So I say, you know, I don't know. You know, and so people say, well, you know, Jeff, what's your theory? You know, I don't know who killed Kennedy. Some people do, but I don't.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Yeah. So who is this guy, really? So I'm a journalist. I've been in Washington working for national publications since 1983, so for 40 years, covering a wide variety of topics, CIA and national security issues. primarily, but many other issues, especially racial issues. And JFK Facts is the venue where I place my reporting on the JFK story today. What's new? That's what we're about, JFK facts.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
What are the new facts? What are the old facts? What are the bad facts? So people want to know more about this approach. I think they should check out the JFK facts sub stack. We've got a team of writers. So Chad Nagel is a writer who I met recently through the American Conservative, actually. I'm not a conservative, but I like Chad's writing about the JFK story.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Very factual, very well informed historically. So he's a staff writer. And then we have another staff writer, Peter Voskamp, and he covers presidential politics. So he covers RFK Jr., He covers Trump. He covers Biden. Wherever the JFK story intrudes into our presidential politics, we have a writer who's there. He's not advocating for RFK, nor is he criticizing him.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
He's trying to report who is this guy? What's he saying? What does that mean? Then we've got a managing editor, a guy named Steve Byrne, who's a veteran journalist of the Detroit Free Press. And he's kind of our hardcore newspaper guy, copy editor, fact checker. Kind of I let him he's kind of the traffic cop in terms of when do we publish. And so he's an essential part of the team. And then.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
The head of our research is Margo Williams. She's a Pulitzer Prize winning researcher for the Washington Post and the New York Times, two Pulitzer Prizes. And so she's our research and fact checking person. So, you know, we're serious journalists. So that's kind of where we're coming from. In larger perspective, people want to know my work.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
It's really important to know my books, which are not JFK assassination books. My three books about the CIA are biographies of men who were at the top of the CIA in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Three men.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
My first book, Our Man in Mexico, is about Winston Scott, who was the chief of the CIA station in Mexico and who was in charge of the surveillance of Oswald when Oswald visits Mexico City shortly before the assassination. My second book, The Ghost, is about James Angleton, the chief of counterintelligence in the CIA from 1954 to 1974. And he was the man who controlled the Oswald file at the CIA.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And then my third CIA book is Scorpion's Dance about the relationship between Richard Nixon, the 35th president, and Richard Helms, the eighth director of the CIA. And that book tells the story of how the Kennedy assassination resonates after 1963, right up through Nixon's presidency and into the Watergate scandal. So
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
These books really give the context for understanding how the CIA itself understood what happened in Dallas, okay? When I got into this, I thought, there's a million conspiracy theories out there. And you know what, Jeff? No one cares what your theory is. But I thought, what did Winn Scott think about November 22nd? What did Jim Angleton think? What did Richard Helms think? And what did they do?
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
That's really interesting. And that's far more interesting than any theory I could concoct. And so that's what my books are about. And so they really give people the bigger historical context to not focus on the on the assassination, because then you start going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and you miss the picture. You miss the political reality.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So to me, it's a very natural story to gravitate to. I like its scale. It's important. And we know that it's important. President Biden issued an order about it earlier this year. President Trump has been talking about JFK files. So, you know, it's a big deal in American culture. It always has been. So to me, it's a very appropriate subject for an investigative reporter.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And so the books really give that they really give the context in which The CIA was part of and implicated in and observing the JFK assassination story. And then in larger perspective, I'm trying to, you know, tell people and especially young people, I know this seems very distant. And, you know, who cares? And is it a meme? And why? What are they saying on TikTok and all those things?
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And, you know, it is important. It takes a while for this story to get through the static. When you get down to the hardcore facts, it's a really important story. And if you understand it, you understand how it has shaped our world today. And that's really what I hope people come away from my work with, is this thing that happened a long time ago,
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
It tells us something about the world we live in today. And, you know, make up your own mind about what it tells us. I'm not demanding that you agree with me. Plenty of people disagree with me. That's fine. But the subject, this particular incident in American history, it's really important and it's really relevant to today.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
You know, there is this, I think meme is the right word. There's this meme that if you doubt the story that one man killed president Kennedy for no reason, if you doubt that you're a conspiracy theorist, that is a very propagandistic theory. notion. And it has to be rejected, especially in my case, because I don't have a conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
All the charges about crazy conspiracy theorists do this, do that, QAnon, that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. It is completely irrelevant. to what's going on on JFK Facts and in the historical research that me and my friends are undertaking. So that discourse about crazy JFK conspiracy theorists, I tell people, just put it to a side. I don't talk about that.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
I'm not interested in that. And none of that applies to me. Take your eyes off the theories and come to JFK Facts and try and understand what happened and make up your own mind. So the whole discourse of conspiracy theories where people attack people who doubt the official story because they're crazy and they're QAnon and all that. It's really it's a bogus argument that doesn't apply.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And and it's a distraction. And I believe it's an intentional distraction to make people not focus on the facts, but go off into craziness because that serves the purposes of the people who want to keep this story secret. Oh, only a crazy person doubts what the government says. You know, that's nonsense. And it's pernicious nonsense because it's really not true. So we want to get past that.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
theoretical realm of craziness. Just put it aside. It has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Yeah. So just to back up a little bit. To understand the context of what Biden did last June, you need to understand the story of the JFK Records Act. And a lot of people don't know this, which is why I want to go into some detail about it. Congress passed the JFK Records Act in 1992 amid the controversy about Oliver Stone's movie.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And what Congress said was, we're not going to reinvestigate the assassination, but we are going to make all of the government's records on the subject available to the public. in the controversy over Stone's movie, and people pointed fingers and said, oh, Oliver Stone, you're a bad boy. How dare you question our government and our sacred Warren Commission?
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
To which Stone replied with telling effect, if you have nothing to hide, why are all of the records of the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations still secret? So Congress responded to public opinion and wrote a strong law.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And the law created an independent board, which went to all of the government agencies and said, please identify any records related to Kennedy's assassination. And here's our criteria for that. Please give them to us. And please tell us if there's any reason why any portion of this document can't be released.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
The agencies were allowed to request postponement, not forever, but postponement of sensitive material, private information, secret government procedures, all that sort of thing. But the law said after 25 years, all of those withholdings should be ended.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And after 25 years, except in the rarest of cases, that was the language of Congress, except in the rarest of cases, all JFK records should be public in 25 years. Okay. So the question came to President Trump in October, 2017, And CIA director Mike Pompeo and FBI director Chris Wray went to Trump, met with him, and said, there's thousands of documents that we couldn't possibly release.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So Trump wrote an order about JFK files, and he sent out a tweet saying, all the JFK files have been released ahead of time. And that was false in two respects. All of the JFK files weren't released, and the ones that were released were released way behind time. But Trump's order gave the executive branch agencies four more years of secrecy, which is what they wanted.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
That pushed the question of JFK files to October 2021, where it landed in the lap of President Biden. So the FBI and the CIA went to Biden and says, there's thousands of documents we couldn't possibly release. And so Biden gave them pass. What he did was he issued a statement and said, the agencies have not been able to comply with the law because of COVID.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So when the Washington Post called me up and asked me what I made of this, I said, this is the COVID dog ate my homework. This is absurd. They've had 29 years to prepare for this. COVID wasn't a big obstacle for 28 of those years. So it's just an excuse for more and continued secrecy. That lasted for a year.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And then in December of 2022, Biden issued another order asking federal agencies to take one last pass at declassifying everything they could, and then he would be done with it. So in 2023, federal agencies released several thousand more records in their entirety, removing the redactions that had existed, leaving about 3,500
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
documents related to the assassination that still contain some form of redactions. Might be a word, might be a sentence, might be a whole paragraph, might be a whole page. But there are 3,500 assassination-related records that still have redactions in them. And in June, President Biden issued what he called his final order on JFK files. And what he said is, from now on,
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
the release of these records will be handled by the agencies themselves. And so there is a transparency plan written by the CIA, which now governs the release or non-release of those remaining JFK assassination files. So what Biden did in June was he effectively negated the JFK Records Act.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
which was a strong law precisely because it had taken the final decision about declassification out of the hands of the CIA and the FBI and invested it in an independent authority, which would consider the public interest in full disclosure, not only the agency's interest in continuing secrecy. So Biden gutted the JFK Records Act and the CIA is now in control of
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
of the release or non-release of those 3,468 remaining assassination-related records. So right now, those documents are secret indefinitely.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Well, that's a very good question. I mean, Alan Dulles' presence on the commission a man who had been fired by President Kennedy and who had considerable hostility towards his policies, that was a blatant conflict of interest. And it showed that the commission had been compromised or corrupted right from the start by a CIA official.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So then over the years, if we look at the pattern, the CIA has issued false statements regularly and consistently about the assassination ever since 1963.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So 60 years later, when Congress has passed a law saying everything's got to be made public and the decision has to be taken out of the hands of executive branch agencies and the public interest in full disclosure has to be respected and honored, for the CIA to now control the process is again, a conflict of interest and a corruption of the process.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And it's certainly not in compliance with what Congress wanted. And let me point out one thing about the JFK Records Act. We live in a time of polarization, bitter polarization. And yet, the JFK Records Act passed both houses of Congress unanimously. 535 elected representatives approved of this bill. No one, no one dissented on the record, including Senator Joe Biden.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
So this is what the people want. They want a full disclosure. And the CIA has stepped in and prevailed on both President Trump and President Biden to give them what they want. What they want is continued indefinite secrecy around JFK assassination records. Now, It is no surprise that given that set of facts, people are going to have suspicions about the CIA.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
And that's not the fault of conspiracy theorists. That's the fault of the CIA itself.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
Now- Yeah, no, that's a very good point. And, you know, I mean, Kennedy was a politician. He was running for reelection. He said different things at different times. He presented himself as a fierce cold warrior sometimes and was very eloquent in defending the free world and that stuff.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
But if you look at Kennedy's record in 1963, his policies were a very bold challenge to the conventional wisdom of the national security agencies in the United States in several ways. He pushed a test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, a measure that his generals on the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously and vehemently privately opposed. Kennedy used his prestige as a peacemaker,
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
which he gained during the Cuban Missile Crisis to prevail upon the generals and to get the Senate to approve that. And when they did approve it in September, 1963, Kennedy said that was his proudest moment as president. So Kennedy was moving the country, the ship of state in a new direction, not radically, slowly, but definitely. And the enemies of his policies
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
in Cuba, in Vietnam, for example, were very, very unhappy with him in 1963. That's the political setting in which Kennedy is assassinated, in which there are real schisms in his administration about the wisdom of his policy. And there is a pervasive feeling among the enemies of his policies that Kennedy is not only weak, but he's actually a danger to U.S. national security.
Conspiracy Theories
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
That was a very common feeling in the upper echelons of the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1963.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Well, that's what this document, it raises the question, right? If somebody knows the contents of that censored page and came to me and said, Jeff, I'll tell you what's in there, you know, under the law right now, they would be taking a certain legal risk. You know, that's a fact.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
And, you know, when a JFK whistleblower approached me a couple of years ago, and I wrote about this on JFK Facts last year, You know, he described to me a secret CIA facility in northern Virginia where he had worked as a contractor. And he said, there's a JFK archive in there. He had seen it. He had talked to the people, to the woman who ran it, who controlled access to it.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So it's important to know what we've learned in the recent past, kind of the context of these latest developments, and what is possible under this order. But a lot is now possible. So that's a great development.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
He saw what was on the on the shelves there. So, you know. That guy, it was risky for him to talk to me. And it took a long time for me to convince him to come forward. And he only came forward after a couple of years when he realized nothing was happening. There was no prospect of the CIA coming clean. So that's important. I'll tell you something else that's good about President Trump's order.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
I think it makes it easier for any whistleblowers to come forward. And I'd like to say, if there are people out there who have access to classified information, consult your lawyer. But I think President Trump's order effectively, well, it reduces their risk about talking about things that are classified. Because the president's saying, we want all of this out. That carries some weight.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So that in itself is an important development.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah, that was an amazing story. And it goes to show you that, you know, talking about this stuff... you can be threatened with legal action. That's still possible. So that threat needs to be removed. And I hope the president's order has done that, and that people can feel that this is perfectly legitimate to talk about.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
There are no real national security concerns in this material, except for the fact that the assassination of a president is a national security concern, right?
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah. So another story, which I reported on JFK facts last year. Before President Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, the CIA had Lee Harvey Oswald under surveillance for four years. By November 21st, 1963, they had compiled 180 pages of material on Oswald.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
His personal life, his political beliefs, his contact with a KGB officer, his arrest, they had all of that at the time Kennedy was leaving for Dallas. CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton knew that Oswald was in the Dallas area in the first week of November of 1963. That pre-assassination Oswald file was not completely declassified until April 2023. That's how sensitive this is.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
And they're very good at keeping this stuff off the public record. And, you know, now when you go to people in in the mainstream media, they won't report on Oswald's pre-assassination file. They'll say, oh, they were just covering their asses. They make excuses for the CIA instead of saying, hey, you had 180 pages on the guy.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
You know, was that extreme negligence, intentional negligence or actual complicity? You know, and we don't we don't know. But that file is the pre-assassination Oswald file is one of the most significant things to come out in recent years, for sure.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
No. When the Warren Commission interviewed CIA Director John McCone and Deputy Director Richard Helms behind closed doors, only Warren Commission members there were Allen Dulles and Gerald Ford, and John Sherman Cooper was there for a little bit. They lied. I mean, they committed perjury, especially Helms, and said, we didn't have any information about Oswald before the assassination.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Minimal information, that was the line. So in their mind, 180-page file on Oswald, that was minimal information. Pay no attention and don't hold us accountable for missing the fact that this guy killed the president. We're sorry, Mrs. Kennedy, but that's just the way life is. That's their attitude. It's bland arrogance. And we see it to this day.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So the president's order orders a plan within 15 days from four top officials, two of whom are acting and two of whom are Trump appointees, to come up with a plan for declassification.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
You know, I wrote a book about James Angleton, the counterintelligence chief who ran the Oswald, who held the Oswald file from 1959 to 1963. Angleton told the church committee kind of off the record that he believed RFK had been killed by organized crime figures. So there's the body of records from the LA Police Department.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
The CIA had people in the LAPD who helped control the investigation of the assassination and exclude marginalized witnesses who didn't say what the government wanted said. The RFK documents are a problem because they're not in one place and it will take a little bit of effort to collect them.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
And it's good that the president wrote in 45 days, not 15 days for those documents, because it's going to take a little more work. That's a reasonable delay in light of, you know, getting, you know, getting, finding and getting and releasing those documents.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah, I mean, you have the testimony of the coroner who was hyper aware that the JFK autopsy was a joke and a fraud. And Dr. Noguchi said that Kennedy's head wound was a contact wound, that the gun had been close to Kennedy's head when the shot was fired. Well, Sirhan Sirhan was never that close to RFK.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So that alone is kind of indisputable factual evidence of a deficiency at a minimum in the official story. So also, I think, you know, in the long and I'm not an expert on RFK assassination, but when you see how CIA assassination operations worked and the kind of techniques that they used, you can't rule out that Sirhan was under some kind of mind control program.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
In the president's order, section three of the president's order contains a loophole, which to me could be interpreted as saying the CIA director could overrule any decision that comes out of this declassification effort. That's a pretty big loophole that needs to be plugged or disavowed because the agencies cannot have final control over the release of this material, right?
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
I mean, they had a mind control program, and it was designed to do things like this. Commit an act, and you have no memory of it. So we know they were working on that technology. Could it have been applied here? That's why we need the records, so that we can assess, is that a real possibility?
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah. I mean, it's a striking detail.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah. I mean, the the problem that they have is that. I don't have a conspiracy theory. So the label of conspiracy theorist just doesn't apply. And the other thing is, you know, nobody can deny the stuff that I'm talking about. Let me mention another JFK document that's very important and I think will interest you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
One of the things that's withheld and is in the JFK collection right now is the testimony of James Angleton in 1975 to the church committee about the Israeli nuclear program. This is a 113-page document, and it's heavily redacted to this day, and the redactions clearly pertain to Israel. Now, is this an assassination-related document? Absolutely.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
The Assassination Records Review Board said this is an assassination-related document. It meets the statutory definition, okay? If the president and this effort are serious, that testimony will be declassified because Angleton controlled the Oswald file on the one hand, and he was in contact with the Israelis on the other. So it belongs in the public record.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
That's another test of, is this serious effort?
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Well, it relates to what Angleton was doing in 1963. There were profound conflicts between Israel and the Kennedy White House over the nuclear program. Kennedy was pressing for on-site inspections, which the Israelis resisted because On-site inspections would have realized that they had a bomb-making program.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So this was a real bone of contention between the Israeli government and the Kennedy administration in the summer of 1963, at a time when Engleton controlled the Oswald file. So just the juxtaposition of those facts means that everything about it should be on the public record.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
I mean, it's very hard to tell sometimes from this testimony, given all the redactions. But yeah, that's, you know, was he secretly supporting Israel against JFK? That's one of the questions that needs to be answered by full disclosure.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Well, because in 1975, the CIA had been revealed to be running assassination programs, to be running a mind control program. to be spying on the anti-war movement, spying on Americans. So he was hauled before. And Congress, who was completely in the dark, had been duped or wanted to be duped. Suddenly, their eyes woke up.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
They've been resisting full disclosure since the day President Kennedy died. That's the day that the CIA's lies began. CIA officials began lying about what they knew about Lee Harvey Oswald within hours of President Kennedy's murder. And they've been obfuscating, lying, deceiving, covering up, evading ever since.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
And they had to explain to their constituents, hey, what have these guys been doing in our name? And so Angleton was called in. And this was all executive session testimony. So he was grilled about lots of things, about domestic spying, about the Israeli nuclear program. about the JFK assassination.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Interestingly enough, he was not questioned about Oswald because even the church committee did not know the extent of the pre-assassination surveillance of Oswald. That's only something we've learned since the 1990s.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah, basically, he dropped the demand for on-site inspections. He dropped the demand that AIPAC be classified as a domestic lobby. And, you know, there was really no accountability after that. And the story only emerged, you know, 10 years later when the church committee started pressing Angleton for some explanations.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah, and this is a tough call for the president because he's going to get very strong pushback from his national security apparatus supported by the CIA, supported by – Israeli interests to say, no, you can't talk about that. That's not permitted. You know, you can't don't do that.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Like I say, there's some very clear benchmarks to figure out. Is this working or not? And, you know, are people holding up the process and and obstructing the president's wishes or are they, you know, are they really going along? And so the proof is in the pudding. You know, the president's sentiment is great. It's great that a president has committed to this.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
It's amazing that no president has committed in this way before. But we'll take it. I'm not I'm not a supporter of President Trump. But on this issue, he's absolutely right. And we need to follow through on what he said.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So that kind of bureaucratic behavior, it's not going to stop just because President Trump said something on a piece of paper. They are going to continue to fight a rearguard war. effort to prevent full disclosure of CIA records related to President Kennedy's assassination. So we need to be vigilant.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
We need to identify the documents are important and set some benchmarks to show, is this effort really obtaining the results? Is it really going to be successful at obtaining full JFK disclosure?
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
No, the 1992 JFK Records Act passed unanimously by Congress. Think of that, right? When's the last time Congress passed something unanimously? That law said that all JFK records had to be made public within 25 years, except in the rarest of circumstances. That was the language. So 25 years after 1992, 2017, that deadline arrived. It came to President Trump.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
And he caved into the CIA's demands for continuing secrecy. So that was a very clear expression of the will of the people and the will of Congress. And they've just blown the deadline. They don't really care to be seen. They don't care that people see them violating the law around JFK records.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So, well, there's two places. There's 3,600 plus documents that are held by the National Archives that contain redactions. Those are in the possession. Those documents should be very easy to review and release quickly if they're serious about declassification and full disclosure.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So then those records were identified by the JFK Assassination Review Board in the 1990s, which did a great job of obtaining and declassifying a million pages of JFK records. So we've had a huge advance in historical knowledge since the 1990s. And what that showed us was the existence of other JFK records that the review board never knew about. often because the CIA deceived them.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So we need a capacity to get those records that are in the National Archives right now, but we also need to go out and get the records that are known to exist that are not yet in that collection. So there's two big bodies of records that are out there, and a serious declassification effort will get both of them.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
CIA and FBI, yes. And other agencies, too.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
You know, when we start seeing documents, it's pretty easy to establish some benchmarks about, you know, what are the most important records. And, you know, we will see in both categories have those documents come into the record. So if we monitor the process, we should be able to say, is this serious or not? You know, I think that, you know, the president has ordered a plan in 15 days.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
I don't think that means we're going to get documents in 15 days. And so, you know, but if we don't get documents within 30 days of the plan, then you got to start saying this thing has been taken, has gone off the rails.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
I think the only explanation is that the CIA has something to hide and they'd rather be seen as defying the law than releasing the information. I mean, that tells you something right there. And, you know, we can go into the specifics of, you know, some of the key documents that are out there that are important to be produced soon.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
But until that happens, you know, we can't be sure that it's going to happen.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yes. I mean, the documents that I'm talking about in the National Archives collection, I mean, they're in the possession of National Archives today. They could go get them this afternoon. The documents that are not yet in the collection, those are known to exist and, I mean, known to exist, you know, as of recently. So...
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
You know, if they're not produced, if we find evidence they've been destroyed, then we have pretty good evidence that, you know, that the cover up is continuing. But these are documents that are known to exist. This isn't a fishing expedition. This is a search for JFK records that have not been put on the public record by the CIA and the FBI.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah. And, you know, it was interesting to me that in Ratcliffe's confirmation hearings, he was not asked about JFK files, which makes me think that it's not a priority of Tom Cotton and the Senate Intelligence Committee. It seemed like they were staying away from the subject.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
You know, which, like you noted, had been central to the idea that Amaryllis Fox might take a job at the CIA to oversee this. You know, so, you know, there's got to be a commitment from Radcliffe to make sure that this happens. And I don't think that he's ever said anything by JFK files. You may know differently, but I've never seen anything. So he has no position as far as I can tell.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Well, it's just... I know from the news reports that RFK Jr. floated the idea of having her go to CIA and kind of oversee the process to get to the bottom of the JFK assassination was the quote that I saw. So... You know, you need to have a bureaucratic point person to ride herd on this because the agencies are going to be very reluctant. So that's a good idea.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
You know, whether it's her, I mean, a former CIA officer, that's somebody who would be qualified, who knows that building and would be able to do that. Somebody else could do it as well. But you are going to need a point person. The way it's set up now, it looks like NSC advisor Mike Walls will probably be the point person along with the attorney general.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So as that takes shape, you know, that's a key thing is what's the real commitment to ride herd on this as opposed to just issue a piece of paper and then let the bureaucracy do what it does?
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
I mean, those of us who've been calling for the release of these records for more than a decade, this is a great and promising moment. But there's still pitfalls ahead. And I want to emphasize that, you know, this is not something that can be done with the stroke of a pen. The powers of these secret agencies are strong and we actually kind of see their influence even on Trump's statement.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
Yeah.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
You know, I don't know those records as well, but the fact that they're secret, I mean, you know, we don't need to argue about the conclusions. The point is we need the records and then we can have an informed debate. But right now we have no informed debate, especially about MLK, but even about JFK and RFK. We don't have all the records.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
So, you know, the CIA is very good and its allies in the establishment media are very good at, That's right. That's right.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
If we get the documents that I'm talking about, that will not be a credible narrative. And let me cite a couple of examples, Tucker, because this isn't a fishing expedition. OK, so in one of the key documents that's still redacted, unbelievably, in my view, is a memo that Arthur Schlesinger wrote to JFK after the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy was very disillusioned with the CIA.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
He felt they were trying to dictate policy to him. And he talked about reorganizing the CIA, in the words that are often quoted, breaking up the CIA and scattering it to the winds, right? So this was actually a concrete expression of that impulse. We need to do something about an agency that's out of control. Arthur Schlesinger writes up his thoughts.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
He's got a security clearance, does a very careful study of CIA operations. In that memo to Kennedy, there is still almost an entire page redacted. OK, so the CIA is censoring criticism of itself by the White House. And we're not allowed to see that 61 years later. So Schlesinger's memo, it's not about the events that happened in Dallas. It's about the alienation of Kennedy and the CIA.
The Tucker Carlson Show
JFK Assassination Expert Reacts to Trump’s Effort to Declassify Files, and What You Should Expect
That's a that's a very basic test. If we don't get that document, the whole thing's a joke. OK, it's that simple.