For the past three decades, the U.S. government has released documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy with an overriding goal of dispelling conspiracy theories.Julian E. Barnes, who covers the U.S. intelligence agencies, explains why President Trump’s motivations behind releasing the latest batch are far more complicated.Guest: Julian E. Barnes, a reporter covering the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The New York Times.Background reading: Inside the 24-hour scramble among top national security officials over the Kennedy documents.The thousands of documents posted online this week disappointed assassination buffs. But historians are finding many newly revealed secrets.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Reuters Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Chapter 1: What is the focus of the JFK document releases?
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. For the past three decades, when the U.S. government has released documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, an overriding goal has been to dispel conspiracy theories. But as my colleague Julian Barnes explains, President Trump's motivation for releasing the latest batch is far more complicated.
Today, what we learned from those new documents and why they may actually fuel even more conspiratorial thinking. It's Thursday, March 27th. Julian, you're the intelligence reporter for The Times. So I'm curious what your relationship has been to arguably the biggest and most enduring conspiracy theory about the agency you cover.
that the CIA was behind the killing of the president.
The assassination of JFK.
Yeah, that one, yep. Well, like all Americans, it's loomed really large for my entire life, right? I mean, this is something that everybody talks about generation in, generation out.
I never realized Kennedy was so dangerous to the establishment.
That movie, JFK, came out when I was in college, and... Please be seated. In that movie, Oliver Stone posits that there is a dark conspiracy behind the Kennedy assassination. Right.
President Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy that was planned in advance at the highest levels of our government, and it was carried out by fanatical and disciplined Cold Warriors.
That it was the CIA, that Oswald didn't act alone.
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Chapter 2: Why do conspiracy theories about the CIA and JFK persist?
RFK Jr. is the son of Kennedy's attorney general, the New York senator and presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy.
And throughout RFK's life... The day that my uncle was killed, the first phone call that my father made after J. Edgar Hoover told him that his brother had been shot was to the CIA desk officer. And my father said to him, did your people do this?
The questions about what the CIA did, what role the CIA had in his uncle's death, have loomed large.
It was my father's first instinct that the agency had killed his brother.
RFK Jr. is somebody who very much believes the CIA was involved in his uncle's death.
There's millions of pages of documents. There's a 60-year cover-up.
And he is a very strong voice in this administration, pushing for a much grander release of information.
And, of course, he's kind of pushing on an open door in Trump, given his relationship with the intel community.
That's right. A lot of people are waiting for this for a long — for years, for decades.
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