WASHINGTON (OSV News) — President Donald Trump on Jan. 23 signed an executive order directing the declassification of files on the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy, the nation’s first Catholic president, his brother Sen. Robert Kennedy, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the famed Civil Rights era leader.
Rev. King led the nation’s fight for civil rights before he was gunned down in Memphis, Tenn., April 4, 1968. Upon King’s death, RFK gave an impassioned speech in Indianapolis for racial unity following Rev. King’s non-violent witness, which is widely regarded as having calmed tensions in the city. But within two months, RFK himself was struck down.
Each of those three killings took place within a span of five years during the 1960s. They were each carried out by lone gunmen according to public record. But the remainder of still-classified documents in the decades-old cases have been the subject of conspiracy theories and public interest.
“More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Federal Government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events,” Trump’s executive order states. “Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.”
Congress mandated in 1992 that all JFK assassination documents were to be released within 25 years; but multiple presidents, including Trump, authorized delays.
Trump previously pledged to declassify the documents in his first term, but did not follow through at that time amid intelligence community concern.
“That’s a big one,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he signed the executive order. “Lot of people are waiting for this for a long, long time, for years, for decades, and everything will be revealed.”
Trump then directed an aide to give the pen he used to do so to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nephew to the late president and RFK’s son. The late senator served as JFK’s attorney general, and was mounting his own bid for the presidency when he was killed by Sirhan Sirhan in June 1968.
RFK Jr. is Trump’s pick for secretary of Health and Human Services. He faces a contentious confirmation battle in the Senate in part due to his controversial views on vaccines and has long sought the release of the documents related to the assassinations of his father and his uncle.
Robert Schmuhl, professor emeritus of American studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, who critically observes the modern American presidency, told OSV News, “assassinations always breed conspiracy theories and unanswered questions.”
“If declassifying and releasing additional documents bring an end to unfounded speculation, the actions are in the public interest,” he said.
JFK faced anti-Catholic prejudice while campaigning to become the first Catholic to hold the nation’s highest office. His presidential library noted Gov. Al Smith of New York, a Catholic Democrat like JFK, failed in his 1928 election bid as he was “dogged by claims that he would build a tunnel connecting the White House and the Vatican.” JFK used his rhetorical gifts to tackle the issue head-on, persuading Protestant Americans that they had nothing to fear from a Catholic serving as president of the United States.
In a shock to the nation, JFK was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, while preparing to run for a second term. Police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald in connection with the killing. Oswald was himself shot to death two days later while being transferred in police custody.
“How John Kennedy died has often overshadowed what he did and meant,” Schmuhl said. “America and the world deserve to learn as much as possible about the verifiable details of what happened. Secrecy serves no purpose in this regard.”
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