Washington, D.C., March 19, 2025—On March 18, 2025, the National Archives, under President Donald Trump’s directive issued on March 17, 2025, released a trove of previously classified documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, fulfilling Executive Order 14176. This latest batch, part of the ongoing declassification mandated by the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, has ignited renewed interest among historians, conspiracy theorists, and the public. However, while some intriguing details have surfaced, much of the release resembles “unexploded ordnance”—a chaotic mix of unverified rumors, hearsay, innuendos, and irrelevant tidbits, creating a confusing soup of substance and speculation.
The release, detailed on the National Archives website (archives.gov), includes thousands of documents previously withheld for classification, offering unredacted insights into the investigation surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA, and potential conspiracies. Among the most notable findings are ballistic reports and witness statements suggesting a possible second shooter from the grassy knoll, aligning with the 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) conclusions, as reported by Business Standard. Additionally, FBI memos hint at pre-assassination warnings about Oswald and a phone call predicting his killing by Jack Ruby, while new details on “Operation Mongoose”—the CIA’s covert operation against Fidel Castro—reveal Kennedy’s authorization and potential links to organized crime and anti-Castro exiles, per AP News.
Not The Bee: Here are some highlights of the JFK Files that people have discovered over the last day
So the JFK files are being released and we’re starting to realize that not much has changed in the storyline. Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, as the story goes, and then he was killed by Jack Ruby.
So far the Trump team has released about 63,000 pages, including more than 2,100 PDF files. Not many “bombshells” are in there, but there are some things in the documents that may be of interest, so I’ll drop them here for you.
[Note: Take all of this with a grain of salt]
First, a Polish driver had warned of a Soviet plot to kill JFK. Hard to read, but it looks like the call occurred in the fall of 1962, more than a year before the assassination.
An intelligence agent named Gary Underhill claimed the CIA was responsible for JFK’s murder, fled D.C., and was found dead in an apparent suicide six months later.
These revelations, dubbed “bombshells” by some, have reignited debates about the Warren Commission’s lone-gunman conclusion. However, the bulk of the release—spanning mundane agency correspondence, redundant witness interviews, and speculative notes—reads more like unexploded ordnance, failing to detonate with concrete evidence. For instance, a memorandum cited in Wikipedia quotes Marvin Watson, an adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson, speculating that Johnson believed the CIA was involved in a plot. However, this remains unverified hearsay, lacking corroboration. Similarly, Francis Conolly’s documentary claims that Officer J.D. Tippit was killed because he resembled Kennedy are based on innuendo, not fact, and distract from substantive analysis.
The documents also include irrelevant tidbits, such as altered evidence to protect Tippit’s reputation or tangential references to the Bay of Pigs invasion, which, while historically interesting, do little to clarify the assassination’s core mysteries. Conspiracy theorists, predictably, have seized on these fragments—amplifying rumors of a “shadow government” or Rockefeller family motives — but historians like Jefferson Morley of the Mary Ferrell Foundation caution that much of the “rampant overclassification of trivial information” has been eliminated, leaving a patchwork of tantalizing but inconclusive leads.
The challenge for researchers lies in sifting through this morass. While the release marks a step toward transparency, as praised by Morley on X, it also underscores the difficulty of separating signal from noise. The National Archives’ partnership with federal agencies to comply with Trump’s directive has ensured a comprehensive dump, but the absence of definitive proof—coupled with the proliferation of speculation—risks overshadowing the few substantive findings. As one historian told AP News, “We’re left with a treasure trove of questions, but the answers remain buried under decades of rumor.”
This latest release, while historic, serves as a reminder that the JFK assassination files may never fully resolve the lingering mysteries. Until new, verifiable evidence emerges, the public must navigate a confusing blend of bombshells and unexploded ordnance, where intrigue and irrelevance dance in equal measure. This investigation will continue to monitor any developments as researchers and agencies parse the data, but as of March 19, 2025, the truth remains elusive, shrouded in a fog of speculation.