On Wednesday, the Trump administration declassified and released documents related to the 1963 assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, an event that continues to spark conspiracy theories even after six decades. This decision came after Trump issued an executive order in January mandating the entire disclosure of files concerning the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother and former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, as well as civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., to enhance transparency about these historical events.

Over the years, the National Archives has made millions of pages of records on Kennedy’s assassination publicly available. However, thousands of documents had been withheld due to national security concerns raised by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and FBI(Federal Bureau of Investigation). Now, 1,123 files are accessible on the US National Archives and Records Administration website.

The National Archives website received an initial batch of electronic copies of documents, with over 80,000 more expected to be published after extensive review by Justice Department lawyers. Most of the collection, which includes more than 6 million pages of records, photographs, films, audio recordings, and artefacts related to the assassination, has already been made public. Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of The Kennedy Half-Century, told the Associated Press that a team was reviewing the newly released documents, and it could take time to understand their significance fully.

On Monday, President Donald Trump announced that his administration would release 80,000 files. However, how many were previously unreleased or already part of the millions of pages available to the public remained unclear. Earlier estimates suggested that around 3,000 files had never been fully disclosed. In February, the FBI revealed that it had uncovered approximately 2,400 additional records related to the assassination.

The released digital documents included PDFs of memos, one of which was labelled "secret." According to Reuters, one document contained a typed account with handwritten notes from a 1964 interview conducted by a Warren Commission researcher. The researcher had questioned CIA employee Lee Wigren about discrepancies in information provided to the commission by the State Department and the CIA regarding marriages between Soviet women and American men.

Some documents referenced conspiracy theories suggesting that Lee Harvey Oswald left the Soviet Union in 1962 with plans to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Others, however, downplayed Oswald’s ties to the Soviet Union.

One document from November 1991 cited a report by an American professor named E.B. Smith, who had discussed Oswald with KGB official "Slava" Nikonov in Moscow. Nikonov reportedly reviewed five extensive files on Oswald to determine whether he had been a KGB agent.

On November 22, 1963, during a visit to Dallas, President Kennedy was assassinated as his motorcade neared the end of its parade route. Shots were fired from the Texas School Book Depository building, where 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald had taken position on the sixth floor. He was arrested soon after. Two days later, while being transferred to police custody, Oswald was shot and killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

The following year, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. The commission concluded that Oswald acted alone and found no evidence of a larger conspiracy. However, despite this official finding, speculation and alternative theories have persisted for decades.

In the early 1990s, the federal government ordered that all documents related to the assassination be stored in a single collection at the National Archives and Records Administration. This collection was supposed to be fully opened to the public by 2017, except for any records the president deemed exempt.

When Donald Trump took office in 2017, he initially promised to release all remaining records but later withheld some, citing national security concerns. Although additional files were made public during President Joe Biden’s term, some documents remain undisclosed.