Remaining John F Kennedy files to be released

Remaining John F Kennedy files to be released

The hundreds of previously withheld files relating to the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy have ..

The hundreds of previously withheld files relating to the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy have been cleared for release.

On Friday, 2,891 records had been released but, after requests mostly from the CIA and FBI, US President Donald Trump had delayed the release of some "sensitive" files.

These files, around 300 of them, were to be reviewed further over the next six months.

But the FBI has said all had been cleared and will be published with some redactions to protect the identities of people who helped those investigating the former President Kennedy's death.

FBI spokeswoman Susan McKee said: "The limited redactions relate to individuals who provided information during the course of the investigation, and whose lives may be at risk if they are publicly identified.

"Every effort is being made to lift the remaining redactions going forward as those personal safety concerns are balanced with the goal of maximum transparency."

::JFK files: 10 things the classified papers reveal

The National Archives posted a number of the documents to its website and it plans to release the remaining records in the coming weeks.

Image:President Kennedy and the first lady arrive at Love Field in Dallas less than an hour before his death

President George HW Bush signed a law in 1992 requiring all documents on the assassination be released within 25 years, unless doing so would harm intelligence, law enforcement, military operations or foreign relations.

The batch of documents released on Friday included revelations that a reporter at a British newspaper had received an anonymous call about "some big news" in the US 25 minutes before the assassination.

According to the memo to the FBI: "The caller said only that the Cambridge News reporter should call the American Embassy in London for some big news and then hung up." After news of the president's death came through, details of the call had been passed to the police and MI5. The reporter was not named but was described as "a sound and loyal person with no security record".

One of the documents - this one is about Lee Harvey Oswald's visit to the Russian Embassy in Mexico City
Image:One of the documents – this one is about Lee Harvey Oswald's visit to the Russian Embassy in Mexico City

:: Will secret Kennedy files end assassination conspiracy theories?

It was also revealed that longtime FBI director J Edgar Hoover said after Oswald's arrest that he "received a call in our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice and saying he was a member of a committee organised to kill Oswald". The police had assured him Oswald would be protected but this "was not done".

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