Saturday, October 28, 2017

THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION: The Cover-up Continues

Newly released documents point to state cover-up and complicity in assassination of John F. Kennedy


By Barry Grey
28 October 2017
Information contained in nearly 2,900 previously classified documents released Thursday concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy further undermines the official narrative of a lone killer and points to a cover-up and complicity on the part of forces within the US intelligence agencies.
What are generally deemed the most sensitive—and potentially incriminating—documents were withheld, as President Donald Trump acceded to extraordinary pressure from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and delayed their release.
These 300 documents, consisting of thousands of pages of material, include an extensive file on the head of the CIA office in Dallas at the time of the November 22, 1963 killing; a dossier on a prominent Dallas businessman who conferred with nightclub owner Jack Ruby just before Ruby shot and killed the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald; files on two anti-Castro Cuban terrorists involved in mass murder; documents concerning Oswald’s six-day trip to Mexico City and meetings with Russian and Cuban officials seven weeks before the Kennedy assassination; and information on Watergate burglars and longtime CIA operatives E. Howard Hunt and James McCord.
From the moment the 35th president was killed by a volley of shots as his caravan drove past Dealey Plaza in Dallas up to the present time, there has been a systematic effort to keep from public view critical facts pointing to political motives underlying the murder and to dismiss all questioning of the 1964 Warren Commission Report as “conspiracy theories.”
The commission, announced by Lyndon Johnson a week after Kennedy’s assassination and headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, concluded that Oswald, acting alone and using a mail order rifle, killed Kennedy by firing three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building, which overlooks Dealey Plaza. The commission said Oswald had no connection to US intelligence agencies or other parties.
The American public, with good reason, has never accepted this narrative. A recent poll by FiveThirtyEight and SurveyMonkey found that only 33 percent of Americans believe the assassination was the work of only one person, while 61 percent believe others were involved. A 1979 report issued by the House Select Committee on Assassinations seconded this view, concluding that Kennedy “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.”
Kennedy’s assassination had a traumatic effect on the American public and continues to haunt the popular imagination. It came at a time of mounting crisis for US imperialism both at home and abroad, signaling the beginning of the end of the United States’ post-World War II global economic and geopolitical hegemony. Only weeks before his death, Kennedy sanctioned the coup that overthrew South Vietnamese President Diem, leading to his murder, an event that marked a nodal point in the escalation of the US intervention in Vietnam.
Washington’s mounting economic contradictions were reflected in a worsening balance of payments crisis and gold drain, which would lead eight years later to the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system and the ending of dollar-gold convertibility.
Domestically, the ruling class faced a growing civil rights insurgency and a militant working class determined to defend and extend its postwar economic gains. The elimination of Kennedy was an inflection point in the transition of US ruling class domestic policy from social reform and relative class compromise to class war and political reaction.
The documents released on Thursday make clear that both the FBI and the CIA were well aware of Oswald’s activities and were closely tracking him in the period leading up to the assassination. Yet they failed to warn the Secret Service, tasked with protecting the president, about the former Marine, turned expatriate living in the Soviet Union, turned active member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
One of the more spectacular documents concerns 1975 testimony by Richard Helms, the CIA director under presidents Johnson and Nixon, to the President’s Commission on CIA Activities, which was headed by then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. A lawyer for the commission is quoted asking Helms: “Is there any information involved with the assassination of President Kennedy which in any way shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was in some way a CIA agent or agent…?” At that point the document breaks off, without Helms’ reply.
Other material documents the fact that the intelligence agencies were closely monitoring Oswald’s movements. One document shows that the CIA intercepted Oswald speaking to a Russian KGB agent in Mexico City on September 28, 1963. Another, dated October 25, less than a month before the assassination, is from the New Orleans office of the FBI. In it, the FBI notes Oswald’s involvement in the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and discusses the agency’s contacts with Cuban sources concerning Oswald.
A number of documents shed light on the systematic nature of the cover-up, which began virtually the moment the shots rang out on Dealey Plaza. One is a memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover dictated the evening of November 24, 1963, shortly after Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald, before live TV cameras, as the Dallas police were leading the handcuffed suspect down a corridor in the police headquarters building.
Hoover says, “Last night we received a call in our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice and saying he was a member of a committee organized to kill Oswald.” He notes that he informed the Dallas police of the call and insisted that they take precautions to prevent an attack on Oswald. Furious that the accused assassin was killed before a confession had been extracted from him, Hoover writes of the need for “something issued so that we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.” This was written, of course, before any serious investigation of the killing had begun.
Lyndon Johnson, who told Earl Warren that his commission had a “patriotic mission” to stamp out “dangerous rumors” of state involvement in the assassination, was himself convinced that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy. One document in the trove released Thursday shows Richard Helms telling the Rockefeller Commission in 1975 that Johnson “used to go around saying that the reason President Kennedy was assassinated was that he had assassinated President Diem.”
In its account of the released documents, the Washington Post writes: “The CIA publicly acknowledged in 2014 that John McCone, its director at the time of the assassination, participated in a ‘benign cover-up,’ according to a paper by agency historian David Robarge. His article said McCone was ‘complicit in keeping incendiary and diversionary issues off the commission’s agenda.’ He wrote that McCone did not tell the commission about CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, some of which had been planned at the Mexico City station.”
There is ample material in the newly released papers concerning the criminal activities of the US government in the period leading up to the assassination. A 1975 document from the Rockefeller Commission speaks of Attorney General Robert Kennedy telling the FBI that the CIA considered approaching Chicago mobster Sam Giancana to have the mafia go to Cuba and kill Fidel Castro for $150,000. Schemes to assassinate Castro included the use of gunmen, poison pills, a skin-diving suit contaminated with a disabling fungus and tuberculosis, and a “booby-trap spectacular seashell.”
Behind the public face of the Kennedy administration marked by rhetoric about the defense of democracy around the world, both John and Robert Kennedy had a particular fascination with assassination plots, particularly against Castro. It was less than three years since the Bay of Pigs debacle, in which President Kennedy signed off on the CIA scheme to use Cuban anti-Castro expatriates to invade the island, murder Castro and install a US puppet regime.
Despite the failure of the plot and Kennedy’s fury over the CIA’s false assurances and incompetence, his administration remained mired in the swamp of anticommunist adventurers and terrorists. Two of the CIA’s anti-Castro allies, Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch, were implicated in the blowing up of a Cuban commercial airliner and death of 73 innocent passengers in 1976. Posada escaped from prison in Venezuela with the aid of an anti-Castro group with close ties to the Reagan administration. He was subsequently implicated in terrorist bombings in Cuba in the late 1990s.
Other illegal activities described in the newly released documents include the FBI’s relentless wiretapping of Martin Luther King, Jr., whom Hoover considered to be part of a world communist conspiracy, and FBI spying on Mark Lane, a liberal lawyer and author of a number of books debunking the Warren Commission Report.

 

 

 

America’s oligarchy: No money for opioid crisis, endless funds for corporate tax cuts

28 October 2017
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump proclaimed the opioid crisis, which killed some 64,000 people last year, a “public health emergency,” a move that, despite appeals from medical professionals and public health advocates, did not include one cent in additional funding.
More people died last year from drug overdoses than American soldiers were killed during the entire Vietnam War, with a staggering 175 people killed every day. Countless millions more have been affected, from friends and family members of addicts whose lives have been upended, to children born addicted to opioids.
Trump’s response to the opioid epidemic mirrors his administration’s response to every social crisis and disaster, such as the hurricanes that struck Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. The government has provided no meaningful federal aid to Puerto Rico, still suffering from widespread blackouts, while demanding it step up its payments to its Wall Street creditors.
But when it comes to funneling money to the US oligarchy, the White House and Congress are more than willing to oblige. Just hours before Trump’s announcement on the opioid crisis, the House of Representatives passed a budget bill that clears the way for Trump’s tax cut for corporations and the rich to be fast-tracked through Congress, for possible passage before Thanksgiving.
The plan, which would cost taxpayers some $5.8 trillion over the next ten years, would slash the corporate tax rate from the current 35 percent to 20 percent, eliminate the estate tax for multimillion-dollar inheritances, and slash rates for “repatriating” corporate profits held offshore.
These two measures present the outlook of the financial elite that dominates American society and controls both political parties: unlimited cash for the enrichment of the financial oligarchy and nothing to address the pressing social needs of the working population.
This bipartisan policy, which has been carried out for decades under the presidencies of Carter, Reagan, both Bushes, Clinton and Barack Obama before its radical escalation under Trump, has created a social catastrophe.
Its most direct manifestation is the persistent rise in mortality rates for the working class, which resulted in a fall in US life expectancy last year. In March, Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton concluded that the run-up in mortality, particularly for working-class whites, is driven by what they define as “deaths of despair”—those due to drug overdoses, complications from alcohol and suicide.
In Capital, Marx’s study of the capitalist system, the founder of the modern socialist movement concluded that the “accumulation of wealth at one pole is…at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.”
This statement is not only true, but empirically quantifiable. One study by epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett found a direct correlation between social inequality and a series of social ills, including homicides and violent crime, school achievement and dropout rates, teenage births, life expectancy and infant mortality, obesity, mental illness, and more.
Compared to other developed countries, the United States is off the charts on all measures. It is simultaneously the most unequal and the most socially distressed.
The inability and unwillingness of the political system to address any of the underlying causes of the social crisis gripping the United States is the direct product of the stranglehold over American society by the financial oligarchy, which ensures that the first and last priority is the protection and expansion of its wealth.
This reality was driven home in remarks by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who said earlier this month that the White House’s tax cuts had to pass because Wall Street would crash the stock market if they did not. “There is no question that the rally in the stock market has baked into it reasonably high expectations of us getting tax cuts and tax reform done,” he told Politico. “There’s no question in my mind that if we don’t get it done you’re going to see a reversal of a significant amount of these gains.”
The consequences of the Obama administration’s socially regressive policies were on display Thursday in a report by the Swiss bank UBS, which showed that the total wealth of the world’s billionaires shot up 17 percent in 2016, or $1 trillion, to a total of $6 trillion.
The US has more than a third of the world’s billionaires, and roughly half of all billionaire wealth, amounting to $2.8 trillion, according to the report.
One of those billionaires, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, became some $7 billion wealthier overnight on Thursday, becoming the world’s richest man, controlling $90 billion.
Bezos’ wealth is the outcome of the sweatshop-like conditions at the fulfillment centers operated by his company, which pays workers $10 per hour, subjects them to searches during the workday, and tracks their every move.
Despite the massive enrichment of the financial oligarchy documented by UBS’s report on the wealth of the world’s billionaires, the authors struck a worried note.
“We are now two years into the peak of the second Gilded Age,” Josef Stadler, UBS’s head of global ultra-high net worth, told the Guardian. “We’re at an inflection point” he said, “Wealth concentration is as high as in 1905… the question is to what extent is that sustainable and at what point will society intervene and strike back?”
Tellingly, the newspaper included in the article a painting depicting Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, addressing workers in Petrograd in 1917. The clear implication is that 100 years after the Russian Revolution, which led to a reduction of social inequality all over the world amid a wave of social struggles that it triggered and encouraged, similar revolutionary uprisings are again on history’s agenda.
In response to the drive to even further subject the entire population under the yoke of America’s oligarchy, the working class must fight for its social interests with equal ruthlessness and determination. It must adopt and fight for a socialist program, including the expropriation of the wealth piled up by the ruling elite, to meet immediate and pressing social needs: to provide urgently needed medical care to all those affected by the addiction epidemic, to make whole all those whose lives have been upended by Hurricanes Maria, Harvey and Irma, and to ensure that all people are provided with employment and free, high-quality health care, education and housing.
Andre Damon

Hillary Clinton: Faust and Mephistopheles Rolled into One

"Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast, And each will wrestle for the mastery there."  Goethe, Faust
Most people are nominally familiar with the legend of Faust.  There are many variations but the essence of the tale remains the same.  It tells the story of a man unhappy with his own lack of success in life.  In frustration he becomes a sorcerer. Practicing his black magic, the devil materializes and offers him a deal:  The devil, Mephistopheles, will serve Faust and help him become a success in return for his eternal soul.  From this tale we get the adjective "Faustian," to describe people whose pride and arrogance leads to their own downfall.  Hillary is both Faust and Mephistopheles.   She has, from her college days, sought ever-increasing power and money.  In the process,  she became both Faust, the eternally dissatisfied "scholar," and Mephistopheles, the paragon of evil.  
From early days as the first lady of Arkansas, she felt entitled to more money and prestige than her husband earned as governor.  Together with her husband, she got them both involved in the Whitewater and Madison Guaranty real estate and bank scandals.  Once in the White House, her first depraved undertaking was to fire the entire White House travel office staff in order to turn the business over to a cousin of Bill Clinton's and some Arkansas friends. Then there were the "bimbo eruptions. "  She was in charge of silencing Bill's conquests who might speak the truth about her husband's wanton sexual adventures.   A full list of Clinton corruptions can be found here. It is a long list. 
"If I wasn't a devil myself, I'd give Me up to the Devil this very minute"  -Goethe
For those paying attention, Hillary has long been known to be a woman wholly without an ethical bone in her body.  And this was before we learned that it was she who commissioned the fake dossier that was meant to take Trump down and out, first out of the campaign and after he was elected, out of the White House.  Now we know that it was her campaign and the DNC who together paid nearly $9 million for that piece of rubbish that likely led to the Obama administration's spying on a host of private citizens they hoped would lead them to a prosecutable crime.  She now claims she did not know about the dossier she herself had commissioned, but that is clearly a lie, as she tweeted her knowledge of it before it was publicly known, before the election.  The woman could not tell the truth if a gun was held to her head.  Consider the blatant, shameful lies she told about the Benghazi tragedy.  She lied to the faces of the families of the dead. She laughedabout it, as she so often does inappropriately,  at the hearing at which she testified thirty-nine times that she "could not recall"  when questioned about the details of what happened that night. 
“Fools that will laugh on earth, most weep in hell.”  Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
While her defenders in the media are making light of the news that Hillary's campaign commissioned the dossier rather than admit they have been wrong about Trump colluding with Russia for nearly a year, the worst of her malevolence has finally broken through the logjam that comprises the mainstream media. The fact that she sold out American national security for money, $145m plus Bill's $500k for a speech tells the story; she is as culpable for her crimes as was Aldrich AmesShe orchestrated the sale of 20% of U.S. uranium to Putin and she did it with the full knowledge of Obama, Bob Mueller, James Comey, Eric Holder and Rod Rosenstein.  Each of them is a traitor as well for letting it happen.  This bit of skullduggery renders Watergate equivalent to a littering violation.  It is a huge betrayal of the country not to mention our formerly constitutional government.  (Peter Schweizer wrote about all of this in his book Clinton Cash, 2015)  And still, the media folk in her camp, the same ones who thought Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with the Russian lawyer constituted treason, are defending her part in the biggest scandal since the HUAC hearings and the Rosenbergs' conviction as spies. 
In the very early pre-Goethe versions of  Faust, the devil, despite his "pact," of course betrays Faust who is constantly deceived by the devil's deceptions but Faust is irrevocably corrupt and the devil "drags him off to hell."  Faust wastes the fleeting power he was given with cheap indulgences, as Hillary has so often;  Hillarycare, for one, and two failed runs for the presidency are a few of her many cheap indulgences.  Faust tried to escape from the pact because of the burden of disgrace and damnation but Mephistopheles wins the day.   In Goethe's version ofFaust, God saves him in the end because of his prodigious efforts to redeem himself. Hillary has made no such effort.  For forty years, she has made use of her inner devil to malign, cheat and destroy anyone who got in the way of her Faustian quest for money and power.  And despite the wealth and influence she did amass, she has been her own worst enemy.  She seems a woman who completely lacks any sense of joy.  Her loss to Donald Trump is evidence that God works in mysterious ways. 
It is common knowledge by now that the Clinton Foundation did very little charitable work and was mainly a slush fund for the luxurious life style of the Clinton family and their favored friends.  It took in millions of dollars from mostly foreign nations and corporations who got whatever "favors" they paid for in her pay-to-play scheme.  The $145 million that Russia paid the Foundation via a Canadian bank was for that 20% of American uranium.  We know that some of that uranium has left the country, despite what Hillary's defenders say, and where it went we do not know.  North Korea?  Iran?  She sold her soul long ago for fame, power and money.  
"Alas, I have studied philosophy, the law as well as medicine, and to my sorrow, theology; studied them well with ardent zeal, yet here I am, a wretched fool, no wiser than I was before."  -Goethe
Franz Liszt wrote the Mephisto Waltz as a musical expression of Faust.  It was written as an integral part of a Faust play by Nikolaus Lenau and connotes Faust's spinning out of control.   It is a perfect accompaniment to Hillary's Faustian career.  Randy Newman wrote and produced his own updated  musical version ofFaust in 1995.  This lyric from one of his songs seems an apt description of where Hillary stands today: 
"I'm bleedin' all over the place, Bleedin' all over.  Get me a witness To record my disgrace, How I've been dishonored, Deceived and debased.  Then someone get me a band-aid Before I fall on my ******' face 'Cause I'm bleedin' all over the place." 
Indeed she is.


Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US

history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.

OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to

the top 1% of the world’s wealthy. 

*
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE TRUMP EVER DID IN IS LIFE IS NOT PROSECUTE HILLARY CLINTON!

THE LIFE OF HILLARY CLINTON: AMORAL PSYCHOPATH and GLOBAL

LOOTER OF THE POOR….. But she served Obama’s crony bank$ter$ well!

Harvey Weinstein has been exposed in the media as the sexual predator he is, and Hillary Clinton has been exposed as the craven money-grubber she is; money over morality is the mantra she lives by. PATRICIA Mc CARTHY – AMERICAN THINKERcom
"But what the Clintons do is criminal because they do it wholly at the expense of the American people. And they feel thoroughly entitled to do it: gain power, use it to enrich themselves and their friends. They are amoral, immoral, and venal. Hillary has no core beliefs beyond power and money. That should be clear to every person on the planet by now."  ----  Patricia McCarthy - AMERICANTHINKER.com

THE DIRTY DEALS of DIRTY HILLARY….. looting anything that moves!

Harvey Weinstein has been exposed in the media as the sexual predator he is, and Hillary Clinton has been exposed as the craven money-grubber she is; money over morality is the mantra she lives by. PATRICIA Mc CARTHY – AMERICAN THINKERcom


"But what the Clintons do is criminal because they do it wholly at the expense of the American people. And they feel thoroughly entitled to do it: gain power, use it to enrich themselves and their friends. They are amoral, immoral, and venal. Hillary has no core beliefs beyond power and money. That should be clear to every person on the planet by now."  ----  Patricia McCarthy - AMERICANTHINKER.com

WikiLeaks offers $100,000 reward for the 


redacted parts of the JFK assassination 


files that have been held back by the CIA 


for 'security reasons'

  • WikiLeaks will pay $100,000 for  redacted parts of the JFK files
  • They will pay if they  'show violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error'
  • White House will allow CIA and FBI to black out portions of some JFK assassination documents for six months while they justify the edits
  • Trump said he was going to lift the 'veil' of secrecy on Thursday but he is now allowing exceptions for files that would expose 'informants' and foreign spies
  • 1992 law required the president to release all the government's documents related to the 1963 assassination by Thursday
  • But it gave the White House a national security loophole and Trump is taking it 
WikiLeaks is offering a $100,000 to the person who can provide them with the redacted parts of the files relating to the assassination of John F Kennedy.
However, the organisation will only pay the reward if the unreleased parts of the documents 'show violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error'. 
They made the offer in a tweet Friday morning after nearly 2,900 of the JFK assassination files were released last night.
Around 200 documents have been held back by federal agencies as they say they pose a risk to national security, a fact which is said to have displeased President Trump.
Trump 'had no choice' but to allow intelligence, law enforcement and military agencies to redact specific pages, but unless they can justify this within six months they too will be released.
WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, will only pay the reward if the unreleased parts of the documents 'show violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error'
WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, will only pay the reward if the unreleased parts of the documents 'show violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error'
President Donald Trump has let the National Archives release 2,891 pages of material related to the John F. Kennedy assassination, but he's letting the FBI and CIA redact ¿ black out ¿ portions of other documents for the next six months
President Donald Trump has let the National Archives release 2,891 pages of material related to the John F. Kennedy assassination, but he's letting the FBI and CIA redact – black out – portions of other documents for the next six months
The trove of files was published on the National Archives website on Thursday night, but President Trump has kept some back so federal agencies can black out portions
The trove of files was published on the National Archives website on Thursday night, but President Trump has kept some back so federal agencies can black out portions
'He was unhappy with the level of redactions,' a White House official told CNN.
The person added that 'Trump believed the agencies were "not meeting the spirit of the law."'
The White House has released 2,891 documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy that have long been kept secret. 
The trove of files was published on the National Archives website on Thursday night, and produced revelations and prompted more questions about the fateful day in Dallas in 1963.
The documents revealed that Lee Harvey Oswald was being tracked by the FBI before JFK was killed and met a KGB agent in Mexico City's Soviet Embassy two months before the shooting.
An unidentified man also called the FBI and said they were going to kill Oswald - just 24 hours before he was gunned down by Jack Ruby while in police custody. 
One of the documents is a transcript of a conversation with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover over a threat made against Lee Harvey Oswald 
One of the documents is a transcript of a conversation with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover over a threat made against Lee Harvey Oswald 
President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; a 1992 law set October 26, 2017 as the deadline for the government to release all its information about who killed him and why ¿ but gave the White House a loophole for national security
President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; a 1992 law set October 26, 2017 as the deadline for the government to release all its information about who killed him and why – but gave the White House a loophole for national security
John F. Kennedy and wife Jackie arrived at Love Field during a campaign tour on day of his assassination
John F. Kennedy and wife Jackie arrived at Love Field during a campaign tour on day of his assassination
A White House official told DailyMail.com during a conference call that while Trump wants to remove the 'veil' of secrecy regarding the 1963 killing, he has 'no choice today but to accept those redactions rather than risk irreversible harm' to the country. 
'There does remain sensitive information in the records,' the official said, often 'related to the identity of individuals involved, in their roles as informants.'
The official also said some edits would be made to hide 'activities that were conducted with foreign partner agencies.'  
The administration has essentially 'kicked the can a bit,' a White House aide admitted after a conference call with reporters on Thursday.
'We can't keep this up forever,' he admitted, 'but it's better to get it right than to do it quickly.'
Trump tweeted Wednesday about the forthcoming release of JFK assassination files, showing no hint that he would allow government agencies to hide parts of some documents from public view
Trump tweeted Wednesday about the forthcoming release of JFK assassination files, showing no hint that he would allow government agencies to hide parts of some documents from public view
Bystanders looked on as Jacqueline Kennedy reached over to help her husband who lay on the rear of a car after being struck by an assassin's bullet as his motorcade traveled through Dealey Plaza
Bystanders looked on as Jacqueline Kennedy reached over to help her husband who lay on the rear of a car after being struck by an assassin's bullet as his motorcade traveled through Dealey Plaza
Although Washington closed the case shortly after JFK's death, there have been several conspiracy theories, including that the murder plot involved Cuban leader Fidel Castro and there has long been rumors of a second shooter
Although Washington closed the case shortly after JFK's death, there have been several conspiracy theories, including that the murder plot involved Cuban leader Fidel Castro and there has long been rumors of a second shooter
Hours after he killed Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald talked to the media as he was led down a corridor of the Dallas police station for questioning
Hours after he killed Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald talked to the media as he was led down a corridor of the Dallas police station for questioning
The Dallas Police Department mug shots of Lee Harvey Oswald following his arrest for possible involvement in the John F. Kennedy assassination and the murder of Officer J.D. Tippit, who he killed after shooting the president 
The Dallas Police Department mug shots of Lee Harvey Oswald following his arrest for possible involvement in the John F. Kennedy assassination and the murder of Officer J.D. Tippit, who he killed after shooting the president 
The White House has set April 26, 2018 as the new deadline for spy and law enforcement agencies to justify each and every redaction.
'Executive departments and agencies have proposed to me that certain information should continue to be redacted because of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns,' Trump wrote in a memo to the National Archives. 
'I have no choice – today – but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our Nation's security.'
'To further address these concerns, I am also ordering agencies to re-review each and every one of those redactions over the next 180 days. At the end of that period, I will order the public disclosure of any information that the agencies cannot demonstrate meets the statutory standard for continued postponement of disclosure,' he added.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that Trump 'has demanded unprecedented transparency from the agencies and directed them to minimize redactions without delay.'
JFK: Fact and Fable reveals Jackie's influence in White House
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After the shooting, Secret Service agent Clinton Hill (pictured) ran from a car directly behind the President's and jumped onto the vehicle in order to further protect JFK and the First Lady
After the shooting, Secret Service agent Clinton Hill (pictured) ran from a car directly behind the President's and jumped onto the vehicle in order to further protect JFK and the First Lady
Trump during the 2016 campaign promoted information about Rafael Cruz, Sen. Ted Cruz's father, suggesting he may have been involved in the JFK assassination
Trump during the 2016 campaign promoted information about Rafael Cruz, Sen. Ted Cruz's father, suggesting he may have been involved in the JFK assassination
That revised time-frame will leave him open to claims of a new cover-up as he find s himself stuck between students of the killing who want every scrap of information and intelligence agencies that are counseling restraint.
One of the documents released on Thursday night included a transcript of a conversation with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover concerning a threat made against Lee Harvey Oswald. 
'There is nothing further on the Oswald case except that he is dead. Last night, we received a call in our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice and saying he was a member of a committee organized to kill Oswald,' Hoover says. 
He also says he was assured by Dallas police that they would give the shooting suspect protection, but Jack Ruby managed to kill him on November 24, 1963, two days after JFK's assassination. 
Other files not related to the shooting show that Robert Kennedy was sent a memo when he was Attorney General warning him that a book detailing his affair with Marilyn Monroe was about to be published.
There is also more insight into the elaborate plots to kill communist leaders in Latin America, including Fidel Castro.
The White House said that about 2,800 files released on Thursday to the National Archives and Records Administration are only those that will be released 'in full' – and agencies will be able to roll out partially edited documents over the next week.
'The vast majority of the requests came from the FBI and CIA,' a White House official said. 
Footage shows the moments leading up to assassination of JFK
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This 1964 photo shows the bipartisan presidential commission that investigated the Kennedy assassination; from left are: Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich.; Rep. Hale Boggs, D-La.; Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga.; Chief Justice Earl Warren, chairman of the group; Sen. John Sherman Cooper, R-Ky.; John J. McCloy, a New York banker; Allen W. Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and J. Lee Rankin, general counsel for the commissio
This 1964 photo shows the bipartisan presidential commission that investigated the Kennedy assassination; from left are: Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich.; Rep. Hale Boggs, D-La.; Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga.; Chief Justice Earl Warren, chairman of the group; Sen. John Sherman Cooper, R-Ky.; John J. McCloy, a New York banker; Allen W. Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and J. Lee Rankin, general counsel for the commissio
The National Archives has more than 5 million pages of records related to the 1963 Kennedy assassination including photos, films, recordings and artifacts.
About 88 percent of it has been fully available to the public since the late 1990s, and another 11 percent has been released with sensitive portions blacked out. 
The remaining one percent has remained totally secret.
Under a 1992 law passed after Oliver Stone made a conspiracy-laden JFK assassination movie, everything was set for an October 26, 2017 release.
The law's framers built in a national security loophole, and Trump has been convinced by America's top cops and spymasters to take it.
Kennedy's assassination has attracted conspiracy theories ever since he was gunned down in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. 
Shortly before the Indiana primary election last year, Trump promoted a National Enquirer story about Rafael Cruz, the father of his chief rival at the time, Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
The story featured a hazy photograph that it claimed might show Rafael Cruz standing next to JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
'His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald's being – you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous,' Trump told Fox News at the time.  
This image provided by the Warren Commission is  an overhead view of President John F. Kennedy's car in Dallas motorcade on Nov. 22, 1963, and was the commission's Exhibit No. 698. Special agent Clinton J. Hill is shown riding atop the rear of the limousine. President Donald Trump is caught in a push-pull on new details of Kennedy's assassination, jammed between students of the killing who want every scrap of information and intelligence agencies that are said to be counseling restraint.  How that plays out should be known on Oct. 26, 2017, when long-secret files are expected to be released. (Warren Commission via AP)
This image provided by the Warren Commission is an overhead view of President John F. Kennedy's car in Dallas motorcade on Nov. 22, 1963, and was the commission's Exhibit No. 698. Special agent Clinton J. Hill is shown riding atop the rear of the limousine. President Donald Trump is caught in a push-pull on new details of Kennedy's assassination, jammed between students of the killing who want every scrap of information and intelligence agencies that are said to be counseling restraint. How that plays out should be known on Oct. 26, 2017, when long-secret files are expected to be released. (Warren Commission via AP)
Warren Commission Exhibit No. 697 showed Kennedy at the extreme right on the rear seat of his limousine during the Dallas motorcade where he was killed
Warren Commission Exhibit No. 697 showed Kennedy at the extreme right on the rear seat of his limousine during the Dallas motorcade where he was killed
View of people as they cry and wait for news outside Parkland Hospital, where President John F Kennedy had been taken following his assassination
View of people as they cry and wait for news outside Parkland Hospital, where President John F Kennedy had been taken following his assassination
Lyndon Johnson was sworn in on Air Force One alongside JFK's widow just hours after the President was shot. Jackie Kennedy refused to change out of her blood-soaked Chanel suit
Lyndon Johnson was sworn in on Air Force One alongside JFK's widow just hours after the President was shot. Jackie Kennedy refused to change out of her blood-soaked Chanel suit
'What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don't even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it,' Trump said.
No matter how much is ultimately revealed about the 1963 killing in Dallas, it probably won't be enough to satisfy conspiracy theorists who believe someone other than Lee Harvey Oswald was involved in the assassination, including the government itself.
The Warren Commission in 1964 reported that Oswald was a lone gunman, and another congressional probe in 1979 found no evidence to support the theory that the CIA had been involved. But other interpretations, some more creative than others, have persisted.
For example, Roger Stone, a close Trump ally, advanced the unsubstantiated and widely disdained theory that Lyndon Johnson, who became president upon Kennedy's death, was involved in it.
Stone is not sure key documents will see the light of day. He said that 440 documents related to the assassination, released by the National Archives in July, were so heavily redacted 'on the basis of 'national security' that they are useless.'
Stone said he's lobbied Trump personally to release all remaining materials and believes the CIA is pushing the president to keep some secret. 
Led by members of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia the Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, and the US Marine Corps band the funeral procession of slain President John F. Kennedy approaches the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery after passing the Lincoln Memorial and crossing over the Potomac River on Memorial Bridge
Led by members of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia the Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, and the US Marine Corps band the funeral procession of slain President John F. Kennedy approaches the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery after passing the Lincoln Memorial and crossing over the Potomac River on Memorial Bridge
JFK was buried on November 25, 1963 as America watched on. Jackie Kennedy stood solemnly with her children Caroline Kennedy and John Jr
JFK was buried on November 25, 1963 as America watched on. Jackie Kennedy stood solemnly with her children Caroline Kennedy and John Jr
Members of the Kennedy family at the funeral of assassinated president John F. Kennedy at Washington DC. Three-year-old John Kennedy saluted his father
Members of the Kennedy family at the funeral of assassinated president John F. Kennedy at Washington DC. Three-year-old John Kennedy saluted his father
The gunshots that the Warren Commission said killed Kennedy almost immediately inspired theories about whether Oswald had been the lone gunman who, with extraordinary luck by any measure, had hit his target.
As the nation mourned in disbelief, Oswald was shot and killed in police custody by Jack Ruby - forcing Americans to consider whether their government was hiding what it knew of the assassination. 
The event remains in the nation's living memory for a significant slice of the country. Forty-nine million Americans, or 15 percent of the country, are age 65 and over, according to the Census Bureau. They were around age 11 or older at the time.
The Warren Commission did little to settle the matter. Theories abounded that Oswald's murder was a cover-up for a conspiracy or government ineptitude. The deadly aim of a lonely, alienated gunman seemed hard to fathom. 
Fidel Castro waves to the people in Havana in this file photo from January 8, 1959
Castro and other combatants started a revolutionary war against the U.S.-backed regime of Fulgencio Batista in December 1956 and over the next two years they conducted a guerrilla struggle that won increasing popular support
Fidel Castro waves to the people in Havana in January 1959 (left). Castro and other combatants started a revolutionary war against the U.S.-backed regime of Fulgencio Batista in December 1956 and over the next two years they conducted a guerrilla struggle that won increasing popular support

PRESIDENTIAL MEMO ON THE JFK PAPERS 

'The American public expects -- and deserves -- its Government to provide as much access as possible to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records so that the people may finally be fully informed about all aspects of this pivotal event. Therefore, I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted. At the same time, executive departments and agencies have proposed to me that certain information should continue to be redacted because of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns. I have no choice – today – but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our Nation's security. To further address these concerns, I am also ordering agencies to re-review each and every one of those redactions over the next 180 days. At the end of that period, I will order the public disclosure of any information that the agencies cannot demonstrate meets the statutory standard for continued postponement of disclosure under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (44 U.S.C. 2107 note).
'Accordingly, by the authority vested in me as President and Commander in Chief by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby certify that all information within records that agencies have proposed for continued postponement under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act must be temporarily withheld from full public disclosure until no later than April 26, 2018, to allow sufficient time to determine whether such information warrants continued postponement under the Act. This temporary withholding from full public disclosure is necessary to protect against harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.
'I hereby direct all agencies that have proposed postponement of full disclosure to review the information subject to this certification and identify as much as possible that may be publicly disclosed without harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations.
'Any agency that seeks to request further postponement beyond this temporary certification shall adhere to the findings of the Act, which state, among other things, that 'only in the rarest cases is there any legitimate need for continued protection of such records.' The need for continued protection can only have grown weaker with the passage of time since the Congress made this finding. Accordingly, each agency head should be extremely circumspect in recommending any further postponement of full disclosure of records. Any agency that seeks further postponement shall, no later than March 12, 2018, report to the Archivist of the United States on the specific information within particular records that meets the standard for continued postponement under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act. Thereafter, the Archivist shall recommend to me, no later than March 26, 2018, whether the specific information within particular records identified by agencies warrants continued withholding from public disclosure after April 26, 2018.
'The Archivist is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.'
Curious citizens await the release of JFK assassination files
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5023713/WikiLeaks-offer-100-000-reward-redacted-JFK-files.html#ixzz4wpHnn400
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