Demanding under the 1992 JFK Records Act that all remaining documents of the Nov. 22, 1963 JFK assassination be released, the largest online directory of JFK assassination sued the Biden administration to win their release. Biden delayed the release Oct. 27, 2021 citing the Covid-19 global pandemic, giving the National Archives more time to disseminate the information. Filed today by the Mary Ferrell Foundation—the largest open archive of JFK assassination docs—the nonprofit sued to have the remaining 15,000 docs released to the public. President Bill Clinton signed the 1992 JFK Records Collection Act to authorize the release of any-and-all documents held by the government associated with the 1963 JFK assassination. “It’s high time that the government got its act together and obeyed the spirit and the letter of law,” said Jefferson Morley, Vice President of the Mary Ferrell Foundation.
Morley said it’s the government’s responsibility to stop the delay and release at the earliest possible time of the remaining 15,000 JFK assassination-related docs. “This is about our history and our right to know it,” Morley said, urging the Biden administration to act with urgency to get out the remaining docs. “It was a momentous crime, a crime against American democracy. And the American people have the right to know,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the brother of the 35th president. “The law requires the records to be released. It’s bizarre. It’s been almost 60 years since my uncle’s death. What are they hiding,” asked RFK Jr. Countless numbers of books, articles and manuscripts have been written over the last 60 years speculating about the events the preceded-and-followed JFK’s assassination. No one knew why the U.S. government covered-up its findings on the assassination.
JFK assassination experts don’t think the 15,000 of redacted documents will answer the question of who’s responsible for JFK’s Nov. 22, 1963 assassination. It took the government nearly three years after the assassination to release Sept. 24, 1964 the 888-page Warren Report that concluded that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, without any “evidence” of conspiracy. Few people believed the conclusions of the Warren Report, breeding wild speculation over the last 60 years. Former CIA Agent Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, who’s lectured at Harvard on the assassination, doesn’t believe his former employer, the CIA, has come clean with the American public. Mowatt-Larssen believes the CIA had contact with Oswald in the months, weeks and days before the assassination. “What I think happened, in a nutshell, is that Oswald was recruited into a rogue CIA plot,” Mowatt-Larssen said.
With all the docs kept from the public, it’s obvious that the government had a vested interest in covering up its involvement in JFK’s assassination. “This group of three, four or five rogues decided their motive [was] to get rid of Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis because they through it was their patriotic duty given the threat the country was under at the time and their views, which would be more hard-line or more radically anti-communist and very extreme politically,” Mowatt-Larssen said. While still speculation, it offered one former CIA-agentt’s view of possible motives to get rid of Kennedy. CIIA officials said they would respond by Dec. 15 the date given by Biden to release any-and-all remaining JFK assassination documents. Lawsuit filed today in San Francisco federal court said the government has not complied with the 1992 JFK Record’s Act.
Representing the Mary Ferrell Foundation, lawyer Bill Simpich said the Biden White House delayed the release due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “This case is all about delay. The agencies always have new and better excuses,” Simpich said, forcing the government to put-up-or-shut-up regarding the last 15,000 documents. Simpich’s lawsuit claims the government illegally redacted at least 11 records—a memo from the 1961 reorganizing of the CIA following the failed Bay of Pigs operation. Files on three CIA operatives that concocted a 1962 false flag operation to take place on U.S. soil, records related to assassination plots on Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and a JFK documents taken by Howard Hunt, one of the Watergate burglars. Simich’s lawsuit asked the National Archives to find other JFK-relevant documents but not part of the 15,000 documents scheduled for release.
Mary Ferrell Organization wants to get to the bottom of the JFK assassination with the release of all JFK collection documents but anything else the National Archives possesses but has not released to the public. Simpich claims that one of the docs involves George Joannides, the former CIA chief in Miami, Florida. Joannides served in New Orleans exile group that had several contacts in 1963 with Lee Harvey Oswald. Putting the dots together on the JFK assassination hasn’t been easy with so many documents withheld or redacted. Simpich hopes any more docs obtained under the current suit should help piece together what’s become a monstrous jigsaw puzzle on JFK’s assassination. Whatever comes out from the Mary Ferrell lawsuit, it’s doubtful it will produce a smoking gun, something not already known about Nov. 22, 1963. Yet every doc released helps researchers connect-the-dots.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
