President Joe Biden’s administration released more than 13,000 records of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination Thursday, but it fell short of fully complying with the spirit of a 30-year-old law demanding transparency by now.
With Thursday’s action, about 98 percent of all documents related to the 1963 killing have now been released and just 3 percent of the records remain redacted in whole or in part, according to the National Archives, which controls the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection.
The records include more information on accused gunman Lee Harvey Oswald and his time spent in Mexico City.
But about 4,300 records remain redacted in part — with no record completely blacked-out — according to the agency, and experts say there’s no justification for withholding them to protect national security or intelligence gathering.
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Surprisingly, I learned all about this guy reading Don DeLillo’s novel Libra. It’s basically a straight retelling of all the CIA cranks in connection with Lee Harvey Oswald in the several years of his life leading up to the assassination.
It’s ostensibly fiction, and obviously a lot of the details are unknowable, but if you’re curious for a vibrant portrait of how involved the US intelligence state could have been (almost certainly was) and how they work with assets, the book is a fascinating read.
