Hundreds of the juiciest JFK files are BLOCKED by Donald Trump over national security fears
THE CIA and FBI blocked the release of hundreds of the most sensitive documents in the newly-released files on the death of JFK.
Senior administration officials say the spy and crime agencies wanted some documents about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy kept secret.
"I have no choice," Trump said in a memo, citing "potentially irreversible harm" to national security if he were to allow all records to come out now.
The US government last night released a mammoth, long-awaited trove of secret files on the crime that has fuelled half a century of conspiracy theories.
The collection includes more than 3,100 documents comprising hundreds of thousands of pages that have never been seen by the public.
The National Archives is to release 2,800 of the remaining records now.
About 30,000 documents were released previously with passages blacked out.
Intriguingly, one document contains a deposition from Richard Helms, deputy CIA director under Kennedy who later became CIA chief, to a commission studying unauthorised CIA activities in domestic affairs.
A lawyer asks 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."
His response is mysteriously absent.
The CIA and FBI may be blocking the release of certain documents to hide their own failings, said Larry Sabato, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia and the author of "The Kennedy Half Century."
"They had every indication that Oswald was a misfit and a sociopath," he said.
But neither agency informed the Secret Service, which is charged with protecting the president, he said.
The US Government claims most of the documents that have now been released were not made public before because they were "not assassination-related" or "not believed relevant".
But speculation about the content of the secret files among conspiracy theorists will be rife.
There are still many unanswered questions about the assassination - mainly about assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's links with the Soviet Union, Cuba and even the CIA.
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR
- Trump finally released the hotly-anticipated files but withheld thousands of others, saying he had "no choice" due to "national security reasons"
- Lee Harvey Oswald had secret meetings with KGB assassination chief two months before JFK was killed - and the FBI knew
- Soviet leaders considered Oswald a "neurotic maniac" who was disloyal to country
- They feared they would be nuked and ultimately blamed for JFK assassination
- FBI agents were grilled by a Senate committee over their failure to stop Oswald after his six-day Mexico visit
- The FBI had been trying to track Oswald before the assassination, with Cuban sources having said he was of interest
- Bizarre assassination plots for Fidel Castro also revealed including shell bomb
- Cambridge newspaper received mystery tip-off 25 minutes before assassination
- New conspiracy theory suggests Dallas cop J D Trippit was JFK's real killer
- The FBI warned Dallas police there was a threat to kill Oswald after the President's assassination but it was not acted on
- Hoover flagged concerns about Oswald, saying: "The thing I am concerned about is having something issued so that we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin."
- FBI memo reveals details of Bobby Kennedy's relationship with Marilyn Monroe
- According to the records, Oswald and Jack Ruby met in a Florida airport as part of a group heading to Cuba to "cut sugar cane" before the assassination and were heard by an informant discussing "Big Bird"
Conspiracy theories include a CIA plot, a mafia hit job and a covert operation by the Vice President Lyndon Johnson.
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 the killing.
He believes official killer Oswald was just a stooge - and instead the assassination was masterminded by Johnson and the CIA, which feared JFK was too soft on communist Cuba.
Another theory is that there was a second gunman involved, firing from a "grassy knoll" along the route of Kennedy's presidential motorcade.
A report from the the House of Representatives said there was a "high probability" that two marksmen fired at Kennedy.
THE DEATH OF AN AMERICAN ICON
US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in November 22 in 1963 as he travelled in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza.
Thousands of books, articles, TV shows and films have explored the idea that Kennedy's assassination was the result of an elaborate conspiracy.
Historians believe that the secret files can shed light on the assassination of President Kennedy.
No one knows for sure who killed JFK but the official version is that the culprit was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Shortly after, Oswald, a 24-year-old self-proclaimed Marxist, was arrested in a nearby cinema after apparently shooting Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit.
He denied shooting anybody claiming to reporters that he was a "patsy".
Two days after the assassination, Oswald was gunned down by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being escorted through the basement of the Dallas police station.
The Warren Commission in 1964 reported that Oswald had been the lone gunman, and another congressional probe in 1979 found no evidence to support the theory that the CIA had been involved.
But some say this was a cover-up.
President Donald Trump has asked all crime and intelligence agencies to go back and review their suggested redactions so that even more of the material can be released in coming months.
Officials say Trump will impress upon federal agencies that JFK files should stay secret after the six-month review "only in the rarest cases."
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