Details related to America’s most notable assassinations may finally be revealed to the public.
Buried under layers of secrecy and red tape, the full findings related to the homicides of President John F. Kennedy, his brother and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., are slated to be released after decades of being locked away.
On Thursday, January 23, President Donald Trump ordered the release of thousands of classified files on the hits of the three high-profile figures. Their assassinations have sparked intense controversy and conspiracy theories throughout the years.
Now, with the expected declassification of the files, questions about their tragic deaths are expected to be answered.
An executive order was signed for the release of classified files related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr
Image credits: PhotoSpirit/stock.adobe.com
"Everything will be revealed," Trump told reporters as he signed the order.
The order instructed the national intelligence and attorney general to form a plan to release the JFK files in the next 15 days and plans to release all the RFK and MLK files in 45 days.
Over half a century has passed since the assassination of JFK, America's youngest president, on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.
The 46-year-old president was riding in an open-roofed convertible in a motorcade, waving at admirers when three gunshots fatally struck him.
JFK was declared dead 17 minutes after arriving at the hospital, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president shortly after.
America's youngest president JFK was fatally shot three times on November 22, 1963
Image credits: Cecil William/JFK Library
The image of Jacqueline Kennedy’s pink suit, stained with her husband’s blood, is an image that American history can never forget.
“Mrs. Kennedy's dress was stained with blood. One leg was almost entirely covered with it and her right glove was caked, it was caked with blood—her husband's blood,” Lyndon’s wife Lady Bird Johnson wrote in her diary.
Shooter Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested an hour after the assassination. But he never stood for trial as he was murdered by nightclub owner Jack Ruby on live television while being transferred from the city jail to the county jail.
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known as the Warren Commission, concluded that Oswald and his killer Ruby both acted alone in their respective crimes. However, that did not quell conspiracy theories surrounding JFK’s death.
Many refused to believe that Oswald was a lone gunman. Theories have speculated the involvement of the Cuban government, the mafia, and even the CIA in the assassination, with many claiming the Warren Commission’s revelations were a cover-up by government agencies.
“Mrs. Kennedy's dress was stained with blood ... her husband's blood,” Lady Bird Johnson wrote in her diary
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons
It is still unclear, even today, why Oswald shot the president.
“The explanation of Oswald's motive for killing President Kennedy was buried with him,” TIME reported in 1964.
The assassination of civil rights icon Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also sent shockwaves through the country on April 4, 1968.
The Atlanta preacher was in Memphis, Tennessee, to support a sanitation workers’ strike when a single bullet struck him in the jaw and neck, severing his spinal cord while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
Officially, King's assassin was named as 40-year-old James Earl Ray. However many, including MLK’s own family, suspect a larger conspiracy and believe Ray was innocent.
“There is abundant evidence of a major high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband,” King’s widow Coretta King said in 1999
Image credits: Scherman Rowland/National Archives Catalog
Ray, who was captured in June 1968 at Heathrow Airport in London, initially confessed to the crime but later said he was set up by a man named Raoul.
Theories involve FBI surveillance, government orchestration, and even the mafia, pointing to evidence of a broader effort to suppress the civil rights movement.
“There is abundant evidence of a major high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr.,” his widow Coretta King said at a press conference in 1999. She stuck to this belief until her death in 2006.
Meanwhile, conspiracy theories suspecting FBI involvement point to how King and his associates were often under FBI surveillance. The surveillance included his phone being tapped and his movements being monitored during the 50s and 60s.
Until the day of his death in 1998, James Earl Ray maintained that he did not assassinate MLK
Image credits: Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni
“They might not have been involved in the murder, but I wish people knew the really shameful things that they did.” John McMillian, a history professor at Georgia State University, previously said about the bureau.
Donald Wilson, a former agent with the FBI, said he took papers from Ray’s abandoned car and found references of Raoul and other names linked with JFK’s assassination.
Wilson said the same papers were stolen from him by “someone who later worked in the White House subsequently,” according to the Department of Justice.
Ray maintained that he did not kill MLK until the day he passed away in 1998.
Robert F. Kennedy, another adored figure for his commitment to the civil rights movement, was assassinated on June 5, 1968, just months after announcing his presidential candidacy.
42-year-old Robert F. Kennedy was shot inside the Ambassador Hotel in LA just months after announcing his presidential candidacy
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons/Bettman Archive
Shortly after delivering a speech in Los Angeles, 42-year-old Robert F. Kennedy, JFK's brother, was shot while shaking hands with a hotel busboy in a kitchen corridor outside the Ambassador Hotel’s ballroom. He died the next day.
Sirhan Sirhan, an immigrant from Palestine, was convicted for the killing and remains behind bars. But many suspect the involvement of other forces, much like in the assassination of his brother.
Theories speculate the presence of a second gunman, with some arguing that the trajectory of the bullets didn’t match Sirhan’s position.
“Sirhan fired only two shots directly at my dad. One of them struck [Paul] Schrade (RFK’s close friend) in the head. The other likely lodged in a door jam behind my father,” the assassinated senator’s son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in a San Francisco Chronicle article in 2021.
“The Los Angeles Police Department had the audiotape at the time of Sirhan’s trial, but illegally concealed it from his lawyers and the public for 20 years,” he added.
Sirhan Sirhan, an immigrant from Palestine, was convicted for the killing of the senator
Image credits: Library of Congress
Following the Thursday signing of the executive order, many praised the impending declassification of the documents related to the three assassinations.
“Our government, led by corrupt bureaucrats, has hidden this information from the American people for far too long. Americans deserve to know the truth, whether it makes the government look good or not,” US Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida. said in a statement.
“We’ve been waiting since 1963,” one social media user said.
“Everything will be revealed,” Trump said as he signed the order for the declassification of files related to the assassinations
Image credits: Abbie rowe/JFK Library
Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, believes the release of the files “will be interesting for history.”
However, it likely will not disclose a “smoking gun document” about JFK’s assassination “that will turn the case on its head.”
“There are some files that are still sealed about the Mafia and CIA plots against Fidel Castro. I’d like to know more about that,” Posner told NBC News.
“There’s a document in there on Mexican intelligence information that was gathered on Oswald when Lee Harvey Oswald visited Mexico City only six weeks before the assassination, and it might disclose the extent to which the CIA knew how unbalanced Oswald was and they didn’t tell the FBI. So there could be some embarrassing things in here,” he added.
“We’ve been waiting since 1963,” one social media user said following the news of the executive order
