The JFK files: the truth at last?

More than 64,000 previously classified documents relating the 1963 assassination have been released by the Trump administration

JFK
"The paradigm of modern conspiratorial thinking"
(Image credit: Bettman / Contributor)

"It's been 60 years, time for the American people to know the TRUTH." So declared Donald Trump on the campaign trail, vowing to order the release of all official records related to the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. Last week that cache of documents, nearly 64,000 pages of it, was duly released, said A.O. Scott in The New York Times.

Some are illegible owing to age, and it will take months for people to scour through them all. Many, though, will be eager to do so. The JFK assassination is the "source and paradigm of modern conspiratorial thinking". Hosts of self-styled sleuths will be poring through them for evidence that Kennedy was killed by the Mafia or the CIA or the "Deep State".

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up