DALLAS (AP) — More than 63,000 pages of records related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy were released Tuesday following an order by President Donald Trump, many without the redactions that had confounded historians for years and helped fuel conspiracy theories.
The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration posted to its website roughly 2,200 files containing the documents. The vast majority of the National Archives' collection of over 6 million pages of records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts related to the assassination have previously been released.
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FILE - President John F. Kennedy waves from his car in a motorcade approximately one minute before he was shot, Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas. Riding with President Kennedy are first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, right, Nellie Connally, second from left, and her husband, Texas Gov. John Connally, far left. (AP Photo/Jim Altgens, File)
FILE - Secret servicemen standing on running boards follow the presidential limousine carrying President John F. Kennedy, right, rear seat, and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, left, as well as Texas Gov. John Connally and his wife, Nellie, in Dallas, Texas, Nov. 22, 1963. (AP Photo/Jim Altgens, File)
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FILE - President John F. Kennedy waves from his car in a motorcade approximately one minute before he was shot, Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas. Riding with President Kennedy are first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, right, Nellie Connally, second from left, and her husband, Texas Gov. John Connally, far left. (AP Photo/Jim Altgens, File)
FILE - Part of a file, dated April 5, 1964, details efforts to trace Lee Harvey Oswald's travel from Mexico City back to the United States, is photographed in Washington, Oct. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)
FILE - This Nov. 22, 1963 file photo shows President John F. Kennedy riding in motorcade with first lady Jacqueline Kenndy in Dallas, Texas. (AP Photo, file)
FILE - Part of a file, dated Nov. 24, 1963, quoting FBI director J. Edgar Hoover as he talks about the death of Lee Harvey Oswald, is photographed in Washington, Oct. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)
FILE - Secret servicemen standing on running boards follow the presidential limousine carrying President John F. Kennedy, right, rear seat, and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, left, as well as Texas Gov. John Connally and his wife, Nellie, in Dallas, Texas, Nov. 22, 1963. (AP Photo/Jim Altgens, File)
FILE - In this Nov. 22, 1963 file photo, the limousine carrying mortally wounded President John F. Kennedy races toward the hospital seconds after he was shot in Dallas. (AP Photo/Justin Newman, File)
FILE - Newly-elected President Kennedy posed for first pictures at his White House desk, Jan. 21, 1961, before plunging into a busy round of conferences. (AP Photo/Bill Achatz, File)
Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of “The Kennedy Half-Century,” said it will take time to fully review the records.
“We have a lot of work to do for a long time to come, and people just have to accept that,” he said.
Trump announced the release Monday while visiting the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, saying his administration would be releasing about 80,000 pages.
“We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading,” Trump said.
Before Tuesday, researchers had estimated that 3,000 to 3,500 files were still unreleased, either wholly or partially. And just last month the FBI said it had discovered about 2,400 new records related to the assassination.
Jefferson Morley, vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a repository for files related to the assassination, said in a statement posted on the social platform X that the release is “an encouraging start.” He said much of the “rampant overclassification of trivial information has been eliminated” from the documents.
The National Archives said on its website that in accordance with the president’s directive, the release would encompass “all records previously withheld for classification.” But Morley said what was released Tuesday did not include two-thirds of the promised files, any of the recently discovered FBI files or 500 Internal Revenue Service records.
"Nonetheless, this is the most positive news on the release of JFK files since the 1990s,” Morley said.
Interest in details related to Kennedy's assassination has been intense over the decades, with countless conspiracy theories spawned about multiple shooters and involvement by the Soviet Union and mafia.
He was killed Nov. 22, 1963, on a visit to Dallas, when his motorcade was finishing its parade route downtown and shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository building. Police arrested 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, who had positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor. Two days later nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer.
A year after the assassination, the Warren Commission, which President Lyndon B. Johnson established to investigate, concluded that Oswald acted alone and that there was no evidence of a conspiracy. But that didn’t quell a web of alternative theories over the decades.
Oswald was a former Marine who defected to the Soviet Union before returning home to Texas.
Files in the new release included a memo from the CIA’s St. Petersburg station from November 1991 saying that earlier that month, a CIA official befriended a U.S. professor there who told the official about a friend who worked for the KGB. The memo said the KGB official had reviewed “five thick volumes” of files on Oswald and was “confident that Oswald was at no time an agent controlled by the KGB.”
The memo added that as Oswald was described in the files, the KGB official doubted “that anyone could control Oswald, but noted that the KGB watched him closely and constantly while he was in the USSR.” It also noted that the file reflected that Oswald was a poor shot when he tried target firing in the Soviet Union.
In the early 1990s, the federal government mandated that all assassination-related documents be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration. The collection was required to be opened by 2017, barring any exemptions designated by the president.
Trump, who took office for his first term in 2017, had said that he would allow the release of all of the remaining records but ended up holding some back because of what he called the potential harm to national security. And while files continued to be released during President Joe Biden’s administration, some remained unseen.
Sabato said that his team has a “long, long list” of sensitive documents it is looking for that previously had large redactions.
“There must be something really, really sensitive for them to redact a paragraph or a page or multiple pages in a document like that,” he said. “Some of it’s about Cuba, some of it’s about what the CIA did or didn’t do relevant to Lee Harvey Oswald.”
Some of the previously released documents have offered details on the way intelligence services operated at the time, including CIA cables and memos discussing visits by Oswald to the Soviet and Cuban embassies during a trip to Mexico City just weeks before the assassination.
Associated Press writer John Hanna contributed from Topeka, Kansas.
FILE - President John F. Kennedy waves from his car in a motorcade approximately one minute before he was shot, Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas. Riding with President Kennedy are first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, right, Nellie Connally, second from left, and her husband, Texas Gov. John Connally, far left. (AP Photo/Jim Altgens, File)
FILE - Part of a file, dated April 5, 1964, details efforts to trace Lee Harvey Oswald's travel from Mexico City back to the United States, is photographed in Washington, Oct. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)
FILE - This Nov. 22, 1963 file photo shows President John F. Kennedy riding in motorcade with first lady Jacqueline Kenndy in Dallas, Texas. (AP Photo, file)
FILE - Part of a file, dated Nov. 24, 1963, quoting FBI director J. Edgar Hoover as he talks about the death of Lee Harvey Oswald, is photographed in Washington, Oct. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)
FILE - Secret servicemen standing on running boards follow the presidential limousine carrying President John F. Kennedy, right, rear seat, and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, left, as well as Texas Gov. John Connally and his wife, Nellie, in Dallas, Texas, Nov. 22, 1963. (AP Photo/Jim Altgens, File)
FILE - In this Nov. 22, 1963 file photo, the limousine carrying mortally wounded President John F. Kennedy races toward the hospital seconds after he was shot in Dallas. (AP Photo/Justin Newman, File)
FILE - Newly-elected President Kennedy posed for first pictures at his White House desk, Jan. 21, 1961, before plunging into a busy round of conferences. (AP Photo/Bill Achatz, File)
The Israeli military said Wednesday it launched a “limited ground operation” to retake part of a key corridor that bisects northern Gaza from the south.
The assault into the Netzarim corridor appears to deepen Israel's renewed offensive in Gaza. Israel shattered the ceasefire with Hamas on Tuesday in a wave of heavy strikes, which strikes have continued into Wednesday but at a lower intensity.
More than 400 Palestinians were killed — nearly two-thirds of them women and children — making Tuesday the deadliest day in Gaza after 17 months of war, according to Gaza's Health Ministry said. Its records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will press ahead until it achieves all of its war aims — destroying Hamas and freeing all hostages held by the militant group since its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel ignited the war. Hamas has yet to respond militarily.
Here's the latest:
Without naming Israel, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the deadly strike on a U.N. guesthouse in Gaza and called for an investigation.
Israel denied earlier reports that it had targeted the U.N. compound. But there have been no reports of rocket fire or other Palestinian militant attacks since Israel broke the ceasefire on Tuesday.
“The locations of all UN premises are known to the parties to the conflict, who are bound by international law to protect them,” Guterres said in a statement via U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.
The U.N. has not yet said which country the international staff member working in Gaza was from.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up his rhetoric regarding Yemen’s Houthi rebels as the American military launched more airstrikes against the group, warning they “will be completely be annihilated.”
Trump made the comment on his website Truth Social. He claimed, without offering evidence, Iranian military support to the rebels “has lessened” but said it needed to entirely stop.
“Let the Houthis fight it out themselves,” he wrote. “Tremendous damage has been inflicted upon the Houthi barbarians, and watch how it will get progressively worse — It’s not even a fair fight, and never will be. They will be completely annihilated!”
The Houthis said strikes against them continued overnight. The U.S. military has not offered a breakdown of the strikes.
Despite more than a year of U.S. strikes and naval patrols, experts say commercial shipping will likely continue to stay out of the region because of the Houthi threat.
The new Syrian government wants to bring Syria’s breakaway Kurdish militias back under government control, but the details of their recent breakthrough agreement are still being worked out and negotiators will have overcome a decade of civil war.
Government officials met Wednesday in the northeastern province of Hassakeh with the commander of the main Kurdish-led group in the country, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is backed by the U.S.
The meeting comes a week after Syria’s interim government signed a deal with the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast, including a ceasefire and the merging of the SDF into the Syrian army.
The deal should be implemented by the end of the year. It would bring northeast Syria’s borders and lucrative oil fields under the central government’s control.
Palestinians living close to a U.N. building in Gaza that was hit by a deadly strike on Wednesday say the facility had been struck multiple times by tank shelling in recent days.
Naief al-Lahham said the building was hit by tank shelling Tuesday evening, but it didn’t result in casualties.
On Wednesday morning, he heard two explosions minutes apart, he told the AP, adding that the attack came from an Israeli position just east of the building. A U.N. staffer was killed and at least five others wounded.
The explosion shook al-Lahham’s house, damaging its windows. He said he was lightly injured by pieces of glass.
The U.N. says it had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike and confirmed that the military was aware of the facility’s location. Israel denies targeting the U.N. compound.
A spokesman for Hamas said Israel’s closure of the main north-south route in Gaza, the Salahuddin road, is part of Israel’s “blockade on Gaza.”
“The Zionist occupation, under American cover and international silence, is destroying life in Gaza and reneging on the signed agreement,” Abdel-Latif al-Qanou said in a statement Wednesday.
Israel has closed all Gaza’s border crossings since the beginning of the month and banned the entry of food and other supplies. There had been a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza during the ceasefire.
Al-Qanoua said Hamas is willing to engage with any proposal leading to starting negotiations on implementing the ceasefire's second phase.
He said the only person who benefits from resuming the war is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while it “threatens the life of the hostages in Gaza."
Both Israel and the United States blame the renewed hostilities on Hamas’ refusal to release more hostages before negotiations on ending the war proceed — which was not part of the ceasefire agreement.
As part of the ceasefire, Israel had withdrawn from the Netzarim corridor, which it had used as a military zone and which bisected northern Gaza from the south.
The move appeared to deepen the renewed Israeli offensive in Gaza, which shattered the two-month-long ceasefire with Hamas.
In a statement Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that Israel was preparing to step up its new offensive.
Katz said that if the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are not freed, “Israel will act with an intensity that you have not seen.”
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to what remained of their homes and Israeli forces had pulled back to a buffer zone during the ceasefire in Gaza, which began in late January.
The clashes along the Lebanon-Syria border, where smuggling is widespread, was the worst fighting there since the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government in December.
The fighting happened after Syria’s interim government accused militants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group of crossing into Syria on Saturday, abducting and killing three soldiers. Hezbollah denied involvement and some other reports pointed to local clans in the border region that are not directly affiliated with Hezbollah but have been involved in cross-border smuggling. The Lebanese government said the three Syrians killed were smugglers.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said seven people in Lebanon were killed in the fighting, and 52 others were wounded. Four Syrian journalists embedded with the Syrian army were lightly wounded after an artillery shell fired from the Lebanese side of the border hit their position.
An international United Nations staffer was killed and at least five others were wounded in a strike on a U.N. guesthouse in the Gaza Strip, a U.N. official said Wednesday.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, head of the U.N. Office for Project Services, declined to say who carried out the strike but said the explosive ordnance was “dropped or fired” and the blast was not accidental or related to demining activity. UNOPS operates the mechanism tracking aid trucks into Gaza, does demining and helps bring fuel in.
He did not provide the nationalities of those killed and wounded.
The Israeli military, which has carried out a heavy wave of airstrikes since early Tuesday, denied earlier reports that it had targeted the U.N. compound. There have been no reports of rocket fire or other Palestinian militant attacks.
Moreira da Silva said strikes had hit near the compound on Monday and struck it directly on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, when the staffer was killed. He said the agency had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike and confirmed that the military was aware of the facility’s location.
“Israel knew this was a U.N. premise, that people were living, staying and working there,” he said.
The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 436 people, mostly women and children, have been killed since Israel launched a wave of heavy airstrikes early Tuesday.
The ministry said another 678 people have been wounded in the strikes, which continued into Wednesday but at a lower intensity.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas.
The ministry said at least 183 children and 94 women have been killed since the strikes began early Tuesday. Its records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The Israeli military has denied striking a United Nations compound in central Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said an Israeli strike on a U.N. building in Gaza on Wednesday wounded five international staffers.
There was no immediate comment from U.N. officials.
“Contrary to reports, the (Israeli military) did not strike a U.N. compound” in the central city of Deir al-Balah, the army said in a statement.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Israel’s airstrikes are “tragic step backwards” for the Palestinian people and for Gaza, and for Israeli hostages and their families.
Macron, speaking alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II on a visit to France, called for an immediate end to hostilities and resumption of negotiations including with the U.S. administration toward a permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages.
The two leaders were also expected to discuss the need to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and restoring access to water and electricity in the Palestinian territory, Macron’s office said.
Malaysia said it will accept 15 Palestinians who were released from Israeli jails and exiled as part of the January ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said in remarks published Wednesday in The Star newspaper that the move was a small contribution from Malaysia, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, to ensure peace in Gaza.
Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil told local media that security agencies would strictly monitor the Palestinians’ movement once they arrive.
Lebanon’s state news agency said a U.N. peacekeeper was wounded when a mine exploded in the country's south.
National News Agency did not give further details about the blast between the villages of Zibqine and Yater, near the border with Israel.
Andrea Tenenti, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, confirmed that a peacekeeper was wounded during an operational activity and was taken to a Beirut hospital for surgery.
The Gaza Health Ministry says an Israeli strike has wounded five international U.N. workers.
It says they were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in central Gaza after their headquarters was struck on Wednesday.
It was not clear which U.N. body they were affiliated with. There was no immediate comment from U.N. spokespeople or the Israeli military.
Israel launched a wave of airstrike across Gaza on Tuesday, killing over 400 Palestinians, according to the ministry. Israel says it targeted Hamas militants.
Thousands of Israelis marched in Jerusalem on Wednesday to protest a resumption of the war in the Gaza Strip, fearing it could further endanger some two dozen hostages held by Hamas.
A sea of Israeli flags could be seen outside the Israeli parliament a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shattered a fragile ceasefire by launching heavy strikes on Gaza.
Families and supporters of the hostages fear renewed fighting could be a death sentence for their loved ones in captivity. The hostages “are waiting for us to take them out and to bring them home, but war will not do it. Only negotiations will do it,” protester Alon Shirizly said.
Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, including 24 who are believed to be alive.
The demonstrators are also protesting Netanyahu’s plan to fire the head of Israel’s internal security agency, the latest in a series of moves that his critics view as an assault on Israeli democracy.
A government statement on Wednesday said Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the ultranationalist Jewish Power party, regained his portfolio as national security minister. He had left the coalition in January to protest the ceasefire with Hamas.
His return strengthens Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition ahead of a crucial budget vote this month and improves its chances of surviving until the next scheduled elections in October 2026.
Ben-Gvir supports the full resumption of the war with the aim of annihilating Hamas, depopulating Gaza through what he refers to as the voluntary migration of Palestinians and rebuilding Jewish settlements there.
Displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings traveling from Beit Hanoun to Jabaliya, a day after Israel's renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings traveling from Beit Hanoun to Jabaliya, a day after Israel's renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
An Israeli tank maneuvers on the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Palestinians evacuate an injured man after his house was hit by an Israeli bombardment in Gaza City, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
The impact of a projectile is visible on the wall of the U.N. guesthouse, where United Nations workers were located when the building was struck, leaving one staff member dead and five others injured in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
An injured United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) worker is brought into al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital following what the U.N. described as a strike in which an explosive ordnance was "dropped or fired" in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians evacuate an injured man after his house was hit by an Israeli bombardment in Gaza City, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
An injured United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) worker is brought into al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital following what the U.N. described as a strike in which an explosive ordnance was "dropped or fired" in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israelis march on a highway toward Jerusalem to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
An injured United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) worker is treated at the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital after an explosion in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, Wednesday March 19, 2025.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The body of United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) worker is taken into the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital after an explosion in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, Wednesday March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A view of destroyed buildings by Israeli bombardments in the northern Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
An Israeli Apache helicopter fires towards the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israelis march in a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his plans to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, in Jerusalem on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli tanks at a position near the Gaza border in southern Israel, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
In this image made from a video released by the Israeli Government Press Office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a statement Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Israeli Government Press Office via AP)
People carry the bodies of Palestinians killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip as they are brought for burial at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
People carry the bodies of Palestinians killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip as they are brought for burial at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israelis march on a highway toward Jerusalem to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israelis march on a highway toward Jerusalem to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Palestinians inspect their damaged house following an Israeli bombardment in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Mourners pray over the bodies of Palestinians killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip as they are brought for burial at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
