Still-secret JFK assassination files draw increasing
attention and White House petition
November 29, 2013 (MMD Newswire) - - The biggest
news to emerge from all the coverage of the 50th anniversary of assassination
of President John F. Kennedy are reports of the huge number of US government
files about the murder that still remain secret.
Even Secretary of State John Kerry recently called
for the release of the files, telling NBC News "it is totally appropriate
for a country like the United States to open up the files."
This week's extensive report in the Boston Globe is
only the latest detailing the many troubling US government files about JFK's
assassination that still remain secret, more than fifty years after his murder.
Among those are FBI files and tapes about a godfather's confession to JFK's
murder and a secret Naval Intelligence investigation of the assassination that
reached a conclusion different from the Warren Commission.
Joining the Globe in reporting on the important CIA,
FBI and Naval Intelligence files that remain secret are the Chicago Tribune,
NBC News, MSNBC, the New York Post, the Guardian, the BBC, and UPI.
Cited as an expert by all of those was author Lamar
Waldron, whom Variety called "the ultimate JFK historian" in matters
about the assassination. Waldron has just petitioned the White House to release
all the files immediately, instead of waiting until the year 2017 or beyond, as
is currently planned.
As Waldron points out in his newest book, The Hidden
History of the JFK Assassination, the National Archives has so far refused to
say how many pages remain secret. While some journalists estimate that number
at 50,000 pages, NBC News reported several years ago that "millions"
of page remain secret. Washington think-tank OMB Watch, which interviewed
officials involved in releasing 4.5 million pages of JFK assassination files in
the 1990s, said even after that effort "well over a million CIA
records" remain unreleased. Waldron's book points out the CIA figure
doesn't included the many FBI, Secret Service, and Naval Intelligence files and
tapes about JFK's murder that remain unreleased.
Waldron noted that the Warren Commission was only
the first, and least informed, of six government committees that investigated
JFK's assassination. The fifth investigation--the House Select Committee on
Assassinations--had access to much information that federal agencies had
withheld from the Warren Commission. The House Committee officially concluded
after a two-year investigation that JFK was "likely" killed by a
conspiracy, and that two Mafia godfathers, Santo "Trafficante [and Carlos]
Marcello had to motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President
Kennedy."
The most recent government committee, the JFK
Assassinations Records Review Board, was created when Congress unanimously
passed the 1992 JFK Act with the support of then-Senator John Kerry and Senator
Edward Kennedy. Among the files released by the Review Board were almost a
hundred pages of uncensored files detailing how the FBI used a secret
undercover operation, code-named CAMTEX, to obtain the JFK assassination
confession of Louisiana/Texas godfather Carlos Marcello.
Waldron obtained addition information from the FBI's
informant, Jack Van Laningham, and from key FBI agents involved in the
operation. The FBI files show that Marcello talked about his control of Jack
Ruby and meeting Lee Oswald, while Van Laningham detailed Marcello's account to
him of importing two hit men from Europe to do the actual shooting. FBI files
and personnel confirm that Van Laningham, who was Marcello's cellmate in the
Texarkana federal prison, put a court-authorized bug in their cell that
recorded "hundreds of hours" of audio tape of Marcello talking about
his many crimes. Yet the FBI refused to turn over any of those tapes to the
Review Board and still refuses to release the tapes, the transcripts, and their
many additional files about CAMTEX and Marcello's admissions.
Waldron's book documents many little-known aspects
of JFK's murder, all of which point to the existence of many thousands of pages
of still-unreleased FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and Naval Intelligence files.
This includes the documented attempt to assassinate JFK from a tall building
with a high-powered rifle during his motorcade in Tampa, Florida, four days
before Dallas, and the afore-mentioned Naval Intelligence investigation of
Oswald. One of the Naval Intelligence investigators said their report concluded
that Oswald was "incapable of masterminding the assassination or of doing
the actual shooting."
According to Waldron, The Hidden History of the JFK
Assassination is able to reveal so much about the still-secret files because he
got the full story directly from many of those involved, including more than
two dozen associates of John and Robert Kennedy, starting with JFK's Secretary
of State, Dean Rusk.
Many sensitive files, like those about the Tampa
attempt and the Naval Intelligence investigation, were withheld not just from
the Warren Commission, but from the later five government investigating
committees as well. Regarding CIA files withheld from the House Select
Committee, its director, Robert Blakey, told PBS that it "amounted to
obstruction of justice." The Chairman of the JFK Review Board, Judge John
Tunheim, talked to the Boston Globe about those same files, saying "It
really was an example of treachery. If [the CIA] fooled us on that, they may
have fooled us on other things."
Waldron says this decades-long pattern of agencies
withholding files from investigating committees and the public is why he
started a White House petition, to release all of the JFK assassination files
immediately. The petition can be found at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov or
from the link atwww.thehiddenhistoryofthejfkassassination.com.
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Contact: Lorna Garano
Counterpoint
510-280-5397
lornagarano@gmail.com
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