The JFK Files Release in Context

With the dust having settled after Thursday's chaotic release of some JFK assassination files by the National Archives, a clearer picture has emerged as to what was actually made public last night.

Despite media reports trumpeting that the federal government has posted around 2,900 files which had been approved by President Trump, the true nature of those documents is somewhat deceiving.

Leading up to the long-awaited deadline day, much of the attention of conspiracy researchers and historians centered around the 3,100 never-before-seen files that were due to be declassified.

Alongside those coveted files, another 30,000 previously-redacted documents were also expected to be released with the 'hidden' information reinserted into the censored materials.

Here is where Thursday's release gets a tad tricky as differentiating between those two types of documents is critical to understanding what was really made public.

According to researchers who have perused the files, of the 3,100 heretofore-unseen files, a mere 52 were declassified on Thursday, leaving a whopping 3,000 or so still secret.

Therefore, the roughly 2,800 other documents that were posted at the National Archive website were 'cleaned up' files from the batch of 30,000 that had already been released in redacted form years earlier.

Amazingly, that means that there are still thousands more redacted documents that also were held back for 'national security concerns' at yesterday's deadline.

However, to those unaware of the distinction between the two types of documents and the vast number of files that had been due to be released, it would appear that the government released 2,900 of the 3,100 files, which, as you can see, is far from the case.

Another unfortunate aspect of Thursday's release, assassination experts say, is that the information contained in those files had already made its way to the research community long ago.

This is important to keep in mind as the mainstream media has been feverishly repacking those old details while touting them as 'JFK revelations' gleaned from the freshly-released files.

As to the 52 new files made available, the general consensus among parapolitical pundits is that there is nothing particularly noteworthy to be found in them.

Insights surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald's time in Mexico prior to the assassination, a key detail of the case believed to be contained in the secret files, were among the many documents held back on Thursday.

With President Trump having pushed the deadline to April 26th of 2018, historians and conspiracy theorists hope that they will finally be able to get their hands on the documents then.

But as the events of the past few days have indicated, nothing is for certain and, even if some files do get released, they may not necessarily be the ones we've all been waiting for.