Four key takeaways from release of JFK files

John F Kennedy was the last US president killed by an assassin

Enthusiasts are poring over thousands of newly released documents related to the investigation into President John F Kennedy's assassination.

As many experts expected, this latest release by the Trump administration does not answer all lingering questions about one of the US's historic turning points - the 1963 killing of Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.

But the latest batch does include documents that are now mostly or fully unredacted. They reveal further how much the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) observed JFK's killer before the shooting.

A US government investigation in the 1960s concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a drifter and former US Marine who at one point defected to the then-Soviet Union, acted alone when he shot at Kennedy's motorcade from a nearby building.

However, the case still prompts questions, along with wild conspiracy theories, more than 60 years later - and the latest release is unlikely to change that. Here are some key takeaways.

• JFK experts scour newly unsealed assassination files

1. More on Oswald - but no bombshells

The documents further shed light on the CIA's strong surveillance of Oswald, said Jefferson Morley, a former Washington Post reporter and editor of the JFK Facts blog.

"He's a subject of deep interest to the CIA" long before the assassination, and the extent of this has only become clear in the last few years, Mr Morley said.

Many of the new documents have been released before - but now more complete versions are available. Although specialists are still combing through, no earth-shattering stories have surfaced.

Still, Mr Morley calls it "the most exciting news around JFK records since the 1990s".

"Several very important documents have come into public view," he said.

Experts have therefore praised the release as a step forward for transparency. In the past, hundreds of thousands of documents were made available but were partially redacted. Others were held back, with officials citing national security concerns.

Philip Shenon, who wrote a 2013 book about the assassination, told the Associated Press that previously released documents described a trip Oswald took to Mexico City in September 1963, months before the assassination.

The CIA was monitoring him at that time, he said, according to the AP. "There's reason to believe he talked openly about killing Kennedy in Mexico City and that people overheard him say that."

In a previously released April 1975 memo, the CIA downplayed what it knew about Oswald's trip to Mexico City, the AP reported. The CIA recorded three phone calls between Oswald and a guard at the Soviet embassy, it said, but Oswald only identified himself in one.

Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle and communist newspapers in an undated photo released by the Dallas Police Department

2. Intelligence methods revealed

A number of the documents shed light on Kennedy's relationship with the CIA before his death and on intelligence-gathering techniques - giving a window into Cold War operations.

A newly unredacted memo reveals a more complete version of a note written by Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger.

Critical of the CIA and its role in shaping foreign policy, the note shows the agency's huge presence in US embassies, even in allied countries such as France.

In it, Schlesinger warns Kennedy about the agency's influence on American foreign policy. Though not directly related to the assassination, the memo details the rocky relationship between the president and intelligence agencies.

The CIA is traditionally opposed to releasing operational or budget information, said David Barrett, a Villanova University professor and expert on the CIA and presidential power.

"It's a very good thing for the government to release these documents even if there still may be some redactions," he said.

One document details the use of fluoroscopic scanning - using X-rays to show images of the inside of an object.

The technique was developed to detect hidden microphones possibly used to bug CIA offices.

In another document, the CIA describes a system to secretly tag and identify public phone boxes that are tapped, using a paint only visible under ultraviolet light.

The memo is also notable for one of the names in it - James McCord, who would later gain infamy as one of the men who burgled the Watergate complex. The break-in kicked off the unravelling of the scandal that toppled President Richard Nixon.

3. Old theories resurrected

Some well-known online accounts claimed that the recent documents reveal new details about long-alleged plots against Kennedy - even though some of the supposed revelations have been public for years.

They includes several viral posts about Gary Underhill - a World War Two military intelligence agent.

Mr Underhill reportedly claimed that a cabal of CIA agents was behind the assassination, a theory openly published in Ramparts, a left-wing magazine, in 1967. Mr Underhill's death in 1964 was ruled a suicide, but the magazine cast doubt on that as well.

Photos of a seven-page memo regarding Mr Underhill went viral on Tuesday - but the bulk of it is not new. His story has long been discussed online and the CIA memo mentioning it was first released in 2017.

Just a few sentences on one page of the memo were newly unredacted in the latest release.

And crucially the theory is based on a second-hand account published after Mr Underhill's death and includes no hard evidence.

However, the story was just one of a number of unsubstantiated theories circulating following the release of the files.

4. Are the files completely unredacted?

A 1992 law required all of the documents related to the assassination to be released within 25 years - but that law also included national security exceptions.

The push for greater transparency has led to more releases over time - both President Trump in his first term and President Biden, as recently as 2023, released batches of documents.

Ahead of the new release, President Trump said that he asked his staff "not to redact anything" from them.

That doesn't appear to be entirely the case - the new documents still have some redactions. However, experts were largely in agreement that the latest release was a step forward for transparency.

JFK Files journalist Morley said there are further documents in the National Archives yet to be released, and others held by the CIA and FBI that have not yet been accounted for.

Even though there could be more releases to come - as well as promised drops about the killings of Robert F Kennedy Sr and Martin Luther King Jr - the questions around the JFK assassination will almost certainly continue.

"Whenever there is an assassination there will be debates and to some degree there will be conspiracy theories," said Barrett, the Villanova historian. "That's not going to change because of these or any other documents."