Cambridgeshire Police has 'no record' of JFK call

The president and first lady were in Dallas when the assassination happened

A UK police force has no record of a local newspaper being alerted to "some big news" in the US minutes before President John F Kennedy was assassinated.

Recently declassified files from the National Archives in the US said a call was made to the Cambridge News less than half an hour before he was shot.

A memo said the paper later informed Cambridgeshire Police, which told MI5.

However, the force said it could find no record related to the call.

The Cambridge News has been unable to ascertain which member of its staff might have received the call or passed the details to police.

Under a Freedom of Information Act request, the BBC asked Cambridgeshire Police to check its records from November 1963 for information related to the incident.

The BBC asked about the call from a newspaper reporter, and any subsequent calls made by police to MI5, but the force could find nothing.

"Searches were conducted at Cambridgeshire Constabulary for information relating to your request," Cambridgeshire Police said in its reply.

"These searches failed to locate any records or documents relevant to your request."

The force concluded it "[does] not hold the information".

President Kennedy was shot as he rode in a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1963 at 12:30 Central Standard Time - six hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.

The document linking the incident with Cambridge - from the deputy director of the CIA James Angleton to the FBI director, J Edgar Hoover - said the British Security Service (MI5) had reported a call was made to the senior reporter of the newspaper.

"The important point is that the call was made, according to MI5 calculations, about 25 minutes before the President was shot," it said.

"The Cambridge reporter had never received a call of this kind before, and MI5 state that he is known to them as a sound and loyal person with no security record."

The life and death of JFK (r) continues to fascinate more than half a century later