The Kennedy Papers revealed the CIA's cynicism. Answers to the main questions

US President Donald Trump has fulfilled one of his election promises — declassified the "dossier of President John F. Kennedy." The data collected for the investigation of the most high-profile murder in the United States has been published for the first time in an unedited form. Was it known in advance about the assassination attempt, was the USSR involved in it, and who was harmed by the publication of the investigation documents — in the Izvestia material

Was the Soviet Union involved?

The assassination of Kennedy is still controversial (we have discussed in more detail what makes us doubt the official version of events here). For a long time, the United States insisted on Soviet involvement in the Kennedy assassination, as Harvey Lee Oswald, a Marine and Marxist, fled to the Soviet Union in 1959, and returned to the United States three years later. But an investigation by a panel headed by Judge Earl Warren concluded that the killer acted alone.

One of the recordings directly refutes the possibility of the Soviet KGB's involvement in the training of a mercenary. Retired University of Maryland professor E. B. Smith, who taught at St. Petersburg State University in 1991, spoke in Moscow with a KGB agent, Slava, who said he had studied five thick volumes of documents on Oswald — he was being monitored during his stay in the USSR — but the agent concluded that No one controlled Oswald. In addition, Lee Harvey Oswald in the Soviet Union proved to be a bad shooter and a man with a "very complex character."

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Who knew about the impending assassination attempt?

One of the files provides explanations from Bulgarian Sergey Chernonog, who informed the British police on July 18, 1963, four months before the fatal shots were fired, that Lee Harvey Oswald was preparing an assassination attempt on US President John F. Kennedy. In his letter, the man reported that he had not been able to request this file from British intelligence and asked to be protected from bullying and torture by the police.

According to Chernonog, he received an order to transfer information to the US government that Lee Harvey Oswald was a mercenary and intended to assassinate President Kennedy from the consul of the USSR Embassy in Bulgaria in August 1963. That same month, he informed the Special Counsel for the State Department of the impending assassination in Dallas and that Lee Harvey Oswald would also be killed after completing his task.

As the documents showed, the CIA had been monitoring Oswald even before the assassination attempt: in October 1963, the agency intercepted his call to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City. The assassination attempt itself took place on November 22, 1963, and two days after Harvey Lee Oswald was detained, he was shot dead by an American who came out of the crowd while being transferred to another police department. Journalists were present at the scene, and the moment of the murder was broadcast live.

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Why was the CIA against the publication?

Among the declassified documents was a memorandum on the "Reorganization of the CIA" by Kennedy adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr., from which information on the number of secret CIA employees working abroad was removed during the previous publication. Schlesinger reported that about 1.5 thousand employees of the State Department were actually CIA agents and acted contrary to the US ambassadors. About half of the embassy's consulting staff worked for intelligence.

It follows from the document that Washington was concerned about the agency's breadth of authority in conducting covert operations abroad. In addition, the work of intelligence officers disguised as State Department employees was supposed to be a temporary and limited measure, but it became widespread because it was cheaper for CIA agents and provided a "more pleasant life." The agency even tried to prevent the State Department from contacting some politicians.

The memorandum was prepared after the failed operation in the Bay of Cochinos in Cuba (in the United States it is called the Bay of Pigs — Ed.), when the CIA hoped, using armed Cuban immigrants, to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro — this plan failed.

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Who was affected by the publication of the documents?

The files were published along with confidential information from the investigation participants and State Department employees: names, dates, place of birth, and social security numbers. Some of the former employees have already faced unwanted attention, accusations and threats, as well as the risk of suffering at the hands of fraudsters.

Senior Washington officials were among those whose data was disclosed as a result of the publication of the documents. The victims note that the damage has already been done, and intend to contact lawyers.

Less obvious damage can be done to the reputation of the victim of the assassination attempt and his family, as it reveals details of her personal life that were previously hidden from the public. The civil rights organization founded by Martin Luther King Jr. has already opposed the release of surveillance footage of the activist for fear that details of his personal life could tarnish his legacy.

In general, the declassified documents did not change the key points of the case and did not prove the existence of the "second shooter", although not all files have been studied yet – they contain more than 60 thousand pages. Most likely, the redaction was needed only to protect the CIA from shame and criticism.