Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone, known for his 1991 movie “JFK” that depicted President John F. Kennedy’s assassination as a product of a clandestine government conspiracy, is scheduled to testify before Congress on Tuesday regarding thousands of newly released government documents related to the assassination.
Experts assert that the files released at the order of President Donald Trump do not undermine the conclusion that a lone gunman was responsible for Kennedy’s death. Additionally, the declassified documents did not reveal any substantial new insights into the assassination, as assessed by CBS News. Many of the documents had been previously disclosed but featured newly unredacted sections, including Social Security numbers, provoking anger among those whose personal details were exposed.
The inaugural hearing of the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets occurs five decades after the Warren Commission’s investigation determined that Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old ex-Marine, acted alone in fatally shooting Kennedy during a motorcade in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida and chair of the task force, commented last month that she aims to collaborate with writers and researchers to address “one of the biggest cold case files in U.S. history.” However, many scholars and historians do not consider the assassination a cold case, as they regard the evidence supporting Oswald as the sole gunman as compelling.
Stone’s “JFK” received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and won two. It grossed over $200 million, despite facing scrutiny over its factual accuracy.
The last formal congressional inquiry into Kennedy’s assassination concluded in 1978, with a House committee report stating that the Soviet Union, Cuba, organized crime, the CIA, and the FBI were not involved. However, it suggested that Kennedy “probably was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.” A Senate committee in 1976 indicated it had not found sufficient evidence to support claims of a conspiracy.
The Warren Commission, appointed by Kennedy’s successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, determined that Oswald fired at Kennedy’s motorcade from a sniper’s position on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, where he was employed. Oswald was arrested within 90 minutes, and two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot him during a live TV broadcast while he was being transferred to jail.
For Tuesday’s hearing, the task force has also invited Jefferson Morley and James DiEugenio, both of whom have published works advocating for conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination. Morley serves as the editor of the JFK Facts blog and is vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, which archives files related to the assassination. He has commended Luna for being receptive to new information concerning the incident.
Shortly after taking office in January, President Trump took executive action to initiate a process for declassifying and releasing any remaining documents linked to Kennedy’s assassination, as well as those of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. The recently released documents regarding JFK’s assassination have been made available on a portal managed by the National Archives, which can be accessed here.
