Spies, Lies and the Murder of a President
What do the JFK releases really tell us?
Nearly three decades after President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while driving in his motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, Congress signed a law requiring that all records on the assassination be made public within the following 25 years.
Nearly three decades after President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while driving in his motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, Congress signed a law requiring that all records on the assassination be made public within the following 25 years.
That deadline arrived last month, with President Donald Trump boasting via Twitter that he would make all records public. He then quickly caved to demands from intelligence agencies to pump the brakes and extended the deadline by 180 days.
Documents are being released in batches, however. As those records become available, the public is once again revisiting the controversy around the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination, and the resulting investigation: Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone? How much did the CIA know about Oswald, and his plans?
To dig through these records, Foreign Policy talks to Jefferson Morley, a reporter, editor, and author of the recently published The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton. Morley describes Angleton, a key figure in the assassination investigation, as the “sinister, powerful and paranoid man at the heart of the CIA.”
Jefferson Morley has worked in Washington for more than 30 years as a reporter, writer, and editor. He has written about intelligence and politics for Salon, the Atlantic, and the Intercept. He is also the editor of JFK Facts. Follow him on Twitter: @jeffersonmorley
Keith Johnson is FP’s deputy editor for news. He has been at FP since 2013, after spending 15 years covering terrorism, energy, airlines, politics, foreign affairs, and the economy for the Wall Street Journal. Follow him on Twitter: @KFJ_FP
Sharon Weinberger is FP’s executive editor for news. She is the author of The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World. Follow her on Twitter at: @weinbergersa.
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