JFK Act Releases
Note on 2023 JFK Releases: Five batches of documents were released between April and June, culminating in a purportedly final release under the JFK Act of 1,103 documents on June 27 - all releases since 2017 are now online at MFF. Under "Transparency Plans" drawn up by agencies under President Biden's direction (see CIA's here), the still-redacted records will be no longer be reviewed under the auspices of the JFK Records Act. It is estimated that roughly 4,000 such documents remain, though no record listing or firm estimate is available and anomalies in record-keeping persist.
Background
The 1992 JFK Records Act mandated the declassification of large numbers of formerly-secret documents on the assassination of President Kennedy and its context, including foreign policy and covert action as it related to Vietnam and particularly Cuba. This website contains well over a million pages of documents released under the Act, among other holdings.
But tens of thousands of documents reviewed by the Assassination Records Review Board were withheld from public view or released in redacted form. The JFK Records Act mandated that, 25 years after its enactment, all records reviewed under the Act were to be made fully public, barring extraordinary circumstances which required continued withholding.
In 2017 and 2018 seven batches of records were releases, and an additional release occurred in December 2021. But more than 14,000 records still feature redactions, and various accounting anomalies make it impossible to determine the full status of all records. Furthermore, the Trump and Biden administrations did not follow the procedures outlined in the Act for authorizing continued withholding on a document-by-document basis, instead opting for blanket withholding assertions.
This page exists to track the continued progress toward full disclosure, as well as providing access to the actual documents released since 2017.
Document Releases
From July 24, 2017 through April 26, 2018, seven batches of documents were released.
About the 2017/2018 JFK Document Releases
On December 15, 2021, more documents were released.
About the 2021 JFK Document Releases
On December 15, 2022, an additonal 13,000+ documents were released.
About the 2022 JFK Document Releases
On April 13, 2023, an additonal 422 documents were released.
On April 27, 2023, an additonal 355 documents were released.
On May 11, 2023, an additonal 502 documents were released.
On June 13, 2023, an additonal 290 documents were released.
On June 27, 2023, an additional 1,103 documents were released.
On August 24, 2023, an additional 21 documents were released.
State of the JFK Collection
- State of JFK Releases 2023. Describes the state of the JFK Collection as of the fall of 2023, after several small batches of releases in the first half of the year, and the transition to "transparency plans" to govern future review and declassification.
- State of JFK Releases 2022. This page describes various problems and issues with the JFK Collection as of 2022. The National Archives' maintains a public spreadsheet intended to list the metadata and status of all declassified records - there are many problems with this data, and the status of the full JFK Collection is therefore not knowable.
- State of JFK Releases 2021. Written by MFF's Rex Bradford in March of 2021, prior to the 2021 releases; describes the state of affairs related to JFK records, with particular emphasis on those still withheld in full, and accounting anomalies.
