JFK: American History and the Memory Hole
JFK: American History and the Memory Hole
My 12-part series for JFK Facts, "Trail of Destruction," traces federal agencies' disposal of records related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination over more than thirty years
When I started writing this feature for the JFK Facts Substack page back in early March, it was conceived as a single article. It turned into a series stretching over three and a half months, with each installment exploring a different angle of the story of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. While fascinating, it confronts readers with a disturbing reality about the way America treats its own historical record.
The cavalier destruction of classified records does not speak well for the United States. Serious countries do not destroy such files. If they classify them, they schedule a time for their release, even if it’s 100 years in the future. When the appointed date arrives, they release the records to the public for the benefit of scholars and historians. In the case of the assassination of JFK, the historical record looks destined never to be complete.
These stories need to be highlighted and explained to Americans as fully as possible, and that is one of the objectives of the lawsuit, Mary Ferrell Foundation v President Biden and the National Archives, now in federal court in the Northern District of California.
The following “dirty dozen” episodes of destruction require a paid subscription (or one-week free trial subscription) to JFK Facts to read in their entirety. It’s worth it.
1. The LBJ-Hoover Phone Call (November 23, 1963)
The recording of a phone conversation between President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover within 24 hours of the assassination is erased, leaving only a transcript that is clearly incomplete. The two were discussing the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, and his mysterious impersonation in Mexico City weeks earlier.
2. The JFK Autopsy Notes (November 24, 1963)
The lead pathologist on the three-man team that performed the autopsy on President Kennedy on the night of Nov. 22, 1963, burns his notes and the first draft of his report in his home fireplace after realizing he cannot reconcile the report with the “single bullet theory,” which must be upheld to support the conclusion of a lone gunman.
3. Oswald’s Note to the FBI (November 24, 1963)
Soon after Lee Harvey Oswald is shot to death in Dallas police custody within 48 hours of the assassination of President Kennedy, agents of the Dallas office of the FBI destroy a note that Oswald had left there earlier in the month. The contents of the note would never be corroborated by those involved, though they might have held clues to the crime.
4. The New Orleans CIA Files (November 1963)
The CIA maintained an office in New Orleans, where the accused assassin of President Kennedy publicly scuffled with anti-Castro Cuban exiles directed and funded by the CIA in August 1963. No files from that office were ever made available to government investigators, and the deputy chief of CIA in New Orleans would tell a local historian that they were “deep-sixed” on the weekend of the assassination.
5. The Air Force One Tapes (1960s to 1970s)
The original recording of communications to and from the presidential jet, Air Force One, on Nov. 22, 1963, after the assassination of President Kennedy, captures conversations between generals, cabinet secretaries, pilots, and official spokesmen in the midst of national crisis. Professional audio analysis of a version released in 2011 indicates it may have been edited up to 40 times. The original recording has never been released.
6. Oswald’s Army Intelligence Dossier (1973)
The 112th Military Intelligence Group (MIG), known in 1963 as the 112th Intelligence Corps (INTC), was attached to the U.S. 4th Army, based at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. The 112th MIG had opened a file on Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1963, after it received an FBI report of his activities in New Orleans. But it never provided the file to the Warren Commission, then destroyed it years before the next official investigation, by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, had even convened.
7. The DIA’s JFK Assassination File (1970s)
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) obtained information on the world’s reaction to JFK’s death from diplomatic wiretaps worldwide — and destroyed all of it, leaving investigators with only a “sanitized” statement of what military intelligence knew about the murder. These wiretaps would have included recordings from embassies of adversaries and allies alike, and President Charles de Gaulle of France had publicly stated his belief that President Kennedy was murdered as the result of a conspiracy.
8. RFK Autopsy Photos (1975)
The counterintelligence chief of the CIA found photos of the autopsy of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1968, among the files of his predecessor. Without establishing why such grisly images were in the possession of the CIA, he decided to destroy them.
9. James Jesus Angleton’s Files (1975-1980)
On the second and third floors of headquarters in Langley, CIA counterintelligence chief George Kalaris found sealed rooms filled with files and over 40 locked safes. These were the files of Kalaris’s predecessor, James Angleton. It took more than five years and a team working in round-the-clock shifts to examine Angleton’s tens of thousands of files. In the end, Kalaris would order the destruction of all but one half of one percent of them.
10. William King Harvey’s Diaries and Notes (1967-1976)
The 133-page “1967 Inspector General’s report” details the CIA’s attempts to murder Cuban leader Fidel Castro with help from the Mafia starting in the late 1950s and discusses assassination specialist Bill Harvey’s role extensively. The CIA director ordered Harvey’s operational diaries destroyed in 1967. Harvey’s widow then destroyed his personal diaries — on his orders — after his death in 1976.
11. The Mexico City Station Chief’s Possessions (1987)
The CIA seizes photos and recordings of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City in late September and early October 1963 from the home office of retired CIA Station Chief Winston Scott within 48 hours of his sudden and unexpected death in April 1971. When Scott’s son Michael begins asking the agency for his father’s effects in the mid-1980s, the CIA gives him less than half of his father’s manuscript and destroys the rest.
12. The Secret Service Files (1995)
After the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) convenes in 1994, it seeks records from the Secret Service concerning protective measures for President Kennedy’s trips in the fall of 1963. It later learns that the last of such records were destroyed in January 1995. The Secret Service found out that the ARRB wanted to review its protective survey reports from the relevant time period, and destroyed the evidence.
These stories are behind a paywall, but that only goes to show why readers should subscribe to JFK Facts, the number-one go-to site for up-to-date news and information on the life and death of President John F. Kennedy, as well as a wealth of authoritative history and personal accounts. Please tune in there.
One cause of action in the Mary Ferrell Foundation’s ongoing lawsuit against President Biden and the National Archives for release of still-withheld files related to the JFK assassination compels the government to account for missing and destroyed records. If you would like to support the foundation’s efforts in federal court, you can do so here.