On Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas. In response, President Lyndon B. Johnson said, “The greatest leader of our time has been struck down by the foulest deed of our time.”
Over time, many conspiracy theories have arisen regarding Kennedy’s assassination. Several of these pointed fingers at the U.S. government. In response to this, President George H.W. Bush signed an agreement in 1992 saying all files related to the investigation were to be released to the public at a later date.

“Much of that occurred due to the release of the Oliver Stone movie ‘JFK’ in 1991, which caused many people to start creating theories about the JFK assassination as they never did before,” Athens High School social studies teacher Mike DeSantis said.

However, due to public pressure, the release date was set to 25 years in the future. On Oct. 21 of this year, President Donald Trump only approved some of the files’ release; the rest are pending government review.

“I think that once they knew everything was finalized, they knew they could release them,” DeSantis said.

Over five million pages are available to the public. It will take time before all of the files are analyzed, but so far some interesting revelations have been made. In the files, there is a document containing a quote from J. Edgar Hoover, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. When talking about Kennedy’s killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, Hoover said, “The thing I am concerned about… is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.”

It is unclear whether he said this with the implication that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the only gunman, or if he simply wanted to reassure the public that they had found the killer.

One document contains an interview with former CIA director Richard Helms. The document cuts off prematurely, ending with a question given to Helms, reading, “Is there any information involved with the assassination of President Kennedy which in any way shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was in some way a CIA agent or an agent…”

Another noteworthy revelation is that Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby (the nightclub owner who killed Oswald on live television two days after Kennedy’s death) were seen in a Florida airport together before the assassination. A witness reported overhearing them speaking in code.

After the assassination, when Jack Ruby was incarcerated for killing Lee Harvey Oswald, he said the world would never know the true facts about what had occurred, but senior Matt Skryzcki, vice president of Political Awareness Club, Skryzcki thinks otherwise.

“I think we will, and to an extent, I think we might already know,” Skryzcki said. “We may not know Oswald’s motives for killing JFK, but as far as the events that occurred, I don’t think there’s any more to it.”

Although the files have been released in an attempt to dispel conspiracy, some of them, such as those regarding Oswald’s motives, may never go away. There will always be those who are skeptical and question the information given by authorities.

“Any information that gets released will be looked at with suspicion, and those looking for a conspiracy will not be satisfied,” DeSantis said.

Still, senior Zain Hameed, another member of Political Awareness Club, looks at conspiracy theories with optimism and believes they may serve a positive role in society.

“I think it’s better to have them than not,” Hameed said. “You would rather have a citizen that questions government power, to keep it checked and balanced, than to have the people take in whatever they’re told. I think it’s a beneficial thing.”