Trump Tweets: I will release ‘classified’ JFK files

President Donald J. Trump Tweeted Saturday morning that he will approve the release of sensitive files and documents relating to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The congressionally set deadline for a president to release the documents is Oct. 26, one day before Trump is slated to visit the city for a fundraiser.

The president’s Tweet leaves some room to maneuver.

Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 21, 2017

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It is hard to overestimate the anticipation of this release, as Kennedy’s short administration has been frozen in the American mindset as a golden age, or Camelot, cut short by a mysterious sniper’s bullet, while the young president and his glamorous first lady, Jacqueline B. Kennedy transversed by motorcade through Dallas’s Dealey Plaza on his way to another speech on his tour of Texas.

The Dallas Morning News wrote upon getting the news of the pending release:

Those who are sure that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone are eager for vindication and new jigsaw pieces to fill the void spots in the puzzle. So are those who blame the mob, Fidel Castro, the Soviets or the military-industrial complex.

Lost on neither camp is the fact that the authority to decide which secrets to keep sealed for another decade or more rests with a president known for indulging conspiracy theories.

The release by Oct. 26, 2017 was established in the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, written and sponsored by Kennedy’s friend Sen. John H. Glenn Jr. (D.-Ohio).