WASHINGTON — Russia is finally forking over Soviet-era findings on the assassination of President John. F. Kennedy that Congress sought decades ago, according to Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna — who is digging into that fatal day in Dallas.
The 350-page document is expected to shed light on the KGB’s secret insights into the events surrounding Kennedy’s being shot in the head on Nov. 22, 1963, during a fraught time in the Cold War.
But there are questions about whether the files are trustworthy and why Russia is willing to cough them up now.
“What the Russian ambassador told Luna was this is a package of information that we gave to US officials at Kennedy’s funeral,” JFK sleuth Jefferson Morley, who is set to help the Republican parse through the tranche of documents, told The Post.
“At that time, the Russians were rushing to assure the Americans that they had nothing to do with [Lee Harvey] Oswald or the assassination.”
The Russian ambassador’s claims about the files previously being turned over to the US do not appear to have been independently proven as of yet.
Are the KGB’s JFK files trustworthy?
Looming over all of this is the big question of what’s in the files and whether or not they are reliable.
“I don’t think the KGB is holding the secrets to who killed Kennedy,” said Gerald Posner, who wrote the 1993 best-seller “Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK.”
“It’s fantastic if they [the files] all get released, but it has to be with a heavy dose of skepticism coming from the KGB,” he added.
Russia’s disclosure comes in the midst of simmering geopolitical tensions as relations between Moscow and Washington hover at a post-Cold War low point amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. And the regime has a history of mounting propaganda campaigns against the US, including by stoking internal divisions.
Luna noted that in the 1990s, Congress sought KGB files on the JFK assassination, but wasn’t able to get them. The Russians did give a summary of their files to the Clinton administration.
“In the ’90s, the files had a price,” explained Posner, who attempted to acquire them at the time but wouldn’t pony up.
“Files for Oswald were in the provincial capital of Minsk. They were really up for sale. That’s how Norman Mailer ends up getting them.”
“Now, 30 years later, they don’t have that problem any longer,” he added. “I think that the Russians providing them is a distraction from what’s going on in Ukraine. Who knows?”
Mailer, the author of “Oswald’s Tale” who died in 2007, had acquired KGB files and interviewed former officers with the Soviet spy agency. It’s not clear how much overlap there is between what Mailer acquired and what Luna is getting from the Russians.
Morley stressed that he plans to be very cautious when he digs through the trove of documents.
“Obviously, you’re dealing with an intelligence agency. They’re not trustworthy by nature. So you have to be very careful,” Morley warned. “Is this a propaganda play? Could be. That’s why I’m being very careful to not pronounce on what it is.
“Clearly, they [the Russians] see some advantage in putting this out there,” he added. “We have to be really careful.”
Is there a bombshell?
The Russians could have valuable insights into the events surrounding Kennedy’s assassination, particularly regarding Oswald, whom the KGB kept close tabs on in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
A mere six weeks before Oswald gunned down Kennedy, he trekked to Mexico City and went to a Soviet mission and attempted to get a visa to go to Cuba.
“Oswald had two psychiatric exams in his life,” Posner said. “The second one was done by the Soviets when he first defected over there. And then they told him to leave the country … we know the result of it was that they thought he was unstable. They never released the full exam.
“It would be fantastic if they released some of the audio surveillance or some of the photographs and video or video or photographic surveillance,” he said of Oswald. “We have so little history of Oswald in Russia.”
Both Posner and Morley are cautious about whether there will be a bombshell in the tranche of documents and are reserving judgment.
“[It’s] potentially very important, but potentially propaganda, too. So we need to dig in and really understand what we have,” Morley said.
Perhaps more important than the Russian files is Cuban intelligence on Oswald that has long been kept hidden, according to Posner.
“There are reports that have made us think that the Cubans did something that might have made him want to show that he was very worthy of the revolution, and that’s why he shot at Kennedy,” he explained. “Those files would be in Cuban intelligence, and they have never been released.”
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