On the 60th anniversary of JFK assassination, his nephew urges Biden to release remaining secret files

Robert F Kennedy, who is running as an independent for the White House, has urged US president Joe Biden to release all remaining secret Government files on the assassination of his uncle, John F Kennedy.

Mr Kennedy said trust in Government in the US was at an all-time low and that releasing the full, unredacted historical records would help restore it.

Wednesday is the 60th anniversary of the killing of John F Kennedy in Dallas, Texas in November 1963.

To mark the occasion Robert F Kennedy’s presidential campaign launched a public petition demanding that all remaining classified or redacted files on the assassination be released.

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“What is so embarrassing that they’re afraid to show the American public 60 years later?” Mr Kennedy asked.

Most Americans were not born when the then president John F Kennedy was shot dead by a sniper as he was driven in a motorcade through the city of Dallas in 1963.

However, the assassination has remained an inflection point in US history and has fuelled countless conspiracy theories about who was responsible for the killing and why.

Cubans, the CIA and the mafia have all been in the frame at one point or another regarding what is probably the most famous political assassination in modern history.

Arguments have raged over whether the chief suspect Lee Harvey Oswald carried out the killing and, if he did, was he the only gunman?

[ The tan and the white teeth: 60 years after JFK’s assassination Wexford remembers his 1963 visit ]

[ Death of a president: How ‘The Irish Times’ covered JFK’s assassination ]

Who, if he existed at all, was the famous man on the grassy knoll overlooking the spot where the president was shot? Did he play any part in the plot to kill JFK, as some conspiracy theorists contend?

More than 30 years ago the US Congress ordered that all government documents relating to the assassination should be released with limited exceptions.

Last summer Mr Biden made a “final certification” regarding the records that should be publicly released.

However, critics contended there were still more than 4,600 documents that remained hidden, at least in part.

Robert F Kennedy’s campaign said legislation passed by the US Congress in 1992 mandated that all records relating to the assassination should be released by 2017.

However Robert Kennedy said former president Donald Trump and Mr Biden did not comply fully.

Robert Kennedy, whose links to the Democrats in the United States goes back generations, broke with the party several weeks ago and opted to run for the White House as an independent.

Several members of the wider Kennedy family have criticised Robert Kennedy over comments he has made and stances he has taken in relation to vaccines and some conspiracy theories.

Since the Kennedy Records Assassination Records Act was passed, about 320,000 documents relating to the killing have been reviewed.

The White House said about 99 per cent of material had been made publicly available.

However it is estimated that about 2,140 documents remain fully or partially withheld while about 2,500 more have not been made available as they fall under other restrictions such as seals imposed by courts or grand jury secrecy rules.

The administration maintained in the summer that remaining classified documents or redacted elements of material relating to the Kennedy assassination could be released on an ongoing basis when the reason for keeping them under wraps was no longer applicable.