JFK files: Reopening of old wounds

It was the early morning of Nov. 23, 1963 when my mother – a conservative closed Catholic or “cerrada Catolica” as they say in Spanish – woke me up saying with fervent urgency: “reza tu para el presidente de America” (pray for the president of the United States).

JFK was a Catholic himself – in fact, the first Catholic president of the United States – perhaps the reason why it is not surprising many Filipinos continue to remember JFK to this day. For many reasons, the assassination of John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 has always been etched in my mind, even if I was only in my teens when it happened.

When I visited an aunt in Washington, DC during the summer of 1972, she brought me to the late president’s gravesite at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. After I became ambassador to the United States in 2017, we opened our new Philippine consulate in Houston, Texas. I then had the chance to pass by Dallas and visit the Dealey Plaza Museum (formerly the Texas School Book Depository). I went up to the sixth floor and peered from the southeast corner window where the sniper fired shots at the open presidential limousine slowly traversing Elm Street with JFK, his wife Jackie and Texas Governor John Connally.

It was really poignant to see the exact spot on Elm Street – marked by an “X” – where an assassin’s bullet ended the life of the president whose term in office was retrospectively referred to as the “Camelot era,” marked by the youthful idealism and high hopes associated with the Kennedy administration.

During an official call in 2019 to JFK’s grand-nephew, then-Congressman Joseph “Joe” Kennedy III at his office in Newton, Massachusetts, I visited the JFK Presidential Library and Museum. While watching a documentary narrated by JFK himself, I was surprised to hear a lady seated beside me sobbing the entire time – clearly still mourning the death of the charismatic president.

I could only relate to what the lady was feeling because every time I get invited to the White House and happen to pass by the East Room where president Kennedy was laid to rest, there is that heavy feeling of deep sadness – remembering passages from a book I read describing the private moment shared by JFK’s widow Jackie and his brother Bobby as they gazed at the slain leader’s remains – the one and only time, according to the book, that Mrs. Kennedy allowed the casket to be opened.

“Why, God? Why?” repeatedly murmured Bobby, inconsolably weeping for almost 35 minutes.

The scene was so heart wrenching that even the honor guard from the Army’s Special Forces could not hold back their tears. One can only imagine the grief and sorrow that must have enveloped the East Room at that moment.

To this day, the brutal murder of the very popular US president continues to be the subject of conspiracy theories, with many believing that Lee Harvey Oswald was not acting alone when he shot JFK during a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Among the conspiracy theories include the involvement of the Mafia and the Soviet Union, fueled by the fact that Oswald, a former marine, defected to the USSR in 1959 and eventually married Marina Nikolayevna, living there for two years and a half before returning to the US.

Every year, countless documentaries, special features and books are produced during JFK’s death anniversary. Which is why President Trump’s order to release over 80,000 pages of declassified records related to the assassination – a fulfillment of the promise he made during his campaign – has earned praise from experts and historians who see it as an encouraging step towards transparency. The redacted documents had been a source of confusion as well as frustration.

The release was announced by President Trump himself on Monday during a visit to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. In her post on X, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said “President Trump is ushering in a new era of maximum transparency.”

According to the US National Archives and Records Administration that posted the files on its website, the release would include “all records previously withheld for classification,” but some groups claim that the released documents are only one third of the promised files and did not include around 2,400 new records discovered by the FBI. There are supposedly still up to 3,500 files that have yet to be released in whole or in part.

Although some experts opine that the release will not likely change the official conclusion that Oswald acted on his own, the sheer volume of records is not a deterrent to the serious and the curious who believe the availability of over six million pages of handwritten and typewritten notes, memos, reports, photographs, audio recordings, motion pictures and artifacts will eventually provide more clues on the JFK assassination.

Time magazine’s online report says, “Historians are hoping for details fleshing out Oswald’s activities before the assassination and what the CIA and FBI knew about him beforehand,” including a trip made by Oswald to Mexico City in September 1963 with an intention to contact the Soviet embassy there.

As President Trump remarked, “We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading.”

Although the release of the JFK files can also be likened to reopening of old wounds, perhaps it can also help Americans and many others who have long been engrossed by the life – and death – of the 35th US president come to terms with their grief and finally dry the tears that have long been shed.

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