CIA releases 54 declassified documents related to RFK assassination
Washington — The CIA released a new batch of declassified documents surrounding the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, acting on an executive order that President Trump issued soon after taking office.
"The records reveal for the first time that Senator Kennedy shared his experiences traveling to the former Soviet Union with CIA, reflecting his patriotic commitment to serving his country," the CIA said in a statement accompanying the release.
Kennedy was shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan after the Democratic presidential primary in California in June 1968, four and a half years after President John F. Kennedy, his brother, was slain in Dallas. Sirhan, a Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship, said later that he killed RFK because of RFK's support for Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967.
What's in the new files?
The disclosure includes 54 newly declassified documents totaling 1,450 pages. They include news articles, dispatches from overseas CIA stations, intelligence reports on foreign officials, investigative updates and correspondence between the CIA and other agencies like the State Department and Department of Justice.
The longest document runs 814 pages and details the response to the assassination from CIA outposts and U.S. embassies around the world, with agents in numerous countries following leads about Sirhan's background and potential motivation.
One cable from June 29, 1968, showed officers in Sri Lanka reporting back to headquarters in Virginia about efforts to place favorable news coverage in a local newspaper to shape public opinion following the assassination. The article "makes [the] point that America has no monopoly on violence" and that China "points a pious finger at America and expects the world to ignore the Mao-supported wave upon wave of violence unleashed by the Red Guards," the cable said.
A handful of the documents remain heavily redacted, including assessments of Sirhan's mental state and his handwriting. "High intellectual potential [redacted] not properly utilized, due to severe [redacted]," one report reads.
The document referenced by the CIA about RFK's travels to the Soviet Union is a 148-page "personality dossier" on information about RFK that the agency collected between 1955 and 1964. As a young Senate staffer in 1955, Kennedy traveled to the Soviet Union for several weeks with Supreme Court Justice William Douglas, his longtime friend, and detailed his observations and experiences in a series of reports for the CIA.
The release of assassination documents
Mr. Trump ordered the intelligence community to review and release documents related to the RFK, JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations in an executive order in January. A large batch of JFK documents was unveiled in March, with tens of thousands of pages of additional material. The Trump administration previously released two other tranches of documents related to RFK: roughly 10,000 pages in April and 60,000 pages in May.
"Today's release delivers on President Trump's commitment to maximum transparency, enabling the CIA to shine light on information that serves the public interest," CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement about the new documents. "I am proud to share our work on this incredibly important topic with the American people."
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., RFK's son, welcomed the release in a statement.
"Lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government," the younger RFK said. "I commend President Trump for his courage and his commitment to transparency. I'm grateful also to Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe for their dogged efforts to root out and declassify these documents."
