JFK Assassination Files To Release After 60 Years: What happened on Fateful Nov 22, 1963? How Was John F. Kennedy killed?

After signing a significant executive order seeking to declassify files on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in January, US President Donald Trump announced that remaining government files on the assassination of John F. Kennedy will be today. 

While delivering on one of his top campaign pledges, Trump said that the 80,000 pages of 'full and complete' hidden records will be made available to the public for the first time. 

"When I return to the White House, I will declassify and unseal all JFK assassination-related documents. It's been 60 years, time for the American people to know the TRUTH!” Trump had said during his presidential campaigns in 2024. 

During his visit to the John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts on Monday, the US President said, “People have been waiting for decades for this (release of the Kennedy files).”

Earlier in January, he said that the families of the victims and the Americans have full rights to know the truth about the assassinations.

"I have determined that the release of all records in the Federal Government's possession pertaining to each of those assassinations is also in the public interest,” Trump said in his January order.

How was John F. Kennedy killed?

It's been more than 60 years but the fateful day of November 22, 1963 are still vivid. The assassination of John F. Kennedy has since been a subject of attention surrounded by conspiracy theories. 

The 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy was assassinated while he was riding in a presidential motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie were also with him. With his reelection campaign looming the following year, this visit to Texas was expected to be a political effort to mend fences. 

Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, were also part of the same motorcade, just two cars behind the President’s car.

As the motorcade was nearing the end of its downtown route, at around 12:30 PM local time, gunshots were heard from the Texas School Book Depository. John F. Kennedy was fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. He was rushed to the Parkland Hospital where, at 1 PM, the then President was pronounced dead.

24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald was immediately arrested but just two days later, Oswald was shot dead during his transfer to jail by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. 

In the following year, President Lyndon B. Johnson had established Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. The probe concluded on a note that assassin Oswald acted alone and there was no evidence of conspiracy.

Transcript of Lady Bird Johnson's Audio Diary From November 22, 1963

Check the typed transcript of Lyndon Johnson's wife Lady Bird Johnson's tape which served as her official statement to the Warren Commission: