Call The Assassination Records Review Board Back Into Existence By Jacob G. Hornberger!!
(2017-05-01 at 18:02:49 )

Call the Assassination Records Review Board Back into Existence by Jacob G. Hornberger

As some of us have been predicting, the Central Intelligence Agency appears to be gearing up to continue its cover-up in the John F. Kennedy assassination, specifically regarding the tens of thousands of long-secret Central Intelligence Agency records relating to the Kennedy assassination that the National Archives is set to release this coming October. An article in Politico last week entitled "Will Trump Release the Missing JFK Files?"? by Philip Shenon quoted Central Intelligence Agency spokesperson Heather Fritz Horniak as saying: "the CIA continues to review the remaining CIA documents in the collection to determine the appropriate next steps with respect to any previously-unreleased CIA information."

We are talking here about records that are more than 50 years old. There is no possibility that the release of any of those records will cause the United States to fall into the ocean or will cause the federal government to fall into the hands of the communists.

There is, however, one distinct possibility: that the release of those long-secret records will further incriminate the Central Intelligence Agency in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which is the reason why it is almost a certainty that the CIA will request that those half-a-century old records continue to be kept a secret from the American people.

It is time for Congress to reassert itself in the matter and call the Assassination Records Review Board back into existence. Otherwise, there is a distinct possibility that the Central Intelligence Agency will succeed with a continuation of its cover-up.

Oliver Stone issued his movie JFK in 1991. The movie posited that the United States national security establishment i.e., the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation - effected a high-level, extremely sophisticated domestic national-security regime change operation here in the United States on November 22, 1963, a regime-change operation that was no different in principle than others that it had been undertaken or would be undertaken in the future on grounds of "national security," such as Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1960-to date), Congo (1961), and Chile (1970-1973).

At the end of Stones movie, there was a blurb that pointed out that the national-security establishment was continuing to keep its records relating to the assassination secret from the American people. That blurb created an enormous outcry from the American people, who demanded that Congress do something about the Pentagons and Central Intelligence Agencys continued secrecy in the President John F. Kennedy assassination.

Congress responded positively to the public furor by enacting the JFK Records Act in 1992. There was one big hurdle to overcome, however: George H.W. Bush, the previous director of the Central Intelligence Agency who was then serving as president of the United States. The possibility that Bush would sign the JFK Records Act into law was virtually nil.

However, in a twist of political fate, Bush was running for reelection against Bill Clinton, who came out publicly in favor of the law. Bush was boxed in. In the hopes of getting reelected and not being accused of facilitating a cover-up, Bush signed the act into law.

The law required all federal agencies, including the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, to disclose their long-secret records relating to the assassination. As Douglas Horne documents in detail in his five-volume book "Inside the Assassination Records Review Board", what those long-secret records ending up disclosing were powerful pieces of circumstantial evidence that pointed in the direction of the criminal culpability of the national-security establishment. (See, for example, FFFs ebooks " The Kennedy Autopsy" by Jacob Hornberger and "JFKs War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne, " who served on the staff of the ARRB.)

There were two major flaws in the law, however.

First, someone slipped a provision into the law that prohibited the ARRB from reinvestigating any aspect of the Kennedy assassination.

Now, think about that for a moment. If the commission were to discover evidence of criminal culpability from those long-secret records that the law was requiring the Pentagon, Central Intelligence Agency, and Federal Bureau of Investigation to disgorge, the law prevented the commission from launching an investigation into the matter. Does that make any sense? If the commission were to discover evidence of criminal culpability, would we not want that to be investigated?

For example, when the commission discovered that there had been two separate brain examinations as part of Kennedys autopsy, one that involved a brain belonging to a person other than John F. Kennedy, the commission was prohibited from launching an investigation into the matter. (See "The JFK Brain Mystery" by Jacob G. Hornberger.) Or when former Navy official Saundra Spencer told the commission under oath that the autopsy photographs in the official record were not the ones she developed during the weekend of the assassination, the commission was prohibited from launching an investigation into the matter. (See "The JFK Autopsy Cover-Up: The Testimony of Saundra Spencer.

The other flaw in the law was that it permitted federal agencies to keep certain assassination records secret for 25 years while permitting the ARRB, whose mission was to enforce the law, to go out of existence. That enabled the Central Intelligence Agency to keep thousands of its records secret for another 25 years, knowing full well that the ARRB would be long gone by the time those 25 years had expired.

What will those long-secret records reveal? No, there will not be any written confessions or admissions of guilt. From the inception of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, it has been established national-security state policy to never put any reference to covert assassinations into writing.

However, it is a virtual certainty that those tens of thousands of pages of long-secret records will reveal more pieces of circumstantial evidence supporting the thesis that Stone set forth in his movie JFK.

According to an article in JFKfacts.org, at a press conference last March federal Judge John Tunheim, who chaired the ARRB back in the 1990s, called for the release of all the records pursuant to the October 2017 deadline. "It is time to release them all," Tunheim said. "There is no real reason to protect this information."

....What we thought was not relevant back then might be quite relevant in 2017," Tunheim said, referring to the case of George Joannides, a deceased Central Intelligence Agency officer. "We did not think he was that important and we later learned we were wrong. [Additional files on Joannides were] "probably unlawfully withheld by the agency. I do not know that for a fact but it seems likely."

Judge Tunheim has also used the words "misled" and "treachery" to describe the Central Intelligence Agencys misconduct relating to Central Intelligence Agency operative George Joannides. (See "here" and "here".) He pointedly stated, "If [the Central Intelligence Agency] fooled us on that, they may have fooled us on other things." (See "Why Wont the CIA Release Its Joannides Files?"? by Jacob G. Hornberger.)

The Central Intelligence Agency knows full well the extent of the long-secret circumstantial evidence that surfaced in the 1990s as a result of the John F. Kennedy Records Act that pointed in the direction of a national-security state regime-change operation. It stands to reason that they would save the most incriminating circumstantial evidence to the last - i.e., another 25 years and maybe even forever.

Indeed, keep in mind that the Central Intelligence Agency could have authorized the National Archives to release those long-secret records a long time ago. Instead, the Central Intelligence Agency has waited the full 25 years, no doubt hoping that an apathetic public or a submissive president would come to its assistance and grant another extension of time for secrecy.

Under the John F. Kennedy Records Act., all that the Central Intelligence Agency has to do now is ask President Trump to grant it another extension of time for continued secrecy, on the grounds of "national security."

There is virtually no doubt that a President Hillary Clinton would have approved such a request. During the campaign, it appeared as though Trump would be independent of the national-security establishment. Given that Trump has fallen into line with the national security establishment on foreign policy, Russia, North Korea, and NATO, however, there is now the distinct possibility that Trump will give the Central Intelligence Agency whatever it wants.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the notion that disclosure of 50-year-old records will endanger "national security" is ridiculous to the extreme.

Despite the disclosure of countless assassination related records in the 1990s, over the vehement objections of the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States continued standing, as did the federal government. The same thing will happen in October if the rest of those long-secret records are released.

Those long-secret records do not belong to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, or the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They belong to the American people.

The job of the ARRB was clearly not finished when it disbanded in 1998. Congress should call the ARRB back into existence for the purpose of finishing the job it was charged with in 1992 - to secure the release, once and for all, of all the national-security establishments records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

NOTE: Former Washington Post reporter Jefferson Morley, who runs the excellent website JFKfacts.org and who is the author of FFFs "CIA & JFK: The Secret Assassination Files", will be bringing people up to date on the secret files to be eleased in October at FFFs June 3 conference "The National Security State and JFK.". Morley was also the person who discovered the importance of the Joannides matter to which Judge Tunheim referred. I hope you will join us at what promises to be one of the best conferences in FFFs 27-year history.

Printed here with permission from Mr. Jacob G. Hornberger of The Future of Freedom Foundation!! Their Great Website!!