By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Film director Oliver Stone will testify at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing Tuesday on thousands of pages of documents related to the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy released this month at the direction of President Donald Trump.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna, chair of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, said Sunday lawmakers will hear from witnesses about the value of the documents.
“By investigating the newly released JFK files, consulting experts, and tracking down surviving staff of various investigative committees, our task force will get to the bottom of this mystery and share our findings with the American people,” Luna said.
Shortly after taking office for his second term in January Trump signed an executive order directing national intelligence and other officials to quickly come up with a plan for the full and complete release of all records relate to President Kennedy’s assassination.
The archives’ Kennedy assassination collection has more than six million pages of records, the vast majority of which had been declassified and made public before Trump’s order. Kennedy’s murder has been attributed to a sole gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Stone’s 1991 film “JFK” faced harsh criticism from historians for its suggestions that Kennedy’s death was the result of high-level conspiracies. Stone has said Kennedy was not killed by a lone assassin and believes certain elements within the U.S intelligence community were involved.
The Justice Department and other federal government bodies have reaffirmed the conclusion in the intervening decades that Oswald acted alone. But polls show many Americans still believe his death was a result of a conspiracy.
Also testifying Tuesday are journalist and author Jefferson Morley and author James DiEugenio. Morley said on social media he will focus on the CIA’s complete pre-assassination file on Oswald during the hearing.
Trump promised on the campaign trail to provide more transparency about Kennedy’s death.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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