It’s been more than 50 years since President John F. Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Since then, hundreds of conspiracies surrounding the shooting have emerged–fueling debates over who was responsible, why it happened and more.
But with President Donald Trump’s promise to release the final batch of documents, which will be posted online Thursday by the National Archives, conspiracy theorists and historians alike could finally have answers to the questions they have long asked about that tragic day in American history.
The release comes 25 years after the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 was signed into law, mandating the release by a specific deadline of all JFK files that are currently held by the government.
Here are three questions the JFK files could help answer:
President Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 moments before he was assassinated.
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Was there a second shooter?
Many conspiracy theorists believe that Oswald did not act alone.
Indeed, the theory — better known as the “grassy knoll” hypothesis – posits that another shot was fired from an area to the right of the president’s motorcade. Conspiracists argue that Oswald, who was perched on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository with a Carcano Model 91/38 infantry rifle, could not have delivered such a fatal shot from that angle.
To further investigate JFK’s murder and look into this theory, the House voted to establish a U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1976, according to the Washington Post. The committee concluded that there was “probably” a second shooter on the grassy knoll.
Even one acoustical study, which analyzed two police channel recordings from that day in relation to a gunshot-like sound from the grassy knoll, concluded that “the gunshot-like sound occurred exactly synchronous with the time of the shooting.”
While both findings have since been discredited, theorists continued to grow the theory.
“Anybody who thinks this is going to turn the case on its head and suddenly show that there were three or four shooters at Dealey Plaza — it’s not the case,” Gerald Posner, the author of “Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK,” told CNN.
Instead, the files could clarify exactly what happened after the first shots were fired.
What was Lee Harvey Oswald doing in Mexico City two months prior to Kennedy’s assassination?
Experts think that the some 3,000 documents could shed light on Oswald’s six-day trip to Mexico City shortly before Kennedy’s assassination.
While conspiracists argue that Oswald was ordered by Soviet or Cuban agents to kill Kennedy, especially because the one-time Marine defected to the Soviet Union, the same 1976 committee did not find any evidence of Soviet, Cuban or CIA involvement in his assassination, according to the Washington Post.
JFK ASSASSINATION FILES SET FOR RELEASE, BUT WHAT THEY REVEAL REMAINS A MYSTERY
Additionally, both the CIA and the FBI did not find any evidence of Cuban or Soviet involvement, according to the Post.
However, the most recent batch of JFK files, which were released in 1993, revealed that Oswald not only visited the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City in 1963, but also met with Valeriy Kostikov, a KGB officer who worked for KGB’s Department 13, which, according to a Washington Post article from 1993, is the “department charged with sabotage and assassination.”
The documents released Thursday could reveal what Oswald’s meetings in Mexico City entailed.
An inside job?
Some conspiracists argue that the CIA and even Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s vice president, were behind the assassination.
While the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations also ruled out any CIA involvement, some conspiracists believe that the CIA was behind the assassination because they opposed Kennedy’s handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 — a CIA-sponsored mission to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
Other theorists argue that Oswald was set up by the CIA as a scapegoat.
Still, experts argue that the documents released Thursday will do nothing but challenge this theory.
“There’s going to be no smoking gun in there,” Posner told CNN of the documents.
