WASHINGTON (CNN) — The CIA concluded in the weeks after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination that allegations that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for the agency were “totally unfounded.”
That revelation is contained in a 1975 CIA memorandum released Friday (Nov. 3) along with more than 670 documents totaling nearly 52,000 pages of JFK files, the latest batch of the documents to be made public. Late last month, President Donald Trump ordered agencies to review and release the remaining classified documents related to the assassination.
The CIA memorandum, written by an official named Paul Hartman, describes a review of records he began in the hours after Kennedy was assassinated. Hartman recounts spending about a week and a half searching records held by multiple components of the CIA for mention of their suspect, Oswald, and then notifying his supervisor of his findings.
“I then sent a brief informal note … specifying all the checks I had made and stating that the results showed that Lee Harvey OSWALD had never had any connection whatsoever with the Agency,” Hartman wrote. “Eventually a statement to this effect was communicated to the Warren Commission.”
The search also found “no record or indication that any other US government agency had used him as a source or had considered him (Oswald) for recruitment,” the memo reads.
