Documents on mystery add fuel to conspiracy fire
Why did ex-CIA agent John Underhill panic and tell friends he feared for his life the day after the JFK assassination?
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Paul Jansen
19 Mar 2025in International
Washington - Researchers and journalists are digging through the mountain of JFK files, which have been released by order of the White House. The documents offer a juicy glimpse into a secret world full of intrigue. So far, however, without the 'smoking gun' of an assassination plot against
President Kennedy. John Underhill (inset), who did 'special jobs' for the CIA, was able to report that the assassination of JFK was an inside job by a small group within the service, who were involved in a lucrative clandestine arms and drug trade. Kennedy is said to have gotten wind of it.
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John Underhill (inset), who did 'special jobs' for the CIA, was able to report that the assassination of JFK was an inside job by a small group within the service, that there was a lucrative clandestine arms and drug trade. Kennedy is said to have gotten wind of it.
A former secret agent who suspects a 'small clique' within the CIA, wiretapped Cuban diplomats who point to the US and the Soviets who investigate whether Lee Harvey Oswald was a KGB agent. The release of tens of thousands of documents about the assassination of President Kennedy opens the door to all kinds of conspiracy theories.
What about former CIA agent John Underhill, who, the day after the assassination attempt on the president in November 1963, panickedly told friends that he feared for his life. The former officer, who was friends with the top of the Pentagon and did 'special jobs' for the CIA, was able to report that the act was an inside job by a small group within the service, who were involved in a lucrative clandestine arms and drug trade. Kennedy is said to have gotten wind of it.
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Tens of thousands of secret JFK documents on Kennedy assassination released: this is what they say about Lee Harvey Oswald
The secret memorandum from June 1967 also states that Underhill was found dead in his apartment six months later. There was a gunshot wound behind his left ear and the gun was on his left side, which an acquaintance found strange since Underhill was right-handed. The official cause was nevertheless suicide.
Image from the film that Abraham Zapruder made on November 22, 1963 of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
John Underhill was a personal friend of the arms dealer
The complications surrounding CIA agent Underhill surfaced in an American magazine in the sixties. The revelations proved serious enough for the American authorities to include them in a memorandum labelled 'secret' after publication. A striking fact was that Underhill had also been a personal friend of an arms dealer, who had the CIA as a client. The same dealer also delivered the rifle that Oswald bought, officially via a mail order to a sports shop.
The rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald is said to have used in the assassination of JFK.
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The rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald is said to have used in the assassination of JFK.
The revelations fuel new speculation about conspiracy theories behind the assassination of Kennedy, which according to the official historiography was the work of one man: Oswald. The disclosure was supposed to put an end to all the Indian stories. During the election campaign, President Donald Trump had promised to remove the fog around the most notorious political assassination of the twentieth century. That happened on Tuesday evening, when tens of thousands of papers were released in two tranches.
Experts had warned in advance not to have too high expectations. Many documents had been withheld because of still-living contacts, not because of plots to be concealed, they said. Nevertheless, not everything seems to be public yet. According to National Security Director Tulsi Gabbard, an unspecified number of files are subject to judicial restrictions. These must first be lifted. It is equally unclear whether this also concerns the 2,400 mysterious FBI files that suddenly surfaced last month.
See also:
Secret agent Clint Hill (93) saved the life of first lady Jackie Kennedy, but lived with a sense of guilt until his death
Was Lee Harvey Oswald an extension of the CIA?
An initial scan of the more than 2,200 files yields few new leads about Oswald. The question has always been whether he acted on behalf of the Soviets or was perhaps secretly an extension of the CIA. Interesting in this regard is a report from the nineties that tells the story of an American professor who spoke to a high-ranking KGB official in Moscow about Oswald. In those days after the end of the Cold War, the Russian spy said he had gone through five thick files on the Kennedy assassin and concluded from them that the American had never been run by the Soviets.
See also:
New documents stoke conspiracy fire around JFK assassination: from plausible ideas to downright fabulous brainchildren
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FBI discovers thousands of 'new' secret documents about JFK assassination: 'This is gigantic'
Wiretapped Cuban diplomats in Uruguay also immediately thought that the assassination was the work of the CIA after the attack. However, employees at foreign posts of the communist regime feared that they would be blamed.
Wiretapped Cuban diplomats in Uruguay also immediately thought that the assassination of JFK was the work of the CIA after the attack.
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In addition to information about the assassination of Kennedy, the released documents provide a broad picture of the turbulent international political developments in the sixties, as well as of the world of the secret services. Assassination plots against Cuban leader Fidel Castro, coup plans in Vietnam and Congo, a European drug criminal who would be recruited via Luxembourg as a CIA hitman and a Belgian arms dealer in Havana are just a few of the remarkable cases that are reviewed in the JFK files.
See also:
Is a can of worms opening around the JFK assassination? 'Truth sadder than myth'
The criminal who had to be recruited as a murder broker via the embassy in Luxembourg is particularly reminiscent of a Hollywood film such as The Bourne Identity. The CIA wanted to set up a network of assassins via this operation RIFLE. The murder broker had to arrange weapons, cars and safe houses. The plan, which was discussed around the time of Kennedy's inauguration as president in 1961, ultimately died on the drawing board.
Will two Dutch journalists solve the assassination of Kennedy? 'Puzzle pieces fall into place'
Assassination of Kennedy a revenge action by Cuban insurgents?
Many documents are about the communist regime in Cuba. A frequently heard conspiracy theory is that the assassination of Kennedy was an act of revenge by Cuban insurgents for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, which was set up by the CIA. A former secret agent saw danger from the same quarter. Four years after the assassination, he sounded the alarm to warn of possible involvement of a student association of Cuban exiles in the US, which had been sponsored by the CIA. The student association had been in contact with Oswald a few months before the assassination of Kennedy. After that, the trail goes dead.
It seems to be the fate of the flood of released documents.
