In 1962, the CIA issued a California driver’s license for officer James P. O’Connell, revealing his alias, James Paul Olds. This detail emerged from a 2017 document release related to JFK’s assassination. Following President Trump’s executive order for the release of classified material, about 63,400 pages of records were uploaded, largely deemed uninteresting and irrelevant to the Kennedy case. Many documents previously released contained minor redactions. Issues arose with accidental releases of personal information, including Social Security numbers. Despite ongoing disclosures, meaningful insights into the assassination remain elusive as the cycle of declassification continues indefinitely.
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In 1962, the CIA arranged for a driver’s license to be issued to one of its agents, James P. O’Connell, under the alias James Paul Olds. This information surfaced when a document was made public in 2017 as part of an effort to declassify records concerning John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Recently, thanks to an executive order from President Donald Trump mandating the release of all classified materials related to the case, we have learned that it was a California driver’s license.
This detail, albeit trivial, emerged from a document that is largely irrelevant. To date, there is no evidence linking O’Connell to the assassination; this mention likely results from a broad records request. Nonetheless, on Tuesday evening, the National Archives and Records Administration uploaded around 63,400 pages of “JFK Assassination Records” to its website. Although Trump’s directive to release all this information gave the impression of sensational revelations, most of the material is as mundane as the driver’s license detail. Many documents were already public with minor redactions, and a substantial portion has little to do with the Kennedy assassination, if at all. This explains why many documents processed by the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s were labeled as “Not Believed Relevant.”
Since the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of such documents have been disclosed, with many unveiled during Trump’s first term and the Biden administration. This flow of information is a direct result of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, motivated by intense public interest in the case following the release of Oliver Stone’s film JFK. However, one of Trump’s promises for his 2024 campaign was to make available all remaining documents, asserting that it was “time for the American people to know the TRUTH!” His health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—John Kennedy’s nephew—has been vocal on this topic, suggesting that the ongoing secrecy around the files supports his conspiratorial narrative.
There are still records that the Archives cannot release due to IRS confidentiality laws or because they originate from sealed grand jury proceedings. Though these may eventually be disclosed, they will likely follow the slow pace of prior releases. It seems unlikely that the public’s curiosity will ever be fully quenched, at least during my lifetime. New records will continue to emerge, but an element will always remain undisclosed.
I personally have a profound interest in the Kennedy assassination and am in the process of completing a book on the subject. On principle, and due to my own interests, I wholeheartedly believe that the government should disclose all documents related to this case if possible. Naturally, I scanned this new batch to see if anything intriguing was revealed. Unfortunately, it did not yield anything particularly exciting, though some aspects were amusing.
In numerous instances, the removed redactions unveiled proper nouns that could have been easily discerned previously or were completely inconsequential. For instance, a 1974 memo concerning Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt’s history with the CIA previously mentioned that the Office of Finance had inquired with a CIA station regarding whether Hunt had received payments while residing in Madrid. We now know that the specific station in question was the Madrid station. (Fascinating!) A 1977 document on the New York Times journalist Tad Szulc contained a rumor that Szulc was a Communist; prior versions of this document indicated that this information was “apparently from a [REDACTED] source.” The redaction has now been lifted, revealing the source to be “apparently from a British source.”
However, some revelations were less humorous. The release included unredacted personal details—including Social Security numbers—of numerous individuals, seemingly disclosed by accident, although the National Archives now implies that this was an expected result of the transparency initiative. On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged the issue to The New York Times, stating, “At the request of the White House, the National Archives and the Social Security Administration immediately put together an action plan to proactively assist individuals whose personal information was released in the records.” The National Archives declined to comment on my inquiry regarding the matter.
During my examination, I discovered personnel files from the late ’70s of several members of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, all containing Social Security numbers. Many of these individuals are likely still alive today. The document release included the Social Security number of a journalist involved in the anti-war movement of the ’60s. I found a total of 19 documents pertaining to his personal life and employment history; notably, none have any significance related to the assassination. Curiously, the new release also contains an unredacted arrest record for a Dealey Plaza witness who testified before the Warren Commission in 1964. This document—for a 1970 car theft—has no connection to the assassination of President Kennedy but is included in full, complete with the individual’s Social Security number and a full set of fingerprints.
Very few documents even mention Kennedy by name. I identified only one that was addressed directly to him: a memo dated June 30, 1961, from his special assistant, confidant, and eventual biographer, Arthur Schlesinger, discussing the growing influence of the CIA. Most of this information has been available since 2018, but the version released on Tuesday revealed a final redaction concerning the agency’s extensive use of State Department positions as cover for its operatives. Schlesinger informed Kennedy that approximately 1,500 CIA officers stationed abroad were provided with cover stories from the State Department—too many, in his estimation; he remarked that “the effect is to further the CIA encroachment on the traditional functions of State.” He noted that the Paris embassy had 128 CIA personnel at that time, citing it as an example, stating, “CIA occupies the top floor of the Paris Embassy, a fact well known locally; and on the night of the Generals’ revolt in Algeria, passersby noted with amusement that the top floor was ablaze with lights.” Ultimately, this is at most “kind of interesting” and at its least trivia. It does not significantly alter our historical understanding of President Kennedy’s complicated relationship with the CIA, which is well documented elsewhere.
After decades of information releases, it’s likely that these are the only types of secrets the Archives still possess concerning the Kennedy assassination—trivial details that add color to what is already comprehensively understood and unengaging specifics about individuals whose connections to the event are minimal, if they exist at all. However, we cannot ascertain this until everything is revealed … if it ever is. Even then, as the tally of concealed items decreases to zero, how can we be certain that we have truly seen it all? We can’t, obviously. We never will.