National Archives Releases New Batch of Secret JFK Assassination Records

Some 1,500 pages of previously classified documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy were released Wednesday by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, shedding more light on the investigation into the events that led to the former president's death in Dallas on Nov. 23, 1963.

The tranche of documents includes memos and cables prepared by the agencies involved in investigating the assassination — the CIA, FBI, State Department and Defense Department — and include details about alleged shooter Lee Harvey Oswald's movements in the months prior to that fateful day.

Among the revelations now made public by the documents are that Oswald met with a KGB agent just two months prior to the assassination, and made a follow-up call inquiring a telegram that he said was supposed to be sent to Washington.

From the memo: "Oswald called the Soviet Embassy in 1 October, identifying himself by name and speaking broken Russian, stating the above and asking the guard who answered the phone whether there was 'anything concerning the telegram to Washington.' "

As has previously been reported, Oswald defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 and spent two and a half years living there before returning to the U.S.

Some of the records released Wednesday had been set for release in October, based on a deadline set in 2018 by former President Donald Trump (who released some but delayed other documents during his own term). But a recent White House memo sent by the Biden administration directed agencies to undergo an "intensive 1-year review" for remaining records, pushing the release of some to Dec. 15, with a second release scheduled for Dec. 22, 2022.

Roughly 10,000 documents related to the assassination remain hidden from public view, CNN reports.

The National Archives and Records Administration, led by U.S. Archivist David Ferriero, said in October that more time is needed for various government agencies to conduct research "to maximize the amount of information released," according to the memo.

"Unfortunately, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the agencies," Ferriero said, according to the memo, adding that "making these decisions is a matter that requires a professional, scholarly, and orderly process; not decisions or releases made in haste."

That decision — spurred by federal agencies requesting President Biden delay the release —angered some members of the former president's family, including two of his nephews: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Patrick Kennedy.

"They should just release the records. It's been 58 years," Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told PEOPLE earlier. "Are they trying to seriously tell us they haven't had time to read them? ... And the White House is saying they haven't had time to read them in three generations. It just makes people think that government lies, and it makes Joe Biden look like a liar. He's doing the same thing Trump did: He promised to release them and now he's saying no, the same as Trump."

Kennedy, then 46, was struck by two bullets — one in the head and one in the neck — while riding through the streets of Dallas in an open-topped motorcade with wife Jackie Kennedy by his side. Oswald, a former U.S. Marine, was charged with the murder, and a presidential commission later found that the gunman had acted alone. Despite the official conclusion, JFK's assassination has fueled conspiracy theories for decades.

The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 states that government records concerning the death of JFK "should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history surrounding the assassination."

But the law allows for delays in order "to protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure."