Why Australia's spy boss wanted to KEEP the JFK files top secret - as Donald Trump finally lifts the lid on the conspiracy theory-plagued assassination
- CIA investigated a Canberra link to JFK's murder
- ASIO requested the probe remain classified
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A possible Australian link to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has been revealed during Donald Trump's release of thousands of bombshell documents.
Handwritten and typed notes obtained by the CIA during the Warren Commission, an inquiry ordered by Mr Kennedy's successor Lyndon Johnson, were published on the US National Archives on Tuesday.
Among them are letters from former head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Sir Charles Spry to CIA director Richard Helms in October 1968.
Sir Spry makes the case for keeping a probe into a possible Canberra-link to the assassination plot classified.
The alleged plot, documents show, surrounds anonymous phone calls made to the American embassy in Canberra around the time of President Kennedy's death in 1963.
'Sir Charles' letter to you recommends against declassification of the Warren Commission document,' according to a memo from William Nelson, the chief of the Far East Division, to Mr Helms in November 1968.
'[It] refers to our investigation of anonymous phone calls to the Canberra Embassy before and after the assassination of President Kennedy.
'I consider the points made by Sir Charles in his letter to be valid and accordingly recommend against the declassification... in the foreseeable future.'
An alleged Australian link to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (pictured) was revealed among thousands of declassified documents
CIA director Richard Helms confirmed to the ASIO's director general that the probe into mystery calls regarding the assassination of JFK would not be published
Mr Helms then contacted Sir Spry to confirm that there was not 'at the present time' any intention to release the letter.
Sir Spry's letter was, in fact, published in a 2023 release of the 'JFK files', listing his concern that the press would question the CIA's presence in Canberra.
'It has never been officially stated that there is a 'C.I.A. Canberra Station' or that there are C.I.A officers in Australia,' he wrote.
'This has been avoided as a point of policy.
'Publication of these facts would invoke a spate of questions by the Press and in Parliament, which would be contrary to the national security interest.'
He also cautioned that questions could be raised about ASIO's investigation into the anonymous telephone calls and the results of it.
There are also memos included in Tuesday's document dump that indicate a CIA probe into the presence of a suspected Russian agents in Australia.
A CIA cable sent to Sydney in 1963 references a 'telephone conversation including... possible connection Soviet government with assassination[sic]'.
Sir Charles Spry, then-head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, warned that publishing the probe into anonymous calls to the US embassy in Canberra could expose the presence of the CIA in the country
President John F Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy moments before the president was shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963 as his car passed through Dealey Plaza
Then-boss of the ASIO Sir Charles Spry said in a letter that his organisation never 'officially stated' that there was a 'CIA Canberra Station'
The memo also lists a person of interest who rang the embassy on November 23, 1963, claiming to be a Polish driver of a Russian vehicle.
'Information touched on several areas including possible Soviet connection supplying money to individual in U.S. to assassinate President,' a comment on the document said.
When looking through some of the documents, Daily Mail Australia also noted correspondence between the Australian and US secret services ahead of peace conferences.
The ASIO requested US intelligence on Americans who were invited to two anti-war movements: the 1971 National Anti-War Conference in Sydney and the Australian Vietnam Moratorium Campaign in 1970.
Tuesday's release of documents came roughly 24 hours after President Donald Trump announced that a trove of 80,000 pages of new material would be revealed.
During his 2024 campaign he vowed to make them public as part of his overall effort to increase government transparency and Trump signed an executive order to declassify them in January.
Robert Kennedy Jr, a member of Trump's cabinet for the Department of Health and Services, has said he approves of the decision to declassify the files relating to the murder of his uncle.
Robert Kennedy Jr (pictured) is a member of Trump's cabinet and has backed the decision to declassify the files relating to the murder of his uncle
But John F. Kennedy's only grandson Jack Schlossberg has issued a harsh rebuke, writing on X that media doesn't 'need to cover the fake JFK documents story. Especially when there's so much real news'.
But, in many cases, the scanned documents are old, faded and blurry making parts of them illegible. Others have scratched out written information.
Despite the promise there won't be redactions, some are heavily redacted with thick black bars across the pages.
Historian David J. Garrow told the New York Times 'this dump is profoundly more impenetrable than all the previous more annotated ones.'
Garrow suggested it would take him two days just to open up all of the released 80,000 pages of documents.
John Greenewald Jr. of The Black Vault - which boasts of being the 'largest privately run online repository of declassified government documents' - similarly complained about the organization of the files.
