Newly Released JFK Files Reveal That KGB Thought Lee Harvey Oswald Was ‘A Poor Shot’ Who Couldn’t Be Controlled By Anyone

The latest release of secret government files relating to former President John F. Kennedy‘s death has many people excited. It is unclear how much material is new; many documents have previously been released in redacted form. The total number of released pages is 1,123, with more complete versions readily available for viewing. 

An investigation in the 1960s concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a local drifter and former US Marine who defected to the then-Soviet Union, acted alone when he shot at Kennedy’s motorcade from a nearby building. 

A CIA document offered some insight into Oswald’s time in the USSR. After the fall of the Soviet Union, an American professor interviewed a KGB contact named Nikonov. 

“Nikonov personally reviewed KGB files to determine if Lee Harvey [Oswald] had been a KGB agent. He reviewed five thick volumes of files on Oswald,” the memo read. “Nikonov is now confident that Oswald was at no time an agent controlled by the KGB.” The files “reflected that Oswald was a poor shot when he tried target firing in the USSR. From the description of Oswald in the files, he doubted that anyone could control Oswald but noted that the KGB watched him closely and constantly while he was in the USSR. He commented that Oswald had a stormy relationship with this Soviet wife, who rode him incessantly.”

Opinion polls indicate that most Americans don’t believe Oswald was the sole assassin despite no alternative narrative being found. 

According to Jefferson Morley, a former Washington Post reporter and editor of the JFK Facts blog, Oswald had been of interest to the CIA before the assassination, “Several very new important documents have come into public view,” he said. 

Many new documents have been released, and specialists are still combing through new ones. The official papers also reveal Kennedy’s relationship with the CIA before his death, with a newly unredacted memo revealing American historian Arthur Schlesinger warning the former president about the agency’s influence on American foreign policy. 

Some well-known online accounts claim the recent documents reveal new details about long-alleged plots against Kennedy, including posts about World War II military intelligence agent Gary Underhill being responsible for the assassination. A seven-page memo of his story on Underhill went viral on Tuesday, and much of his history with the CIA has been mentioned since its 2017 release. 

The push for greater transparency has led to the release of multiple documents over the last few decades. President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden pushed for releasing document batches during their first terms.