Russia tells US government to publish truth about JFK assassination

Only when Washington gets its own house in order can it presume to lecture others, Moscow has said

If the US wishes to be considered an authority on democracy and human rights, it ought to come clean about the killings of President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

During her regular daily briefing, Zakharova was asked about the statement by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said Washington intends to champion human rights and fundamental freedoms in China and worldwide.

“Washington itself has long fallen short of the standards of democracy that it publicly declares everywhere,” Zakharova replied, adding that the US promotes “pathetic, hypocritical rhetoric” abroad to hide its neo-colonial ambitions and geopolitical interests.

“The history of American politics contains many unsightly facts that are deliberately hushed up by the US authorities,” Zakharova noted. As an example, she cited the Kennedy family – and the recent anniversary of the June 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles, during the presidential primaries in which he was a favorite.

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The RFK assassination came two months after the fatal shooting of civil rights leader Martin Luther King – and almost five years after the November 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 35th US president, Zakharova told reporters.

“I suggest to Mr. Blinken to muster up the courage and publish all the materials regarding the political assassinations of the US presidents, in particular John F. Kennedy, and tell his people – his people, first of all – the truth about what happened in Dallas and later in Chicago, at the Democratic Party Convention,” she said.

“Only when they close the case on these political killings, can they try to correct other countries,” the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman argued. “While such egregious crimes remain unresolved, and the killers not found and convicted, if I were American leaders I would not open my mouth about other countries, and certainly stop lecturing everyone else how to live.”

Solve the Kennedy assassination – both of them, actually – and then maybe you will be regarded as an authority. Or maybe not.

RFK’s son and JFK’s nephew Robert Francis Kennedy Junior launched his primary challenge to President Joe Biden in April. In an interview last month, he said there was “overwhelming evidence that the CIA was involved” in his uncle’s murder, and “very convincing but circumstantial” evidence the spy agency was also linked to his father's assassination.

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The official findings of the US government, known as the Warren Commission Report, said that US Marine veteran Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and shot the president while his motorcade was passing through Dallas on November 22, 1963. Before he could stand trial, Oswald was shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby at the Dallas Police Headquarters. The Warren Commission ruled that Ruby had acted alone, on impulse and out of grief. 

Ruby died in prison in 1967. Later that year, the CIA issued a directive on how to discredit “conspiracy theorists” who doubted the official findings of the Warren Commission.