Kennedy’s secrets, but what about our secrets?

What’s known and unraveled from history’s secrets is a minority unlike the hidden and unknown, a majority. That’s nature’s law.

History writers, officials and those that go unnoticed, work hard and compile data yet, whether they are narrators interested in abstract facts, or interested in analysis and comparison, many documents and files have always been kept away from them. As such, history remains an open text, a sentence without parenthesis, and that is the beauty of looking into history.

US President Donald Trump has recently ordered for the release of all documents related to the assassination of the interesting US President John Kennedy. The president was shot by a Sniper, Oswald, in Dallas Texas November 22, 1963. It is an incident that still inspires detectives, narrators, cinematic producers and of course, journalism folks.

The liberal-catholic president’s assassination, a man with a wild life and a descendent from one of the most famous American political families, has turned into a myth among other American narratives.

Who killed him?

Was it the communist neighbor, the Cuban Castro? Soviet intelligence? The CIA? Was it one of the American mafia gangs? Who?

Despite Trump’s clear order, he could not break the chains of secrecy on all the assassination’s documents and the case. In a series of tweets on his official twitter account, Trump said: “After strict consultation with General Kelly, the CIA and other Agencies, I will be releasing ALL JFK files other than the names and addresses of any mention person who is still living.

US intelligence agencies have asked for the publication of the some of the documents to be postponed for another time. In a statement issued by the US National Archives, they said: “Based on requests from executive offices and agencies the President has allowed the temporary withholding of certain information that would harm national security, law enforcement, or foreign affairs.”

This get me wondering, how many cases in the Arab world await to be unraveled?

We’re not saying that there aren’t any documents in the form of memoirs, old journalistic material, embassy and consulate documents, foreign travel or even special documents for families. Instead, we are specifically talking about the idea of an official publication for the government’s archive. That is because it remains the largest and closest archive of the event.

Cases such as the murder or suicide of Field Marshal Amer, the death of Iraqi King Ghazi, the documents related to the Yemeni ‘Brotherhood’ coup on Yahya Hamid and his murder and dozens of similar cases. Aside from being beneficial to history and a right to researchers unravelling documents, while taking into account security and peace demands for secrecy, is the best cure to eliminate illusions and legends woven around a certain a case.

Perhaps if most, not all, past documents are revealed the present would have dramatically changed – positively and negatively.

This article is also available in Arabic.
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Saudi journalist Mashari Althaydi presents Al Arabiya News Channel’s “views on the news” daily show “Maraya.” He has previously held the position of a managing senior editor for Saudi Arabia & Gulf region at pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. Althaydi has published several papers on political Islam and social history of Saudi Arabia. He appears as a guest on several radio and television programs to discuss the ideologies of extremist groups and terrorists. He tweets under @MAlthaydy.