J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’

From the New York Times, I'm Michael. Bubaro. This is the. [Music]. daily. For the past three decades, when. the US government has released documents. related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, an overriding goal has been to. dispel conspiracy theories. But as my. colleague Julian Barnes explains, President Trump's motivation for.

releasing the latest batch is far more. complicated. Today, what we learned from. those new documents and why they may. actually fuel even more conspiratorial. thinking. [Music]. [Applause]. [Music]. It's Thursday, March.

[Music]. 27th. Julian, you're the intelligence. reporter for the Times. So, I'm curious. what your relationship has been to. arguably the biggest and most enduring. conspiracy theory about the agency you. cover that the CIA was behind the. killing of the president, the. assassination of JFK. Yeah, that one. Yep. Well, like all Americans, it's.

loomed really large for my entire life, right? I mean, this is something that everybody. talks about generation in, generation. out. I never realized Kennedy was so. dangerous to the establishment. That movie JFK came out when I was in. college. And please be seated. In that movie, Oliver Stone posits that. there is a dark conspiracy behind the. Kennedy assassination. Right. President.

Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy. that was planned in advance at the. highest levels of our government and it. was carried out by fanatical and. disciplined cold warriors in the It was. the CIA that Oswald didn't act alone. Y'all got to start thinking on a. different level like the CIA does. Now. we're through the looking glass here, people. White is. black and black is white. And I remember I was like, "Wow, this.

could be true. Maybe this shadow agency. could have done something like. that." This infuses so much, you know, why was the CIA covering up what they. knew about Oswald? What was the CIA. doing in the 1960s into the 1970s? This. is the kind of foundational myth of the. CIA. And the CIA's relationship with. Kennedy is hugely important in the.

history of the agency and how we. understand the agency today. Suffice it. to say, young Julian Barnes and now. modern-day Julian Barnes sounds very. primed for the moment just a few days. ago when the United States government at. the direction of President Trump. releases thousands and thousands of. pages of these super secret documents. related to the JFK assassination. So, what given that history, was your first.

impression when you finally had a chance. to really make sense of them? Well, not. to spoil the episode, but the CIA did. not kill. JFK. We have not learned that there's a. second gunman. Mhm. There is no. significance to the grassy null. Oswald. acted alone. But that doesn't mean this. release is not important, right? There. are interesting new details about. spycraft, about how the CIA operated and.

how they operated outside the guard. rails put on by a democratic government, how they exceeded their charter. And that's what's important about this. today. And that's kind of why these. documents are coming out. We have a. president who has consistently. questioned the role of intelligence. agencies in society. He's constantly. attacking forces arrayed against him. And by putting this out, by exposing.

this old history about the bad acts of. the. CIA, one could reasonably argue that. he's trying to reinforce the idea that. there is a threat from something he. would call the deep state. Mhm. Well, we're going to get to that and get to. how the documents that were just. released may or may not reinforce that. concept. But just to start, can you tell. us the backstory behind this document. release? As you've hinted at, there have.

been releases of JFK documents. throughout the last half century or so. So, where did these specific documents. come from? What's that story? So it. starts at the time of the assassination. itself. Americans have a lot of. questions. How could one solitary gunman. do this? How could one bullet hit the. president and the governor of Texas? You. know, there were breadcrumbs and hints.

People knew about the tensions between. Kennedy and the CIA over the failed Bay. of Pigs invasion of Cuba, right? Which. the CIA had overseen and botched, right? So the public wants answers and the. clamor leads to a government commission, the Warren Commission, which. investigates the killing of John. Kennedy, and comes to a conclusion that.

few Americans accept, which is that. Oswald acted alone. And so the questions. persist and there are more and more. commissions uh congressional. investigations each of which generates a. lot of documents some about the Kennedy. assassination some about other programs. but in the course of these. investigations we learn about all kinds. of other CIA abuses like what Project. Mockingbird when they were tapping the.

phones of journalists MK Ultra where. they were putting LSD into the drinks of. unsuspecting Americans to find out. whether they could practice mind control. on the Soviets. Wow. These were limited. programs, but they were wrong. They were. outside the CIA's mandate, and they. became part of the public consciousness. of a agency that was a little out of. control, that was spying on Americans. and not operating within limits. So, in.

the public imagination, all of this kind. of comes together. Whether it's the. abuse of a CIA mind control experiment. or a wire tap of a reporter in. Washington, it all comes merged with the. original questions about was the CIA. involved in Kennedy's assassination? But. more and more information is. accumulated, some of which is released. and much of which is kept locked in the.

CIA's vault. And they're all kept locked. away until Oliver Stone makes his movie. JFK, the one I saw in college, right? And the movie ends with a message about. how the Kennedy assassination records. are locked away for decades. And it. serves almost like a call to action. So. people start calling. Congress and Congress passes a law that. mandates the whole trove of documents.

about the Kennedy assassination but also. about broader CIA activities gets. released and it lays out a timetable to. push the documents out to the public and. the timetable for the law is 25 years. and so across various presidential. administrations documents are being. released right And the deadline to. declassify and release these documents. from all these government inquiries. basically ends up in the first Trump.

administration. The final final. deadline, the final deadline for the. last of the. documents. But at that time, Trump. listens to the CIA and they ask him, can. you withhold the names of officers, the. names of sources, protect some of our. trade craft? and he sees to those wishes. and the documents released in 2017 had. many redactions. So just explain how we. get from the Trump who is compliant with.

the CIA and agreeing to all the. redactions to the Trump of this past. week or so who oversees the release of. this final batch with no redactions. And. I'm guessing part of the answer is the. extraordinary souring of Trump's. relationship with the intelligence. community since his first term. So just. to say there's a super tiny tranch of.

documents that are still under court. seal, but yes, the vast vast majority of. the documents have no redactions and are. now public. But to answer your question, part of it is Trump's antipathy to the. intelligence agencies, his worries about. the deep state, which have become much. more central to his messaging over the. years. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. We won.

And right before his second. inauguration, he vows to do something. He says he'll order the release of the. remaining documents about the. assassination of President Kennedy. As a. first step toward restoring transparency. and accountability to government, we. will also reverse the overclassification. of government documents. And in the. coming days, we are going to make public. remaining records relating to the. assassinations of President John F.

Kennedy, his brother. He frames this as a way to restore. public trust in government, but part of. it is also his new alliance with Robert. F. Kennedy Jr. We need to have more. transparency in our government, and he's. keeping his promise to RFK Jr. is the. son of Kennedy's attorney general, the. New York senator and presidential. candidate, Robert F. Kennedy. And. throughout RFK's life, the day that my. uncle was killed, the first phone call.

that my father made after Jed Hoover. told him that his brother had been. shot was to the CIA desk officer. And my. father said to him, "Did your people do. this?" The questions about what the CIA. did, what role the CIA had in his. uncle's death, have loomed large. It was. my father's first instinct that the. agency had killed his brother. RFK Jr. is somebody who very much believes the.

CIA was involved in his uncle's death. There's millions of pages of documents. Uh there's a 60-year cover up and he is. a very strong voice in this. administration pushing for a much. grander release of information. Hm. And. of course, he's kind of pushing on an. open door in Trump given his. relationship with the intel community. That's right. A lot of people are. waiting for this long for.

years, for decades. Trump is ready to push out these. documents and everything will be. revealed. And he signs an executive. order ordering the JFK documents to be. [Music]. released. And then last week they make. public a huge trove. 77,000 pages, almost all of it digitized on the web. And gone are most of the redactions. No.

white boxes, no black boxes. Now it's. finally out there for the public to. [Laughter]. see. We'll be right back. So Julian, tell us what we learn when.

these redacted boxes are wiped away and. everything that had been previously. hidden in these JFK documents suddenly. is revealed. Well, some of what had been. hidden was hidden for good reason, like. the social security numbers of hundreds. of congressional staffers. Huh. Who had. worked on previous investigations. Yeah. who had been on the committee in the 70s. or the house committee on the. assassinations. One of the church. committee members was Joseph de Geneva,

a Trump campaign lawyer, and he was. hopping mad that his social security. number was out there. I mean, it was a. huge mess. The administration. immediately had to say they were going. to take the really unusual step of. issuing new social security numbers, something they very rarely do, to the. affected people. M this is an example of. you know stuff that didn't need to come. out there doesn't serve any investigator. but the speed of which they were moving. and the directive remove all the.

redactions you know led to some second. order effects. So when it comes to the. central question we have been exploring. here of what new information is in these. formally redacted spaces and these. documents beyond social security numbers. what did you find? Well, one of the most. interesting documents which was titled. CIA reorganization was from Arthur. Slesinger, a key aid to John. Kennedy. This document had been out.

before, but what was hidden from view. and is now apparent is the pure depth of. the CIA spy work in France. Huh? You. know, half of the embassy in France was. CIA officers, not diplomats. So people. you would think are working for the. State Department in a diplomatic. capacity are actually just spies for the. CIA. Yeah. And this is the larger point. of this memo, which is that the CIA is.

taking over US foreign policy. It's out. of the control of the president and the. secretary of state because the CIA's. role has grown too big. This is the kind. of information the CIA keeps secret even. today. How many people they have. overseas, where they're stationed, how. many officers are in each embassy. And. so you can see why when President Trump. in his first term released these.

documents, this information was. redacted. Even though it was old, this. goes to how they operate. And they. really like to keep those secrets out of. the view of the public. What seems fascinating about this not. only is that it reveals the reach of the. CIA within what we think of as the. civilian corners of our government like. the State Department, but it reminds me. of what you had said earlier in our.

conversation about the tension between. Kennedy and the CIA that would seem to. fuel the idea that in this period there. is a conflict between the spy agency and. the president. That's right, Michael. This is a piece of evidence about the. tensions between the CIA and the Kennedy. administration. They did not like this. idea of unchecked intelligence power. And that becomes the kernel of many.

conspiracy theories about why the CIA. had it out for Kennedy. Mhm. From the. beginning here you can see the origins. of this deep state idea that there is. powers within the government that are. operating without the regular checks and. balances without the direct control the. direct knowledge of the president. That. makes any president nervous. And we can. see that blossom generations later with.

President Trump. What what else do we. learn from these unredacted documents. about the CIA? Well, there's another. document that was written for William. Colby who was the CIA director in the. 1970s. He asked an aid to look into. activities the CIA was up to that quote. exceeded the charter. H just translate. that. Yeah. What he means there is the. CIA is not supposed to operate in the. United States. There are specific.

guidelines in terms of what the CIA does. overseas. if the president doesn't. directly authorize it, you're not. supposed to do it. And there's clearly a. belief by some around Colby that the. agency had gone too far. Mhm. And so. this document again had come out before. but had redactions. Now what we see is. new material again about spying on the. French. This time in the United States.

We learned that the CIA not only was. doing the eavesdropping, but they. actually broke into the French consulate. building. Wow. Yeah. And it is kind of. an example of the CIA out of control, right? And beyond that, in these. documents, we have other. examples of the CIA going beyond that. charter. We have them listening to the. phones of journalists in Washington. Now. remember, we knew that before these.

documents came out, but now we know more. and we have the another name of a. Washington Post reporter we did not know. whose phone was being tapped that the. CIA was listening to. So what these. removed redactions are really showing us. is just a deeper version of what we had. already understood, which is just how. out of control the CI was in this. period, rather than these documents.

telling us anything really new or revoly. related to the conspiracy theories. around Kennedy's death. Yes. But it's. also true that this additional. information feeds other conspiracy. theories that have developed over the. years. Take the eavesdropping on. Washington journalists, right? That was. part of a real program the CIA called. Project Mockingbird, right? You. mentioned that before. But Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. often talks about something. called Operation Mockingbird, which he. says is an effort by the CIA to not just. listen to journalists, but manipulate. them, control them. So, he's taken a. kernel of a real thing, this real abuse. of listening to Washington journalists, and morphed it into an entirely. different conspiracy theory. So, in. theory, a revelation like the one you.

just described of a. CIA reaching into the phone lines of. journalists in the 1960s could further. fuel that unsubstantiated theory that. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. subscribes to that. the CIA is trying to control. journalists. Yes. And look, in the past, we've had releases of documents that. have been meant to dispel conspiracy. theories. Mhm. To try and bring more.

rationality and logic and information. into the debate. But now, maybe for the. first time, we have people who are. invested in the conspiracy theories and. they have a very different set of. interests. Robert F. Kennedy is pushing. this. transparency in part because he believes. there's new information about these. conspiracy theories that he's pushed for. years. So those putting out these docs.

now, they are not interested in. dispelling them as their forefathers in. disclosures like this have. They're. putting them out because they're. believers in conspiracy theories. Do you. think it's fair to put President Trump. in that category? Not completely. He may. not believe every old conspiracy theory, but he definitely believes there's a. conspiracy to get him today. He. definitely believes the deep state is. out to undermine his presidency. He. blames them for the Mara Lago classified.

documents investigation. He blames them. for undermining his foreign policy. So. if something comes out that undermines. the credibility of the intelligence. agencies of the FBI, Trump does not. oppose that. Well, that gets to a. question that I think is going to be on. a lot of people's minds as they get to. this point in the conversation, which. is, are all the revelations that we have. just been discussing, especially around. the CIA, in any way strengthening the.

one conspiracy theory that Trump. subscribes to the most still about a. deep state? or is the reality that. what's in these documents is so old that. it's quite irrelevant to today's debate. over government and the deep state that. Trump talks about now. How should we. think about that? Objectively, I would. say the old history has very little to. do with how the CIA operates today. There have been years of reform. There's.

far more congressional oversight today. than there was in the 1960s. But that. may be a minority view. A lot of people, they look at these old stories and they. see proof of what they think is. happening today. And so even if we know. that the CIA operates very differently, people use evidence of past mistakes to. argue that there is a deep state that. today is undermining the president. So.

in that sense, the foundational. conspiracy theory that the intelligence. community played a role in Kennedy's. death and that the government spends all. this time releasing documents to dispel. ends up seeding newer different. conspiracy theories. All of which seems. to tell us that transparency or efforts. at transparency when it comes to. something like the Kennedy. assassination, it didn't really solve. conspiracy theories. It helped them. I.

think the word you used was blossom, which isn't necessarily the best case. for transparency. Does that mean we just. have to accept that the more you. release, the more conspiracy theories. there will be? That's just the reality. of it. That's a totally depressing. thought. I really hope it's not true. But I don't really. know what the way to counter that is, but through more transparency and more. objective looks at the.

information, more analysis that brings. in the full. context that pushes back against. conspiratorial. thinking. But conspiratorial thinking. has been very sticky in America. I mean, go back to just the short time after the. Kennedy. assassination. Only 30% of the people. believed Oswald acted alone. H almost. 50% believed there was a conspiracy.

Now, those numbers have fluctuated some. After that JFK movie, only 10% of people. believed Oswald acted alone. But today, years later, after all these. revelations, decades later, yeah, decades later, 60 years later, we're. back where we started, right? It's like. 30% of people believed Oswald acted. alone. 65% of people believe there was a. conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Well, kind.

of unchanged or even worse. Yeah. This. is not a case against transparency. This. is not an argument that we shouldn't be. releasing this. information, but it's just a reminder. about how powerful the idea of. conspiracy is, how much of a hold that. has on the American mindset. And we. can't think that. another release of documents, another.

revelation is going to dismiss those. conspiracy. theories. It's just as likely that. they'll give them new life. [Music]. Well, Joanne, thank you very much. Thank. you, Michael. [Music].

We'll drive. [Music]. back. Here's what else you need to know. Day Pete Seth needs to resign. There. needs to be accountability right now. Secretary Hegsth must resign. immediately. The Secretary of Defense. should be fired immediately if he's not. man enough to own up to his mistakes. On.

Wednesday, a growing number of. congressional Democrats called on. Defense Secretary Pete Hexap to resign. or be fired after it emerged that texts. he inadvertently shared with a. journalist over a commercial messaging. platform contained detailed information. about an upcoming US military attack. The texts from Hegsath, which were. released by the journalists who received. them, cast doubt on claims by the. officials involved in the text chain.

that nothing in their messages was. classified. Hexath is doing a great job. He had nothing to do with this. Hex, how do you bring Hexath into it? He. had nothing to do. You see, look, look, it's all a witch hunt. Asked about HGs's. future during a news conference at the. White House, President Trump defended. him and called the growing political. furer over the texts another coordinated. attack against his. administration. And President Trump said.

he would impose a 25% tariff on all cars. and certain car parts that are imported. into the United States starting next. week. In doing so, Trump would make good. on a promise long feared by automakers. across the. world. The tariffs could encourage car. makers to open up more US factories, but. will disrupt supply chains and most. likely result in significantly higher.

car prices for American consumers. [Music]. Today's episode was produced by. OliviaNat, Mary Wilson, and Sydney. Harper. It was edited by Liz O. Balen, contains original music by Alicia Etub, Dan Powell, and Rowan Nisto, and was. engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme. music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben. Lansberg of Wonderly.

[Music]. That's it for the daily. I'm Michael. Boro. See you tomorrow. [Music].