The National Archives released records from John F. Kennedy’s November 1963 assassination in March and files related to the June 1968 murder of Robert F. Kennedy in April.
King was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder and died in prison in 1998, but King’s children have expressed doubts that he was the assassin.
In a statement this week, King’s two surviving children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, said they “support transparency and historical accountability” but were concerned the records could be used for “attacks on our father’s legacy”.
The civil rights leader was the target during his lifetime of an “invasive, predatory and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign” orchestrated by then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, they said in a joint statement.
The FBI campaign was intended to “discredit, dismantle and destroy Dr King’s reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement”, they said. “These actions were not only invasions of privacy, but intentional assaults on the truth.
“We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint and respect for our family’s continuing grief,” they said.
The Warren Commission, which investigated the shooting of John F. Kennedy, determined it was carried out by a former Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.
That formal conclusion has done little, however, to quell speculation that a more sinister plot was behind Kennedy’s murder in Dallas, Texas, and the slow release of the government files added fuel to various conspiracy theories.
John F. Kennedy’s younger brother, Robert Kennedy, a former Attorney-General, was assassinated while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian-born Jordanian, was convicted of his murder and is serving a life sentence in a prison in California.
– Agence France-Presse
