According to the New JFK Files, Lee Harvey Oswald Was a Terrible Shot — What Else Did We Learn?

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dealey Plaza while in Dallas, Texas, it changed the United States in unimaginable ways. Not only did his death devastate a country that was already divided by race, but it essentially solidified America's involvement in the Vietnam War. No one could understand why it happened, and it was that fear that gave birth to conspiracy theories that continue to this day.

The conspiracy theories surrounding JFK's assassination are so involved that they have their own Wikipedia page. Much of the speculation is about the man who killed the president: Lee Harvey Oswald. Some believe he was actually working for the CIA or the Russians. Others think he wasn't working alone, claiming there was a second gunman on the infamous grassy knoll. In March 2025, President Donald Trump released all of the JFK assassination files. Here's what we know about the new information.

Journalist Steve Portnoy did the world a solid by reading the new JFK files, which resulted in a thread he posted to X (formerly Twitter). This, of course, doesn't cover everything, but it does include the many ways in which the CIA was involved in some shady business. For example, after the Bay of Pigs, the CIA was "seeking to infiltrate the politics of America's allies." They were also engaged in a ton of surveillance involving the Soviets and Cubans, per ABC News.

Speaking of the CIA, there were several "covert activities in Cuba targeting revolutionary leader Fidel Castro," reported ABC News. Evidently, there were two possible plans to assassinate the dictator while Lyndon Johnson was president but Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was not OK with that.

From October 1959 until June 1962, Oswald lived in the Soviet Union. Prior to that, he was briefly in the United States Marine Corps, which is presumably where he learned to shoot. According to USA Today, in November 1991 a teletype reporting on his time in Russia said that a "KGB official named Nikonov reviewed files from the feared Soviet security service, the KGB, to determine if Oswald 'had been a KGB agent.'" Not only was he not in the KGB but Nikonov said he was a "terrible shot."

On July 18, 1963, four months before the assassination, a man named Sergyj Czornonoh was detained in London. This is when he reportedly warned U.S. Vice Consul Tom Blackshear about Oswald's assassination plot. Czornohoh said he was told this by someone called "Mr. Wasilev," who worked at the Soviet Embassy in Bulgaria. He alleged told State Department officials about the plot in August 1963.

There have been 80,000 pages released, with more to come, reports CBS News. Jefferson Morley, an investigative journalist and vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, told the outlet, "This is the most positive news on the release of JFK files since the 1990s." Before this, there were 3,500 documents that contained redacted information. Roughly a third of these have been released in full.