NO SMOKING GUN

Kennedy files reveal UK warned CLA of plot 3 months before his death. But blow for conspiracy theorists as there is still...

- CHRISTOPHER BUCKTIN

BRITAIN warned the CIA over a plot to kill John F Kennedy three months before his assassination, new documents have shown.

The claim was contained in more than 2,000 files into the death of the US President released by Donald Trump.

However, conspiracy theorists have been left bitterly disappointed after the papers provided no further insight to back up claims of a second gunman or a government hit.

Critics attacked President Trump, who ordered the release, as his aides had said Americans would be left "shocked" by what the 63,000 pages revealed.

The President had vowed there would be no redactions but thousands of details were blacked out.

Many historians have taken a measured approach to the release.

"I doubt that these releases are going to overturn our understanding of what happened on that terrible day in Dallas," said Harvard University historian and author Fredrik Logevall.

Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said he believed people looking for a smoking gun were going to be let down.

SURVEILLANCE

He said: "We will learn things but it may not be about the Kennedy assassination, and people who are expecting to crack the case after 61 years are going to be bitterly disappointed." The files include FBI reports, CIA memos and Secret Service records detailing the events surrounding Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

The documents also cover subsequent investigations into Lee Harvey Oswald, who killed the president, as well as numerous conspiracy theories.

Many of the files appear to contradict each other, particularly on the level of surveillance on Oswald and the scope of the investigation into his activities.

While some records suggest he was under close FBI observation, others indicate that the agency had little intelligence on his activities.