They're only required to declassify Secrets related to the Kennedy assassination.
My question is, if the case has been closed for 50 years, what could be worth keeping secret today?
It would be too easy to release information that should not be released. Information that has nothing to do with the Kennedy assassination but gives the name of someone who helped us, or who we believed might help us, get information in Cuba. If the wrong information is released, someone in Cuba or their children could get arrested or worse.
It takes a lot of effort to comb through a ton documents to decide, it’s ok, we can release them. Only do discover, too late, that the wrong information was released. It is so much easier, and safer, for the government to just keep everything secret. That is generally what the U. S. government has decided to do. That is what other governments have decided to do.
That’s what they did with the secret information from the American Civil War. And as a result of this decision, maybe some people who helped the Union during the war didn’t get murdered by the KKK. Eventually, all that information was released, and none of it showed that the U. S. government was involved in the assassination of President Lincoln. I don’t expect anything different when all the secret information from the 1960’s is released.
Also, remember the government has had problems with scanning a ton of information, deciding it’s okay to release it all, and then later discover their mistake. It was just such a mistake that allowed information about the Allies Ultra code breaking of World War II to be released to the public in the 1970’s. The government would have liked to have kept that information a secret, so the Soviets and others don’t discover how even seemingly invulnerable codes might get broken. Of course, it probably didn’t matter because I expect the Soviets learned of this during the war. But it does show how easily the wrong information can be released accidentally when a massive release of “obsolete” secrets are released. Much easier and safer to just hold on to the secrets.
It is interesting that the thousands who worked against Ultra, and broke it, all kept their secret. Including Turning who was unjustly punished for homosexuality. But even this was not enough to turn against his country and reveal his truly great secret and his great contribution to saving Britain. Not even in the hopes of a less cruel penalty from the judge. But this continuous dedication to oath and duty was undone because some bureaucrat decided to have scan over a bunch of documents and not realizing their significance, released them. Whose to say the same thing wouldn’t happen if all the “JFK” secrets were released?
