With JFK assassination documents about to be released, America's conspiracy theory obsession hits its zenith

Conspiracy theories surrounding some of America's major events existed long before Donald Trump came along. How many people can keep a secret before it's fully exposed? Two or three, a few hundred, or thousands plus some government agencies? Or perhaps consecutive governments from different parties, spanning decades?

In this age of ubiquitous mobile phones and instant communication, the temptation to share secrets is ever greater, not to mention foreign hackers who may be listening in. To keep a government-wide conspiracy secret requires incredible self-control from the most social species on the planet. Long before Donald Trump appeared on the social media scene, conspiracy theories had captured the American imagination and were intertwined with politics.

Even the death of one of America's founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, was embroiled in the so-called "Burr conspiracy." Now, as Trump embarks on his second term as US President, his supporters are convinced of another conspiracy, that the 2020 election was stolen. Americans may be on the cusp of uncovering the truth about the "mother of all conspiracy theories": who killed JFK?

Trump, a man accused of paying women to lie about relationships with him during his campaign and refusing to release his tax records, has touted this move as a demonstration of his administration's commitment to transparency. As one of his first acts in his second term, Trump fulfilled a pre-election promise to release all remaining classified documents related to the death of President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy served as US president from January 1961 to November 22, 1963, when he was shot in the head by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in an open-top car in Dallas.

"Everything will be revealed," Trump said as he signed the order. If Kennedy's assassination wasn't shocking enough, Oswald's murder two days later by Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner with mob connections, added to the mystery. One explanation for why Ruby killed Oswald is that Ruby was driven by his own conspiracy theory that Jews would be blamed for Kennedy's death, and if he, a Jew, killed Oswald, that narrative would be undermined.

Oswald's death, like the president's, is central to the Kennedy conspiracy. Oswald was the only person who could have explained why Kennedy was killed. Without his testimony, rumors and speculation ran rampant, morphing into one of America's biggest and most enduring conspiracy stories, now six decades old. The findings of the "Warren Commission" concluded that Oswald acted alone, but suspicions about a second shooter and a secret conspiracy have lingered.

Over the decades, conspiracy theories have implicated everyone from the Mafia, an anonymous second shooter hidden on the "grassy knoll," the CIA, to then-aspiring President Lyndon B. Johnson, and even former Cuban leader Fidel Castro or the South Vietnamese government seeking revenge. The Kennedy conspiracy theory is not confined to fringe groups, it has gone mainstream. A 2023 YouGov poll showed that 40% of Democrats and a staggering 68% of Republicans still believe that Oswald did not act alone.

Even Trump himself has propagated his own Kennedy conspiracy theories. Back in 2016 during his first presidential campaign, Trump suggested that his rival Ted Cruz's father had met with Oswald shortly before the shooting. Oliver Stone's 1992 Oscar-winning film JFK prompted the US Congress to pass the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, triggering the release of relevant documents by the National Archives and Records Administration.

During Trump's first term, the first batch of classified documents related to Kennedy's death began to be gradually released. Most recently, in 2023, former US President Joe Biden released 2,693 of the approximately five million documents, which, along with those released in 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022, have failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove or disprove the many theories surrounding Kennedy's assassination.

Is the truth about to be revealed? Trump's executive order signed on January 23 means the Director of National Intelligence and the US Attorney General now have 15 days to announce a plan to release the remaining Kennedy documents, which are believed to include 4,684 fully or partially withheld photos, videos, audio, artifacts and documents. These documents may not be in the public domain anytime soon, as they must first undergo intelligence review. Some information may be redacted. Concerns are already mounting that Trump's announcement is riddled with caveats and loopholes that could indefinitely delay the release of the documents.

Classified documents relating to the assassinations of Kennedy's brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, in 1968, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in the same year, are also set to be released, with a planned release in March. Martin Luther King's family has voiced their opposition to the move. However, Robert Kennedy's son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former Democrat now tapped by Trump to be Health Secretary despite holding views on vaccines widely regarded as conspiracy theories, has supported the release of the documents.

For now, all eyes are on February 8, the deadline for the latest development in the decades-long story of the Kennedy case. Conspiracy theories are rife in America, with research showing that 50% of Americans believe in at least one. Some conspiracy theories are laughable: aliens built the pyramids of Egypt. Some involve celebrities: Elvis is still alive. Some are tragic: the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged to push gun control. Some are bizarre: airplane contrails are part of a government policy to secretly disperse toxic chemicals and biological agents. And some are outlandish: Michelle Obama is transgender and was born Michael. Americans love conspiracy theories about Obama. 31% of Americans believe that Barack Obama was not born in the US.

Not only that, but up to one in five Americans think that Covid vaccines are used to implant microchips in the national population, 41% believe that a secret elite group unrelated to any government jointly rules the world, and 18% believe that the 1969 moon landing was faked. But if you think Australia is immune to these conspiracy theories, think again. Our own version of the Kennedy conspiracy theory is the disappearance of former Prime Minister Harold Holt, who went missing while swimming in Victoria in 1967, sparking theories that he faked his death, was picked up by a submarine and taken to China because he was a communist spy, or even that the CIA was involved.

In 2022, on the eve of the federal election, Pauline Hanson launched "Pencilgate." The conspiracy theory, which originated in the UK, argued that using pencils to mark ballots would allow British spy agency MI5 to alter the results. Voters were therefore encouraged to use pens to prevent their ballots from being changed. The theory took such root that the Australian Electoral Commission added a note to its website explaining why pencils were preferred, but encouraged anyone who felt safer using a pen to bring their own. It might be easy to laugh it off, but almost one in five Australians and New Zealanders believe that pharmaceutical companies are suppressing cures for cancer to protect their profits.

The development of conspiracy theories follows a certain algorithm, and there are particular personality types that are most susceptible to believing them. Conspiracy theories rely on a combination of power, a secret shared by at least two people, and self-interest to spread. The Obama citizenship conspiracy theory demonstrates this algorithm: a person of power (Obama) + a suspected secret (that he actually faked his citizenship) + self-interest (he wanted more power by being elected president) = a conspiracy theory. But not everyone exposed to this equation will believe the conspiracy theory. Why?

Part of the reason is timing. Conspiracy theories thrive in uncertain times, and political, social and economic turmoil are their ideal breeding grounds, becoming even more successful if they confirm what people want to believe, or provide a satisfying conclusion to a confusing problem. The emergence of the Kennedy conspiracy theory coincided with a decline in public trust in politics and government in the US. McCarthyism, a political tactic to suppress left-wing ideas, dominated the US in the 1950s. At the same time, the rise of civil rights protests heightened social tensions, forcing the US to confront its history. An atmosphere of mistrust gradually brewed. As the 1960s ended, the 1970s saw the Watergate scandal break, leading to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974.

It was amidst this turmoil that the assassinations of Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. occurred, each event spawning conspiracy theories. People became increasingly unwilling to accept the official explanations of events and feared they were not being told the truth. This was a fertile ground for conspiracy theories to take root. As a result, in the Kennedy case, the most straightforward answer – that Oswald was the shooter – did not provide a sufficient explanation for such a shocking event as a political assassination, an event that was difficult to comprehend. The 2024 assassination attempt on Trump also flirted with conspiracy theories, with talk of "an inside job" rife.

Another reason why some people believe conspiracy theories and others do not is personality and psychology. Having a sense of superiority over others is a known trait that influences conspiratorial thinking. This includes gaining a sense of security by identifying with the group of conspiracy theorists, while conspiracy theories help to make sense of the world. One explanation is so-called teleological thinking, which is the belief that outcomes (like Kennedy's assassination) are not random or accidental, but always part of a plan. Another explanation is so-called hypersensitive agency detection, which is the belief that certain things that may have no influence at all do have influence: the CIA is behind it; there was a second shooter; the Mafia was involved. The purpose of conspiracy theories is to expose those behind the scenes.

It is easy to blame the rise of conspiracy theories on social media and the internet, but history tells a more nuanced story. Letters published in the New York Times show that people have always found conspiracy theories compelling, peaking during the global depression of the 19th century and the fear of communism in the 1950s. Timing again reflects the uncertain times known to contribute to conspiratorial thinking. But another reason is that conspiracy theories have always been a tool of politics. They are effective in discrediting opponents, shifting blame and creating "us" and "them" narratives. While modern political ethics would generally discourage the spread of such conspiracy theories, the Trump era has unapologetically pushed that boundary.

A recent example is Trump's loss in the 2020 election. This was portrayed as a conspiracy to deprive him of his legitimate votes, leading some supporters to riot at the Capitol Building. Another example is the "great replacement" rhetoric of QAnon, which claims that a powerful political group is replacing white Americans by encouraging non-white immigration to the US, which sounds remarkably similar to Trump's new immigration policies and discussions about birthright citizenship. While the internet and social media do not create conspiracy theories, they do facilitate their spread by making conspiratorial arguments more visible and widely disseminated. Recent research also suggests that how a person consumes news influences their likelihood of believing in conspiracy theories.

With so many sources of information available online, it is easier than ever to find like-minded communities willing to support a point of view, even if it is not true. The conspiracy theory equation – the need for at least two believers – is easily met by these numbers, as echo chambers fuel confirmation bias, and conspiracy theories begin to spread, often combining far-right views with conspiracy theories, as in the case of the "great replacement." But back to the Kennedy case. The released documents show that Oswald had a keen interest in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the weeks before the shooting, he visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico, applied for visas, and spoke with a KGB officer there. Oswald had previously lived in the Soviet Union.

But despite these theories, those who have seen the classified documents claim there is no "smoking gun," but rather "pieces of the puzzle that can be put back together to tell a stronger, richer story." Although some argue that the CIA, which had Oswald under surveillance for six weeks before he assassinated Kennedy, should have been aware of how unstable he was. With about 99% of the five million documents in the Kennedy assassination archives now public, what do we already know about the day Kennedy was killed?

There is nothing in the existing documents to suggest a major conspiracy involving the CIA, Russian agents or the Mafia. The existing documents do include a memo from FBI Director Edgar Hoover asking the government to issue a statement supporting the Oswald story. This memo was released after Oswald's death. Another document records discussions about whether Kennedy was assassinated in retaliation by supporters of South Vietnamese leaders because the US did not support a coup. The archive also includes information about calls with international media, plans to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and alleged involvement by Lyndon Johnson.

What exactly might the remaining 2,140 partially redacted documents and the 2,500 other documents withheld for other reasons (usually privacy) tell us? Whether these documents will be released soon after the February 8 release plan deadline, how much will be redacted, or whether their contents will quell conspiracy theories or simply provide fodder for new ones, remains to be seen. Jack Schlossberg – the son of Kennedy's daughter, former US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy – believes he already knows the answer.

He posted on X that his grandfather's death "was not part of some inevitable grand plan." He wrote: "The truth is sadder than the myth. It was a tragedy that shouldn't have happened. The declassification is using Kennedy as a political prop, and he is not around to fight back."