Editing Warren Commission (section)

== Commission records ==
In November 1964, two months after the publication of its 888-page report, the commission published twenty-six volumes of supporting documents, including the testimony or depositions of 552 witnesses<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-08-15 |title=Warren Commission Report: Appendix 5 |url=https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix5.html |access-date=2023-11-25 |website=National Archives |language=en |quote=…list of the 552 witnesses whose testimony has been presented to the commission. Witnesses who appeared before members of the commission… those questioned during depositions by members of the Commission's legal staff… those who supplied affidavits and statements…}}</ref> and more than 3,100 exhibits<ref>{{cite news|title=Kennedy Slaying Relived in Detail in Warren Files|newspaper=The New York Times|first=Anthony|last=Lewis|date=November 24, 1964|page=1}}</ref> making a total of more than 16,000 pages. The Warren Report, however, lacked an index, which greatly complicated the work of reading. It was later endowed with an index by the work of Sylvia Meagher for the report and the twenty-six volumes of documents.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sylvia Meagher, Gary Owens |title=Master Index to the J. F. K. Assassination Investigations: The Reports and Supporting Volumes of the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the Warren Commission |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=1980 |location=Michigan University}}</ref>

All of the commission's records were then transferred on November 23 to the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]]. The unpublished portion of those records was initially sealed for seventy-five years (to 2039) under a general National Archives policy that applied to all federal investigations by the executive branch of government,<ref>{{harvnb|Bugliosi|2007|pages=136&ndash;137}}</ref> a period "intended to serve as protection for innocent persons who could otherwise be damaged because of their relationship with participants in the case."<ref>National Archives Deputy Dr. Robert Bahmer, interview in ''New York Herald Tribune'', December 18, 1964, p.24</ref>

The 75-Year Rule no longer exists, supplanted by the [[Freedom of Information Act (United States)|Freedom of Information Act]] of 1966 and the [[President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992|JFK Records Act of 1992]]. By 1992, ninety-eight percent of the Warren Commission records had been released to the public.<ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/report/contents.htm Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board] (1998), p.2.</ref> Six years later, after the [[Assassination Records Review Board]]'s work, all Warren Commission records, except those records that contained [[tax return (United States)|tax return]] information, were available to the public with [[Sanitization (classified information)|redaction]]s.<ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/report/html/arrb_fin_027.htm ARRB Final Report], p. 2. Redacted text includes the names of living intelligence sources, intelligence gathering methods still used today and not commonly known, and purely private matters. The Kennedy autopsy photographs and X-rays were never part of the Warren Commission records, and were deeded separately to the National Archives by the Kennedy family in 1966 under restricted conditions.</ref>

The remaining Kennedy assassination-related documents were partly released to the public on October 26, 2017,<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://time.com/4606082/jfk-assassination-secrets/|title=25th JFK Assassination Secrets Scheduled for 2017 Release|magazine=Time|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> twenty-five years after the passage of the JFK Records Act. President Donald Trump, as directed by the FBI and the CIA,<ref name="businessinsider.com">{{cite web|author=Laurie Kellman, Deb Riechmann |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/i-have-no-choice-trump-blocks-the-release-of-hundreds-of-jfk-files-2017-10 |title='I have no choice': Trump blocks the release of hundreds of JFK files |publisher=Business Insider |date=1963-11-22 |access-date=2019-09-28}}</ref> took action on that date to withhold certain remaining files, delaying the release until April 26, 2018,<ref name="businessinsider.com" /> then on April 26, 2018, took action to further withhold the records "until 2021".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-trump-jfk-files-20180426-story.html|title = Trump delays release of some JFK assassination files until 2021|website = [[Los Angeles Times]]|date = 26 April 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Jeremy B White |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jfk-assassination-files-release-trump-blocks-private-a8324111.html |title=Donald Trump blocks release of some JFK assassination files |work=The Independent |date=2018-04-26 |access-date=2019-09-28}}</ref><ref>"[U]nless the president certifies that continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations, and the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure." — JFK Records Act. Both the National Archives and the former chairman of the ARRB estimate that 7.6 percent of all identified Kennedy assassination records have been released to the public. The great majority of the unreleased records are from subsequent investigations, including the [[United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States|Rockefeller Commission]], the [[Church Committee]], and the [[United States House Select Committee on Assassinations|House Select Committee on Assassinations]].</ref>