My Affidavit for Mary Ferrell v. President Biden and NARA

BK NOTES: This is the first draft of my affidavit as requested by the Mary Ferrell attorneys Bill Simpich and Larry Schnaps. The final draft was submitted to the court by these plaintiffs ahead of this Thursdays Federal Court session in San Francisco that lists President Biden and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as defendants charged with failure to enforce the JFK Act of 1992.

Affidavit 

What I say is truthful and accurate as to the best of my knowledge.

I am a journalist and historian who has been studying the assassination of President Kennedy since 1969 have interviewed many witnesses and wrote about the case extensively.

In 1978, when I asked the head Archivist at NARA for JFK Assassination Records Marion Johnson, why the HSCA records were being sealed for 50 years as Congressional Records, and why not 35 or 70, he said that 50 years was the estimated time in which those individuals mentioned in the documents were dead.

Since Congress exempted itself from compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), having Congress pass the JFK Act of 1992 was the only way to obtain the release the Congessional records related to the assassination, especially the Church Committee and House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA).

I have interviewed a number of important witnesses who have since passed away, all of whom supplied important new information that I have shared that otherwise would not be publicly available, and a number of important witnesses died shortly before I could question them.

The JFK Act required the government to release all of their records in full by October 17, 2017, a deadline that has come and gone, with many records still being withheld and many more with redactions, mainly the names of living persons. Some important witnesses have died since the deadline has passed.

The idea that it is the government’s responsibility to “protect” these individuals is false, as is the belief that these living witnesses do not want to be questioned, as most of those who I have interviewed were anxious to talk for a number of reasons, mainly to correct the record against false allegations made against them. In addition, they expressed the desire for their children and grandchildren to know the truth from their perspective.

Both Jim Braden and John Rosselli expressed the desire for their testimony to be made public, and were extremely dismayed that they had to testify in secret executive sessions and that their testimony was then sealed for fifty years. Rosselli even went to Jack Anderson to tell him what he testified to so it would become known,. For the CIA and FBI to continue withholding names of living witnesses hurts the witnesses as much as it does the journalists and historians who require such oral testimony to correct and supplement the incomplete and sometimes wrong public record.

When the Secret Service claimed they had destroyed some of their records, including the Tampa Advance Report after the passage of the JFK Act, SS Agent G. Blaine noted in his book that since he wrote the Tampa report he had a copy in a box under his bed. When I pointed that out to the Archives, they retrieved  the documents from Blaine and made them publicly available. Since then the NARA has stopped seeking JFK assassination records that are in private hands but belong in the JFK Collection at the Archives and made available to the public, as the law prescribes.

Signed
William E. Kelly, Jr. 

Billkelly3@gmail.com

BK NOTES: I will post the final draft of this affidavit as it was submitted to the court ASAP.