Newly declassified files reveal coordinated messaging between intelligence officials and major news outlets on the night of JFK’s assassination.
📺 Breaking News-or Built Narrative?
At 1:40 p.m. CST on November 22, 1963-less than an hour after JFK was pronounced dead-Dallas police were already telling reporters that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone.
Before charges were filed.
Before an autopsy.
Before anyone knew the full story.
By 6 p.m., every major network was framing the event around a single shooter. The 2025 declassifications show this was no accident.
It was a media strategy crafted in tandem with federal agencies.
🗞️ File: “Media Guidance – Presidential Incident, Dallas”
A CIA memo dated November 22, 1963 at 4:45 p.m., distributed under the internal subject line “Narrative Coordination,” reads:
“Recommend consistent reference to individual suspect until situation stabilizes. Discourage speculative references to broader elements or foreign parties.”
It was sent to CBS liaison contact “Media 6”, later identified in 2025 records as Sig Mickelson, CBS’s VP of News at the time.
📻 The “Expert Roundtable” Script
Transcripts from a pre-planned media panel taped on the night of the assassination included:
- A military intelligence analyst emphasizing “rifle accuracy” and “single-source firepower”
- A psychiatric consultant (later revealed to be a CIA contractor) discussing Oswald’s “textbook delusions”
- A historian reminding viewers that “political violence often springs from lone actors, not conspiracies.”
The entire segment was reviewed in advance by a liaison officer, according to a 2025 internal CBS-CIA coordination memo.
🧠 AP Wire Controls
Another 2025 document, from the AP’s internal logs, shows that two alternate headlines were drafted:
- “Shooter ID’d – Acted Alone”
- “Assassin Believed Connected to Unknown Group”
Only the first headline was cleared after a call from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s office.
The second headline was labeled “potentially destabilizing”.
📡 ABC and the “Oswald Package”
An ABC internal summary declassified in 2025 mentions a prepared file titled:
“Oswald – The Communist Defector Narrative”
It was pre-written and loaded into the newsroom’s teletypes by 6:30 p.m. CST.
The file was built from State Department talking points dated October 1963-long before Oswald had re-entered the national spotlight.
📰 Silence on Inconvenient Witnesses
The 2025 files also reveal that local Dallas outlets who interviewed witnesses describing multiple shooters or alternate angles had their tapes confiscated by Secret Service and Dallas PD-and some were never returned.
One such outlet, KRLD Radio, had a reel labeled “Shots, crowd confusion, 2 shooter theory – 11/22.”
The log now reads: “Removed by federal liaison. Never returned.”
🔚 The Story Was Told Before It Was Known
The 2025 files show how media compliance, not facts, built the lone gunman story in real time.
The coordination was subtle, indirect, and effective.
The press didn’t ask questions.
They read a script.