On June 22, 1962, an intelligence official drafted a memo summarising a letter intercepted between Lee Harvey Oswald and his mother. The memo was made public long ago. But for 60 years, the name of the letter opener was kept secret.

Now it can finally be told: According to an unredacted copy of the memo released recently by the government, the official who intercepted Oswald’s mail for the CIA in the months before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated was named Reuben Efron.

And that means — what, exactly? A tantalising clue to unravelling a complicated conspiracy that the government has sought to cover up for decades? Additional proof that the CIA knew more about Oswald than initially acknowledged? Or was a minor detail withheld all this time because of bureaucratic imperatives irrelevant to the question of whether Oswald was the lone gunman on the fateful day?

The mystery of Reuben Efron, who has been dead for three decades, may never be resolved to the satisfaction of some of those dedicated to studying the assassination. Thirty years after Congress ordered that papers related to the killing be made public with limited exceptions, President Biden has declared that he has made his “final certification” of files to be released, even though 4,684 documents remain withheld in whole or in part. Going forward, agencies will decide on any future disclosures that may be warranted by the passage of time.

The President’s certification, issued at 6:36pm (local time) on the Friday before the long Fourth of July holiday weekend, has frustrated researchers and historians. But they suffered a setback on Friday when a federal judge refused to block Biden’s order.

Jefferson Morley, the editor of the blog JFK Facts and the author of several books on the CIA, said the belated identification of Efron indicated that intelligence agencies still had something to keep from the American public.

“If they hid this guy’s name for 61 years and they’re still hiding other stuff, I would say they’re still hiding sources and methods around Oswald,” Morley said. “Why else did the name remain secret for 61 years? The CIA is trying to slam the door now, and Biden’s gone along with this.”

From the other side of the spectrum, Gerald Posner, the author of Case Closed, a 1993 book concluding that Oswald killed Kennedy on his own, said he doubted there was a smoking gun in the remaining files. “Everyone is focused on the CIA documents still withheld,” he said.

“What we have learned from the CIA files released this year is that they either have nothing to do with the assassination or are only tangentially related.”

New York Times News Service