PRESIDENT Mr. Donald Trump’s executive order to
declassify the files related to the assassinations of
former President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert
D.F. Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr will
open many possibilities -- some unwelcome ones
as well -- before the world that has remained intrigued by
those killings decades ago. In all these cases, wild and wide
speculations had distorted public sentiment beyond recognition. The declassification of the files in the US administration’s possession will lend an open access to researchers.
All
the work on those files may subsequently bring to fore many
a truth about those unfortunate assassinations that shook
the world. From this angle, Mr. Donald Trump has done well
to accede to the demand in that regard.
Of course, after each of those shocking killings, lots and
lots of speculations went up in the air with different researchers
sounding out different possible reasons for the assassinations. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy came
as a terrible shock to the world. He was a very popular international figure and had admirers spread the world over. His
killing, naturally, led to a lot of speculative articles in the
media. Many books, too, got written on the subject -- with
most expressing suspicion that his killing had an ‘official’
angle. Many researchers had suspected that one of the secret
service agencies of the United States had a hand in the ugly
development.
Similar doubts welled up in public memory when Mr. John
Kennedy’s younger brother Mr. Robert Kennedy, too, got
assassinated a few years later. Most researchers suspected
some ‘official’ foul play in that killing as well.
When Rev. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, the
world got another crude and rude shock from which it took
years to emerge. Following that killing, much speculation --
at times very unfair -- also filled the air. All that left public
mind all the more confused about the possible reason for the
killing of one of the world’s most‘enemy-less’ man. That killing
also had given rise to a lot of unholy doubts about who the
masterminds could be behind the ugly act .Each of those assassinations -- and many other killings or
deaths of important persons around the world -- had pushed
the world into serious doubts about safety and security of
important personages in different societies. India, too, has
had its share of such assassinations -- India’s second Prime
Minister Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Mr.
Rajiv Gandhi, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya ... to name a few.
If some clues were available about the killings of Mrs. Indira
Gandhi or Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, there were no clues whatsoever as regards the sudden death of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur
Shastri and Jan Sangh leader Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya
-- leading to many wild speculations. The Government in
India, too, is in possession of some classified material on
these killings. It may be a welcome idea for the Government
to declassify those files as well so that many murder mysteries could be open for public scrutiny. The common people
have every right to know how deaths of their darling leaders
took place in mysterious manner.
President Mr. Donald Trump has opened a new avenue of
research into some important episodes of contemporary history in the US and elsewhere. The findings from those hitherto classified files may open doors to ‘new’ truths.