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JFK Assassination Records — 2017–2018 Release

23,950 documents
Source agency: naraRelease year: 2017

Files disclosed in 2017 and 2018 from the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, merged onto a single archives.gov landing page.

BlackVaultDocs indexes 23,950 documents from the JFK Assassination Records — 2017–2018 Release, the largest single collection slice in a site-wide index of 52,684 documents. The files were disclosed in 2017 and 2018 from the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection and merged onto a single archives.gov landing page. The count is an index of public NARA releases, not a claim about what those pages prove. PDFs remain on the originating archive.

Key figures

  • BlackVaultDocs indexes 23,950 documents in JFK Assassination Records — 2017–2018 Release.
  • That slice is 45.5% of the 52,684 documents in the site-wide index.
  • Files were disclosed in 2017 and 2018 from the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection and merged onto one archives.gov page.
  • The count is an index of public NARA releases; PDFs remain on the originating archive.
  • This page does not treat 23,950 as a finding about the assassination.

What the 23,950-document count measures

The 23,950 figure is the number of records BlackVaultDocs has indexed under the topic slug jfk-release-2017. It is a catalog count for one named collection, JFK Assassination Records — 2017–2018 Release, not a count of unique historical events and not a count of pages inside each PDF. A single indexed row may be a cable, a memorandum, a report cover, or a multi-page scan. The index does not re-host the files; it points at the originating archive.

That 23,950 slice is 45.5% of the 52,684 documents in the BlackVaultDocs index. No other topic packet in this harvest is larger. The share describes catalog volume, not investigative weight. A short routing slip and a long operational file each add one to docCount. Treating 23,950 as “nearly half of the JFK record” would confuse this site’s index with the full NARA collection, which is larger than any one website’s ingest.

Agency tagging on the packet is nara — National Archives and Records Administration. The 2017 and 2018 disclosures were posted from the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection and later merged onto a single archives.gov landing page. BlackVaultDocs uses that merged landing as the collection identity. Researchers who need a specific NARA identifier must open the source file; this overlay does not invent NARA IDs that are absent from the packet facts.

How the 2017–2018 release sits in the 52,684-document index

The site-wide total of 52,684 documents is the denominator for every topic share on BlackVaultDocs. The 2017–2018 JFK release accounts for 23,950 of those rows. Later JFK batches — 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2025 — are separate topic hubs with their own docCount values. They are not subsets of the 23,950. Adding this collection to a later release and calling the sum “the JFK files” double-counts nothing only if each hub is kept distinct; collapsing them into one headline erases the release-year structure NARA used when it posted the files.

The description on the packet is specific: files disclosed in 2017 and 2018, merged onto one archives.gov page. That merge is an archival presentation choice, not a new declassification wave. A researcher comparing this hub to a 2022 or 2025 hub is comparing different posting years inside the same statutory collection name, the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection. The 23,950 count belongs only to the 2017–2018 posting identity.

Full analysis: JFK Assassination Records — 2017–2018 Release, 23,950 indexed files

Questions

How many JFK 2017–2018 release documents does BlackVaultDocs index?
BlackVaultDocs indexes 23,950 documents under JFK Assassination Records — 2017–2018 Release. That is 45.5% of the 52,684 documents in the site-wide index. The files were disclosed in 2017 and 2018 from the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection and merged onto a single archives.gov landing page. PDFs remain on the originating archive.
Is 23,950 the full JFK Assassination Records Collection?
No. 23,950 is the indexed count for the 2017–2018 posting identity only. The site-wide index holds 52,684 documents across collections. Other JFK release years are separate hubs. NARA’s full collection can exceed both figures. This page does not claim that 23,950 equals every record NARA holds on the assassination.
Where do the 2017–2018 JFK files actually live?
They were posted from the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection and merged onto a single archives.gov landing page. BlackVaultDocs indexes those public releases; it does not re-host the PDFs. The originating archive remains the source for page images. Agency tagging on this collection is nara.
Does this collection prove a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination?
The 23,950-document index is a catalog of public NARA files, not a finding. Titles and scans are the record. This page does not interpret the files as proof of any plot. Researchers who want a specific document should open the collection hub and then the originating archive, not treat the 23,950 count as an argument.

Document counts from BlackVaultDocs index of public NARA / FOIA releases. PDFs remain on the originating archive.

Documents — page 1 of 240

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About this collection

Documents in the JFK Assassination Records — 2017–2018 Release collection were released by the National Archives as part of ongoing declassification programs. Each file retains its original NARA Record Identification Number so it can be cross-referenced against academic and journalistic citations. Use the pagination below to walk the full 23,950-record list, or jump to any individual document for metadata and an in-browser PDF preview.

Frequently asked questions

What is the JFK 2017–2018 release?

The 2017–2018 release, beginning October 26, 2017, was the statutory disclosure ordered by the 1992 Assassination Records Act. Several hundred records remained partially withheld at the time and were the subject of subsequent disclosure tranches through 2025.

Why did the National Archives merge 2017 and 2018?

archives.gov consolidated the October 2017, April 2018, and summer 2018 releases onto a single landing page (`/research/jfk/release-2017-2018`). BlackVaultDocs keeps the legacy `jfk-release-2017` slug for URL stability.

Why did it take until 2017?

Under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, all records related to the assassination were required to be publicly disclosed by October 26, 2017. Subsequent Presidential orders extended certain redactions, which is why releases continued through 2025.

JFK Assassination Records — 2017–2018 Release (2017) — 23,950 Declassified Documents | BlackVaultDocs