The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection

John F. Kennedy was killed on November 22, 1963. Almost 30 years later, Congress enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. The Act mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

The resulting Collection consists of more than 5 million pages of assassination-related records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts (approximately 2,000 cubic feet of records). Most of the records are open for research.

There are several ways to research our collections online:

• Search the JFK Database.
  This is an index to records that were open pursuant to the 1992 JFK Act. The database currently contains 268,116 records. See also the Database Search Hints.
  
  
• Review the JFK Collection Register.
  These are general lists at the series level, with numbers of boxes for each item.
  
  
• Examine Folder Title Lists.
  These finding aids describe all records in the Collection that are not included in the JFK Database.

• Search the National Archives Catalog.
  • Numbered Exhibits
  • Named Exhibits
  • Warren Commission Records of Key Persons
    
    
  The digitized images include well-known artifacts collected by the Warren Commission, such as:
  • various bullet fragments
  • Oswald's rifle, revolver and clothing
  • the windshield of the President's limousine
  • the camera belonging to Abraham Zapruder that produced the famous moving images of the assassinations

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• Notice: Withheld JFK Assassination Records are undergoing processing for release on October 26, 2017 Learn more
• Warren Commission's Records of Key Persons
• Autopsy Report
• Photos from Warren Commission exhibits
• See also the Eyewitness exhibit, with Lady Bird Johnson's diary on the assassination

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• Califano Papers
• Cuba and Operation Mongoose Records
• Photos of Assassination Artifacts
• Warren Commission Report
• See also the Eyewitness exhibit, with Lady Bird Johnson's diary on the assassination

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• Textual Records Reference Division
  National Archives
  Room 2400
  8601 Adelphi Road
  College Park, MD 20740-6001
• Phone: (301) 837-3510
• E-mail: archives2reference@nara.gov

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• The majority of the records have not been digitized. Primarily what you will find here are finding aids to assist you in your research preparation.

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