Scope: This research tool indexes 37,141 records - a curated subset of the ~300,000 documents in the JFK Assassination Records Collection. Releases indexed: 2017-2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025. 2,165 records have full-text OCR indexed - of those, 2,162 are sourced from the 2025 re-release (NARA has not yet published an XLSX manifest for 2025; each document’s prior-release history is shown on its page). Releases not yet indexed: 2026. Methodology

JFK Research Center | Archival Study

A reading room for the Kennedy assassination record.

Search and read primary-source records from the U.S. National Archives Catalog, traced through the people, agencies, and investigations at the center of the case.

Try:Mexico City Oswald Ruby Kostikov Angleton Castro

Research routes

Pick up the archive from the angle you have.

The fastest path depends on what you know first: a name, a subject, a date, or a primary source.

Search the archiveStart with a name, agency, place, or NAID37,141 records indexed across metadata, OCR, and curated topic lanes.Open a topic dossierWarren Commission130 records gathered into a single research lane.Follow an entityLee Harvey Oswald424 indexed mentions across records.Read a source recordINTERNAL DRAFT HISTORY OF THE BAY OF PIGS PREPARED BY JACK PFEIFFER , VOL III. EVOLUTION OF CIA'S ANTI-CASTRO POLICIES, 1959 - JANUARY 1961Open NAID 104-10301-10004 with metadata, OCR, related entities, and research context.

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Recent pages stay local to this browser. Clear them any time; no account or server sync is involved.

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Open a document, entity, topic, evidence item, search, or timeline view and it will appear here.

Guided paths

Start with a known thread

Short routes into the archive for the questions researchers tend to ask first.

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3 step pathOswald paper trailFollow Oswald from entity profile into timeline context, mention search, and core documents.Open path 3 step pathRuby and the transferCompare Ruby's profile against the Dallas weekend timeline and related source records.Open path 3 step pathFBI filesStart with the FBI topic lane, then widen into agency-scoped records and open questions.Open path 3 step pathWarren Commission recordMove from the Commission report into bibliography, open questions, and supporting documents.Open path 3 step pathCE 399 custody pathFollow the evidence item through custody steps, NARA references, and linked entities.Open path

What’s new

All releases

Featured people & organizations

Entities

The people and institutions whose records structure every JFK inquiry: defendants, investigators, and the agencies that hold the files.

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Person424 mentions

Lee Harvey Oswald

U.S. Marine veteran, defector to the Soviet Union, and the sole person charged by the Dallas Police Department with the assassination of President Ken...

Person49 mentions

Jack Ruby

Dallas nightclub owner who shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters on November 24, 1963.

Organization17,298 mentions

Central Intelligence Agency

U.S. foreign-intelligence agency whose Mexico City station, counterintelligence staff, and Cuban operations feature heavily in the JFK file releases.

Organization17,565 mentions

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Lead domestic investigating agency in the immediate hours and years after the assassination; maintained voluminous files on Oswald and Ruby.

Organization261 mentions

Warren Commission

Presidential commission chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren that produced the first federal assassination report in September 1964.

Organization1,941 mentions

House Select Committee on Assassinations

1976–1979 congressional inquiry that re-examined the Kennedy and King assassinations and published a 12-volume appendix of evidence.

Topics

Subjects & investigations

Cross-cutting themes for browsing the collection: investigations, agencies, and pivotal locations.

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1963 – 1964Warren CommissionPresidential commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren that produced the first federal report on the assassination.130 documents 1976 – 1979House Select Committee on AssassinationsCongressional re-investigation that examined acoustic, medical, and intelligence evidence a decade after the Warren Repo...2,026 documents September – October 1963Mexico CityOswald's documented visit to Mexico City and the CIA station's surveillance of the Cuban and Soviet embassies.2,086 documents 1959 – 1992CIA RecordsAgency records spanning Oswald's 201 file, the Directorate of Plans, and the Mexico City and Miami stations.17,531 documents 1959 – 1978FBI RecordsBureau files comprising the Oswald HQ and Dallas Field Office investigations and the Ruby case.19,430 documents

Collection

At a glance

A bulk mirror of the National Archives Catalog records tagged to the Kennedy assassination, curated into a queryable shape.

Records indexed37,1412,165 have full-text OCR; the rest are metadata-only

OCR passages149,642ABBYY OCR text chunked at 1,200 characters

Entities32People, organizations, places

Topics12Curated subject collections

Recent additions

Recently processed records

A rolling sample of records recently run through OCR and entity extraction.

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How to use the archive

Three ways in

01Start with a name or agency
Search turns up titled records and OCR passages from the same interface. Keyword-style queries return the highest-confidence title hits first.
02Follow an entity page
Entity pages anchor the biographical, organizational, and documentary threads so you can see how Oswald, the CIA, or the Warren Commission connect to specific evidence.
03Read the primary source
Every mention resolves to a document page with archival metadata, OCR excerpts, and a direct link back to the National Archives Catalog.