Voters are still divided on whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
A 1964 Warren Commission found that Kennedy was killed by Oswald, a U.S. citizen who had previously lived in the Soviet Union, and that Oswald acted alone.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 38% of likely U.S. voters accept the government's conclusion that Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman. But 38% continue to believe he was the victim of a conspiracy, while 24% are undecided. These numbers haven't changed much since 2017, when 43% of adults said a lone gunman killed JFK.
The Biden administration last December released more than 1,000 previously classified documents relating to the 1963 assassination of JFK. The 1,491 documents include filings from the CIA, FBI, State Department, and other federal agencies.
Among them is a report that Oswald visited the Cuban and USSR embassies in Mexico in search of a visa in the months before Kennedy's killing.
President Joe Biden issued an executive order authorizing disclosure of the documents, but he said some files would be kept under wraps until June 2023 to protect against possible "identifiable harm."
The U.S. National Archives said that 515 documents would remain withheld in full, and another 2,545 documents would be partly withheld, the BBC reported.
JFK's nephew Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democrat president candidate, wrote on Twitter: "It's not about conspiracy – it is about transparency. In a midnight Friday night announcement the White House has delivered the bad news that President Biden will be maintaining secrecy indefinitely on some JFK assassination related records."
In the Rasmussen survey, 37% of voters say they approve of the Biden administration's decision to keep some records secret, including 19% who strongly approve. However, 54% disapprove of the decision, including 38% who strongly disapprove, Rasmussen found.
In the latest Rasmussen survey, 42% say it's likely that the CIA was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK, including 21% who say it's very likely. Forty-one percent say it is not likely the CIA was involved in a Kennedy assassination conspiracy, including 18% who believe it's not at all likely, while 17% are unsure.
Forty-eight percent of Republicans, 37% of Democrats, and 42% of unaffiliated voters think it's at least somewhat likely the CIA was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK.
Forty-seven percent of Democrats, 31% of Republicans, and 36% of unaffiliated voters believe Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman, while 47% of Republicans, 28% of Democrats, and 39% of unaffiliated voters think JFK was the victim of a conspiracy.
Among voters who think Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy, 72% think it's likely the CIA was involved.
Fifty-seven percent of Democrats at least somewhat approve of the Biden administration's decision to keep some Kennedy assassination records secret, but only 26% of Republicans and 28% of unaffiliated voters share that opinion. Fifty-two percent of Republicans and 46% of unaffiliated voters strongly disapprove of the Biden administration's decision, as do 20% of Democrats.
Men (42%) are somewhat more likely than women voters (35%) to accept that JFK was assassinated by a lone gunman.
Thirty-nine percent of white voters, 48% of black voters, and 50% of other minorities suspect it's at least somewhat likely the CIA was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. Black voters are more likely to approve of the Biden administration keeping some records related to the assassination secret.
A majority (53%) of voters under 40 think it is at least somewhat likely the CIA was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK, compared to 42% of those ages 40-64, and 32% of voters 65 and older. Older voters are more likely to strongly disapprove of the decision to keep some assassination records secret.
College-educated voters are less likely to think the CIA was involved in an assassination plot against Kennedy.
Voters earning over $100,000 a year are more likely to approve of the Biden administration keeping some JFK assassination records secret.
President Joe Biden's strongest supporters are most confident that Oswald acted alone in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Among voters who strongly approve of Biden's job performance as president, 56% accept the conclusion that Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman, while just 23% believe he was the victim of a conspiracy.
Among voters who strongly disapprove of Biden's performance, 46% think JFK was the victim of a conspiracy, and 29% say he was killed by a lone gunman.
The survey of 1,005 U.S. likely voters was conducted July 5-7 and July 9 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.