In this note, I begin a more detailed look at the 140 JFKARC pdfs NARA published on 30 Jan 2026. Do these pdfs contain more previously redacted information? If so what, and why is redacted information still being released over eight months after the blockbuster 2025 ARC releases?
I should note that this post is limited to the 9 CIA records in the January releases. Why only CIA records? Because there are very messy problems with the 102 FBI records released on January 30. I simply don’t have time to sort out these issues.
In addition to CIA and FBI records, there are another 27~28 records from another 9 agencies. These records are very miscellaneous, making for long, boring, and confusing posts. I will deal with these in short, less confusing posts over the next couple of months.
CIA records in 2026
Following is a table linking to each 2026 release and the last release before that one:
| # | record number | 2026 | 2022 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 104-10130-10026 | 2026 | 2022 | 2018 |
| #2 | 104-10130-10080 | 2026 | 2022 | 2018 |
| #3 | 104-10130-10081 | 2026 | 2022 | 2018 |
| #4 | 104-10130-10085 | 2026 | 2022 | 2018 |
| #5 | 104-10130-10088 | 2026 | 2022 | 2018 |
| #6 | 104-10135-10326 | 2026 | 2022 | 2018 |
| #7 | 104-10137-10304 | 2026 | 2022 | 2018 |
| #8 | 104-10146-10221 | 2026 | 2022 | 2018 |
| #9 | 104-10414-10124 | 2026 | 2023 | 2018 |
Mexico City station history
The last of these records consists of several excerpts from the history of CIA’s Mexico City station. According to NARA, “The Office of White House Counsel has informed NARA that the CIA may continue withholding portions of the larger document that do not relate to the assassination of President Kennedy.”
So this record is not scheduled for full release, at least not in the near future. The 2026 version did release more info than last time, and at some point I will do a separate post on this.
The other 8 records
The other 8 records were last released in 2022, and 2018 before that. I have put up links to those two earlier versions of the docs as well.
In 2022, NARA posted a detailed list from CIA of which records were released in full. Surprisingly, all 8 of these records were on the list. What’s up with that? Were they released in full or not? Here’s a detailed, and very boring, note on that.
Record 1: 104-10130-10026. In 2018, this record had three blank boxes covering up three phrases. These were removed in 2022, to show what looks like highlighting. With some hard squinting, one can make out “Tokyo station”, “Tokyo”, and “Tokyo station”. For 2026, CIA came up with a copy of the record that has no highlighting, confirming my squint readings. Here excerpts from the docs, in chronological order:
So these redactions were released in 2022, but in 2026 CIA found a better version and sent it to NARA. Note that another duplicate of the memo was released in full in 2022, as 104-10133-10260. In sum, there is absolutely nothing new here.
Record 2: 104-10130-10080. This memo is similar to record 1. There were blank boxes in three paragraphs in 2018. All were covering up the phrases “Guatemala Station” and “Cite Guatemala City”. These phrases indicate the physical presence of CIA facilities in Guatemala City.
In 2022, the 2018 blank boxes were removed, again showing highlighting, and again it is possible to make out the highlighted phrase. For 2026, CIA again came up with a copy of the record that has no highlighting, confirming my readings. Here are instances of these paragraphs, in chronological order:
If you look at the record carefully, you should notice that the CIA accidentally released one instance of “Guatemala Station” all the way back in 2018! So all this redaction was actually in vain. Notice too, there was a duplicate copy of the memo released in full in 2022, as 104-10119-10437. So again, absolutely nothing new here.
Record 3: 104-10130-10081 This cable is more of the same. There were blank boxes redacting cable routing info in 2018, all indicating physical presence of CIA facilities in Guatemala City. The info was highlighted in the 2022 release, but not hard to read, and the 2026 release is sans highlighting. Chronological examples here:
Record 4: 104-10130-10085 This memo is more of the same. Two blank boxes redacting the name of a CIA officer in Miami in 2018, highlighting in 2022, and no markings in 2026. The name of the officer was released without highlighting on the record’s 2nd page in 2022, indicating that the CIA did not regard the 20222 version as redacted. The re-issue in 2026 must be due to finding a better quality copy.
Record 5: 104-10130-10088 In 2018 this cable had two blank boxes redacting a cable origin (Paris) and a cryptonym (UNION). The 2022 version lifts the boxes but has highlighting that makes the underlying words almost illegible, so the 2026 version with no highlighting makes a bigger difference than the other examples above.
Record 6: 104-10135-10326 This example involves a record with multiple copies of docs, one copy redacted and one unredacted. Not easy to post excerpts, so please see the records yourself.
In 2018, the first page of this record had hand numbered redactions. An unredacted version of the first page appeared later in the record, so this page was actually released in full in 2018. Other pages had various bits redacted which were not released anywhere in the record, so as a whole, the record was NOT released in full.
In 2022, the hand redacted first page was still there, the later full version of this page was still there, and all other redactions were released. At this point, all the information in the record was open to the public.
In 2026, the only change was that the hand-redacted first page was replaced with an unredacted page. This served only to conceal the originally redacted state of the page. The copy of the unredacted page now looks like a duplicate page, which is quite misleading.
It is common throughout the collection to have redacted and unredacted pages collected into the same record. I speculate that as agencies went over these materials again and again, when they decided more releases could be made, they just added unredacted versions after the earlier redacted versions, and left the previous versions where they were.
To go back and replace the redacted material in these sets is both an unnecessary duplication, it also conceals where the original redaction was done. Not cool. Another example of this odd ball pseudo release occurs below.
Record 7: 104-10137-10304 This record should look familiar. It is a copy of the memo in record 104-10130-10080, discussed above. This version, however, uses a mixture of redactions.
It was created from the same memo, but names and locations were omitted, with a numbered added where they were and lower on the page a list was added to explain what the numbers mean. However, the doc still used the phrase “Guatemala Station”, and this phrase was later blocked out with redaction boxes.
The 2018 has all these redactions present, the 2022 version removes the redaction boxes to show highlighting, and the 2026 version removes all the highlighting, just as we have seen repeatedly above.
This memo is duplicated several times throughout the JFK collection, in various states of redaction and release, as if it were of some special significance. Dating from the 1970s, however, it cannot possibly have any significance for the Kennedy assassination. It is just a doc from the CIA’s file on Gerry Hemming.
Record 8: 104-10146-10221 This record is another example of a record that had two copies of a document. The first copy had a redaction, the second copy had no redaction. In 2018, the unredacted copy was released with a blank box, so the record as a whole remained redacted.
In 2022, the blank box was removed, so there was a redacted copy and an unredacted copy. At this point, the record is open in full.
In 2026, CIA simply removed the redacted copy. This of course gives us no new information. Instead, it conceals what was originally redacted in the record. Not cool.
Two cents
As we have seen, eight of these nine “new” CIA releases from January 30 give us nothing new at all. At best they give us slightly clearer copies. At worst, they confuse the record, obscuring where and what the original redactions were.
The Mexico City station history does have new information released, and there is still more withheld. Otherwise, I would describe these particular releases as the bottom of the barrel.