On 21 July 2025, NARA released over 243,000 pages of records relating to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The records are available here
The release was in compliance with President Trump’s 23 January 2025 Executive Order. We have now seen doc releases for all three figures mentioned in the order: JFK, RFK, and MLK.
The MLK records released under the order are not part of the JFK Assassination Records Collection, so I did not intend to post a note about them, but after taking a closer look, I decided that there is so much overlap between these records and the ARC that a note was called for.
Nonetheless, I should make a disclaimer here. My knowledge of Dr. King’s assassination is limited to reading a couple of books and reports, particularly Gerald Posner’s excellent book, Killing the Dream, and the DOJ 2000 report on the MLK assassination.
That means I am not really qualified to say how much this release contributes to our knowledge of the King assassination. I can, however, say something about the overlap between the new releases and the material we previously had from the ARC.
FBI records in the release
How many files were released this time? There were 6301 pdfs and one audio file on the MLK assassination, totaling over 243,000 pages as noted above.
Most of the records (4913) are FBI case files. The biggest case file is of course the MURKIN file (44-38861). This is the FBI HQ file on Dr. King’s assassination. There are 1124 pdfs for this super-large file, totaling almost 48,000 pages.
The remaining 3790 case files are mostly field office files. The largest of these is probably the Memphis field office file (44-ME-1987), with about 660 pdfs and 28,852 pages.
For those who are not familiar with such files, the HQ file is largely compiled from the field office files, so there is of course massive overlap here.
In addition to the FBI case files, there are also 272 pdfs labelled “indices.” These are not case file “worksheets” or “inventories”, which list the docs appearing in case files. Instead, many of them look like name index cards, giving names that appear in various case files and where they appear. Perhaps these “indices” are a computerized version of the more familiar handwritten index cards.
New information in the FBI files
It is important to note that the MURKIN case file has previously been released. The MFF website has extensive selections from an earlier release available here.
Obviously the new version up at NARA is much more complete. Comparing the two versions, it is notable that most of the redactions are gone in the 2025 version. Not all of them, of course. The file cites many informants, and information such as birthdates and sometimes social security numbers is still redacted.
It is worth saying again how absurd it is that some personal information was protected for FBI informants in the MLK case, while none was protected for staff members of the HSCA and ARRB in the March 2025 JFK releases.
How important is the information that was released this time? Some of it clearly has little value for researchers; for example, the name of a man who told the FBI that he had learned the identity of King’s assassin through a vision from God. Other information is perhaps more substantial.
It is also worth noting that the DOJ went to court to get the sealed FBI records on Dr. King opened. Understandably, the King family expressed considerable reservations about this, since the FBI’s highly intrusive surveillance of King was aimed in part at his extra-marital affairs. I saw none of these sealed documents in this release.
CIA records in the release
In addition to FBI records there are 968 CIA records from the ARC included in the release. These records have ALL been released in full, so there is nothing new here.
Readers should note, However, that not all of the CIA records from the ARC have been put on line. As a result, there are about 300 CIA records in this new release which were not previously available online at Mary Ferrell Foundation website or at NARA.
These previously not on-line records were all released in full, many of them as early as 1993. Despite this, however, such records have appeared in news stories, such as this one from Fox News, as “new material.”
How relevant are these documents to MLK? Some simply mention Dr. King’s name once in a lengthy document. This too has caused confusion in news accounts. For instance, an article in the Dallas Express noted several docs from Lee Oswald’s Office of Security file were released and decided this was because the CIA had “misplaced” these JFK docs when they were due to be released in March, accidentally putting them in the stack for the MLK releases.
In fact, the docs were originally released in full in February 1998. They were undoubtedly added to the MLK release this time because King’s name appears on them. Many, maybe the majority of the CIA docs in this release are the same story. (Thanks to Fred Litwin for a link to the Dallas Express article!)
Of course there are also CIA records that are much more relevant to MLK, such as CIA’s 201 file for James Earl Ray, the man who murdered King. The version released this time is over 500 pages. Earlier versions of Ray’s 201 were divided into four parts and had redactions sprinkled throughout them. The new release gathers all the 201 documents together with no redactions, but I should repeat again that all of these docs were previously released in full.
For those who have not seen it, Ray’s 201 file is not as enlightening as one might expect. It was opened after Ray killed King and consists almost solely of newspaper clippings, plus cables on mistaken sightings of Ray all over South America, and a few more cables on Ray’s arrest in London.
I should also note that a significant record is missing. The CIA had 201 files on both Dr. King and his wife, Coretta Scott King. Neither of these files is included in this release. True, these have previously been released in full, but mostly as individual documents. Future releases should certainly include the complete files.
I spent some time looking at Dr. King’s 201 file, and it is worth a note all to itself. Although the records make clear that the CIA was not part of the FBI’s outrageous harassment of Dr. King, it was still clearly an error in judgment to open a 201 file on Dr. King, and a gross error to open one on Mrs. King.
Other previously unreleased files
There are 149 pdfs of documents which have NOT been previously released. Most of these are CIA documents where Dr. King’s name is mentioned, but contain no actual information about him.
Some deal with HSCA and ARRB matters (such as this doc), one of them is a NARA FOIA doc (I discussed this one in an article at Washington Decoded.
There are also two interesting docs that date from just after Dr. King’s murder which discuss two CIA covert projects, MERRIMACK and RESISTANCE. These projects were discussed in the the Church Committee report (here), and have to do with CIA attempting to gather intelligence against threats to agency facilities in the U.S. (Hat-tip to Larry Haapanen for the Church report reference!)
My two cents
I believe that there will be further doc releases on MLK, since important CIA docs such as the 201 files for Dr. and Mrs. King did not appear this time. Hard to say how extensive future releases will be.