Author Archives: Robert Reynolds

January 30, 2026: 140 New pdfs from the JFKARC

NARA released 140 new pdfs from the JFK Assassination Records Collection on January 30. This post takes a look at the pdfs to see what new information has become available. Read on if you’re still interested!

The latest NARA announcement

This new release received a quite low profile announcement. The only place it got any notice was on NARA’s page for the 2025 JFK releases, under the section “Accessing the Records”, where a single line has been added: “January 30, 2026 – 10:00 AM EST Release: 11,022 pages (140 PDF files).”…

Newly digitized JFKARC records are up!

After a long wait, NARA has finally posted some of the results of its digitization plan for the Assassination Records Collection. This is no minor addition–I am not finished counting pages, and so far there are over 600,000. The link announcing the latest records is here.

What’s in the new releases?

…

FBI files on MLK at MFF

Just a brief note today on the MLK files recently posted at the Mary Ferrell Foundation website (MFF). I previously did a post on NARA’s release of these files in July 2025 (available here).

MFF’s versions of these files are thoroughly re-arranged and re-indexed, and should be consulted in most cases where anyone is interested in MLK-FBI issues.…

Untangling FBI multi-record pdfs, part I

This is the first of a series of notes that try to straighten out some of the confusion around FBI multi-record pdfs.

Multi-record pdfs are an FBI release format which combines multiple ARC records in a single pdf. For a general description of multi-record pdfs released by the FBI through NARA, see here.…

A note on CIA record management

This note takes a brief look at the system CIA is now using for JFK records declassification. I am posting this note since declassification is one of my interests; I also hope this note will help clarify some ARC release issues.

The MORI system

This section is based mostly on a document from the National Archives titled “Records Management in the Central Intelligence Agency”, available from the Federal of American Scientists website here.…

A phantom FBI record

This is a brief note on an issue related to FBI multi-record pdfs (see here for an introduction to this troublesome topic). A much longer, more substantial note on these pdfs is coming up.

The short version

The point of this post is that there is a bad link in the 2017 ARC pdfs posted at NARA.…

FBI multi-record pdfs and the MFF collection

I’m posting this note for my own reference. Feel free to ignore this if you are not trying to understand the ins and outs of the FBI multi-record releases.

What is a multi-record pdf?

A multi-record pdf is a pdf which includes more than one ARC record. There is nothing special about this, you can make your own, like I do, if you have the right software.…

ARRB record notices: 28 Sep 1998

[updated 18 September 2025]

After looking at ARRB’s “Final determination forms” (here), I am back poking around in the ARRB’s record notices for information I might have overlooked. This note describes what I found.

Caveat lector! This note is pure bean counting, and will be deathly boring for most readers.…

Corrections to “Formal and final in the JFK Act”

This note corrects a major error in my recent comment “Formal and final in the JFK Act”. In that note, I incorrectly stated that there were less than one hundred instances of the ARRB’s “Final determination form” (FDF) in the ARC. In fact there are over seven hundred. After looking at all these instances, I have also changed my views on the use of these forms in the ARC.…

“Formal” and “final” in the JFK Act

This note continues my recent look at Andrew Iler’s articles on ARRB’s “Final Determination Form” (FDF). If there were indeed over 26,000 of these forms printed and all of them are now AWOL, what does this mean for the integrity of the ARC? Iler suggests it opens the door for major doubts.…

jfkarc.info

Notes on the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection