AI, Grok Tell A Misleading Summary Of JFK Files | Bobby Burack
On Tuesday, President Trump made available tens of thousands of files regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Due to the volume of files, artificial intelligence chatbots quickly summarized the documents for users of interest.
Most notably, X's Grok provided the following conclusion from the release:
"In conclusion, based on the synthesized analysis of today’s release, the evidence points to Lee Harvey Oswald as the orchestrator and executor of Kennedy’s assassination, acting alone. No definitive proof of CIA, Mafia, or foreign involvement emerges to shift this view. However, the volume of data and lingering questions about agency failures or suppressed angles mean the debate won’t end here — further scrutiny by independent researchers could yet uncover cracks in the official story. For now, the files tilt toward closure, not revelation."
The summarization led journalists to mock the so-called conspiracy theorists who have long hinted at a larger conspiracy than Oswald, as per Grok, acting as the "orchestrator and executor" of Kennedy’s assassination.
And therein lies the inherent flaw of relying on artificial intelligence as a source for journalism.
As advanced as apps like Grok are, they lack the human capability of suspicion. The 60,000 pages released on Tuesday do not contain a smoking gun establishing the direct involvement of the CIA, Mafia, or a foreign nation. Of course not. The files were never going to explicitly detail such. Otherwise, the release would never have occurred.
That said, several documents within the files suggest suspicious activity not accounted for in Grok's conclusion.
US President John F Kennedy (left), First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (in pink), and Texas Governor John Connally ride in a motorcade from the Dallas airport into the city.
The most cited document from the release is a 1976 memo detailing how former US Army intelligence officer Gary Underhill fled Washington, DC, "very agitated" the day after the assassination of Kennedy and confided in a friend that a "small clique within the CIA" was behind the assassination.
Six months later, he was found dead in his apartment. The death was ruled a suicide.
The passage had actually been released before as an extraction from the magazine excerpt from Ramparts, which did investigative exposes relating to the CIA.
Likewise, it was previously known that Oswald had traveled to Mexico City and sought visas from the Cuban and Soviet embassies in September 1963, seemingly looking to establish a quick exit at a future date. Two months later, he shot the President of the United States.
According to the documents, the CIA intercepted and monitored Oswald's conversations with the embassies. The CIA in Mexico also asked Washington to keep quiet about the wiretaps, arguing they could force Mexico to reassess its relationship with the U.S.
"Do whatever is possible to keep the lid on the box re: previous joint ops with the Mexicans," the CIA Mexico station told headquarters.
The CIA tracking Oswald before the assassination of JFK is also not new information. Former Washington Post journalist Jefferson Morley reported in 2024 that the CIA compiled a 181-page dossier on Oswald before he shot Kennedy.
Put simply, the CIA had an interest in Oswald, was following his movements, but apparently lost track of him the day he assassinated the sitting president. That is what we can state definitively here today.
Many of us thought that before the release. The documents on Tuesday only confirmed that statement.
Boston - Employees are reflected in a framed photograph of John F. Kennedy inside the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum as it reopened after it was abruptly shut down. (Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Perhaps the most critical question left unanswered in Tuesday's release was about Oswald's friendship with George de Mohrenschildt.
De Mohrenschildt was a CIA operative from Russia living in America who had befriended Oswald. Why some aristocrat tied to the CIA would befriend Oswald, who lived in the lowest of classes, has never made sense.
In the 2012 book "Killing Kennedy," authors Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard considered de Mohrenschildt's relationship with Kennedy perhaps the missing piece to the puzzle of what really happened. To this day, little information about him exists.
According to the authors, de Mohrenschildt disappeared shortly after Kennedy’s assassination. A congressional committee tracked him down 14 years later in Florida, where he reportedly shot himself in his daughter's home before they could speak to him.
De Mohrenschildt committed suicide – just like they say Underhill did.
So, what did we actually learn from Tuesday's release (other than John F. Kennedy calling Joe Biden a traitor)? Honestly, nothing definitive. And that's what's wrong with AI apps saying that the evidence points to Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole "orchestrator and executor." It doesn't.
At best, the files fail to tie direct evidence of a grander conspiracy. At worst, the files provide the requisite breadcrumbs to legitimize suspicions of a grander conspiracy.
*Article updated with context following the second release of the JFK files.