"11 SEPTEMBER 2016
"IN OCTOBER 2017 ANY FBI DOCUMENTS RELATED TO JIM REEVES AND DEAN MANUEL ABOUT THE ASSASINATION (Sic) OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY WILL BE RELEASED."
"The U.S. government retains approximately 3,600 records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that have never been made public, according to the latest count of the National Archives.
"In her April 10 presentation, Martha Murphy, a National Archives official, made it clear that all withheld information will be released in October 2017, as mandated by the 1992 JFK Records Act, unless the President orders otherwise.
"There is speculation that there are documents concerning FBI interviews with both Jim Reeves and Dean Manuel, who were in Dallas at the time of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."
As I report in my 672-page book, "Jim Reeves: His Untold Story," I was informed that (after my Freedom of Information Act requests), files pertaining to Jim Reeves were destroyed on orders of a judge in Washington. So that information is probably lost forever.
There are other records relevant to Jim under seal with JFK assassination files -- as I was the first to report in my book -- but there is NO evidence either of the two men were ever interviewed by the FBI, and Dean Manuel was NOT in Dallas at the time of the President's murder. The Blue Boys left on the bus for their next venue that morning, while Jim remained behind -- and then had trouble getting out of town because all flights were grounded in the aftermath of the assassination.
Furthermore, Mary Reeves and I talked about JFK and surely she would have mentioned it to me if her husband had ever been interviewed by the FBI in connection with the President's murder.
Jim and his band did, indeed, play Dewey Groom's nightclub in Ft. Worth the night before, and had trouble getting a motel room because so many people were in town to see the Kennedys the next day. (Groom, incidentally, had been in a business partnership with Jack Ruby). And as I revealed, Jim recognized accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald when he saw him on TV the night of the tragedy, saying he could never forget that face and that Oswald had come to some of his shows. Jim also stayed at a hotel in Dallas that had a coffee shop frequented by Oswald's killer, Jack Ruby, and Jim and his band also went to strip clubs owned by Ruby.
However, some of the files that pertain to Jim that are retained with JFK records specifically relate to ARKANSAS, as I was informed by the FBI in correspondence addressed to me.
So once again, some foreign webmaster is spinning yarns and has no substance to back it up. Furthermore, for anyone to believe that all records will be released is naive in the extreme. The U.S. government does not have a history of candor and keeps many things secret.
Bottom line: the headline is misleading to the fans and fosters the wrong impression and false hopes.
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