In newly released classified documents by the National Archives, President Lyndon B. Johnson is revealed to have contemplated replacing Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. This was ten days after John F. Kennedy’s assassination.   

Its common knowledge that Robert Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson often collided during his brother’s term in office.  

However, new documents indicate Johnson loathed having any Kennedy holdovers in his new administration, despite preaching unity. 

The recently revealed document indicates that President Johnson’s “Let Us Continue Speech” delivered shortly after Kennedy’s assassination was merely empty political rhetoric.

Johnson’s speech aimed to convince key members of Kennedy’s administration to remain in their offices. However, within five days, discussions were already looming about the possibility of making changes to his cabinet in private conversations.

The memorandum states that Johnson was already set on cabinet alterations, but awaited the Attorney General (RFK) to decide if he wanted to stay in the new administration. 

Other sections of the same declassified file reveal that Johnson rejected a request from the Department of Justice. This request proposed an independent body of attorneys and jurists to examine Kennedy’s murder.

Johnson himself was said to be fervently against having any independent investigation into Kennedy’s death. On top of that, the then-president was also on record opposing any move besides the use of jurists and “high-level” attorneys led by an appointed bureaucrat. 

The thought of having non-government investigators look into Kennedy’s death was so threatening that Johnson even had the Washington Post editorial “killed” for advancing the idea. 

The National Archives and Records Administration stated that under President Joe Biden’s Memorandum released in December 2022, information on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was to be withheld until June 30, 2023.