There are now two weeks left before the National Archives releases CIA records relating to the President Kennedy assassination, records that the CIA has succeeded in keeping secret for more than 50 years, on grounds of “national security” of course.

The JFK Records Act, enacted in 1992 in response to public outrage over continued official secrecy in the JFK assassination, required the CIA and other federal agencies to release all their records relating to the JFK assassination.

Someone, however, slipped a provision into the law entitling the CIA (and other federal agencies) to wait another 25 years to release their records. Taking advantage of that provision, the CIA withheld tens of thousands of pages of records, no doubt thinking that another 25 years was a long time away.

Yet, here we are — 25 years later.

But guess what: An October 4 article on PR News Channel quotes bestselling author Roger Stone saying, “I know CIA Director Pompeo is urging the President to delay release of these records for another 25 years.” According to a post today by Steven Aftergood at the website of the Federation of American Scientists, “Officials would not say if any such requests have been forwarded to the White House….”

Really? Another extension? On grounds of “national security”? Ever since the assassination, there sure have been many “national security” concerns arising from what was supposedly a lone-nut murder.

There’s another possibility: the need for continued secrecy to cover up a crime, the crime being a U.S. national-security state Cold War regime-change operation, one based on “national security” — one no different in principle from the Cold War regime-change operations in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Congo, Brazil, and elsewhere.

CIA officials know that despite all the hoopla about “conspiracy theories,” over the decades assassination researchers have succeeded in discovering the broad parameters of this particular regime-change operation. Those parameters have been set forth in the following ebooks that have been published by The Future of Freedom Foundation: The Kennedy Autopsy by Jacob Hornberger; JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne; Regime Change: The JFK Assassination by Jacob G. Hornberger; The CIA, Terrorism, and the Cold War: The Evil of the National Security State by Jacob Hornberger; and CIA & JFK: The Secret Assassination Files by Jefferson Morley.

The CIA knows that much of the circumstantial evidence leading to the discovery of those parameters came out in the 1990s pursuant to the records release mandated by the JFK Records Act.

For example, consider Navy official Saundra Spencer, who worked closely with the Kennedy White House. She testified under oath before the Assassination Records Review Board (the agency charged with enforcing the JFK Records Act) that the official photographs of the JFK autopsy were not the ones she was asked to secretly develop on the weekend of the assassination. She said the ones that she developed showed a big exit-sized hole in the back of Kennedy’s head.

Her testimony confirmed repeated statements by Dr. Robert McClelland and other Dallas physicians who treated Kennedy at Parkland Hospital and who stated what Spencer stated: that the back of Kennedy’s head contained a large-sized exit wound, contrary to what the autopsy photographs in the record reflect.

It would be virtually impossible to find more credible witnesses than Saundra Spencer and Dr. Robert McClelland. There is no reasonable possibility that either of them perjured themselves or lied. There is also no reasonable possibility that they got together to concoct a fake and false story about the JFK autopsy.

Where does that leave us? Well, one possibility is to simply ignore the testimony and statements of Saundra Spencer and Dr. Robert McClelland. Just act like they didn’t say what they said. Bury our heads in the sand. Or just move on. That’s certainly what lots of mainstreamers have done in the JFK assassination, especially those in the mainstream press. Just chalk it all up to some sort of “conspiracy theory,” the term that the CIA secretly came up with to dissuade people from looking too closely at the circumstantial evidence in the JFK assassination.

Another possibility is to reach the obvious conclusion from what Spencer and McClelland and many others have stated: The JFK autopsy photographs in the official records are fakes.

Where does that leave us?

It leaves us with the fact that someone had to have faked the JFK autopsy photographs.

Where does that then leave us?

It leaves us asking two important questions: Who? And why?

The answers to those two questions are arrived at through circumstantial evidence and the process of deduction.

The U.S. national security state controlled the autopsy. Therefore, we know that the faking of the autopsy photographs was done by certain officials within the national-security state bureaucracy, i.e., the military or the CIA or both.

But why?

To cover up the fact that shots were fired from the front, which is what a big exit wound in the back of the president’s head would connote.

That naturally leads to the next question: Why would they want to hide the fact that shots were fired from the front?

The answer to that question demonstrates the utter ingenuity and brilliance of the cover-up. It was the only way to ensure that the investigation would be shut down quickly and effectively. Why is that? Because the implication was that Oswald, the purported shooter from the rear, had confederates firing from the front. Who would those confederates have been? Communists, of course — i.e., the Soviet Union and Cuba. Remember: This was the height of the U.S. national-security state’s anti-communist crusade. Why is that important? Because if Oswald was working with the Soviet Union and Cuba to assassinate America’s president, that would have led to all-out nuclear World War III. Thus, by making it look like World War III was a distinct possibility, the malefactors were able to quickly pin the assassination on a “lone nut” and get the investigation quickly shut down and then shrouded in secrecy for the next several decades.

With the looming two-week deadline for release of the CIA’s JFK records, the CIA is between and rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, the CIA knows that the batch of records that are still being kept secret contains more pieces of circumstantial evidence that will fill in more of this particular Cold War regime-change mosaic. This is particularly true with respect to Oswald’s trip to Mexico City, which is still shrouded in mystery, in large part because so many things obviously went wrong with that part of the operation, an operation designed to create the appearance that Oswald was working with the Soviet Union and Cuba when he supposedly assassinated the president.

On the other hand, the CIA knows that if it requests another extension of time for secrecy, it will effectively constitute an admission of guilt. No one, not even the mainstream press, is going to buy the “national security” argument again, especially given that the records are more than 50 years old. Everyone, where he admits it openly or not, is going to see that the extension of time is intended to keep incriminating evidence buried forever.

So, which way is the CIA going to go? My hunch is that they are going to go the extension route. They would rather take the heat for more secrecy, notwithstanding the implicit admission of guilt, than to release more incriminating evidence that further establishes guilt.

The question remains: Will Trump grant the CIA’s last-minute request for another extension of secrecy of its JFK records? My hunch: He will. By now it is obvious that Trump has entered into a modus vivendi with the U.S. national-security establishment. He’ll just make a deal and get something important in return.