By Kayode Sanni-Arewa

A trove of long-classified government documents concerning some of the most politically charged killings in modern American history — including the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy — could finally be made available to the public.

But that’s just the start of the latest saga surrounding the killings, which have sparked fascination, conspiracy theories, and history-changing debate for decades.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at declassifying government documents related to the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy, his brother and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. The order essentially requires the nation’s security organizations to create plans to release the records.

The full findings of the government investigations into the three killings have been hidden for decades, sparking wide-ranging speculation and preventing a sense of closure for many Americans. All three men were national and international icons whose assassinations — and the theories swirling around them — became the stuff of books, movies, controversy, and the pages of history itself.

“A lot of people were waiting for this . . . for years, for decades,” said Trump in signing the release of the documents. “Everything will be revealed.”

JFK assassination, Nov. 22, 1963
The shock of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 still echoes more than half a century later.

Kennedy, known for both his glamour and steering the country through the closest it ever came to nuclear war, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was shot and killed as his presidential motorcade brought him along a downtown city street and as he waved to adoring bystanders from the open-roofed car.

Police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald less than an hour later. But Oswald himself was killed on live TV just two days later as police were transferring him to a county jail.

Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby, acted alone on an impulse, the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known as the Warren Commission, concluded. The commission ruled that Oswald also acted alone.

The JFK assassination sent the nation into mourning and shook it to its core, as Americans searched for answers. Hundreds of books have been written and documentaries produced, with bits and pieces of information emerging to this day.

Many regard the commission’s work as a government-orchestrated coverup and doubts have been raised over who killed John F. Kennedy have persisted. Conspiracy theorists lay the blame on everyone from Cuba – at the heart of the nuclear missile crisis – to the CIA itself.

The wide-ranging theories over Kennedy’s death – how many shooters were involved, how many bullets – became so ingrained in popular culture that they made it onto the comedy series Seinfeld.

MLK assassinated in Memphis, April 4, 1968
King, whose work furthering the Civil Rights Movement is honored with a federal holiday, was killed on the balcony outside his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Atlanta preacher was visiting the city to march alongside striking workers. On the evening of the assassination, he was preparing to leave for dinner at the home of a local minister.

He stepped outside to speak with colleagues in the parking lot below and was shot in the face by an assassin. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old escaped fugitive, later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a 99-year prison term.

But Ray later tried to withdraw his confession and said he was set up by a man named Raoul. He maintained until his death in 1998 that he did not kill King.

A Memphis tavern owner and a former FBI agent both also claimed a figure named Raoul was behind the killing, according to the Department of Justice.

Loyd Jowers, a former Memphis tavern owner, claimed 25 years after the murder that he participated in a mafia-linked conspiracy to kill King. Jowers also linked Memphis police and Raoul to the assassination, the Justice Department said.

Donald Wilson, a former FBI agent, also claimed in 1998 that after King’s assassination he found some papers in Ray’s car that mentioned Raoul as well as figures linked to the Kennedy assassination.

Wilson said the papers were stolen from him by someone who later worked in the White House, according to the Justice Department.

RFK killed in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968
Robert F. Kennedy never achieved the political heights of his older brother. But he was no less a beloved figure for his championing of civil rights.

He served as his brother’s attorney general and as a senator. He was killed in Los Angeles where he had gone for the California Democratic primary, just months after declaring his presidential candidacy.

The younger Kennedy spent the evening of the election at a suite at the Ambassador Hotel awaiting election results. He eventually went down to a hotel ballroom to thank supporters, then went through the hotel kitchen after being told it was a shortcut to a press room.

An assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, killed him as he shook hands with a hotel busboy. Sirhan remains in prison.

But some believe the same elements behind the older Kennedy’s assassination also killed the former senator.

The presidential candidate’s son Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, has long maintained that Sirhan didn’t even shoot his father. The Trump cabinet pick believes Sirhan missed and that instead his dad was shot by a man linked to the CIA.