WASHINGTON — Within hours of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the CIA started to distance itself from any connection to suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, recently released secret records from the National Archives show.

While CIA agents had picked up on Oswald while he was in Mexico City in September 1963 trying to return to the Soviet Union, where he had defected in 1959, they did not pay much attention to him, according to a Sept. 18, 1975, CIA report that attempted to explain what the agency knew about him.

That file, released Friday, shows the agency knew about the travels of Oswald, a former Marine sharpshooter, as he moved to the Soviet Union, returned to the United States with a Russian wife, demonstrated in support of Cuba'scommunist government and traveled to Mexico City before the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination.

The files were released under the requirements of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which required all documents compiled as part of investigation into Kennedy's murder to be released by Oct. 26, 2017. On that day, 2,891 files were released in full. Others, including the 676 released Friday were censored, in some parts to maintain the secrecy of sources who are still alive.

The Sept. 18, 1975, CIA memo on Oswald was released as a Senate committee led by Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, investigated abuses by the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies. Details about the Kennedy administration's attempts to overthrow the government of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro or assassinate him had