The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston was abruptly closed to visitors on Tuesday, and the federal agency that operates the site did not provide any explanation for the sudden disruption.
Members of the Kennedy family said that Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency had fired members of the library’s staff, forcing the temporary closure.
Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, wrote in a social media post that an official with the National Archives and Records Administration, which oversees presidential libraries, had instructed the Kennedy Library to fire probationary staff members.
“This is a direct attack on our past to rewrite a new future — yet another example of stealing history from the American people,” Mr. Schlossberg wrote in a statement. “It has nothing to do with government efficiency.”
Joe Kennedy III, a former U.S. representative for Massachusetts and a grandnephew of John F. Kennedy, told WBZ-TV in Boston that five employees had been terminated.
Mr. Kennedy said the fired employees had been responsible for the library’s day-to-day operations and that after they had been let go, the library had to be cleared of visitors and closed.
“Folks, when we start shutting down libraries in the name of government efficiency, we got a problem,” he said.
In a statement on Tuesday evening, the National Archives and Records Administration said the library would reopen on Wednesday but did not provide any explanation for the closure on Tuesday.
The Trump administration, as part of an effort to slash the size of the federal government, has advised agencies to terminate most of an estimated 200,000 workers still in their probationary periods.
President Trump also fired Colleen Shogan, the nation’s archivist and head of the agency, earlier in February.
A spokesman for the library could not immediately be reached for comment, and it was unclear whether other presidential libraries had been affected by cuts.
On Tuesday evening, an employee emerged from the dim, quiet building to remove a sign that had posted about the closure of the library.
The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the library, has previously honored critics of Mr. Trump with its Profile in Courage Award, named after the former president’s book.
Mitt Romney, a Republican who served as governor of Massachusetts and as a U.S. senator from Utah, received the award for voting to convict Mr. Trump in an impeachment trial.
Liz Cheney, a former Republican representative from Wyoming, was honored after being removed from her House leadership position for repeatedly condemning Mr. Trump’s false election claims and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bernard Mokam in New York and Lila Hempel-Edgers in Boston contributed reporting.
