Investigating the President: The Warren Commission
On September 27, 1964, The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, (better known as the Warren Commission) released its findings to the public and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the killing of Kennedy and the wounding of Texas Governor John Connally. It also concluded that Jack Ruby acted alone in the murder of Oswald.
The Warren Commission was established on November 27, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Its 888-page final report was presented to President Johnson on September 24, 1964, and made public three days later. The Commission's findings have been very controversial and been both have challenged by later studies and in numerous books.
The Commission took its unofficial name from its chairman, Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The other commission members were:
1. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia
2. Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky
3. Representative Hale Boggs of Louisiana, who was also House Majority Leader
4. Representative and future President Gerald Ford of Michigan who was also House Minority Leader
5. Allen W. Dulles, former Director of the CIA
6. John J. McCloy, former President of the World Bank
According to published transcripts of Lyndon Johnson's presidential phone conversations, some major officials were opposed to forming such a commission and several commission members took part only with extreme reluctance. For example, Senator Russell told Johnson that he would not serve with Warren, but he ultimately did so after being pressured by Johnson to do so. Some of the commission members believed that it would ultimately create more controversy than consensus, and those fears proved correct.
Hearings were closed to the public unless the witness appearing before the Commission requested an open hearing (which only one witness requested.) The witnesses who appeared before the Commission were free to repeat what they said and all of their testimony was subsequently published in the first fifteen volumes put out by the Warren Commission. The report was 888 pages long and in addition, the Commission published twenty-six volumes of supporting documents, including the testimony or depositions of 552 witnesses and more than 3,100 exhibits.All of the commission's records were then transferred to the National Archives.
The unpublished portions of those records was initially sealed for 75 years (to 2039) But under the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the JFK Records Act of 1992 all Warren Commission records, except those records that contained tax return information, are now available to the public with some redacting.
In November 1964, two months after the publication of its report, the Commission published twenty-six volumes of supporting documents, including the testimony or depositions of 552 witnesses and more than 3,100 exhibits. The remaining Kennedy assassination related documents were released to the public on October 26, 2017.
According to a report by the CIA Chief Historian David Robarge, CIA Director McCone approved the withholding of some information from the Warren Commission. CIA officers were instructed to give only "passive, reactive, and selective" assistance to the commission, in order to keep the commission steered in the direction that was, as Robarge put it, "what the Agency believed at the time was the ‘best truth’ — that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy." The CIA was also prevented the commission from receiving evidence that the CIA may have been in communication with Oswald before 1963. Also withheld from the Commission was information about earlier CIA plots, involving CIA agreements with Mafia figures, to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro.
Four of the seven members of the commission (Boggs, Cooper, McCloy, and Russell) later expressed serious doubts regarding the conclusions of the Commission that the president and Governor Connally were both wounded by a "magic bullet" or that Oswald had acted alone. Since releasing its report, the Warren Commission has been frequently criticized for some of its methods, important omissions, and conclusions.
Three other U.S. government investigations have agreed with the Warren Commission's conclusion that two shots struck JFK from the rear: the 1968 panel set by Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the 1975 Rockefeller Commission, and the 1978-79 House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which reexamined the evidence with the help of the largest forensics panel. The HSCA involved Congressional hearings and ultimately concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, probably as the result of a conspiracy. The HSCA concluded that Oswald fired shots number one, two, and four, and that an unknown assassin fired shot number three from near the corner of a picket fence that was above and to President Kennedy's right front on the Dealey Plaza grassy knoll. However, this conclusion has also been criticized, especially for its reliance upon disputed acoustic evidence.
In his September 1978 testimony to the HSCA, President Gerald Ford, who had been a member of the Commission, defended the Warren Commission's investigation as thorough. Ford stated that knowledge of the assassination plots against Castro may have affected the scope of the Commission's investigation but he expressed doubt that it would have altered its finding that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy.
Almost 55 years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, considerable doubt still exists about the conclusions of the Warren Commission and whether or not Lee Harvey acted alone, in tandem with another shooter, or as part of a conspiracy. While history sometimes has a tendency to uncover secrets of the past, considerable mistrust in the official story still abounds.
The Warren Commission was established on November 27, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Its 888-page final report was presented to President Johnson on September 24, 1964, and made public three days later. The Commission's findings have been very controversial and been both have challenged by later studies and in numerous books.
The Commission took its unofficial name from its chairman, Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The other commission members were:
1. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia
2. Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky
3. Representative Hale Boggs of Louisiana, who was also House Majority Leader
4. Representative and future President Gerald Ford of Michigan who was also House Minority Leader
5. Allen W. Dulles, former Director of the CIA
6. John J. McCloy, former President of the World Bank
According to published transcripts of Lyndon Johnson's presidential phone conversations, some major officials were opposed to forming such a commission and several commission members took part only with extreme reluctance. For example, Senator Russell told Johnson that he would not serve with Warren, but he ultimately did so after being pressured by Johnson to do so. Some of the commission members believed that it would ultimately create more controversy than consensus, and those fears proved correct.
Hearings were closed to the public unless the witness appearing before the Commission requested an open hearing (which only one witness requested.) The witnesses who appeared before the Commission were free to repeat what they said and all of their testimony was subsequently published in the first fifteen volumes put out by the Warren Commission. The report was 888 pages long and in addition, the Commission published twenty-six volumes of supporting documents, including the testimony or depositions of 552 witnesses and more than 3,100 exhibits.All of the commission's records were then transferred to the National Archives.
The unpublished portions of those records was initially sealed for 75 years (to 2039) But under the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the JFK Records Act of 1992 all Warren Commission records, except those records that contained tax return information, are now available to the public with some redacting.
In November 1964, two months after the publication of its report, the Commission published twenty-six volumes of supporting documents, including the testimony or depositions of 552 witnesses and more than 3,100 exhibits. The remaining Kennedy assassination related documents were released to the public on October 26, 2017.
According to a report by the CIA Chief Historian David Robarge, CIA Director McCone approved the withholding of some information from the Warren Commission. CIA officers were instructed to give only "passive, reactive, and selective" assistance to the commission, in order to keep the commission steered in the direction that was, as Robarge put it, "what the Agency believed at the time was the ‘best truth’ — that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy." The CIA was also prevented the commission from receiving evidence that the CIA may have been in communication with Oswald before 1963. Also withheld from the Commission was information about earlier CIA plots, involving CIA agreements with Mafia figures, to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro.
Four of the seven members of the commission (Boggs, Cooper, McCloy, and Russell) later expressed serious doubts regarding the conclusions of the Commission that the president and Governor Connally were both wounded by a "magic bullet" or that Oswald had acted alone. Since releasing its report, the Warren Commission has been frequently criticized for some of its methods, important omissions, and conclusions.
Three other U.S. government investigations have agreed with the Warren Commission's conclusion that two shots struck JFK from the rear: the 1968 panel set by Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the 1975 Rockefeller Commission, and the 1978-79 House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which reexamined the evidence with the help of the largest forensics panel. The HSCA involved Congressional hearings and ultimately concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, probably as the result of a conspiracy. The HSCA concluded that Oswald fired shots number one, two, and four, and that an unknown assassin fired shot number three from near the corner of a picket fence that was above and to President Kennedy's right front on the Dealey Plaza grassy knoll. However, this conclusion has also been criticized, especially for its reliance upon disputed acoustic evidence.
In his September 1978 testimony to the HSCA, President Gerald Ford, who had been a member of the Commission, defended the Warren Commission's investigation as thorough. Ford stated that knowledge of the assassination plots against Castro may have affected the scope of the Commission's investigation but he expressed doubt that it would have altered its finding that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy.
Almost 55 years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, considerable doubt still exists about the conclusions of the Warren Commission and whether or not Lee Harvey acted alone, in tandem with another shooter, or as part of a conspiracy. While history sometimes has a tendency to uncover secrets of the past, considerable mistrust in the official story still abounds.