Warren Commission

The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson through on November 29, 1963, to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy that had taken place on November 22, 1963. The U.S. Congress passed Senate Joint Resolution 137 authorizing the Presidential appointed Commission to report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, mandating the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of evidence. Its 888-page final report was presented to President Johnson on September 24, 1964, and made public three days later. It concluded that President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Oswald acted entirely alone. It also concluded that Jack Ruby acted alone when he killed Oswald two days later. The Commission's findings have proven controversial and have been both challenged and supported by later studies.

The Commission took its unofficial name—the Warren Commission—from its chairman, Chief Justice Earl Warren. According to published transcripts of Johnson's presidential phone conversations, some major officials were opposed to forming such a commission and several commission members took part only reluctantly. One of their chief reservations was that a commission would ultimately create more controversy than consensus.

Formation

Nicholas Katzenbach has been named as providing advice after the assassination of John F. Kennedy that led to the creation of the Warren Commission. On November 28 he sent a memo to Johnson's White House aide Bill Moyers recommending the formation of a Presidential Commission to investigate the assassination. To combat speculation of a conspiracy, Katzenbach said that the results of the FBI's investigation should be made public. He wrote, in part: "The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large".

Four days after Katzenbach's memo, Johnson appointed some of the nation's most prominent figures, including the Chief Justice of the United States, to the Commission.

Meetings

The Warren Commission met formally for the first time on December 5, 1963, on the second floor of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. The Commission conducted its business primarily in closed sessions, but these were not ''secret'' sessions.

Members

File:Earl Warren.jpg, alt=Earl Warren, Earl Warren
File:Richard RussellJr.jpg, alt=Richard Russell Jr., Richard Russell Jr.
File:JohnShermanCooper.jpg, alt=John Sherman Cooper, John Sherman Cooper
File:Hale Boggs.png, alt=Hale Boggs, Hale Boggs
File:Representative Gerald R. Ford, Jr. with his Sports Illustrated Silver Anniversary Award - NARA - 7064481.jpg, alt=Gerald Ford, Gerald Ford
File:Allen w dulles.jpg, alt=Allen Welsh Dulles, Allen Dulles
File:John J. McCloy - Project Gutenberg etext 20587.jpg, alt=John J. McCloy, John J. McCloy

;Committee
*Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States (chairman) (1891–1974)
*Richard Russell Jr. ( D-Georgia), U.S. Senator, (1897–1971)
*John Sherman Cooper ( R-Kentucky), U.S. Senator (1901–1991)
*Hale Boggs (D-Louisiana), U.S. Representative, House Majority Whip (1914–1972)
* Gerald Ford (R-Michigan), U.S. Representative (later 38th President of the United States), House Minority Leader (1913-2006)
* Allen Dulles, former Director of Central Intelligence and head of the Central Intelligence Agency (1893–1969)
*John J. McCloy, former President of the World Bank (1895–1989)

;General counsel
*J. Lee Rankin (1907-1996)

;Assistant counsel
*Francis W. H. Adams (1904–1990)
*Joseph A. Ball (1902–2000)
* David W. Belin (1928–1999)
* William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. (1920–2017)
*Melvin A. Eisenberg
*Burt W. Griffin
*Leon D. Hubert Jr.
*Albert E. Jenner Jr. (1907–1988)
* Wesley J. Liebeler　(1931-2002)
*Norman Redlich (1925–2011)
*W. David Slawson
*Arlen Specter (1930–2012)
*Samuel A. Stern
* Howard P. Willens (liaison with the Department of Justice)

;Staff
*Philip Barson
*Edward A. Conroy
*John Hart Ely (1938–2003)
*Alfred Goldberg
*Murray J. Laulicht
*Arthur J. Marmor
* Richard M. Mosk (1939–2016)
* John J. O'Brien (1919–2001)
* Stuart R. Pollak (1937–)
*Alfredda Scobey
*Charles N. Shaffer Jr.
*Lloyd L. Weinreb (1936–2021)

Conclusions of the report

The report concluded that:

# The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the sixth-floor window at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository.
# President Kennedy was first struck by a bullet which entered at the back of his neck and exited through the lower front portion of his neck, causing a wound which would not necessarily have been lethal. The President was struck by a second bullet, which entered the right-rear portion of his head, causing a massive and fatal wound.
# Governor Connally was struck by a bullet which entered on the right side of his back and traveled downward through the right side of his chest, exiting below his right nipple. This bullet then passed through his right wrist and entered his left thigh where it caused a superficial wound.
# There is no credible evidence that the shots were fired from the Triple Underpass, ahead of the motorcade, or from any other location.
# The weight of the evidence indicates that there were three shots fired.
# Although it is not necessary to any essential findings of the Commission to determine just which shot hit Governor Connally, there is very persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet which pierced the President's throat also caused Governor Connally's wounds. However, Governor Connally's testimony and certain other factors have given rise to some difference of opinion as to this probability but there is no question in the mind of any member of the Commission that all the shots which caused the President's and Governor Connally's wounds were fired from the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository.
# The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.
# Oswald killed Dallas Police Patrolman J. D. Tippit approximately 45 minutes after the assassination.
# Ruby entered the basement of the Dallas Police Department and killed Lee Harvey Oswald and there is no evidence to support the rumor that Ruby may have been assisted by any members of the Dallas Police Department.
# The Commission has found no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy.
# The Commission has found no evidence of conspiracy, subversion, or disloyalty to the U.S. Government by any Federal, State, or local official.
# The Commission could not make any definitive determination of Oswald's motives.
# The Commission believes that recommendations for improvements in Presidential protection are compelled by the facts disclosed in this investigation.

Death of Lee Harvey Oswald

In response to Jack Ruby's shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, the Warren Commission declared that the news media must share responsibility with the Dallas police department for "the breakdown of law enforcement" that led to Oswald's death. In addition to the police department's "inadequacy of coordination," the Warren Commission noted that "these additional deficiencies n securitywere related directly to the decision to admit newsmen to the basement."

The commission concluded that the pressure of press, radio, and television for information about Oswald's prison transfer resulted in lax security standards for admission to the basement, allowing Ruby to enter and subsequently shoot Oswald, noting that "the acceptance of inadequate press credentials posed a clear avenue for a one-man assault." Oswald's death was said to have been a direct result of "the failure of the police to remove Oswald secretly or control the crowd in the basement."

The consequence of Oswald's death, according to the Commission, was that "it was no longer possible to arrive at the complete story of the assassination of John F. Kennedy through normal judicial procedures during the trial of the alleged assassin." While the Commission noted that the prime responsibility was that of the police department, it also recommended the adoption of a new "code of conduct" for news professionals regarding the collecting and presenting of information to the public that would ensure "there ouldbe no interference with pending criminal investigations, court proceedings, or the right of individuals to a fair trial."

Aftermath

Secret Service

The findings prompted the Secret Service to make numerous modifications to its security procedures.

Commission records

In November 1964, two months after the publication of its 888-page report, 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 on November 23 to the National Archives. The unpublished portion of those records was initially sealed for 75 years (to 2039) under a general National Archives policy that applied to all federal investigations by the executive branch of government, a period "intended to serve as protection for innocent persons who could otherwise be damaged because of their relationship with participants in the case." The 75-year rule no longer exists, supplanted by the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the JFK Records Act of 1992. By 1992, 98 percent of the Warren Commission records had been released to the public. Six years later, after the Assassination Records Review Board's work, all Warren Commission records, except those records that contained tax return information, were available to the public with redactions. The remaining Kennedy assassination-related documents were partly released to the public on October 26, 2017, twenty-five years after the passage of the JFK Records Act. President Donald Trump, as directed by the FBI and the CIA, took action on that date to withhold certain remaining files, delaying the release until April 26, 2018, then on April 26, 2018, took action to further withhold the records "until 2021".

CIA "benign cover-up"

CIA Director McCone was "complicit" in a Central Intelligence Agency "benign cover-up" by withholding information from the Warren Commission, according to a report by the CIA Chief Historian David Robarge released to the public in 2014. According to this report, CIA officers had been instructed to give only "passive, reactive, and selective" assistance to the commission, to keep the commission focused on "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 may have also covered up evidence of being in communication with Oswald before 1963, according to the 2014 report findings.

Also withheld were earlier CIA plots, involving CIA links with the Mafia, to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro, which might have been considered to provide a motive to assassinate Kennedy. The report concluded, "In the long term, the decision of John McCone and Agency leaders in 1964 not to disclose information about CIA's anti-Castro schemes might have done more to undermine the credibility of the Commission than anything else that happened while it was conducting its investigation."

Skepticism

In the years following the release of its report and 26 investigatory evidence volumes in 1964, the Warren Commission has been frequently criticized for some of its methods, important omissions, and conclusions.

In 1992, following popular political pressure in the wake of the film ''JFK'', the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) was created by the JFK Records Act to collect and preserve the documents relating to the assassination. In a footnote in its final report, the ARRB wrote: "Doubts about the Warren Commission's findings were not restricted to ordinary Americans. Well before 1978, President Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, and four of the seven members of the Warren Commission all articulated, if sometimes off the record, some level of skepticism about the Commission's basic findings."

Other investigations

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
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