Warren Committee Report

Warren Commission Report

The Warren Commission was established yesteryear President Lyndon Johnson on 29 Nov 1963, ane calendar week afterwards the assassination of his predecessor, President John F. Kennedy.

The FBI was already working on assembling its findings into a report, which Johnson had hoped would serve equally the final discussion on the subject, only his political advisors were urging him to appoint a presidential commission, together with he decided that it would last a superior option to a looming U.S. Senate investigation of the assassination.

The committee included Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren equally chairman, 4 U.S. congressmen (Senators John Cooper together with Richard Russell together with Representatives Hale Boggs together with Gerald Ford), together with ii members from the someone sector (former Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy together with ex-Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles). By the fourth dimension its investigation was over, the committee together with its staff of lawyers had interviewed 488 witnesses together with received thousands of reports from dozens of regime agencies.


On 24 September 1964, the committee reported to President Johnson that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassinator of President Kennedy, that night-club possessor Jack Ruby had acted lonely inwards killing Oswald, together with that the committee could uncovering no evidence of a conspiracy inwards either murder.

The Warren Commission Report initially reassured an anxious public. However, its methods together with findings were shortly questioned yesteryear critics (e.g., Epstein), together with yesteryear 1967 a bulk of Americans had come upward to believe that a conspiracy was behind the assassination.

The hundreds of books that were written on the assassination over the years arrived at iii different views of the commission. Its defenders (e.g., Ford together with Stiles) portrayed it equally an honest together with competent trunk that explored every avenue inwards search of the truth.

Its legion of critics, on the other hand, saw it equally either a bungled research that ignored obvious evidence of conspiracy or, to a greater extent than ominously, equally a deliberate cover-up intended to protect the conspirators.

These critics raised questions nigh the commission’s “single bullet theory,” which ascribed to ane almost pristine bullet all 7 nonfatal wounds sustained yesteryear Kennedy together with Texas Governor John Connally, together with they used the “Zapruder film” to struggle for the existence of a “second gunman” inwards the assassination.

Despite the commission’s characterization of Oswald equally a disaffected loner, the critics portrayed him equally a human being enmeshed inwards the covert basis of espionage and/or an innocent patsy used to divert investigators from the conspirators behind the assassination.

It was eventually discovered that the committee was never informed nigh a Federal Reserve notation delivered yesteryear Oswald to the FBI earlier the assassination or nigh plots pursued yesteryear the CIA against the life of Fidel Castro, facts that could cause got had a pregnant bearing on the commission’s investigation.

Members of the committee staff assured the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) inwards the belatedly 1970s that they carried out an honest together with thorough probe of the assassination. Although the HSCA found no evidence of a deliberate cover-up, its decision was that the Kennedy assassination was likely the final result of a conspiracy that had gone undetected yesteryear the commission.

Constraints on the Commission

In hindsight, it tin last seen that the committee operated nether several constraints that made it unlikely that it would uncovering a conspiracy. With a express investigative staff of its own, its research relied largely on the FBI, an means that had already satisfied itself that in that location was no conspiracy together with behaved equally if its reputation rested on the truth of that conclusion.

High regime officials sided amongst the FBI together with were determined to consider that the populace cause got Oswald’s guilt together with that suspicions of conspiracy, whether unusual or domestic, last rebutted yesteryear the commission.

Johnson’s ain fears were clearly revealed when, piece urging Warren to caput the commission, he warned that rumors of conspiracy could provoke a nuclear state of war amongst the Soviet Union inwards which xl 1000000 Americans would perish.

Johnson’s aides also wanted to take away the assassination equally a possible share inwards the 1964 presidential election yesteryear having the committee consummate its study earlier election twenty-four hours inwards November, a deadline that the committee managed to consider yesteryear halting its hearings inwards June together with assigning the chore of writing the study to ii staff members who worked nonstop until September.

When iii commissioners (notably Senator Russell) took exception to the single-bullet theory, the disagreement went unresolved only the study was written equally if in that location were consensus on all of its findings.

Indeed, the study referred to all allegations of conspiracy equally “rumors,” implying that they were non worthy of beingness taken seriously.


The query of whether or non the committee failed to uncovering a conspiracy rests on whether a conspiracy genuinely existed. Regardless of the persuasiveness of their criticisms, or their success inwards making the thought of conspiracy appealing to many Americans, the commission’s critics never proved beyond a doubtfulness the existence of whatever detail conspiracy.

The commission’s shortcomings may cause got been understandable inwards persuasion of the constraints placed upon it, only the committee was non equally objective inwards its fact finding equally it pretended to be, or equally fully informed.

Like many of its critics, it also produced a theory nigh the assassination, only it presented its theory equally if it were fact, inwards a feel inviting the plethora of conspiracy theories that cause got competed amongst its lone gunman theory. The heritage left yesteryear the Warren Commission Report was a lingering belief inwards conspiracy on the piece of job of most Americans, the rattling effect that the committee was supposed to avoid.