Warren Commission, popular name
given to the U.S. Commission to Report upon the Assassination of
President John F. Kennedy, established (Nov. 29, 1963) by executive
order of President Lyndon B. Johnson. The commission, which was given
unrestricted investigating powers, was directed to evaluate all the
evidence and present a complete report of the event to the American
people. The members of the commission were Earl Warren, Chief Justice of
the United States; U.S. Senators Richard B. Russell (Democrat from
Georgia) and John Sherman Cooper (Republican from Kentucky); U.S.
Representatives Hale Boggs (Democrat from Louisiana) and Gerald R. Ford
(Republican from Michigan); Allen W. Dulles, former Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency; and John J. McCloy, former president of the
World Bank. The commission named former U.S. Solicitor General James Lee
Rankin as its general counsel and also appointed 14 assistant counsels
and an additional staff of 12. The proceedings began Dec. 3, 1963, and
the final report was delivered to the President on Sept. 24, 1964.
During its investigation the commission weighed the testimony of 552
witnesses and the reports of 10 federal agencies, most important of
which were the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
Dept. of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, and military
intelligence. The hearings were closed to the public unless the person
giving testimony requested otherwise; only two witnesses made that
request. The commission, in its findings, attempted to reconstruct the
exact sequence of events of the assassination. Foremost among its
conclusions was refutation of speculation that the assassination was
part of a conspiracy, either domestic or foreign, or that any elements
of the government had a hand in the event. The report maintained that
Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone and without accomplices, shot and killed
the President and wounded Texas Governor John Connally from the sixth
floor window of the Texas School Book Depository Building in Dallas on
Nov. 22, 1963. Oswald was also declared the murderer of Police Patrolman
J. D. Tippit, who tried to apprehend Oswald some 45 min after the
shooting. In addition, Jack Ruby, a Dallas restaurant owner who killed
Oswald the day after the assassination (Nov. 24), was found innocent of
conspiracy; no connection was found between Oswald and Ruby. The
commission concluded its report by recommending reform in presidential
security measures, and it offered specific proposals to improve the
Secret Service. The commission's findings came under attack from a
number of persons who felt it served as a “whitewash.” In 1966 New
Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison began an independent inquiry
based on the assumption that the assassination had resulted from a
conspiracy. He brought charges against a New Orleans businessman, who,
however, was acquitted in 1969. For a summary of the commission's
findings, see Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination
of President John F. Kennedy (1964). The commission's proceedings and
conclusions are criticized in E. J. Epstein, Inquest (1966) and Mark
Lane, Rush to Judgment (1966).
