The Warren Commission Report

One of the most fictional accounts of one of the world’s most historic events, written and influenced by those who knew the truth and took extraordinary steps to cover up who was actually involved.

The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson through Executive Order 11130 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.

The creation of the Warren Commission was a direct consequence of the murder by Jack Ruby of the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, carried live on national television in the basement of the Dallas police station. The lack of a public process addressing the mistakes of the Dallas Police, who concluded that the case was closed, created doubt in the mind of the public.

The new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, himself from Texas, the state where the two assassinations had taken place, found himself faced with the risk of a weakening of his presidency. Confronted with the results obtained by the Texas authorities, themselves seriously discredited and criticized, he decided after various consultations, including in particular that with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, to create a presidential commission of inquiry by Executive Order 11130 of November 29, 1963. This act made it possible both to avoid an independent investigation led by Congress and to avoid entrusting the case to the Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, deeply affected by the assassination, whose federal jurisdiction would have been applied in the event of withdrawal of the share of the State of Texas for the benefit of the federal authorities in Washington.

Nicholas Katzenbach, Deputy Attorney General, provided advice that led to the creation of the Warren Commission. On November 25 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: 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 to the commission some of the nation’s most prominent figures, including Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States. At first, Warren refused to head of the commission because he stated the principle of law that a member of the judicial power could not be at the service of the executive power. It was only under pressure from President Lyndon Johnson, who spoke of international tensions and the risks of war resulting from the death of his predecessor, that he agreed to chair the commission. The other members of the commission were chosen from among the representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties, in both houses of Congress, and added diplomat John J. McCloy, former president of the World Bank, and former CIA director Allen Dulles.