Warren Report: Foreword
PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, by Executive Order No. 11130 dated November 29,
1963, created this Commission to investigate the assassination on November 22,
1963, of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. The
President directed the Commission to evaluate all the facts and circumstances
surrounding the assassination and the subsequent killing of the alleged assassin
and to report its findings and conclusions to him.
The subject of the Commission's inquiry was a chain of events which saddened and
shocked the people of the United States and of the world. The assassination of
President Kennedy and the simultaneous wounding of John B. Connally, Jr.,
Governor of Texas, had been followed within an hour by the slaying of Patrolman
J. D. Tippit of the Dallas Police Department. In the United States and abroad,
these events evoked universal demands for an explanation.
Immediately after the assassination, State and local officials in Dallas devoted
their resources to the apprehension of the assassin. The U.S. Secret Service,
which is responsible for the protection of the President, and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation began an investigation at the direction of President Johnson.
Within 35 minutes of the killing of Patrolman Tippit, Lee Harvey Oswald was
arrested by the Dallas police as a suspect in that crime. Based on evidence
provided by Federal, State, and local agencies, the State of Texas arraigned
Oswald within 12 hours of his arrest, charging him with the assassination of
President Kennedy and the murder of Patrolman Tippit. On November 24, 1963,
less than 18 hours after his arrest, Oswald was fatally shot in the basement of
the Dallas Police Department by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner. This
shooting took place in full view of a national television audience.
The events of these 2 days were witnessed with shock and disbelief by a Nation
grieving the loss of its young leader. Throughout the world, reports on these
events were disseminated in massive detail. Theories and speculations mounted
regarding the assassination. In many instances, the intense public demand for
facts was met by partial and frequently conflicting reports from Dallas and
elsewhere. After Oswald's arrest and his denial of all guilt, public attention
focused both on the extent of the evidence against him and the possibility of a
conspiracy, domestic or foreign. His subsequent death heightened public
interest and stimulated additional suspicions and rumors.
The Commission and its powers
After Lee Harvey Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby, it was no longer possible to
arrive at the complete story of the assassination through normal judicial
procedures during a trial of the alleged assassin. Alternative means for
instituting a complete investigation were widely discussed. Federal and State
officials conferred on the possibility of initiating a court of inquiry before a
State magistrate in Texas. An investigation by the grand jury of Dallas County
also was considered. As speculation about the existence of a foreign or
domestic conspiracy became widespread, committees in both Houses of Congress
weighed the desirability of congressional hearings to discover all the facts
relating to the assassination.
By his order of November 29 establishing the Commission, President Johnson
sought to avoid parallel investigations and to concentrate fact-finding in a
body having the broadest national mandate. As Chairman of the Commission,
President Johnson selected Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States,
former Governor and attorney general of the State of California. From the U.S.
Senate, he chose Richard B. Russell, Democratic Senator from Georgia and
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, former Governor of, and county
attorney in, the State of Georgia, and John Sherman Cooper, Republican Senator
from Kentucky, former county and circuit judge, State of Kentucky, and U.S.
Ambassador to India. Two members of the Commission were drawn from the U.S.
House of Representatives: Hale Boggs, Democratic U.S. Representative from
Louisiana and majority whip, and Gerald R. Ford, Republican, U.S. Representative
from Michigan and chairman of the House Republican Conference. From private life, President Johnson selected two lawyers by profession, both of
whom have served in the administrations of Democratic and Republican Presidents:
Allen W. Dulles, former Director of Central Intelligence, and John J. McCloy,
former President of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development,
former U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, and during World War II, the
Assistant Secretary of War.
From its first meeting on December 5, 1963, the Commission viewed the Executive
order as an unequivocal Presidential mandate to conduct a thorough and
independent investigation. Because of the numerous rumors and theories, the
Commission concluded that the public interest in insuring that the truth was
ascertained could not be met by merely accepting the reports or the analyses of
Federal or State agencies. Not only were the premises and conclusions of those
reports critically reassessed, but all assertions or rumors relating to a
possible conspiracy, or the complicity of others than Oswald, which have come to
the attention of the Commission, were investigated.
On December 13, 1963, Congress enacted Senate Joint Resolution 137 (Public Law
88-202) empowering the Commission to issue subpoenas requiring the testimony of
witnesses and the production of evidence relating to any matter under its
investigation. In addition, the resolution authorized the Commission to compel
testimony from witnesses claiming the privilege against self-incrimination under
the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution by providing for the grant of
immunity to persons testifying under such compulsion. Immunity under these
provisions was not granted to any witness during the Commission's
investigation.
The Commission took steps immediately to obtain the necessary staff to fulfill
its assignment. J. Lee Rankin, former Solicitor General of the United States,
was sworn in as general counsel for the Commission on December 16, 1963.
Additional members of the legal staff were selected during the next few weeks.
The Commission has been aided by 14 assistant counsel with high professional
qualifications, selected by it from widely separated parts of the United States.
This staff undertook the work of the Commission with a wealth of legal and
investigative experience and a total dedication to the determination of the
truth. The Commission has been assisted also by highly qualified personnel from
several Federal agencies, assigned to the Commission at its request. This group
included lawyers from the Department of Justice, agents of the Internal Revenue
Service, a senior historian from the Department of Defense, an editor from the
Department of State, and secretarial and administrative staff supplied by the General Services Administration and other
agencies.
In addition to the assistance afforded by Federal agencies, the Commission
throughout its inquiry had the cooperation of representatives of the city of
Dallas and the State of Texas. The attorney general of Texas, Waggoner Carr,
aided by two distinguished lawyers of that State, Robert G. Storey of Dallas,
retired dean of the Southern Methodist University Law School and former
president of the American Bar Association, and Leon Jaworski of Houston, former
president of the Texas State Bar Association, has been fully informed at all
times as to the progress of the investigation, and has advanced such suggestions
as he and his special assistants considered helpful to the accomplishment of the
Commission's assignment. Attorney General Carr has promptly supplied the
Commission with pertinent information possessed by Texas officials. Dallas
officials, particularly those from the police department, have fully complied
with all requests made by the Commission.
The Investigation
During December and early January the Commission received an increasing volume
of reports from Federal and State investigative agencies. Of principal
importance was the five-volume report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
submitted on December 9, 1963, which summarized the results of the investigation
conducted by the Bureau immediately after the assassination. After reviewing
this report, the Commission requested the Federal Bureau of Investigation to
furnish the underlying investigative materials relied upon in the summary
report. The first investigative reports submitted in response to this request
were delivered to the Commission on December 20, 1963. On December 18, the
Secret Service submitted a detailed report on security precautions taken before
President Kennedy's trip to Texas and a summary of the events of November 22, as
witnessed by Secret Service agents. A few days later the Department of State
submitted a report relating to Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union in 1959, and his return to the United States in 1962. On January 7
and 11, 1964, the attorney general of Texas submitted an extensive set of
investigative materials, largely Dallas police reports, on the assassination of
President Kennedy and the killing of Oswald.
As these investigative reports were received, the staff began analyzing and
summarizing them. The members of the legal staff, divided into teams, proceeded
to organize the facts revealed by these investigations, determine the issues,
sort out the unresolved problems, and recommend additional investigation by the
Commission. Simultaneously, to insure that no relevant information would be
overlooked, the Commission directed requests to the 10 major departments of the
Federal Government, 14 of its independent agencies or commissions, and 4
congressional committees for all information relating to the assassination or
the background and activities of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby.
After reviewing the accumulating materials, the Commission directed numerous
additional requests to Federal and State investigative agencies. The Federal
Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service executed the detailed requests
for statements of witnesses and examinations of physical evidence with dispatch
and thoroughness. All these reports were reviewed and analyzed by the
Commission. Additional investigative requests, where appropriate, were handled
by Internal Revenue Service, Department of State, and the military intelligence
agencies with comparable skill. Investigative analyses of particular
significance and sensitivity in the foreign areas were contributed by the
Central Intelligence Agency. On occasion the Commission used independent
experts from State and city governments to supplement or verify information.
During the investigation the Commission on several occasions visited the scene
of the assassination and other places in the Dallas area pertinent to the inquiry.
The scope and detail of the investigative effort by the Federal and State
agencies are suggested in part by statistics from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Secret Service. Immediately after the assassination more
than 80 additional FBI personnel were transferred to the Dallas office on a
temporary basis to assist in the investigation. Beginning November 22, 1963,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted approximately 25,000 interviews
and reinterviews of persons having information of possible relevance to the
investigation and by September 11, 1964, submitted over 2,300 reports totaling
approximately 25,400 pages to the Commission. During the same period the Secret
Service conducted approximately 1, 550 interviews and submitted 800 reports
totaling some 4,600 pages.
Because of the diligence, cooperation, and facilities of Federal investigative
agencies, it was unnecessary for the Commission to employ investigators other
than the members of the Commission's legal staff. The Commission recognized,
however, that special measures were required whenever the facts or rumors called
for an appraisal of the acts of the agencies themselves. The staff reviewed in
detail the actions of several Federal agencies, particularly the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, the Secret Service, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the
Department of State. Initially the Commission requested the agencies to furnish
all their reports relating to the assassination and their relationships with
Oswald or Ruby. On the basis of these reports, the Commission submitted
specific questions to the agency involved. Members of the staff followed up the
answers by reviewing the relevant files of each agency for additional
information. In some instances, members of the Commission also reviewed the files in person. Finally, the responsible officials of
these agencies were called to testify under oath. Dean Rusk, Secretary of
State; C. Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury; John A. McCone, Director of
the Central intelligence Agency; J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation; and James J. Rowley, Chief of the Secret Service, appeared as
witnesses and testified fully regarding their agencies' participation in the
matters under scrutiny by the Commission.
Commission Hearings
In addition to the information resulting from these investigations, the
Commission has relied primarily on the facts disclosed by the sworn testimony of
the principal witnesses to the assassination and related events. Beginning on
February 3, 1964, the Commission and its staff has taken the testimony of 552
witnesses. Of this number, 94 appeared before members of the Commission; 395
were questioned by members of the Commission's legal staff; 61 supplied sworn
affidavits; and 2 gave statements. Under Commission procedures, all witnesses
were advised that they had the right to the presence and the advice of their
lawyer during the interrogation, with the corollary rights to raise objections
to any questions asked, to make any clarifying statement on the record after the
interrogation, and to purchase a copy of their testimony.
Commission hearings were closed to the public unless the witness appearing
before the Commission requested an open hearing. Under these procedures,
testimony of one witness was taken in a public hearing on two occasions. No
other witness requested a public hearing. The Commission concluded that the
premature publication by it of testimony regarding the assassination or the
subsequent killing of Oswald might interfere with Ruby's rights to a fair and
impartial trial on the charges filed against him by the State of Texas. The
Commission also recognized that testimony would be presented before it which
would be inadmissible in judicial proceedings and might prejudice innocent
parties if made public out of context. In addition to the witnesses who
appeared before the Commission, numerous others provided sworn depositions,
affidavits, and statements upon which the Commission has relied. Since this
testimony, as well as that taken before the Commission, could not always be taken in logical sequence, the Commission concluded that partial publication of
testimony as the investigation progressed was impractical and could be
misleading.
The Commission's Function
The Commission's most difficult assignments have been to uncover all the facts
concerning the assassination of President Kennedy and to determine if it was in
any way directed or encouraged by unknown persons at home or abroad. In this
process, its objective has been to identify the person or persons responsible
for both the assassination of President Kennedy and the killing of Oswald
through an examination of the evidence. The task has demanded unceasing
appraisal of the evidence by the individual members of the Commission in their
effort to discover the whole truth.
The procedures followed by the Commission in developing and assessing evidence
necessarily differed from those of a court conducting a criminal trial of a
defendant present before it, since under our system there is no provision for a
posthumous trial. If Oswald had lived he could have had a trial by American
standards of justice where he would have been able to exercise his full rights
under the law. A judge and jury would have presumed him innocent until proven
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He might have furnished information which
could have affected the course of his trial. He could have participated in and
guided his defense. There could have been an examination to determine whether
he was sane under prevailing legal standards. All witnesses, including possibly
the defendant, could have been subjected to searching examination under the
adversary system of American trials.
The Commission has functioned neither as a court presiding over an adversary
proceeding nor as a prosecutor determined to prove a case, but as a fact-finding
agency committed to the ascertainment of the truth. In the course of the
investigation of the facts and rumors surrounding these matters, it was
necessary to explore hearsay and other sources of information not admissible in
a court proceeding obtained from persons who saw or heard and others in a
position to observe what occurred. In fairness to the alleged assassin and his
family, the Commission on February 25, 1964, requested Walter E. Craig,
president of the American Bar Association, to participate in the investigation
and to advise the Commission whether in his opinion the proceedings conformed to
the basic principles of American justice. Mr. Craig accepted this assignment
and participated fully and without limitation. He attended Commission hearings
in person or through his appointed assistants. All working papers, reports, and other data in Commission files were made available, and Mr.
Craig and his associates were given the opportunity to cross_examine witnesses,
to recall any witness heard prior to his appointment, and to suggest witnesses
whose testimony they would like to have the Commission hear. This procedure was
agreeable to counsel for Oswald's widow.
The Commission's Report
In this report the Commission submits the results of its investigation. Each
member of the Commission has given careful consideration to the entire report
and concurs in its findings and conclusions. The report consists of an initial
chapter summarizing the Commission's basic findings and conclusions, followed by
a detailed analysis of the facts and the issues raised by the events of November
22, 1963, and the 2 following days. Individual chapters consider the trip to
Dallas, the shots from the Texas School Book Depository, the identity of the
assassin, the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald, the possibility of a conspiracy,
Oswald's background and possible motive, and arrangements for the protection of
the President. In these chapters, rather than rely on cross-references, the
Commission on occasion has repeated certain testimony in order that the reader
might have the necessary information before him while examining the conclusions
of the Commission on each important issue.
With this report the Commission is submitting the complete testimony of all the
witnesses who appeared before the Commission or gave sworn depositions or
affidavits, the accompanying documentary exhibits, and other investigative
materials which are relied upon in this report. The Commission is committing
all of its reports and working papers to the National Archives, where they can
be permanently preserved under the rules and regulations of the National
Archives and applicable Federal law.
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