Talk:Warren Commission

Comment

Interesting that "Kennedy assassination" brings up nothing in the search, but "Warren Commission" comes up in a flash. Interesting, and typical of this "encyclopedia," where the only worthwhile information is found in the Talk pages. For example, Americans are the only people on Earth who don't have a clue that the Kennedy assassination represented a coup d'etat and military/CIA takeover of the country, that George Herbert Walker Bush had a hand in the assassination, and that presidents since Kennedy have been mere dupes and puppets, with the possible exception of George Walker Bush, who seems to have at least a dim idea of who his masters are. 63.201.27.30, April 14, 2003.

Paranoia strikes deep ... -- Zoe, April 15, 2003

and often disrupts good sense as exemplified by the nut case above. —B|Talk 20:17, May 27, 2004 (UTC)

Can I ask how was Bush involved in JFK's assasination?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.218.80.128 (talk • contribs) 11:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment

This article is almost shorter than the Warren Commission section in the JFK assassination article.

This article does not even present the 3 bullet sequence according to the Warren Commision. Aside from the list of members, there is only 1 short paragraph that presents what the Warren Commission concluded. Most of the article is about criticisms of WC & about other investigations

--JimWae 08:41, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

??

Why does the article start with:

"WAS JFK really assassinated?

The actual answer is NO he wasn't, he is living happily in Brighton."— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.206.1 (talk • contribs) 19:53, 15 June 2005 (UTC)

Was the Warren Commision Unanimous in its Findings or did it Vote by a 4-3 Majority

The Article states that the Commission voted 4-3 on its findings. Irrespective of whether the Commission was right or wrong in the substance of its findings, is this correct?

The link to the Warren Report has what purports to be the Warren Report and it states that its conclusion on Oswald acting alone was a unanimous conclusion. See page 19 where the Commission started its conclusions and said. "These conclusions represent the reasoned judgment of all members of the Commission . . . ."

If this is what it said then the article needs to reflect that. Other wise the article will not be deemed very trustworthy by anyone who checks. RPJ 01:59, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Jimwae deletion needs explanation in detail

I have noticed a very peculiar practice by contributors "Jimwae" and "Gamaliel." Any information these two contributors don't like is termed a POV, which means one using a "Point of View" which is non-neutral.

But, any information that does not please "Jimwae" and "Gamaliel" is deemed by them to be a "POV" and is deleted.

This should stop. We all know, the Warren Commission report has not been well received by the public. The Wikipedia's article on Kennedy's Assassination contains this following information attesting to the failure of the Warren Commission and other follow up investigations to convince the public.

Investigations, scientific testing, and re-creations of the circumstances of Kennedy's death have not, in the American public's view, settled the question of who plotted to kill him. A 2003 ABC TV News poll showed that only 32 % (plus or minus 3 %) of Americans who expressed a view believe that Oswald acted alone in the Kennedy assassination [8]; a Discovery Channel poll revealed that only 21% believe Oswald acted alone. [9]; a History Channel poll gave a figure of 17%

It is now becoming public knowledge why the Warren Commission hasn't gained any credibility. It wasn't formed to find what did happen. It was formed to convince people that Oswald alone killed Kennedy, and specifically to squelch any investigation that would pursue other possible criminals involved. This isn't my "Point of View" this is the "Point of View" of Nicholas Katzenbach who wrote the memorandum. In other words it is historical fact.

Here is what "Jimwae" deleted. I've edited it down a bit and will re-submit it:

The objective of the Warren Commission was not to uncover who murdered President Kennedy but to convince the American public that Lee Harvey Oswald committed the murder and did so alone. This objective was clearly voiced in a memorandum drafted by the Justice Department on November 25, 1963, three days after murder. The these following excerpts in the memorandum by Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach states:

The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial. Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat-- too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced.

We need something to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort.

President Johnson went further and even claimed that the investigation was needed to prevent a possible nuclear war.

Since the Commission's conclusion was already decided before it was even formed, it didn't need to follow any disciplined approach to its investigation. Much of it was done in secret, and it gathered evidence with the purpose of establishing a report that concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald not only committed the crime but did alone.

However, it would be a mistake to believe that nothing valuable came out of the Commission's work. It preserved a great deal of evidence and has provided an important base of evidence for the serious researcher on the subject. RPJ 06:59, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

LBJ

Lyndon B. Johnson is reffered to once as "Lydon Johnson" and thereafter simply as LBJ until the last paragraph where it reverts to "Lyndon B. Johnson". I think this should be changed as it isn't immediately obvious who LBJ refers to, unless you're already aware of who he is, and is rather inconsistent.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.110.71 (talk • contribs) 17:28, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Citations to the reports need to be included after the Rockerfeller and Clark investigation statements

A contributer has put in a reference to a Clark Investigation and Rockerfeller Investigation that are suppossed to have come to a conclusion about two shots hitting Kennedy from the back. These panels may or may not have come to that conclusion, and may or may not have re-investigated the who did the shooting and so forth. But, the links don't really go to the reports as far as I can tell. If that is so; it needs to be fixed because it is annoying to go to a link to read the reference and it not be there.RPJ 22:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

This whole article seems to have been written by a conspiracy theorist. The article doesn't read as a description of the Warren Commission and its report, but rather as a refutation of the report. Consider this concluding sentence:

"The Warren Commission's findings have not gained full acceptance from the general public in the USA, and many theories that conflict with its findings exist. Numerous polls indicate that most people agree Oswald did shoot at Kennedy, but most also think there was some kind of conspiracy. At this time, there is no single theory with which a large majority of people would mostly agree."

This statement is highly NPOV. To characterise the opinion of most people in this manner is false.

I do not have the inclination to fix the article, but a history major would be welcome to step in and totally rework it.

-Cogent Cogent 21:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment

It is unclear what is meant by "This statement is highly NPOV." Does it mean that the statement in the article is "highly" neutral in its treatment of what the polls show? That what contributer "Cogent" literally is saying, yet he is saying the statement is "false" and needs someone to "rework" it.

It is also unclear why "Cogent" believes the statement to be "false." The reputable polls published in this area support the statement. If "Cogent" has polls that refute it they should be shared with the readers.

The polls are in the Assassination main article and state"

A 2003 ABC TV News poll showed that only 32% (plus or minus 3 %) of Americans who expressed a view believe that Oswald acted alone in the Kennedy assassination [23]; a Discovery Channel poll revealed that only 21% believe Oswald acted alone. [24]; a History Channel poll gave a figure of 17%. [25]. These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved.

RPJ 04:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Is this news story worth pursuing?

A dispatch from CIA headquarters instructed agents at field stations:

1---To counteract the "new wave of books and articles criticizing the [Warren] Commission's findings...[and] conspiracy theories ...[that] have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization"; 2---To "discuss the publicity problem with liaison and friendly elite contacts, especially politicians and editors ";and 3---To "employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics. ...Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. ...

"The aim of this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists..."

New York Times, December 26, 1977,"Cable Sought to Discredit Critics of Warren Report",p.A3.— Preceding unsigned comment added by RPJ (talk • contribs) 04:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

An otherwise illustrious career..

Had the Warren Commission been more attuned with public thought and sought to explain the preponderance of anomalies in the assassination of this much-lauded and well-loved president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, criticisms of the commission would have been directed at more mundane topics. And criticisms based on ommissions in the findings and conspiracy theories are to be expected.

Mr. Warren is one of my favorite Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. He came up in gritty Bakersfield, worked on the railroad, then as a prosecutor for Oakland and Alameda County, California, and was elected as California's AG (1939), then governor (1942). Though Chief Justice Warren held conservative values and espoused internment of the Japanese (which he later regreted), he changed to drastically more liberal leanings, even angering his appointer, President Eisenhower, who considered Warren a moderate, but later characterized his selection of Warren as the "the biggest damn-fool mistake I ever made ("The Brethren;" Woodward, B.; Armstrong, S.; P. 10)." Warren was a champion of easier access to the Supreme Court by the unenriched and disenfranchised -- even those in the prison sytem -- in the pursuit of the protection of constitutional rights, and used a system whereby clerks (who write a great many of the S.C. Justices' opinions) were allowed to add legal valid points that prisoners, unrepresented by counsel, had missed in their "pauper" petition legal briefs to the Court.

It was the Warren Court that gave our country, cast in the throes of a century-long struggle to achieve equality for African-Americans, the renowned school desegration decision, Brown vs. Education, that even Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel L. Alito, according to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Alito hearing transcripts, said, "That (the Brown vs. Education case) was one of the greatest, if not the single greatest thing, that the Supreme Court of the United States has ever done." Well, that's what he said BEFORE his nomination..

Despite Mr. Warren's illustrious career as Chief Justice I think the Warren Commission was a bit like the 9/11 Commission, actually leaving many believing that it did a disservice to the nation (I think the 9/11 Commission also did not disclose much of its findings -- findings that could not be considered security-sensitive information, and I question the way it interviewed President Bush, i.e., not insisting the president testify under oath, conducting the interview IN the Oval Office, and only in the presence of Vice President Cheney and then-Counsel Alberto Gonzales). Add to that, the secrecy component -- President Johnson's locking down of Warren Commission information for 75 years -- and there will continue to be many Americans questioning its findings. This may not be as much the case with the 9/11 Commission (the "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States;" Mr. Kean, et al), but I think that most Americans, outside the normal smattering of conspiracy theorists and better-informed commission detractors (some of whom may claim that Chief Justice Warren was blackmailed by President Johnson and that the Warren Commission was deliberately underfunded), who were around during the JFK days, will suspect that the Warren Commission left much to be desired.

As fortunate as we are to live in the United States, with forums like these, one must also take note of the secrecy that our government seems to operate in, in matters that are not of national security import. DonL 19:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Please don't try to edit anything in the article until you catch up on recent history. In 1979 Congress came out with its investigative report and concluded that President Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. Also, almost 70% of Americans believe Kennedy died as the result of a conspiracy.

The Congressional Committee that investigated the assassination, heavily criticized the Warren Commission and FBI for not pursuing an investigation of a conspiracy.

In the 1990s, Congress enacted the JFK Records Act to gather all the documents and other evidence of the assassination in order to open them up for public review. A good deal of important information has already come to light from this legislative effort. RPJ 23:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions

Hyperlink to Jim Marrs ought to be added, and also the first reference to Richard Nixon.

the reference "Cable Sought to Discredit Critics of Warren Report" New York Times, December 26, 1977,p.A3--is cable a person's name? shouldn't this be formatted like a footnote?

it surprises me how articles about the warren commission usually only mention 1 or 2 books about it by name when there is a huge library on the subject. maybe each editor only references his favorite books on the subject. my favorites, and particularly glaring ommissions, are Mark Lane's rush to judgement, silvia meagher's accessories after the fact, and josiah thompson's six seconds in dallas. my opinion is that every one of them should be listed here--where else but wikipedia could you or should you find a bibliography?--not of general conspiracy books but specifically of books dealing with the warren commission. DyNama 15:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

More suggestions

I am very wary of the alleged NY Times article being used in this article. The summary says the cable authorizes the CIA to use its propaganda assets to attack those who disagree with the WC, but quotes from the alleged article, indicate that the propaganda assets were to answer and refute critics who attack the CIA. Also, since the editor who originally added the information has been banned for, among other things, advancing original research, I would prefer that this entry be vetted for accuracy. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 18:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I just checked, and the quotations are from an article published in the NYT on Dec. 26, 1977, p. 32. The CIA cable from 1967 that the NYT article quotes pretty much equates criticism of the Warren Commission with criticism of the CIA, because, "among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation." Nevertheless, I too am skeptical about the relevancy of this section of the article, because the cable was not a product of the Warren Commission (which no longer existed in 1967), but the CIA. The inclusion of the material here is apparently a guilt-by-association thing: the WC's work of 1964 is somehow discredited because the CIA encouraged support of it in 1967. — Walloon 00:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Howard Brennan

"Another criticism had to do with their star witness, Howard Brennan."

Contrary to what the article currently says, the Warren Report did not refer to Howard Brennan in any way as its star witness. Due to Brennan's inability or unwillingness to make a definite identification of Oswald in a police lineup on Nov. 22, 1963, the Report said that Brennan's testimony had only probative value, and was not conclusive evidence. (Ch. IV, p. 143) Specifically,

Although the record indicates that Brennan was an accurate observer, he declined to make a positive identification of Oswald when he first saw him in the police lineup. The Commission, therefore, does not base its conclusion concerning the identity of the assassin on Brennan's subsequent certain identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the man he saw fire the rifle. (Ch. IV, pp. 145-146)

— Walloon 00:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Other Investigations: Forensic Commission citation needed - incomplete thought?

"with the help of the largest forensics panel." is this a proper noun? was that a discreet group? largest forensics panel in what? history? the US? I have no idea what to make of this, and am unfamiliar with the subject matter... but clearly something is wrong here.

 -anon  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.184.99.4 (talk) 01:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC) 

Publication

There's nothing in the article about the publication of the report. I seem to remember news reports of queues in bookshops for people to buy it when it came out in the US. What was the publication date? How many copies were published? Did it go to more than one edition? I have a copy I bought in a second hand bookshop here in the UK so I don't suppose it is too rare. 86.133.214.216 (talk) 10:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Norman Redlich?

Who exactly is this Norman Redlich guy? It appears as if he is still living but news reports at the time of Gerald Ford's death, named him as being the last surviving member of the commission (CNN obituary). Also, Redlich's signature is not on the cover page image that's displayed here.--Lairor (talk) 01:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment

in a Fox History documentary - Gerald Ford said the Warren Report we did not say their wasn't a conspiracy we saqid we found no evidence. Surely this would have raised an eye brow or are US people just naive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbrooster (talk • contribs) 10:06, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Freemasonry and Warren's Liberalism

I noticed that Warren was mentioned in Wikipedia's list of Freemasons. Warren led one of the most liberal Supreme Courts in American history, and part of it is alleged to be related to his Masonic carreer. Hugo Black, another judge on the Court, was also a noted liberal and affiliate to secret societies, including the anti-Catholic KKK. Any public mention of Masonry is of course taboo, but in this case there a good amount of evidence that suggests otherwise. Warren was a prominent supporter of the wall of Separation and approved a decision to suppress all restrictions to contraception ; both of these decisions have a strong moral element in them, and both are in solid agreement with the views advocated by Masonry. Some conspiracy theorists will also argue that the Warren Commission is related to all this. These issues are of course controversial and would therefore deserve to be debated more openly. ADM (talk) 23:21, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Factual Representation of The Warren Commission Findings

It appears to me that too much emphasis has been given to the veracity of the report. While there have been government studies "proving" its findings, there have been more independent ones disproving almost every conclusion in the report.

If this article is to be impartial and factual, the following statement must be removed:

The Commission's findings have since proven controversial and been both challenged and supported by later studies.

It should be re-written to the following effect:

The Commission's findings have since proven controversial and have been corroborated by other government studies and disproved by independent studies.

The following is also very partial and not factual:

The witnesses who appeared before the Commission were free to repeat what they said to anyone they pleased, and all of their testimony was subsequently published in the first fifteen volumes put out by the Warren Commission.

Re-write:

The witnesses who appeared before the Commission were allegedly free to repeat what they said to anyone they pleased. The Warren Commission also alleges that all of their testimony was subsequently published in the first fifteen volumes put out by the Warren Commission.

Due to such a controversial topic, care must be taken to represent the facts, not biased political opinions.

Sir.matt.robinson (talk) 22:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Jurisdiction

I'm somewhat surprised that the article does not mention the jurisdictional issues surrounding the Warren Commission. Kennedy was killed in Texas and at the time the murder of the President was not a federal crime. Therefore, one would assume that task of investigating his assassination would fall to local authorities and not a commission organized pursuant to an Executive Order. I'll do a little research and update accordingly. 151.199.251.79 (talk) 20:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Somewhat late, but basically anyone can investigate anything. Presumably, if Ruby had not killed Oswald, Texas would have investigated the murder of Kennedy, likely charging Oswald. Even if he had lived and Texas had proceeded, there still was no reason why the Warren Commission could not have investigated. This was not a law enforcement investigation leading to an arrest and trial, but only a fact-finding investigation. On the other hand, I suspect that had Oswald lived, the Feds could have staked a claim to jurisdiction, most likely via the interstate commerce clause, although I speculate here. You could also, in theory, call the assassination an act of treason, which would fall under federal jurisdiction. Wschart (talk) 17:24, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Purpose

The purpose of the Warren Commission was not to investigate the assassination but to demonstrate that Oswald had been the only assassin. Three days after the assassination, Deputy Attorney General D. Katzenbach wrote in a memo to President Lyndon B. Johnson Aide Bill Moyers: "The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates..." The division in chapters (and in teams of investigators) clearly proves that: all but one of the sections were dedicated to Oswald from the beginning of the investigation. (for more info see Epstein's "Inquest"). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.248.248.210 (talk) 21:46, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The content of the memo proves nothing and was written well before the Commission was set up. It also ignores the context of the memo. Already there had been widespread rumours that there was a conspiracy - based on no evidence at all other than the appearance that Ruby "silenced" Oswald - this was three days after the assassination, recall. At that time, the evidence quite obviously pointed to one and only one assassin. And what the FBI and CIA knew to that point was that while they certainly should have kept closer tabs on this guy, and hence their reluctance to reveal how much they knew about Oswald, their several years of surveillance revealed no connections of note that seemed to play a part in the assassination. Given the public presumption of "conspiracy," the memo is not surprising given what was actually known by Nov 25 1963. Canada Jack (talk) 17:43, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Canada Jack, thanks for bringing this up. Nicholas Katzenbach is yet another article in which weeds have grown up. - Location (talk) 21:31, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Objectivity

This Wikipedia page is little more than a "cheering section" for a group whose investigative diligence and devotion to truth has been called into question at every turn. There was a time when it would have sounded like the babble of a "crazed conspiracy nut" to say that, "It looks like there are people devoted to trying to whitewash this page, in order to depict the WC in a more favorable light." But when we take into account the recent scandal involving the Koch Brothers having done JUST THAT (employed people to maintain a Wikipedia page, edited to their liking), it seems like a very viable question. Why have you not included references to the MANY youtube videos in which witnesses (search youtube under Mark Lane) wo were some of the closest to the event were NOT called to testify (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0zzgnVNsNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y6Elcp5FOw), or who testified before the WC stated on camera that what they testified to is not properly reflected in the WC's reporting of their testimony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8LnoCA0qR0)? Have you addressed the numerous instances of evidence contradicting conclusions? Why have you not utilized "JFK and The Unspeakable" by James W. Douglass or "The Last Investigation" by Gaeton Fonzi as reference materials? This is a VERY disappointing page.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/09/1419630/-BREAKING-Koch-Industries-Implicated-in-Multi-Year-Wikipedia-Whitewashing-Scandal — Preceding unsigned comment added by G.H. Monroe (talk • contribs) 16:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Error.

There is an error in the second sentence under Formation. It says that the commision was over 9000 years ago. Not sure what the author meant to say. Jamda9944 (talk) 05:01, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

There is either an error or unclear language in the "1975-1976: The Church Committee" section. I am referring to the last sentence of that section. "The results of the Church Committee opened the way of the creation of the HSCA, with parallelly the diffusion the 6th Mars 1975, for the first time on television in the show Good Night America of the Zapruder Film, which had been stored by Life Magazine and never showed to the public during twenty years. " — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.18.45.59 (talk) 22:08, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

The report

This article very much needs a section briefly describing the chief findings contained in the report. A whole article on the Commission and just two sentences in the intro about what they found! --NYCJosh (talk) 02:08, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

The Untold History of the United States is a dubious source

The Untold History of the United States is a dubious and unreliable source of information. It was co-produced by Oliver Stone, a known conspiracy theorist, and in 2013, Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz remarked: "Although the book by Stone and Kuznick is heavily footnoted, the sourcing... recalls nothing so much as Dick Cheney’s cherry-picking of intelligence, particularly about the origins and early years of the cold war. ... This book is less a work of history than a skewed political document." WikiMane11 (ThunderPeel) (talk) 01:07, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Error with lack of source/unfinished sentence

In the article, in the 'Other investigations' section, the last part of the first sentence states: "which reexamined the evidence with the help of the largest forensics panel." This either is referring to some source that is not properly cited or is simply a sentence that was not completely finished. This lack of completion leaves the question of what this panel was for specifically, and why it is called the largest (largest ever? largest for this specific topic? Unknown). Unclear what the original author of this section was meaning to say here. 192.5.110.7 (talk) 16:26, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Paragraph for deletion

This paragraph

"If the major media (CBS, the New York Post, (...)) line up behind the conclusions of the Warren report, in the name of the higher interest of the nation and in the need to unite after the tragedy, on the other hand, many independent investigators, journalists, historians, jurists, academics including Thomas Buchanan, Sylvan Fox, Harold Feldman, Richard E. Sprague, Mark Lane Rush to Judgment, Edward Jay Epstein Inquest, Harold Weisberg's Whitewash, Sylvia Meagher's Accessories After the Fact or Josiah Thompson's Six Seconds in Dallas, will issue opinions opposing the conclusions of the Warren commission based on the same elements collected by its works."

reads poorly. I'm not sure how to rewrite it. PedanticallySpeaking (talk) 01:54, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I think we might need to know whether the mainstream media agreed with the Warren Report immediately after its release, especially the two mentioned.

The author may be saying there is a split within the media on the subject, perhaps over time, which calls into question the veracity of the narrative presented to the American public.

As far as editing, I think I will reorder the second half, etc.

Kirby777 (talk) 22:23, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I rewrote it. Kirby777 (talk) 19:17, 19 January 2024 (UTC)