From: jmk@cbnews.cb.att.com (joseph.m.knapp)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: Church Committee on FBI/CIA performance
Date: 13 Apr 92 02:28:50 GMT
Organization: AT&T

Why do we keep hearing "read the WC report" as if somehow its inherent
soundness is being ignored by its detractors? Fact is, subsequent
government investigations have roundly criticized it. If anything, read
the HSCA report or the Church Committee report. The HSCA researchers often
lament that they are unable to come to any definite conclusions so many
years after the fact, with the death or disappearance of pertinent 
witnesses, and given that the original investigations were deficient.

The following is excerpted from the report of the _Senate Select Committee
to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities_.
That was the committee headed by Senator Frank Church of Idaho. 

This section of the report is called "The Investigation of the Assassination
of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies."
Committee members released this section by a 9-2 vote, May 26, 1976.
Here the finger of blame is placed on the intelligence agencies providing 
investigative support to the WC. Warren Commission, FBI, CIA, whatever...
the official investigation stinks.
   
   [beginning of excerpts]

   In the days following the assassination of President Kennedy, nothing was
   more important to this country than to determine the facts of his death;
   no one single event has shaken the country more. Yet the evidence the
   Committee has developed suggests that, for different reasons, both the 
   CIA and the FBI failed in, or avoided carrying out, certain of their 
   responsibilities in this matter. 

   ...

   The evidence suggests that during the Warren Commission investigation
   top FBI officials were continually concerned with protecting the
   Bureau's reputation and avoiding any criticism for not fulfilling
   investigative responsibilities. Within weeks after the assassination,
   the FBI, at the urging of senior government officials, issued a report
   concluding that Oswald was the assassin and that he had acted alone.

   The Bureau issued its report on the basis of a narrow investigation
   focused on Oswald, without conducting a broad investigation of the
   assassination which would have revealed any conspiracy, foreign or
   domestic.

   ...

   Director Hoover himself perceived the Warren Commission as an
   adversary. He repeatedly remarked that the Commission, particularly
   the Chief Justice, was "seeking to criticize" the FBI and merely
   attempting to "find gaps" in the FBI's investigation. On two separate
   occasions, the latter immediately upon release of the Commission's
   Report, Director Hoover asked for all derogatory material on Warren
   Commission members and staff contained in the FBI files.

   ... why [the CIA and the FBI] permitted the Warren Commission to 
   reach its conclusion without all relevant information is unclear.
   Certainly, concern with public reputation, problems of coordination
   between agencies, possible bureaucratic failure and embarassment, and
   the extreme compartmentation of knowledge of sensitive operations may
   have contributed to these shortcomings. But the possibility exists
   that senior officials in both agencies made conscious decisions not
   to disclose potentially important information...

   [end of excerpts]

Looks like Warren Commission members and staff had more to worry about than
just the "truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

------
Joe Knapp    jmk@cbvox.att.com