The Warren Commission: Report &amp; Findings | Study.com
Warren Commission | Definition, Report & Findings
Table of Contents
- What was the Warren Commission?
- The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
- Warren Commission Establishment and Structure
- Membership: Who was in the Warren Commission?
- What Did the Warren Commission Determine?
- The Warren Commission Report
- Warren Commission: Significance and Impact
- Lesson Summary
Table of Contents
- What was the Warren Commission?
- The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
- Warren Commission Establishment and Structure
- Membership: Who was in the Warren Commission?
- What Did the Warren Commission Determine?
- The Warren Commission Report
- Warren Commission: Significance and Impact
- Lesson Summary
The Warren Commission was a committee formed after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It published a report with its findings on how the president was assassinated and who had killed him. The commission lasted about a year. It convened shortly after the president's assassination at the end of 1963 and ended in December 1964. The world was shocked at the president's death and demanded answers. Politics in the mid-1960s were affected by the event. The public had many questions about how this could have happened. They wondered if there was a greater conspiracy. Trust the public had put in the government could quickly evaporate if it provided no answers on the assassination. The Warren Commission formed to do exactly this.
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On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy visited Dallas, Texas while on the campaign trail. While riding in a motorcade, seated next to his wife, he was suddenly shot in the head at 12:30 pm. The assassination was broadcast live on TV, as the event was being recorded by local news stations. This shook the public. Kennedy was young and well loved by many. Lee Harvey Oswald was quickly arrested for the assassination the same day. However, two days later, he himself was killed. The news was constantly publishing stories and updates about the assassination, drawing the public's interest. The public began demanding answers. How did this happen? Why was the president killed? Was Lee Harvey Oswald really the killer? The government needed to launch an investigation to find these answers.
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Why did the U.S. government create the Warren Commission? The push to establish a commission to investigate the assassination began immediately. Lyndon B. Johnson, the former vice president, now the acting president, began trying to form a team to investigate. He appointed the Chief Justice Earl Warren to lead the committee. He also appointed four congressmen and a former leader of the CIA to investigate. The team was to be called the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but it was popularly nicknamed the Warren Commission. After less than two weeks, the Warren Commission was officially established on December 5, 1963.
What was the Purpose of the Warren Commission?
The commission was formed to investigate not only the death of President Kennedy but also the death of Lee Harvey Oswald. The Secret Service had been tasked with protecting the president at his campaign event and had failed to do so. The commission needed to find out how this could have happened. This was done both to prevent it from happening again and to inform the public of the true nature of the event. Many Americans were interested in the details of the assassination, and many more were outraged. They were hungry for details of the event.
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The following men were the Warren Commission members:
- Earl Warren: He was the leader of the commission, and it was named after him. He was Chief Justice, and so was appointed to the role.
- Two Senators: Richard B. Russell was from Georgia and John Sherman Cooper was from Kentucky.
- Two Representatives: Hale Boggs represented Louisiana and Gerald Ford represented Michigan.
- Two Citizens: Allen Dulles, who was a past director of the CIA, and John J. McCloy, who had once been president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, rounded out the commission.
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The Warren Commission did not want to come to a rushed conclusion. They were well aware of the importance of their work and wanted to consider all of the facts. A hurried investigation would result in public outrage. They investigated for nearly a year and debated the facts of the case. They interviewed over 500 witnesses and combed through over 3,000 reports to the FBI. The commission finally submitted its extensive report to President Johnson on September 24, 1964.
Meetings
The commission held closed meetings. However, although they were closed, they were not secret. Witnesses who came to the meetings to testify did not have to keep the fact that they appeared before the committee a secret. Despite this, the exact dates of the meetings are difficult to find. According to one newspaper, the Lodi News Sentinel on December 6, 1963, the first meeting was held in the National Archives building on December 5th for two hours and 40 minutes. They agreed to meet again the next Friday to continue their work, with members of the public barred from entry. They would meet regularly to hear testimonies and debate evidence.
Conclusions
The Commission's final report was incredibly long. It included a full timeline of the day, as well as many eyewitness testimonies. The Commission came to two general conclusions. The first was that John F. Kennedy had been shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. The second was that Lee Harvey Oswald was not in a conspiracy with the man who shot Oswald himself or with anyone else.
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The report was extensive and detailed, coming in at over 800 pages long. It was published for the public. Here are some of its contents:
- John F. Kennedy was confirmed to have been shot by Lee Harvey Oswald out of the Texas School Book Depository building, from a sixth-floor window.
- The man who had shot Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, a man who had Mafia connections, was found to be in no conspiracy or connection with Oswald.
- No one conspired with Lee Harvey Oswald to kill the president. He acted alone.
- The Secret Service did not take enough steps to protect the president's security.
- It also explored details of Oswald's personal history. It included the fact that he had recently visited the Soviet Union and had worked at the building from where he had shot the president.
The Commission also included two recommendations.
- The Secret Service should be strengthened.
- The assassination of the president or vice president should be a federal crime.
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The report had a mixed impact on the public. This was the first in-depth investigation of the death of a president. A committee had convened for nearly a year to investigate and consider all of the evidence. The public had been desperate for more details about the assassination, and the report gave them some more information. However, for many, the report did not satisfy all of their questions. It led many to question the committee's authority, and what motives it may have had for covering up the murder of the president. Many critiqued the theories presented in the report.
Criticism
The findings of the Warren Commission left members of the public with questions. Many challenged the findings. The main reason the report was controversial was because they claimed there was no greater conspiracy to assassinate the president. The case was again reopened in the 1970s by the House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations. They mostly agreed with the Warren Commission's findings. However, they disagreed with the original committee that Oswald had acted alone. They thought that perhaps one of the three shots fired at Kennedy may have come from another gunman. Here are some of the critiques made of the Warren report:
- It was unlikely that Lee Harvey Oswald worked alone.
- Oswald's quick assassination after killing the president was incredibly suspicious.
- Many questioned if Oswald had ties to the Soviet Union.
- Some wondered if the Soviet Union was somehow involved in the assassination of the president.
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The Warren Commission was formed to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It was named after Chief Justice Earl Warren, who served as the chairperson of the committee. After nearly a year of investigating, the Commission published its report to the public. The report first explored Lee Harvey Oswald, the main suspect, and his personal history. The committee found that Oswald had fired three shots from the sixth-floor window of a building, that he had worked alone, and that he had visited the Soviet Union before JFK's assassination.
They recommended in their conclusion to the report that the Secret Service be made stronger and that the assassination of a president or vice president be made a federal offense. The report was critiqued by many. The main criticism came from the commission's assertion that there was no greater conspiracy to assassinate the president.
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Additional Info
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Nearly every generation experiences a major event that defines an era. For millennials, that event was the terrorist attack on 9/11. Ask anyone born before 1993 where they were on 9/11. Odds are, they can tell you exactly what they were doing and how the event affected them personally.
For most Americans living during the early 1960s, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 was the defining event. JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the crime and brought into police custody just hours after Kennedy was shot. To the nation's amazement, Oswald was himself assassinated two days later by a man named Jack Ruby.
The Warren Commission
As you can imagine, the country was shocked. Kennedy was the young and exciting president that shook up American politics. He represented the voice of change. To lose someone so young and so promising shook the United States to its very core. Within a week of Kennedy's death, the new President, Lyndon B. Johnson, created the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Also known as the Warren Commission (named after its chairman Chief Justice Earl Warren), Johnson tasked the seven-man committee with investigating the deaths of both Kennedy and Oswald.
The Warren Commission conducted its investigations for nearly ten months. During that time, the investigators heard countless testimonials from people who witnessed the assassination or who had a connection to Lee Harvey Oswald. They also traveled to Dallas on several occasions to gather information. By September of 1964, the Warren Commission was ready to issue its report.
Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
The 888-page Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy was published for the public almost immediately after it was released. In the massive document, the Warren Commission presented two key findings:
- Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy from a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository
- There was no conspiracy or connection between Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby (the man who assassinated him)
- Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed the president
- The Secret Service did not do enough to make sure that the president was secure
The Warren Commission's report also detailed Lee Harvey Oswald's background and personal history. According to the commission, Oswald had visited the Soviet Union and was just recently employed by the Texas School Book Depository. Because Oswald was dead, it was difficult to determine why he shot the president. As a result, the report did not investigate Oswald's motives.
In addition to presenting information about the assassination, the report also made two recommendations:
- Make the Secret Service stronger
- Make the assassination of a president or vice president a federal offense
Outcome of the Warren Commission
After the Warren Commission released its report, many people challenged the findings. Did Lee Harvey Oswald really work alone to assassinate the president? How was it that Oswald was assassinated just two days after the president? Did his political connections or trip to the Soviet Union play a role in the assassination? In the years following, conflicting evidence from the Warren Commission's report added to new conspiracy theories and questions about the accuracy of the information shared with the public.
During the 1970s, the House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSAC) reopened the investigation. Ultimately, the HSAC agreed with many of the Warren Commission's original findings. They agreed that two bullets shot by Oswald were responsible for killing the president. Unlike the Warren Commission, however, the HSAC confirmed that it was highly unlikely that Oswald had acted alone. In fact, it was very possible that one of the three shots fired on November 22, 1963 came from a second gunman. The HSAC also claimed that it was probable that Kennedy's assassination was the result of a conspiracy, and that Oswald did not act alone.
Lesson Summary
On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. Two days later, Oswald was himself assassinated by a man named Jack Ruby. Within a week of JFK's assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson created the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (also known as the Warren Commission) to investigate the two assassinations.
After nearly a year of investigating, the Warren Commission released the Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy in September of 1964. The report claimed that Oswald had fired three shots from a window of Texas School Book Depository, that Oswald had acted alone, and that there was no connection between Oswald and Jack Ruby. The Warren Commission investigated Oswald's background but did not explain his motives.
The Warren Commission's report was met with disbelief. During the 1970s, the House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSAC) reopened the investigation. The second investigation confirmed that two shots fired by Oswald killed JFK. The HSAC claimed that it was likely a second shooter fired the third shot, and that JFK's death was the result of a conspiracy.
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