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9 Things You May Not Know About the Warren Commission [View all]
Recently compiled by researchers at The History Channel, I found this list of interest for a couple items I have not read elsewhere. Mostly, that LBJ privately disagreed with their report and that Castro had been interviewed by the Commission's lawyer.
Other items on the list focus on the things that have fueled doubts, theories and further investigation for 5 decades now:
5. The FBI and the CIA intentionally misled the Commission.
The FBI and the CIA had monitored Lee Harvey Oswald in the months before the assassination, but both agencies later tried to downplay their knowledge of him to the Warren Commission. Oswald had once even left a threatening note for an FBI agent at the Bureau’s office in Dallas. Fearful of catching blame for not preventing the assassination, the FBI later destroyed the note and even removed the agent’s name from a typewritten transcript of Oswald’s address book provided to the Warren Commission. Congressman Hale Boggs would later say that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover “lied his eyes out” to the Commission’s investigators.
Evidence also suggests that the CIA had Oswald under surveillance when he made a trip to Mexico in September 1963 and visited the Cuban and Soviet embassies, but the agency repeatedly denied any connection to the alleged shooter. The CIA also neglected to inform the Commission about its many covert operations in Cuba—including several schemes to assassinate Fidel Castro—even though those revelations might have helped shape the investigation.
6. The Commission offered no clear explanation of Oswald’s motives.
While the 888-page Warren report went into great detail outlining how Lee Harvey Oswald could have killed Kennedy, it gave little explanation of why he did it. In its findings, the Commission stated that Oswald’s actions could not be explained if “judged by the standards of reasonable men,” saying only that he was an isolated individual plagued by a life of failure and disappointment. The report would later conclude that, “the Commission does not believe that it can ascribe to him any one motive or group of motives.”
...
9. A second government investigation came to a different conclusion.
After the public release of new information including the Zapruder film—an amateur recording showing the Kennedy assassination in shocking detail—the U.S. House of Representatives formed the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations and reopened the investigation on the president’s murder. In 1979, the HSCA stated that acoustic evidence from a Dallas police officer’s radio showed it was likely that two shooters had fired on Kennedy’s limousine, and it concluded that the assassination “probably” involved a conspiracy. Although subsequent investigations have cast doubt on the radio evidence, the HSCA’s report helped fuel public dissatisfaction with the efforts of the Warren Commission.
The FBI and the CIA had monitored Lee Harvey Oswald in the months before the assassination, but both agencies later tried to downplay their knowledge of him to the Warren Commission. Oswald had once even left a threatening note for an FBI agent at the Bureau’s office in Dallas. Fearful of catching blame for not preventing the assassination, the FBI later destroyed the note and even removed the agent’s name from a typewritten transcript of Oswald’s address book provided to the Warren Commission. Congressman Hale Boggs would later say that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover “lied his eyes out” to the Commission’s investigators.
Evidence also suggests that the CIA had Oswald under surveillance when he made a trip to Mexico in September 1963 and visited the Cuban and Soviet embassies, but the agency repeatedly denied any connection to the alleged shooter. The CIA also neglected to inform the Commission about its many covert operations in Cuba—including several schemes to assassinate Fidel Castro—even though those revelations might have helped shape the investigation.
6. The Commission offered no clear explanation of Oswald’s motives.
While the 888-page Warren report went into great detail outlining how Lee Harvey Oswald could have killed Kennedy, it gave little explanation of why he did it. In its findings, the Commission stated that Oswald’s actions could not be explained if “judged by the standards of reasonable men,” saying only that he was an isolated individual plagued by a life of failure and disappointment. The report would later conclude that, “the Commission does not believe that it can ascribe to him any one motive or group of motives.”
...
9. A second government investigation came to a different conclusion.
After the public release of new information including the Zapruder film—an amateur recording showing the Kennedy assassination in shocking detail—the U.S. House of Representatives formed the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations and reopened the investigation on the president’s murder. In 1979, the HSCA stated that acoustic evidence from a Dallas police officer’s radio showed it was likely that two shooters had fired on Kennedy’s limousine, and it concluded that the assassination “probably” involved a conspiracy. Although subsequent investigations have cast doubt on the radio evidence, the HSCA’s report helped fuel public dissatisfaction with the efforts of the Warren Commission.
The whole list is brief, dense and worth a read:
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-warren-commission
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