Warren Commission Errors

1. No staff of investigators; near-total dependence on information gathered by others, while claiming to conduct "an independent investigation." In its Forward to the Report, it openly boasts that it had the power to grant immunity, but never used it.
2. Too much emphasis on getting it over with, at the expense of leads which even their own staff thought important, while claiming to conduct a "thorough" investigation.
3. The decision not to request access to the autopsy photos and X-rays, much less not to request evaluation by qualified forensic pathologists.
4. The decision not to question Jack Ruby away from Dallas.
5. The decision to assume Oswald's guilt at the outset, and the adversarial attitude toward witnesses who didn't assume it.
6. The failure to aggressively pursue records held by less cooperative agencies, like the military, the CIA, etc.
7. The decision not to make its evidence files available for study by scholars, and instead to seal them until 2039, and the small printing (5000) of the volumes of evidence that were released, with no allowance for a second printing based on demand.

1. Secret Service agent Clint Hill didn't push Mrs. Kennedy back into the rear seat; she was returning to the seat before he reached her.
2. Although they precisely indicated the location of the wound in the front of the neck, all they said about the head wound was that it was "extensive," thus evading the Parkland doctors, reports that it was in the rear of the head.
3. In a misleading statement, the body reportedly "was given a complete pathological examination." From the standpoint of forensic pathology, this is utterly false. Even from the standpoint of hospital pathology, it is questionable.
4. It implies that the head wound described in the autopsy report matches the descriptions from Parkland, when in fact it didn't even match most of the descriptions by Bethesda personnel.
5. It ascribes accounts of shots from locations other than the Texas School Book Depository to "evident confusion at the outset," and suggests that the actual sole source, the Depository, was identified "within minutes." The House Select Committee on Assassinations found witnesses and evidence that supported a shot from the grassy knoll~some of them known to the Warren Commission, but disregarded or subjected to hostile questioning.
6. They report the suspect description broadcast by Dallas Police was "based primarily on Brennan's observations," though it included details Brennan could not have known.
7. They give Oswald extra time to get down the stairs, saying "Not more than 2 minutes had elapsed since the shooting" when Officer Baker and TSBD supervisor Roy Truly dashed up the stairs. In fact, no more than a minute and a half, and possibly less, had elapsed by the time Officer Baker confronted Oswald in the second floor lunchroom. This kind of shading of facts in the direction of a conclusion resembles a prosecutor's brief more than the objective analysis claimed by the Commission.
8. "On the bus was Mrs. Mary Bledsoe, one of Oswald's former landladies, who immediately recognized him." They fail to note that she reported the elbow of his shirt was "torn out," which wasn't accurate, and the bus driver later suggested the passenger may not have been Oswald, but a young man who was a regular on that run of the bus, Milton Jones.
9. They noted that Oswald took a cab, but omit that he offered it to a woman who arrived after he did, as the narrative is slanted to suggest Oswald was in a big hurry.
10. The narrative has Oswald talking with Officer Tippit through a car window that was rolled up, not down.
11. Reporting that Domingo Benavides called the shooting in at 1:16, they imply that this was done almost immediately, which wasn't the case. The shooting could have occurred as early as 1:10, but that didn't leave enough time for Oswald to get there from his rooming house.
12. Neutrally, we are told "The assailant ran into the lot, discarded his jacket and then continued his flight west on Jefferson," but not that no one had any success connecting the discarded jacket to Oswald.
13. In describing Oswald's teenage years, no mention is made of the fact that his family was deeply enmeshed in the Marcello crime organization; his uncle worked for Marcello, and his mother dated Marcello employees. An odd man with Mob and intelligence connections, David Ferrie, headed the unofficial Civil Air Patrol unit that Oswald joined. The "loner" also belonged to an Astronomy Club.
14. The second description of Oswald as a "loner" comes in the summary of his Marine career. Anyone who believes that should read his friend Kerry Thornley's novel based on their time in the Marines, The Idle Warriors, or read the accounts of his Marine buddy Nelson Delgado. The Commission account is fiction by selection.
15. He spent time overseas, we are told, "most of it in Japan." That's all we learn about that unusual period, where he frequented the Queen Bee, an expensive nightclub out of the price range of a simple Marine. Also avoided is any mention of the Atsugi base at which he was stationed, a center of both U-2 and MKULTRA CIA operations.
16. The Commission implies that Oswald could shoot well, and explains his low rifle test scores as an indication that he wasn't interested in them.
17. The highly unusual circumstances of his discharge are glossed over. He was released to care for his mother, on whom several boxes had fallen at work months before. It's true that she was injured, and had a difficult time for a while, but she was doing better by the time he was discharged, and he only spent three days with her before leaving for Russia.
18. The Commission mentions the odd fact that Oswald applied for a passport, saying he intended to go to Russia, before he left the Marines. What is not said is that his superior officer. Lt. Ayers, was aware of this, as he signed a form which included that intended destination.
19. There is mention that he entered the Soviet Union via Finland, but not that he somehow knew that Helsinki was the easiest entry point.
20. There is no mention that he told the U.S. embassy he intended to give the Russians information he had learned in the Marines. Perhaps this made it easier for them in not having to explain why the State Department later loaned him money for his return.
21. His time in Russia is also quickly skipped over, thus no mention of the circle of friends "the loner" developed there. His wife seems to come out of nowhere.
22. In its rush to emphasize the Dallas Russian-speaking community's dislike for Oswald, the Commission completely omits any mention of George DeMohrenschildt, a worldly sophisticate who is often described as "Oswald's best friend."
23. The Commission flatly states that Oswald tried to kill General Edwin Walker, despite the fact that the bullet recovered from the scene was not compatible with his rifle. It only "became compatible" after the assassination, when it turned out to be a different kind of bullet than Dallas Police had reported it to be in April.
24. We learn that Oswald returned to New Orleans, but not that he returned to the milieu of the Marcello crime family. We are also not told of the many employees of right-wing private detective Guy Banister who remember Oswald as another Banister employee~or the students at Lousiana State University who recall seeing Banister and Oswald visiting the campus together~or the editor of a CIA-supported newsletter on Central America who reported seeing them on the street, and in Mancuso's Restaurant (in the same building as Banister's office). David Ferrie also worked with Banister.
25. We're told that he visited the Mexico City embassies of Cuba and the Soviet Union, but not that someone continued to pretend to be him after he left, in a call to one embassy. One of the rumors the Commission doesn't debunk (or mention) is the possible affair Oswald had with the Cuban embassy's Mexican secretary, though in this case they had the documents reporting it. Not the sort of thing a loner would do, apparently.
26. In mentioning that Oswald rented a room from Mary Bledsoe briefly, it restates (again probably incorrectly) that she saw him on the bus after the assassination.
27. Although the summary said Ruth Paine phoned the Texas School Book Depository about a job for Oswald "at the suggestion of a neighbor," but the neighbor had told her she didn't think they were hiring.
28. The Commission implies that Oswald had not visited his wife at the Paine home on a Thursday, prior to November 21, but in fact this was his second Thursday visit in the relatively short time he had been back in Dallas.
29. The Commission says Oswald left "his wallet" with $170 for his wife the morning of the assassination, but it wasn't his wallet. He had put money into HER wallet. His wallet was in his pocket at the time of his arrest (a detail the narrative omits, presumably to avoid contradicting itself). The falsehood adds to the picture of finality the Commission seeks to paint. The reality is much less clearcut.
30. The Commission's Oswald placed "a long, bulky package" in the rear of Buell Wesley Frazier's car, but neither Frazier nor his sister, who also saw it, described it as long enough to carry even the disassembled rifle, and it seemed light enough that Frazier, who had worked in a department store, believed Oswald's statement that the package contained curtain rods.
31. The Commission says Frazier saw Oswald carry the package into the Depository, but that's not true. The only employee who actually saw Oswald enter the building, Jack Dougherty, said Oswald wasn't carrying anything.
32. The Commission says that "positive firearm identification evidence was not available at the time," failing to add that there was never a ballistics match made between Oswald's pistol and the bullets fired at Officer Tippit. Lamely, they report that the pistol was of a type that could have fired the bullets.
33. Of details given the press by the Dallas Police, the Commission dismissively stated: "Some of the information divulged was erroneous." The same could be said of the Commission.
34. Jack Ruby, we learn, was in the crowd of newsmen shouting questions at Oswald that Friday night. We aren't told that he knew more about Oswald's political activities than did District Attorney Henry Wade, at whom he shouted a correction. Of course, Ruby probably spent more time in New Orleans than Wade, and he got his strippers from the Marcello circuit there. Maybe he didn't need to rely on the news media for information about Oswald.
35. We are told that numerous threats against Oswald were called in to police. We aren't told that Officer Billy Grammar, who took one of the calls, identified the caller as a familiar voice, Jack Ruby. He stalks Oswald, he makes a phone threat, and then, on a "sudden impulse," he shoots Oswald. What a coincidence!

1. We hear again that "witnesses" saw a rifle being fired from the TSBD window.
2. We're told that a bullet matching Oswald's rifle was found at Parkland Hospital on Governor Connally's stretcher, but it was in fact found on the stretcher of an injured little boy, Ronald Fuller, according to the man who found it.
3. We have here the false claim that the Single Bullet Theory "is not necessary to any essential findings of the Commission," though without it a lone assassin would be impossible.
4. Though no one saw the Mannlicher-Carcano in Oswald's possession after he left New Orleans, the Commission informs us that it was "was owned by and in the possession of Oswald" on the day of the assassination. Producing evidence of this is apparently also "not necessary to any essential findings."
5. Also on no evidence, we are told that "Oswald carried this rifle into the Depository Building on the morning of November 22, 1963."
6. And we have only the word of Howard Brennan that "Oswald, at the time of the assassination, was present at the window from which the shots were fired."
7. We are told that "the improvised paper bag in which Oswald brought the rifle to the Depository was found close by the window from which the shots were fired." How unfortunate that none of the witnesses who saw the bag Oswald actually carried recognized the bag reportedly found on the Sixth Floor.
8. The claim that Oswald attempted to kill General Walker is here repeated.
9. Oswald is convicted as Tippit's killer, partly based on a match between cartridge cases in evidence and Oswald's pistol, but the Officer to whom the cases found at the scene had been given was unable to find his initials in the cases matched to Oswald's pistol. Damningly, we are told that Oswald owned the pistol that was found in his possession (duh!). Then we're again told the falsehood that "Oswald's jacket" was found abandoned.
10. We are told that Oswald was given the opportunity to obtain counsel. We aren't told that he asked for an ACLU attorney, and the Dallas Police turned away an ACLU attorney, telling him that Oswald didn't want his assistance.
11. Oswald's opportunities to speak directly to the press in the hallway of the Dallas Police Department are described as "harassment" that shouldn't have been permitted, as it failed to protect his rights to an "orderly interrogation."
12. The Commission found no evidence of a conspiracy, because it couldn't tie Oswald or Ruby to one or to each other, it said.
13. The Commission couldn't figure out a motive for killing the President, either, so it offered a list of possible "contributing factors."
14. One of these is "His inability to enter into meaningful relationships with people." At the time, people who had known Oswald well were living in fear that they would be accused of being accomplices. As time went on, we've learned about more of these "meaningful relationships" he supposedly didn't have.
15. The Walker shooting, now taken for granted as an Oswald act, is used to show his "capacity for violence."
16. Apparently the Commission's finding "that the FBI took an unduly restrictive view of its role in preventive intelligence work prior to the assassination" is another way of saying the FBI failed to pass on reports of Mob threats against Kennedy to the Secret Service~oops, the FBI didn't tell the Commission about them, either. They didn't really come out until the late 1970s.

What we find is that the Commission's presentation of evidence was no more objective than the much criticized Oliver Stone film JFK, but in a different direction. The narrative is slanted to support the conclusions, and the conclusions often rely on errors made in the narrative, and on statements for which there is no evidence, or evidence pointing in a different direction.

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