Warren (Commission) Was Right - The JFK case should be closed

NRO.com ^ | 11/21/03 | Gleaves Whitney

[veronica]

The JFK case should be closed.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is the most investigated murder mystery in world history. As a host of recent TV specials have demonstrated, much curiosity still surrounds the assassination, and speculation abounds, but the bottom line is this: There was one man who killed JFK and his name was Lee Harvey Oswald. No significant, credible body of evidence indicates that Oswald acted in concert with others. There was no conspiracy, foreign or domestic, that brought Kennedy down.

That conclusion is hard for some to accept; conspiracy theories based on half-truths still compete for attention in the marketplace of ideas. Why? Gerald Posner (in Case Closed) and Robert Dallek (in An Unfinished Life) have observed that many people drawn to conspiracy theories just do not want to accept that a lowlife like Oswald could single-handedly cut short the life of a charismatic leader like Kennedy. It despoils the myth of Camelot.

Yet four decades later, the key facts still support the conclusion of the Warren Commission, reached in 1964, that Oswald acted alone. After months of painstaking investigation and exhaustive interrogation, the commission authorized 26 volumes of public testimony to be published.

For nearly 40 years, the commission's work has been scrutinized. After all, it's methods were sometimes flawed, its evidence occasionally inconclusive, and its judgments at times spotty. A number of issues went unresolved. Did authorities in Dallas handle every piece of evidence according to the best crime scene investigation techniques? No. Were certain questions answered inconclusively? Of course. Is it possible that new evidence might surface that will shine a different light on the assassination? Possibly. But — the critical question remains: Did the commission prove with reasonable certainty that Oswald acted alone? Based on the best evidence assembled at the time, the answer is yes.

Flaws in the Warren Commission's report notwithstanding, it is interesting how its findings have withstood the test of time, not to mention the likes of Oliver Stone. (President Gerald R. Ford, the lone surviving member of the Warren Commission, has called Stone's JFK "a bunch of baloney.") In 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations reopened the case and concluded that the commission, in the main, got it right: that Oswald fired the gun that killed the president, and that he likely acted alone.

In 1992 Congress passed legislation that declassified thousands of additional pages of CIA, FBI, and Secret Service testimony. A host of scholars, medical experts, journalists, and others have pored over the material, and this has led to much interesting speculation. Yet not one conspiracy theory has been formulated that could withstand cross-examination in a court of law.

There are other indications that the Warren Commission got it pretty much right. Conspiracies require that every conspirator stay mum. Is that realistic after four decades, given the leaks and tell-alls that a place like Washington, D.C. encourages? Also, both Bobby and Ted Kennedy were in a position to use their authority and family resources to launch an independent investigation had the Warren Commission been totally off base.

Stripped to its essentials, the Kennedy assassination is a murder case. To successfully prosecute a murder case, one typically needs a credible witness, a murder weapon, and the motivation to kill. The most compelling facts about the Kennedy assassination are these. There was a credible witness to the shooting. Howard Brennan was present in Dealey Plaza. From his vantage point Brennan could see a man matching Oswald's description in a window on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, firing a rifle into the presidential motorcade below.

The murder weapon was found. The Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that was used to assassinate the president was lying on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, near the nest the assassin had made out of stacks of boxes. It had Oswald's handprint on it. Also, three shell casings were discovered in the nest. Ballistics tests confirmed that the two bullets that struck JFK were fired from that rifle.

The assassin had a motivation to kill. Lee Harvey Oswald was mentally unstable, a Communist who had a long history of associating with fringe leftist groups. He lived for a time in the U.S.S.R., was sympathetic to Castro's Cuban revolution, and was a rifleman trained by the Marines. Clearly he was willing and able, if the opportunity arose, to kill a U.S. president who vowed to resist Communist threats to the free world.

Add to these facts Oswald's behavior after fleeing his sniper's nest. To this day President Ford places special emphasis on the murder of Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit 45 minutes after the assassination. Oswald shot Tippit with a revolver purchased from the same Chicago outfit from which he had bought the rifle used to kill Kennedy.

Finally, it is a stretch to claim that Jack Ruby was part of a conspiracy to kill Oswald. Ruby arrived at the Dallas jail 30 minutes after Oswald was originally scheduled to be transferred to a different facility. Oswald was unexpectedly delayed, and Ruby seized the opportunity to shoot the assassin — not typically the way conspirators behave — and insisted to the end of his life that he acted alone.

Given the best evidence, it is difficult to refute the main conclusions of the Warren Commission: that the man who murdered President Kennedy was Lee Harvey Oswald, and that there was no conspiracy, foreign or domestic, that brought JFK down. Forty years later, that judgment stands.

— Gleaves Whitney is director of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

[Lockbox]

Warren (Commission) Was Right - The JFK case should be closed

What about the files which are sealed till 2025, time to release them also to really close the case.

[alloysteel]

The incident in Dallas forty years ago may have been extensively investigated, but only a paltry few details have ever been revealed, and those seem only to add to the ambiguity. No conclusive statement has ever been issued that would be satisfactory to more than a few people. The involvement of Lee Harvey Oswald is not questioned, for the most part. But many interesting leads that indicate he may not have been operating alone have mysteriously never been followed up on, or clarified.

The "lone gunman" theory was flawed then, and never proven. A negative proof is nearly impossible to substantiate. However, it is possible to conceal many bits of positive proof if there is incentive to do so.

Elbie Jay was never fully cleared. Nor was Fidel Castro.

[JesseHousman]

WARREN COMMISSION WAS WRONG-LBJ KILLED JFK

Hillary Clinton secretly doesn't care whether she's on the democrat ticket as pres or vice pres.

If Dean (God forbid) would win the presidency with Hillary as his vice-president, I'd give him five months before he discovered the job was too much for him and his body would turn up in a park someplace with park rangers trying to decide how he shot himself in the head with his big toe stuck in the trigger guard.

[motzman]

Given the best evidence, it is difficult to refute the main conclusions of the Warren Commission: that the man who murdered President Kennedy was Lee Harvey Oswald, and that there was no conspiracy, foreign or domestic, that brought JFK down. Forty years later, that judgment stands.

Then why are the files "sealed" until 2039?

Obviously, there's something to hide. Probably LBJ's involvment....

[Tijeras_Slim]

You better put on a pot of coffee... :)

[Phaedrus]

...it is difficult to refute the main conclusions of the Warren Commission: that the man who murdered President Kennedy was Lee Harvey Oswald, and that there was no conspiracy, foreign or domestic, that brought JFK down. Forty years later, that judgment stands.

Wrong.

[billbears]

Putting aside everything else, I learned something last night during the ABC special. That he had made an attempt on some general a few months before. He missed that shot. Where did he make it from? Was it less than 200 yards? According to the report last night he was almost perfect from 200 yards. I was just wondering how he could miss a walking target but a few months later could hit a target in a moving vehicle

[DoctorMichael]

Free publicity and sympathy.

Kennedys = Victims

[Shooter 2.5]

I'll be glad when this $&*%ing week is over.

Sorry, my smiley is on the fritz.

[Shooter 2.5]

If you researched instead of asking questions on the internet, you would get your answer.

His bullet hit the window frame.

[BigBobber]

Let's review the accuracy of Oswald's shots at Kennedy's HEAD one more time.

One shot missed completely.

One shot (probably non-fatal) was to the upper back.

One fatal shot barely hit in the upper right part of the skull. Another inch to the right and it would have missed.

One fatal shot out of three attempts. Dump the idea this guy had to be a great marksman.

[Independentamerican]

Have to agree with everyone here. Alot of interesting info on the history channel this week huh :-) Is it true that his brains were (stolen) from the National Institute of History ??

[DustyMoment]

"Did the commission prove with reasonable certainty that Oswald acted alone?"

Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!!!!

The most absurb conclusion to come out of the Warren Commission was the SINGLE BULLET THEORY. There is not a credible ballistics or forensics expert in the world who can or will buy into that ludicrous nonsense.

[#3Fan]

Oswald was a good marine who was picked as an operative, told to play the part of the communist to infiltrate Cuba and eliminate Castro. But they never intended to use him to eliminate Castro, they intended to use him as a patsy to a coup. He played his part perfectly and therefore made a good scapegoat. I'm glad the truth is being revealed now about LBJ. Although LBJ wasn't the only one involved, obviously, but LBJ was the only one in on the conspiracy that did it for power and hate, not for his country (besides the mafia shooters, of course). One of the biggest crimes in this was that they sullied the name of Oswald, who was a good marine who loved his country.

[dread78645]

O-Kay. that's it. Everybody can go home now.

[Lockbox]

Then why are the files "sealed" until 2039?

Is it 2039?, I thought it was 2025. Just that much longer to wait for additional data.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I can't stand Peter Jennings but I have to say he did a good, even-handed job on the ABC special last night. Among other JFK profiteers, he demolished Oliver Stone, and that's a good thing.

[Redwood71]

Funny thing about it is that from the same copy of NRO, is this article:

This Week's Thought
Gerald Posner: on conspiracy theories

"The notion that a misguided sociopath had wreaked such havoc made the crime seem senseless and devoid of political significance. By concluding that JFK was killed as the result of an elaborate plot, there is the belief he died for a purpose, that a powerful group eliminated him for some critical issue....

"Books and movies promoting conspiracy theories have reinforced and expanded the early public doubts. Today, the Warren Report is almost universally derided, mostly by people who have never read it. The debate is no longer whether JFK was killed by Lee Oswald acting alone or as part of a conspiracy -- it is instead, which conspiracy is correct?...

"The only casualty is truth, especially in a society where far too many people are content to receive all their knowledge on an important issue from a single article or a three-hour movie."

--GERALD POSNER, Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK (New York: Oxford Random House, 1993), pp. xiv-xv.

Is this considered equal time?

Red

[Ditter]

You support the Warren Commission report like it was personal. Did you have a family member in Dallas on Nov 22, 1963, perhaps?