The Warren Report was issued to the public on September 27, 1964, 60 years ago. It had been handed to President Johnson three days prior. The report is 888 pages long. And most of the footnotes in the volume refer to materials that had not been given to the public yet. Namely the 26 volumes of testimony and evidence. Those volumes would not be issued until about two months later.
Yet, both CBS and NBC broadcast specials on the Warren Report on the day it was issued to the public. How could anyone have read the 888 pages, digested it, and then put together, respectively, a 2 hour program, and a 1 hour program vouching for the validity of that report? For that is what happened. The NBC show was hosted by Frank McGee and supported by Tom Pettit, who was right on the scene when Jack Ruby killed Lee Oswald. The CBS special was hosted by Walter Cronkite, with Dan Rather in support. Was doing such a thing not a violation of journalistic ethics? It was the equivalent of taking a government press release and announcing it as factually truthful to tens of millions of people, without any review.
But in the case of CBS, it was even worse than that. As the documentary JFK Revisited reveals, CBS producer Bernie Birnbaum later disclosed that the network was cooperating with the Warren Commission, from a date very much prior to the release of the report. The cooperation extended to the fact that the Commission appears to have recommended witnesses to place on the program. (Florence Graves, Washington Journalism Review, September, October 1978). But as Florence Graves reported, it was even worse than that. For film maker Emile de Antonio and author Mark Lane viewed some of the outtakes from the CBS program in late 1965. They told Graves that CBS led witnesses to say things on camera, some of whom were originally uttering things that contradicted the Warren Report. In other words, far from letting the evidence speak for itself, CBS had molded that evidence to fit what was in the Warren Report, knowing that the report had to be problematic.
But it then got worse. In what amounted to a cover up of this unethical practice, CBS would not allow de Antonio and Lane to use this footage in their documentary Rush to Judgment. This was even after there was an oral agreement to do so. (Mark Lane, A Citizen’s Dissent, pp. 75-79). The two protested to a CBS executive, reminding him that CBS was in the truth gathering business. Therefore, the network should make all the facts available to the public. Again, the network declined. Lane concluded that CBS had begun its production with a script, and even though the Warren Report was officially released the day of the broadcast, it was clear that CBS was in bed with the Commission for a long time. (Lane, p. 77). The case of Howard Brennan is illustrative of this. For he was not in the initial interviews CBS did. As Lane noted, “CBS, previously unprepared for …Brennan, flew him to New York and conducted an interview with him in time to meet the program’s deadline.”(Lane, p. 78). This action was complimented by one of curtailment. As Lane wrote, “When a witness said something that challenged the script, that portion of the interview was snipped away and turned into an out-take.” (ibid)
As Lane concluded:
For millions of Americans, the program provided as reliable a view of the issues as would a glance at the visible portion of an iceberg reveal its true mass and shape to an inexperienced observer. (Lane, p. 78)
As Graves noted, CBS also kept the outtakes from all of their JFK films from the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). In fact, CBS told the HSCA they would not surrender the cut materials even if subpoenaed. The problem with this is that CBS had previously sold such materials, and they had an oral agreement with Lane and de Antonio. When Florence Graves asked CBS President Richard Salant about other exceptions CBS made to this rule, Salant replied “If you have real evidence in a murder, it’s a different situation.” Salant apparently was unaware of the humorous irony in that statement.
II
But it was not just the TV networks who were all too eager to praise a report they had no way of cross checking. It was also the print media, both newspapers and magazines. Two of the worst cases of this were respectively the New York Timesand Life magazine. About 24 hours after Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby, the Times featured a headline saying “President’s Assassin Shot to death in Jail Corridor by a Dallas Citizen.” Yet Oswald always maintained his innocence while in detention; he never had a lawyer, and of course never stood trial. But the newspaper of record was already pronouncing him as Kennedy’s murderer. On June 1, 1964, four months before the report was issued, Anthony Lewis did a preview of its contents on page one of the Times. Just a few days after the Warren Commission volumes were published the Times issued a compendium of this testimony called The Witnesses. Anthony Lewis wrote the introduction for that book
In the case of Life magazine, they swooped into Dallas and snatched up both Oswald’s wife and mother and stored them in a hotel. Life then purchased the Zapruder film and kept it from the American public for twelve years. With the Zapruder film held in abeyance, on December 6, 1963 that magazine published what can only be called a deliberate canard. They wrote that the film showed Kennedy turning his body far around to his right as he waved to someone in the crowd, thus exposing his throat to the sniper behind him. The film shows no such thing happening, or even close to happening. But there had to be an explanation for why the doctors at Parkland Hospital said they saw an entry hole in Kennedy’s neck. This supplied one—an explanation which was utterly false.
In the initial reaction to the issuance of the Warren Report there was no examination of two major issues of large evidentiary import. The first was the mystery of Commission Exhibit 399, later deemed the Magic Bullet. Yet, as many have stated, even members of the Commission itself—like Arlen Specter and Norman Redlich—declared that without the efficacy of that exhibit the thesis of the Warren Report falls apart. If CE 399 did not do what the Commission said it did—namely go through both President Kennedy and Governor Connally, making seven wounds and shattering two bones while emerging virtually unscathed—then this necessitated a second assassin.
But perhaps even more important, if CE399 was not genuine, if it was a plant, then this would indicate a pre-planned upper level conspiracy. And there were indications in the volumes that such was the case. Just look at the way the Warren report handles the testimony of Darrel Tomlinson, the hospital attendant who was the first to discover the bullet on a gurney:
Although Tomlinson was not certain whether the bullet came from, the Connally stretcher or the adjacent one, the Commission has concluded that the bullet came from the Governor’s stretcher. That conclusion is buttressed by evidence which eliminated President Kennedy’s stretcher as a source of the bullet. (WR, p. 81)
If ever there was a piece of sophistry that could easily be exposed just by reading further, this was it. And when author Josiah Thompson decided to examine this pretentious piece of pap, it fell apart on all four legs. In ten pages of analysis and investigation he shows how Specter badgered Tomlinson in a way that would not be allowed in court. How the person who Tomlinson had handed the exhibit to—security officer O. P. Wright-- had no idea on which stretcher the projectile was found. How by interviewing other attendants in the area, it is almost certain it was not found on Kennedy’s gurney, or Connally’s. The evidence indicates it was found on the stretcher of a person unrelated to the case, a little boy named Ronald Fuller. (Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas, pp. 154-165). Finally, the bullet that ended up in the National Archives, and labeled CE 399, was not the bullet that Mr. Wright saw and handed over to the Secret Service. In fact, when confronted with a picture of CE 399 he starkly disagreed and pulled a sharp-nosed, lead hued bullet out of his desk to show the difference. (The Magic Bullet is round nosed and copper coated.). Thompson was so shaken by this information that he wrote:
…CE 399 must have been switched for the real bullet sometime later in the transmission chain. This could have been done only by some federal officer, since it was in government possession from that time on. If this is true then the assassination conspiracy would have to have involved members of the federal government and been an “inside” job”. (Thompson, p. 176)
III
The second piece of evidence that should have jolted reporters attention was the Zapruder film. By the time the report was issued, it was common knowledge in media circles that Life had bought the film. It was also obvious that they were keeping it under wraps. When the Warren Report was released, although it was clear they relied upon the film for their bullet sequencing, the actual frames were not in the report. And, as even Vincent Bugliosi admitted, they never mentioned the most startling feature in the film: at Zapruder frame 313, Kennedy’s entire body rockets backward with such force that it appears to bounce off the back seat of the limousine. So now, in addition to the declared entrance wound in the throat, here again was powerful evidence that Kennedy was hit from the front.
Where was Anthony Lewis? Why did he not go to Time-Life in New York and ask to see the film? The other place he could have seen it at was the National Archives.
The third piece of evidence that should have set off the antennae of any reporter was the Parkland Hospital press conference that was performed in about an hour after Kennedy was pronounced dead at that institution. At that press conference two of the physicians who worked on the president briefed the media about their efforts. They were Dr. Kemp Clark and Dr. Malcolm Perry. They made some rather interesting comments. Namely that Kennedy had a large wound in the rear of his skull, and that the throat wound appeared to be one of entrance. It is important to underline that this was on the afternoon of the assassination, one could not get any closer to the time of the actual shooting.
As Doug Horne discovered while working for the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), the Commission requested a transcript of this press conference. The Secret Service, through chief James Rowley, said they did not have one. This was a lie. The ARRB found a transcript which was time stamped, “Received US Secret Service, 1963 Nov. 26 AM 11:40, Office of the Chief.” (Horne, Inside the ARRB, Vol 2, p. 647).
In other words, just on the surface, by the time of the release of the Warren Report any investigative reporter could have found evidence to disprove the operating theses of that report. Namely that Oswald was the sole assassin, that all the shots came from behind, and also that there was fraud in the evidence trail. A dead giveaway about this is that O. P. Wright’s name in not in the Warren Report.
It is very had to believe that Arlen Specter did not know the importance of O. P. Wright. After all, Specter was in charge of the medical and ballistics evidence for the Commission. If he interviewed Tomlinson how could he not know about Wright? It seems he did know for in a long hidden interview that author Edward Epstein concealed for about a half century, Specter told Epstein how he convinced the Commission about his Single Bullet theory.
I showed them the Zapruder film, frame by frame, and explained that they could either accept the single-bullet theory or begin looking for a second assassin. (The JFK Assassination Chokeholds, p. 253, by James DiEugenio, Paul Bleau, Matt Crumpton, Andrew Iler and Mark Adamczyk)
We can properly assume then that the Commission had no interest in the second alternative, searching for a second gunman. We can also properly assume that this was a decision made by expediency and not based on evidence. This is further backed up by another question Epstein asked Specter many years previous He queried the Commission lawyer: Why did the Secret Service not arrive at the Magic Bullet concept in December while doing reconstructions? Specter replied point blank: “They had no idea at the time that unless one bullet had hit Kennedy and Connally, there had to be a second assassin.” (ibid). Why the late Edward Epstein hid this exchange for so long is a mystery. It seems to me to be of the highest relevancy as to the operating procedure of the Commission.
IV
In addition to there being no trace of Wright in the Warren Report, there is also no mention of the two FBI agents who were at the Bethesda autopsy that evening: James Sibert and Francis O’Neill. Specter did an interview with these men and he read their report on the autopsy. They both expected to be called as witnesses by the Commission, but they were not. When William Matson Law interviewed Sibert for his fine 2005 book In the Eye of History, Sibert left no doubt as to why he was not called. He did not buy the Magic Bullet:
…if they went in there and asked us to pinpoint where the bullet entered the back and the measurement and all that stuff, how are you going to work it? See, the way they got the Single-bullet theory was by moving that back wound up to the base of the neck. (ibid, p. 31)
When asked to repeat what he thought on the subject Sibert replied with, “They can’t put enough sugar on it for me to bite it. That bullet was too low in the back.” When specifically asked about Specter, Sibert went even further: “What a liar. I feel he got his orders from above—how far above I don’t know.” (ibid, p. 32). The missing names of these three men from the Warren Report and the lack of any depositions from them, amid 17,000 pages of evidence and testimony, is simply inexplicable in objective terms.
But there was still another piece of key evidence that the Commission excised from the volumes. This was the death certificate for Kennedy that was signed by Admiral George Burkley. When finally located, that certificate placed the back wound at the third thoracic vertebra. Considering the projectile was entering at a downward angle, that is too low for it to exit the throat. (ibid, p. 35). Again, there is no deposition of Burkley in the Warren Commission volumes. And when asked in an interview, if he agreed with the Warren Report on the number of bullets that entered JFK’s body, he replied with this: “I would not care to be quoted on that.” (ibid, p. 36)
From all of the above, it is difficult not to conclude that the Warren Commission was a rigged investigation. In fact, we have that specific information from one of the most credible witnesses that the Commission actually did interview. Her name was Sylvia Odio. The FBI went out of their way to discredit her for the Commission. But as Gaeton Fonzi showed, the Bureau attempt was based on fraudulent information. (Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, pp. 114-15)
When Fonzi interviewed Odio for the Church Committee, he handed in a report of that encounter. It was dated January 16, 1976. That report was not declassified until 20 years later. And it was due to the JFK Records Collection Act, through the ARRB. In that interview she told Fonzi what she told the Commission through attorney Wesley Liebeler: that Oswald had visited her apartment with what appeared to be two Cuban exiles in late September of 1963. They were looking for contributors to their anti-Castro cause. Oswald was introduced to her as Leon Oswald. Within 48 hours, the exile called Leopoldo called her back and said Oswald was kind of loco and was talking about killing Kennedy. (Fonzi report to Church Committee)
That visit would be strong evidence of Oswald being impersonated in Mexico City, since they days for both events appear to overlap. How credible was Odio? When she saw a picture of Oswald on TV the day of the assassination, she fainted. She also had corroborating witnesses, including her sister who was there, and three people she confided in about the event, before the assassination. The implication being that Oswald was being set up by the Cuban exiles.
Odio told Fonzi that after she was questioned for the Commission, their attorney Wesley Liebeler asked her to go to dinner with him. During dinner, Liebeler kept threatening her with a polygraph test. After that, Liebeler said:
Well, you know if we do find out that this is a conspiracy you know that we have orders from Chief Justice Warren to cover this thing up. (Fonzi report of 1/16/76)
Justifiably surprised, Fonzi replied with, “Liebeler said that?” Odio responded with, “Yes sir, I could swear on that.” After her encounter with Liebeler, Odio said to herself, “Silvia, the time has come for you to keep quiet. They don’t want to know the truth.”
Which most people would deem a rather natural reaction.
V
Let us conclude with something that the Commission almost had to know about. Because it is in the Warren Commission volumes. (Warren Commission Exhibit 3120). This was a pamphlet that Oswald was handing out on the streets of New Orleans in the summer of 1963. This pamphlet was called “The Crime Against Cuba”. It was written by Corliss Lamont and printed through Basic Pamphlets. The copy Oswald was handing out came from the first edition published in 1961. Yet that pamphlet had gone through at least five editions by 1963. In fact, the CIA had ordered 45 copies of it back in 1961. Further, when one looks at the document in the Commission volumes one will see stamped on the last page: FPCC, 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. (Volume 26, p. 783)
When Jim Garrison discovered this document, he did something that none of the Warren Commissioners or their attorneys did. He went to the actual location. He noticed Mancuso’s Restaurant and went around to the other entrance to the building which was 531 Lafayette. In one of the most memorable passages of his book, he now recalled that this was the location of “Guy Banister’s Associates Inc. Investigators”. (Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, p. 24) Banister was a notorious rightwing fanatic who employed young students to infiltrate left leaning groups and organizations, and the FPCC on the pamphlet stood for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. As far as Garrison could figure, Oswald was the only member of the FPCC in New Orleans, and he actually paid people from the unemployment office to help him leaflet. (Garrison, p. 25)
As Garrison writes, this was”…the first evidence I encountered that Lee Oswald had not been a communist or Marxist….Guy Banister…had been using Oswald as an agent provocateur.” (ibid). This began to unveil to the DA that the FBI was in on the cover up. For they had to know that Banister had his office there, and Banister had been a former FBI agent. This was a serious flaw with the Commission, its reliance on the FBI for about 80 per cent of its investigative capacity.
There is no doubt today that Oswald was in Banister’s offices that fateful summer of 1963. Numerous credible witnesses, including two INS agents, saw him there. We also know that Banister was very upset when he learned that Oswald had used his office address on his pamphlet. (James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, second edition, pp. 110-114)
But there is even more to the pamphlet than that. Clay Shaw’s right hand man at the International Trade Mart was Jesse Core. He happened to be on the street where Oswald was leafleting the Lamont flyer. He picked one up and noticed the Camp Street address. He drew an arrow to that address and attached a message, “note the inside back cover”. He then mailed it to the FBI. It was also Core who summoned the TV cameras to the Trade mart to capture Oswald there. (See John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee, p. 568) So how could the FBI not have known about Oswald and Banister?
Let us also note this pertinent fact: The hearings of the Warren Commission were closed to the public. Only Mark Lane complained about this and so his appearances were opened. Can anyone today imagine the media accepting an arrangement for such an important event by a government agency?
It was left to private citizens to actually read the 26 volumes and compare them to the Warren Report. It was people like Harold Weisberg, Josiah Thompson, Sylvia Meagher and Mark Lane who now reported, with footnotes, that the emperor was wearing no clothes. The Warren Report was an elaborate fraud. But when organizations like Life, and the NY Times made some motions to do a reinvestigation, these were sabotaged from inside. For example in the former case by editor Holland McCombs, who just happened to be a friend of Clay Shaw’s. It was McCombs who retired Life’s two best investigators, Ed Kern and Thompson. (Click here https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/last-second-in-dallas-part-2) This is why Thompson had to publish his work in the book Six Seconds in Dallas.
This all held a very deleterious effect on America. As Kevin Phillips noted in his book Arrogant Capitol, the decline in the citizenry’s belief in what the government was saying began in 1964. Prior to that time it registered in the 70 percentile. From then on, exacerbated by Vietnam and Watergate, it descended into the teens.
No one noticed a rather crucial event. Just three months after the Commission released the 26 volumes of testimony and evidence, President Lyndon Johnson did something that Kennedy did not, and would not do. He sent combat troops to DaNang in Vietnam. He actually had this landing filmed.
In a huge piece of tragic irony, it was that event that led to his ruin.
