Warren Commission
The Warren Commission was established to investigate the assassination of the US president John F. Kennedy on November 29, 1963. The commission took its name from its chairman, Chief Justice Earl Warren.The others members were:
- Senator Richard Russell (Democrat-Georgia)
- Senator John Sherman Cooper (Republican-Kentucky)
- Representative Gerald Ford (Republican-Michigan)
- Represenative Hale Boggs (Democrat-Louisiana)
- Former World Bank President and diplomat John J. McCloy
- Former CIA Director Allen Dulles
The report concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, was responsible for the assassination of Kennedy. This conclusion has been challenged on many grounds, not least of which being the "Magic Bullet Theory" whereby one bullet traveled through Kennedy and Connolay's torso, bounced off Connolay's wrist, and wound up embedded a few milimetres into his thigh, falling out as he lay in a stretcher on the way to the hospital, relatively intact.
Quite how it came to be there, or if indeed it ever originated from the alleged murder weapon has been the subject of much debate.
Several individual pieces of the Commission's findings have been called into question or discredited since its completion. A subsequent Congressional hearing into the assassination (the House Select Committee on Assassinations) ultimately suspected a larger conspiracy. Other independent investigators and authors have also provided research into elements of the Commission's report, and are ongoing.
As specific conclusions relating to who committed the assassination are proven or disproven, the Warren Commission has other descriptive evidence and causation for the event, such as grossly insufficient security provided by the Secret Service to protect the president. These specific findings prompted the Secret Service to make numerous modifications to their security procedures.
The Warren Commission was a several hundred page document, and its conclusions about who killed Kennedy did not comprise the entire report. If in future part or all of its conclusions about Kennedy's assassin or assassins is reversed with conclusive scientific evidence, it is important to note that the report has a wider span than simply its conclusions about Kennedy's assassin.
Studies adding credence to, as well as those discrediting the Warren Commission report exist, and research to both ends is ongoing.
