THE REAL FAQ: Part 4: Questions Concerning the Warren Commission
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ALT.CONSPIRACY.JFK FAQ
IV. Questions Concerning the Warren Commission:
A. Who were the Warren Commissioners?
In alphabetical order, the Warren Commissioners were:
Rep. Hale Boggs
Sen. John Sherman Cooper
Mr. Allen Dulles
Rep. Gerald R. Ford
Mr. John J. McCloy
Sen. Richard B. Russell
Chief Justic Earl Warren
A photograph (portrait) is shown of all, seated around a table in
(1, p. 116) More close up snapshots of each are on the page opposite
(117).
1. What are the backgrounds of the Commissioners?
Hale Boggs
Hale Boggs was a representative from Louisiana. By 1971 he began to
have reservations about the Warren Commission and gave a speech in
Congress of how "the FBI used Gestapo tactics" (2, p186). As the authors
also note: "Boggs was convinced that his phone was tapped - he was
probably right. About a year later Boggs was killed in a mysterious
plane crash in Alaska." (ibid.)
John Sherman Cooper
John Sherman Cooper was a Republican Senator from Kentucky, with
diplomatic corps background (2, p185). Also, "he joined forces with
Richard Russell and threatened to write a minority report if the
Commission did not stress the 'information gap' regarding Oswald's
activities in Mexico City" (ibid.)
Allen Dulles
Allen Dulles, was the CIA Director until fired by JFK after the Bay
of Pigs. Up to that time, Dulles "was the CIA, he shaped it into an
invisible government during his eight years as head of the agency."
(2, p184)
It should also be noted that Dulles was, since 1927, "the most senior
member of the board of directors of the Council of Foreign Relations"
and "was associated with both the Rockefeller and Morgan (financial)
groups". (3, p73).
Geral R. Ford
Gerald R. Ford was a Republican Michigan House Representative. Ford was
also the author of a subsequent book 'Portrait of the Assassin' about
Lee Harvey Oswald. Interestingly, Ford seems to downplay or "hide the
fact" of his Commission memebership (2, p183).
"He failed to include it in his biography for the 'Congressional
Directory'; it is also not mentioned in 'The Biographical Directory of
the American Congress', 'The International Who's Who' and 'Who's Who In
America'. (ibid.)
Hr has also evidently denied that he used "secret materials not
previously published by the Commission" for his book on Oswald and "when
questioned about this in his 1973 vice presidential confirmation
hearings, would deny it." (op.cit., p274).
John J. McCloy
John J. McCLoy "was almost an honorary member of the Rockefeller family.
The law firm he was associated with had represented Standard Oil, a
Rockefeller property, in the 1920's and 1930's." (2, p184)
McCloy's career, it should be noted, "began long before and lasted long
after Kennedy's presidency, McCloy was chairman of the Chase Manhattan
Bank, of the CFR (Council of Foreign Relations) and of the Ford
Foundation'; President of the World Bank; High Commissioner in Germany
after World War II; and a representative of the major oil companies."
(3, p70).
McCloy was also the one who "engineered the merger of the Chase and
Manhattan banks into the Chase Manhattan"(2, p184).
As a footnote - it should also be noted that Commission Counsel William
T. Coleman was "Rockefeller's number two man who worked for J.
Richardson Dilworth, the lawfirm that handled Rockefeller's assets." (2,
p184)
As a further footnote, Counsel David Belin "who supported Arlen
Spector's 'single bullet theory' ...was appointed Chief Investigator
(1975) of Rockefeller's Blue Ribbon CIA panel." (2, p187).
Clearly - with Allan Dulles, John McCloy, and William Coleman, a
Rockefeller interest was very much in evidence on the Commission.
Richard B. Russell
Richard B. Russell was a Democratic Senator from Georgia. Like
Cooper,and Boggs, he parted company with many of the Commission's
findings. For example:
"In January 1970 he publicly expressed his doubts about the validity
of the Commission's findings on a WAB-TV interview taped in Atlanta.
A short time later he died of 'natural causes'." (2, p185).
Earl Warren
Chief Justice at the time, originally appointed to the Supreme Court
by President Eisenhower in 1953 (2, p182).
It seems more than likely, on examining the composition of the
Commission - particularly its Rockefeller finance-intelligence
links,that Warren was merely a "titular head of the Warren Commission"
(2, p181) with the real power and direction emanating from 'elsewhere'.
2. Who were the 'key players' on the Commission?
According to the sheer proportion of questions asked, the two 'key
players' were: Allan Dulles (the CIA's man on the commission - never
mind he was fired, he was still the primary liasion with the 'company')
and Gerald Ford (the FBI's man on the Commission) (4, p278).
Of all 7 commissioners, Dulles asked the highest frequency of questions:
2,514 (ibid.) and Ford was next with 1, 722 (ibid.)
Other commissioners and frequencies (op.cit., p278):
John Sherman Cooper - 926
John McCloy - 795
Earl Warren - 608
Hale Boggs - 460
Richard Russell - 249
This is a grand total of 6,964 total questions asked by the seven formal
Commissioners per se, of which 4,236 or nearly 61% were asked by Dulles
and Ford.
3. Were the Commissioners the only ones that asked questions?
No. A total of 30,133 other questions were asked by Commission Staff
Counsels (e.g. David Belin, William Coleman etc.) with the Commissioners
present.
This means there were only a total of (6,964/ 37,097) or about 18.8% of
questions that were by the Commissioners themselves, of witnesses in
their presence. However, the ancillary support staff asked another
72,833 questions with the seven Commissioners *not* present.(cf. 4,
pp278-81).
This means that a total of only (6,964/ 109,930) or 6.33% of questions
were asked directly by the seven Commissioners themselves - of the total
questions asked by them and their support staff or counsels etc.
This minuscule proportion comports with a comment made by McCloy
himself, to wit: (op. cit., p276):
"The commissioners themselves regarded their committment to the
investigation as a part time responsibility....There was neither the
time *nor the political will* to conduct a thorough investigation."
This, clearly - is a direct admission that the scope was delimited from
the outset - not only by dint of volume of work to do, but because
*political issues were at work*!! This is something the Warren
Commission adherents must acknowledge, at the very least, if they are to
be taken honestly.
Finally, it is worthwhile to note (ibid.):
"The Warren Commission asked 109,930 questions to 488 witnesses from
February 3, 1964, to September 15, 1964. It is a clear indication of the
uselessness of the commission's work that they were 'created' on
November 29, 1963, but heard no witnesses for sixty six days."
4. What sort of questions did they ask?
A statistical breakdown -by category and frequency/percentage, of
questions for which the Commission was present is (4, p281):
Preliminaries - 805 (2.1%)
To the point - 1,537 (4.1%)
Not vital - 16,073 (43.3%)
Clarification - 7,354 (19.8%)
Leading/hearsay 9,676 (26.0%)
Conclusionary - 922 (2.4%)
Foregone conclusion 323 (0.80%)
Nonsense - 407 (1.09%)
The category basic definitions are (cf. 4, p279):
'Preliminaries' - introductory questions re: background, education, job,
family life, etc
'To the point' - Questions materially contributing to investigation
'Not vital' - Questions that "add nothing to the record"
'Clarification' - Questions clarifying earlier answers.
'Leading/hearsay' - 'Questions' in which witnesses were told the
'answers' in advance - then merely asked a series of yes/no questions
about them
'Conclusionary' - Questions calling on witness to draw a conlcusion.
'Forgone conclusion' - questions that "reflected the official version
yet could not be substantiated by the witness" .
'Nonsense' - self-explanatory
Most appalling is that the 'to the point' category comprised an
insignificant 4.1 % of the total for which the Commissioners were
present. For the percentage of all the questions asked - with or without
the Commissioners present, that went up a 'mighty' three tenths of a
point, to 4.4% (op.cit., p281). Thus, despite the motif of ponderous
research, it is doubtful that this 'Report' - couched in its magnificent
and portentous 26 volumes of body, approaches the investigative level of
those books blithely dismissed as 'buff'.
4a Who were asked questions?
A full list including comprehensive breakdown by cateogry and number
of the questions asked of the 488 witnesses are given in the Appendices
(1-3) of 4 (pp351-380)
4b Who were not asked questions?
200 witnesses- "each with knowledge at least as valuable as that given
by the 488 commission witnesses" were not asked questions. These
inlcuded: Tom Alyea (who allegedly first filmed the sniper's 'nest'),
Charles A. Crenshaw (Parkland surgical resident at the time - who
observed the head wound, cf.6, p86), Julia Ann Mercer, William Harper
(who found the bone fragment); Guy Banister (who ran the 544 Camp St.
office from which Oswald distributed leaflets); Joseph Milteer (the
right wing zealot who had been taped by an FBI informant in Miami
predicting and verifying the events of Nov. 22 - given 'clean bill of
health by FBI' (4,p383); Sergio Archacha Smith, Mary Moorman, Aquilla
Clemons (who observed the Tippitt shooting, and saw another man - not
LHO, doing it); Silvia Duran, consul employee who could have testified
to the identity of the 'Oswald' seen in Mexico City; Gordon
Arnold (who was standing on the grass in front of the knoll's picket
fence when a percussion from a shot made him hit the dirt - he was later
sent to Alaska); Orville Nix - who took the Nix film, Mary Muchmore,
whose original film was cut/mutilated on return, at the instant of the
head shot (1, p37), Richard Case Nagell "so concerned with having an
alibi for November 22, that he fired a pistol at a blank wall so as to
be in jail" (4, p387).
The full list of all 200 witnesses not asked questions by the Warren
Commission is given in 4, pp381-89)
This sizable contingent of these 'Un-witnesses' - and by extension their
'Un-testimony', shows that the conspiracy advocate is surely hamstrung
if he is forced to confine attention or citation only to it (or the only
less similarly hobbled HSCA report). Hence, the need for independent
investigative authors, that the conspiracy advocate must be able to
refer to - in order to be extricated (to some degree) from the
'co-opted' loop.
The memo by Nicholas Katzenbach, also discloses this, in no uncertain
terms.
B What was the Katzenbach Memo, and what has it to do with the Warren
Commission?
This was a memo written to Bill Moyers, dated 25 November, 1963. Many
conspiracy advocates believe that it set the tone and the 'primary
directive' for the Warren Commission's agenda - to find for the lone
nut. The most germane part to this discussion is (cf. 5, p221):
"It is important that all facts surrounding President Kennedy's
assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the
United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a
statement to this effect be made now.
1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin, that he
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did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence
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was such that he would have been convicted at trial".
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To the conspiracy thinker, the above enumerated first point of the memo
is more than enough evidence to disclose what the true purpose of any
'formal' or 'official' investigation would be: to arrive at a
*preconceived and pre-accepted conclusion* that was politically and
socially expedient, rather than an outcome of an open-ended, genuine
investigation. This also goes under the rubric of a fundamental logical
no-no called 'Affirming the consequent' - i.e. affirming ab initio that
which you need to prove.
A multitude of Commission actions confirm their adherence to this
misbegotten directive - including (but not limited to) their
over-weaning reliance on a highly dubious 'witnesses' (i.e. Howard
Brennan) to the exclusion of others (e.g. Arnold Rowland) - not to
mention those with direct knowledge of events who were not called (see
partial list above). The very list of those not called totally calls
into question any pretense toward objectivity claimed - by either the
Commission, or its apologists. Indeed, it discloses that a 'rubber
stamping' expedition was under way, probably from the time of the
Katzenbach memo (at least the planning of how the charade would
progress).
C. What was the actual purpose of the Warren Commission?
In all probability, given the highly incriminating memo of Katzenbach
(above) the purpose was to do 'damage control' on the U.S. International
image, while scotching rumors that the country's leader was felled by an
internal conspiracy. Perhaps this has been forcefully argued nowhere
more compellingly that in an article written for the New Republic of
June 13, 1964 by Murray Kempton:
Some excerpts:
"The Warren Commission has come to the moment of decision, and now the
only voice we hear from it takes us back to Lord Jeffreys, so
exacerbated by the mere sight of a defense, that he cannot endure the
formal processes of its trial before shouting it down from the bench. "
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"The Warren Commission began with the serious handicap of a conception
that its duties included a cosmetic job on the American image. Its
assignment was not just to find out the truth about a terrible tangle of
events but also --- one fears even primarily --- to reassure and unite
America and to reassure and quiet down Europe. This aspiration reflected
itself in the composition of the commission. It cannot be said that
every American trusts every member of the commission; but certainly
every member happens to be trusted by someone or other whose good
opinion is worth having."
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"The commission may have been conceived as nothing more than a transient
instrument to promote foreign relations and to insure domestic
tranquility But, if it was politics that put them there, it is history
which holds these men now, because they are all the servants it has.
They sit under the claim of history and of all we owe the memory of John
F. Kennedy and, let us not forget, the ghost of Lee Oswald. If the
burden of service to all these things does not demand from these men the
conduct we expect from a court of law, then just where is the court of
law whose functions are so much more consequential than theirs as to
demand --- dignity, a decorum and a detachment that we do not expect
from them?"
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"the Warren Commission has kept the
direct physical evidence secret. It is hard to understand why this is
necessary"
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"The pattern has been to say what this evidence shows without ever
showing the evidence. The commission spokesman tells Anthony Lewis, how
many shots were fired and where two of them landed without offering the
medical report upon which I certainly hope and would like to believe any
statement from an official source would be based. "
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"Dulles is the most open occasional source of morsels from the
classified file. ...
These fragmentary revelations seem to have come out of no impulse higher
than occasional annoyance at skeptics. There is something uncomfortably
petty about a man who locks up a document and then complains about the
ignorance of another man because he hasn't read it. And it is hard to
have confidence in a commission which has a spokesman who is so
irresponsible as to leak his version of classified material on no better
excuse than to show the irresponsibility of an outsider."
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"...I am sorry to say, in no way suggests that Justice Warren's
commission can write a report which, by itself, will relieve us of all
further thought about this case. There is in me a devil which makes me
want Lee Oswald alone to be guilty, because I do not want to think of my
country in the image any other explanation at once evoked. "
D. Update: What was the conclusion of the HSCA? Did it confirm the
Warren Commission conclusion or not?
No, it did not. It was concluded by the HSCA that a 'probable conspiracy
took place, based on a '95% probability' "that a fourth shot was fired
from the grassy knoll" (7, p260) asd well as other ancillary evidence,
including witness testimony.
This went a step further than the Warren Commission Report, which found
Lee Harvey Oswald guilty alone. No conspiracy.
1. Does this finally 'close the case' or not?
It cannot close the case, because even the HSCA fell short in delivering
the goods, including not allowing a full reckoning of witnesses (David
Atlee Phillips' name appears no where in the 686 page report), nor
in making available contentious evidence for further test and especially
confirmation (e.g. the notorious Ramsey panel analysis and data).
2. So, what can we say is the moral of this tale?
That - until and unless there is full and uncompromising disclosure -
including the release of all documents still pending declassification,
we - as American citizens, will be hobbled in our perceptions and our
pursuit of what happened more than 33 years ago. As Dr. Martin Schotz
noted in a poignant letter to Gaeton Fonzi, one of the HSCA
investigators (7,p410):
"It is important to understand that one of the primary means of
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immobilizing the American people politically today is to hold them in a
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state of confusion in which anything can be believed, but nothing can be
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known, nothing of signnficance that is".
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This, of course, is remarkably similar to the 'psy ops' strategies
noted by Harrison Livingstone (see Sec. 3, FAQ). It therefore behooves
us to find out more about the content and strategies involved in a
cover-up that is arguably ongoing, and the techniques of information
warfare used therein. It is also imperative that we not be coerced, out
of misdirected sense of 'authority', to confine our research only to
those tomes/source giving benediction and affirmation to the lone nut
theory.
Sources:
1- The Killing of a President', 1994: Groden, R.J., Viking Penguin.
2- Coup d'etat in America: The CIA and the Assassination of John F.
Kennedy', 1992: Weberman, A.J. and Canfield, M., Quick American
Archives.
3- 'Battling Wall Street: The JFK Presidency', 1994: Gibson, D.,
Sheridan Square Press.
4- 'Treachery in Dallas', 1995: Brown, W., Carroll & Graf Publishers.
5- 'High Treason', 1989: Groden, R.J. and Livingstone, H.E.,
Conservatory Press.
6- 'JFK: Conspiracy of Silence', 1992: Crenshaw, C.A., Signet.
7- 'The Last Investigation', 1993: Fonzi, G., Thunder's Mouth Press.