UNDER CLEAR SKIES IN DALLAS ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963, THE PRESIDENTIAL motorcade moved slowly through the streets to a luncheon event, where President John F. Kennedy was set to speak. The day before, President Kennedy had flown to San Antonio, where Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had joined the party and the president had dedicated new research facilities at the US Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine. After a dinner in Houston honoring Albert Thomas of the US House of Representatives, the president flew to Fort Worth, where he spoke at a large breakfast meeting the next morning before flying to Dallas. After his luncheon speech in Dallas, President Kennedy’s itinerary continued with a flight to Austin to attend a reception and speak at a Democratic fund-raising dinner, followed by a weekend stay at Johnson’s Texas ranch.
So far, the trip to Texas had been very successful—personally and politically—as the president was seen in the various roles expected of our presidents—chief executive, party leader, and (on this occasion) a prospective candidate for reelection in 1964. President Kennedy and his wife had been greeted with great enthusiasm and warmth by the Texas crowds at his earlier stops, and it was hoped that the Dallas motorcade would provide further evidence of his personal popularity in a city that had rejected him in the 1960 election.
Dallas police motorcycles led the motorcade, followed by a pilot car manned by Dallas policemen about a quarter of a mile ahead of the main participants in the motorcade. Then came more motorcycles and an unmarked police car described as a “rolling command car” driven by Chief of Police Jesse E. Curry, and occupied by Secret Service agents Forrest V. Sorrels and Winston G. Lawson and by Dallas County Sheriff J. E. Decker. The presidential limousine followed, driven by Secret Service agent William R. Greer with agent Roy H. Kellerman in the front seat with him. President Kennedy rode on the right-hand side of the rear seat, with Mrs. Kennedy on his left. Texas Governor John B. Connally occupied the right jump seat in front of the president, and Mrs. Connally was in the left jump seat. Four police motorcycles flanked the rear of the presidential car, and a follow-up car occupied by eight Secret Service agents was close behind. Next came the vice-presidential car in which Johnson sat on the right-hand side of the rear seat, Senator Ralph W. Yarborough sat on the left-hand side, and the vice president’s wife, Claudia Alta (“Lady Bird”) Johnson, sat between them. The motorcade concluded with a vice-presidential follow-up car, and several cars and buses for other local and federal dignitaries, White House staff, the press, and photographers.
The path of the motorcade through the streets of Dallas had been publicized in the local papers starting on November 19. As the motorcade went through residential neighborhoods on the way from the airport to Main Street in downtown Dallas, the reception was more enthusiastic and favorable than the president’s political advisers could have hoped for. Twice at the president’s request, the motorcade stopped to let the president get out to personally greet well-wishers in the friendly crowds.
After leaving Main Street, the motorcade had to turn right on Houston Street and, a block later, turn left on Elm Street to proceed toward a railroad overpass on the way to the luncheon site. As the president’s limousine turned left onto Elm Street, the Texas School Book Depository was on the president’s right and he waved to the crowd assembled there. His vehicle was now entering Dealey Plaza, an attractively landscaped triangle of about three acres, where hundreds of spectators had located themselves on both sides of Elm Street, hoping for the best possible view. Amateur photographers had their cameras focused and ready to capture a picture of the glamorous couple; children perched on sturdy shoulders to get a better view; and everyone waved enthusiastically at the slow-moving vehicle. President Kennedy, his wife, and all the politicians in the motorcade smiled and waved back at the spectators.
Moments later, shots were heard and the president’s hands moved to his neck. A split second passed, then another bullet struck President Kennedy in his head, causing a massive wound. He fell sideways into his wife’s lap. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Hospital, where the doctors tried to preserve his life, but the effort was futile. A short time later, President Kennedy was declared dead.
Federal and local law enforcement officials responded immediately. Within hours, a suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was apprehended after killing a Dallas police officer who was cruising alone in his patrol car in downtown Dallas on orders from headquarters. Oswald had recently begun work at the Texas School Book Depository and was seen leaving the building after the shooting of the president. Rumors, suspicions, and conspiratorial allegations multiplied with every hour. Two days later, Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner in Dallas, killed Oswald in the basement of the city’s municipal building when Oswald was being transferred from police headquarters there to a more secure county jail. This event—witnessed on television by millions of people around the world—led to new suspicions about the motives of both Oswald and Ruby, and whether either was engaged in a conspiracy fostered by the Soviet Union, Cuba, organized crime, Teamsters Union, right-wing interests in Texas, Cuban exiles in the United States, or some US government agency. At President Johnson’s direction, the Federal Bureau of Investigation took charge of the investigation.
As a lawyer in the Justice Department’s criminal division, I needed to follow these developments intensely—among other reasons because the department might be called upon to play an active role in the prosecution of these crimes. But faced with the prospect of competing Texas and congressional investigations, President Johnson decided otherwise. He appointed a commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren to conduct a thorough investigation of these events and report its findings to him and the American people.
A few weeks later, my boss at the Justice Department called me into his office to tell me that the deputy attorney general had volunteered my services to help the commission get up and running. I did not know that what sounded like a short temporary assignment would evolve into a nine-month marathon investigation and supervision of the preparation of a 469-page report with 410 pages of appendices, supported by twenty-six volumes of exhibits and other materials. I also had no way of knowing that this report and its authors would become the object of challenge, hostility, suspicion, ridicule, and scorn, or that seemingly endless conspiracy theories would dominate the debate about President Kennedy’s assassination for decades to come.
After the Warren Commission report was published, one of the commission lawyers complained to Chief Justice Warren about the widespread unfair criticism of our work. Warren urged the lawyer not to worry, because “history will prove us right.” I am writing this book because Chief Justice Warren turned out to be prescient. In the nearly fifty years since the report was published in 1964, not one fact has emerged that undercuts the main conclusions of the commission that Oswald was the assassin and that there is no credible evidence that either he or Ruby was part of a larger conspiracy.
I kept detailed notes about my work on the Warren Commission staff, a journal born by chance. A Defense Department historian was assigned to the commission to provide some historical perspective for our work. At his first meeting with the commission staff, he suggested that keeping some form of diary might be useful for future historians. I decided to follow his advice and from then on, at irregular intervals, summarized what I had done, the problems we had faced, how we were conducting the investigation, and our progress in preparing the report. I have quoted extensively from my journal in this book.
This book explains what I saw and did as a member of the Warren Commission staff and why I firmly believe the criticism of our work is seriously misguided. My journal and boxes of documents resided undisturbed in my attic after I put them away in 1965; at one point a visiting mouse apparently nibbled around the edges of some pages. In recent years, my wife and children have urged me to explain my journal, put its entries in context, and evaluate this unique assignment after the passage of nearly fifty years. I still regard my work on the Warren Commission as the most intense—and important—professional assignment I ever had. I know that all of my colleagues on the commission staff feel the same way.
The fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination provides an opportunity to revisit the report in light of all that has happened since then. This includes the several congressional investigations that exposed the failures of federal agencies to honor President Johnson’s mandate to assist the commission fully in the performance of its solemn task. I was witness to the thoroughness, seriousness, and integrity with which the Warren Commission approached its task. I saw every day the intellectual effort and devotion to finding the truth exhibited by every member of the commission staff. This book explains how the commission members and staff fulfilled their responsibilities to investigate the assassination and to prepare a fair and complete report of what they found.
I dedicate this work to my colleagues, who brought their great talents, varied political orientations, and contrasting personalities to a historic assignment. I hope this book will contribute to a renewed and more reasoned discussion of the Warren Commission’s findings.