Beyond the Warren Report

When the Warren Report was first issued, only ten months after the assassination of President Kennedy, there were few who doubted its conclusions. The vast majority of Americans, and nearly every important newspaper in the country, applauded the report, gazed in awe at its very size, and considered the case closed.

But the doubters -- concerned with the substance of the report rather than the emotional relief it provided -- persisted. Articles and books challenging the Commission's findings sprang up everywhere. A few of them, notably Edward Jay Epstein's Inquest and Mark Lane's Rush to Judgment, raised serious doubts about not only the facts of the assassination, but also the procedures and pressures under which the Commission operated.

Written largely to dispel doubt, the Report and the accompanying 26 volumes of raw evidence now served to engender uncertainty and skepticism. Epstein demonstrated that the Commission had worked hastily, arbitrarily dismissed testimony that contradicted its overriding conclusion, and given only reluctant and far from unanimous approval to a dubious theory that later proved fundamental in the case against Oswald as the lone assassin.

This theory -- developed by junior staff counsel Arlen Specter -- speculated that the first bullet fired by Oswald passed through Kennedy's neck, then hit Governor Connally's back and exited through his chest, damaging his right wrist and left thigh successively. Epstein discloses that three Commission members -- Senators Russell and Cooper and Representative Boggs -- disbelieved Specter's hypothesis from the outset. But the Report papered over this difference of opinion with the assertion that the single-bullet theory "is not necessary to any essential findings."

Eight-millimeter film of the assassination taken by Abraham Zapruder indicated that Kennedy and Connally received their wounds in a space of time too short to allow Oswald's gun to be fired twice. Thus the single bullet theory is in fact critical to the whole version of events propounded in the Warren Report. If Kennedy and Connally were struck by separate bullets, either there was a second sniper or the Commission's chronological reconstruction of the assassination was inaccurate.

Another unresolved controversy developed with regard to medical evidence. The doctors who performed an autopsy on the President's body said they found proof that a bullet had passed through it. Yet their report conflicted with the statements of FBI agents who were also present.

Far from dissolving doubts, the Report and the ensuing debate have magnified them. One Commission member, Senator Russell, and one key witness, Governor Connally, have publicly joined the ranks of the doubters. The theory behind the Report's conclusions, they affirm, is implausible given the evidence available. All that can be said now for the Report is that no concrete evidence points to the existence of a second sniper; but neither has any internally consistent theory yet been presented to explain how Oswald alone killed Kennedy.

The Commission termed its case for a single assassin "persuasive" when it was not. And its unsubstantiated confidence in both the single-bullet theory and the single-assassin theory will foster doubt and encourage fanciful alternatives for years to come. The Warren Report's failure has done incalculable damage to the prestige and credibility of the American governmental process -- particularly abroad, where skepticism over the assassination is rampant.

To avoid a perpetual cloud of doubt and distrust, there must be a general reinvestigation of President Kennedy's assassination -- now, before the evidence becomes stale. Such an inquiry should seek to benefit from the lessons of the Warren Commission. Its voting members, as well as its investigators, should be able to devote their full time to the study. They should not be pressed by the White House or any authority to produce their evidence quickly, and they should amass all the evidence before structuring the presentation of their conclusions.

Many citizens, even some who concede the Warren Report's failings, insist there should be no reinvestigation because such a move would impugn the integrity of the Warren Commission's members. But Epstein shows that the Commissioners were hindered in their task primarily by factors beyond their control; thus their integrity need not be called into question by a reinvestigation. Their performance, as manifested in the Warren Report, has already been called into very serious question, and that is obviously a necessary consequence of any new inquiry into the assassination.

In the long run, however, the dangers of laying the case to rest now are greater than the liabilities inherent in a reinvestigation. The Warren Commission's failure has cast widespread doubt on the government's ability to perform its self-appointed tasks. A new investigation -- marshalling the full resources of the Federal government -- cannot fail to come closer to the truth than did the Warren Report. And at worst, it will substitute an honest area of doubt for an unjustified and increasingly shaky certainty.