CIA Document 1035-960 Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report
CIA
Document #1035-960
RE:
Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report
1. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy's
assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his
murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report,
(which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had
time to scan the Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts
for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles
criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the critics have
speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have
implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the
increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's report, a public opinion poll
recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald
acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission
had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar,
or possibly more adverse results.
2. This
trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our
organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for
their integrity, experience and prominence. They represented both major
parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of
the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to
impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of
American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint
that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have
benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination.
Innuendo
of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the
whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is
directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the
investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our
organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for
us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting
the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of
such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a
classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.
3.
Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be
initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active
[business] addresses are requested:
a. To
discuss the publicity problem with [?] and friendly elite contacts (especially
politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as
thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics
are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only
plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the
conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists.
Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible
speculation.
b. To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute
the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly
appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance
should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy
should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories
adopted before the evidence was in, (I) politically interested, (III)
financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated
with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon
of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for
attack, using the attached Fletcher [?] article and Spectator piece for
background. (Although Mark Lane's book is much less convincing that Epstein's
and comes off badly where confronted by knowledgeable critics, it is also much
more difficult to answer as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of
unrelated details.)
4. In private to media discussions not directed at
any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet
forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:
a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the
Commission did not consider. The assassination is sometimes compared (e.g., by
Joachim Joesten and Bertrand Russell) with the Dreyfus case; however, unlike
that case, the attack on the Warren Commission have produced no new evidence,
no new culprits have been convincingly identified, and there is no agreement among
the critics. (A better parallel, though an imperfect one, might be with the
Reichstag fire of 1933, which some competent historians (Fritz Tobias, AJ.P.
Taylor, D.C. Watt) now believe was set by Vander Lubbe on his own initiative,
without acting for either Nazis or Communists; the Nazis tried to pin the blame
on the Communists, but the latter have been more successful in convincing the
world that the Nazis were to blame.)
b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and
ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of
individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent--and hence
offer more hand-holds for criticism) and less on ballistics, autopsy, and
photographic evidence. A close examination of the Commission's records will
usually show that the conflicting eyewitness accounts are quoted out of
context, or were discarded by the Commission for good and sufficient reason.
c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested
would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants
could expect to receive large royalties, etc. Note that Robert Kennedy,
Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy's brother, would be the last
man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy. And as one reviewer pointed out, Congressman
Gerald R. Ford would hardly have held his tongue for the sake of the Democratic
administration, and Senator Russell would have had every political interest in
exposing any misdeeds on the part of Chief Justice Warren. A conspirator
moreover would hardly choose a location for a shooting where so much depended
on conditions beyond his control: the route, the speed of the cars, the moving
target, the risk that the assassin would be discovered. A group of wealthy
conspirators could have arranged much more secure conditions.
d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of
intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they
also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question
with a flat decision one way or the other. Actually, the make-up of the
Commission and its staff was an excellent safeguard against over-commitment to
any one theory, or against the illicit transformation of probabilities into
certainties.
e. Oswald would not have been any sensible person's
choice for a co-conspirator. He was a "loner," mixed up, of
questionable reliability and an unknown quantity to any professional
intelligence service.
f. As to charges that the Commission's report was a
rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the
degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely
due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some
cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now
putting out new criticisms.
g. Such vague accusations as that "more than ten
people have died mysteriously" can always be explained in some natural way
e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes;
the Commission staff questioned 418 witnesses (the FBI interviewed far more
people, conduction 25,000 interviews and re interviews), and in such a large
group, a certain number of deaths are to be expected. (When Penn Jones, one of
the originators of the "ten mysterious deaths" line, appeared on television,
it emerged that two of the deaths on his list were from heart attacks, one from
cancer, one was from a head-on collision on a bridge, and one occurred when a
driver drifted into a bridge abutment.)
5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging
reference to the Commission's Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should
still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which
the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to
their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found
it far superior to the work of its critics.
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