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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