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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