THE FAILURE OF THE WARREN REPORT ALEXANDER M. BICKEL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000300010044-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 13, 2000
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: October 1, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

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wound.
Concerning the
fired three bullets from a perch at the sixth-floor
window on the southeast side of the Texas School'
Book Depository Building, and inflicted the fol. '
lowing wounds:
(1) President Kennedy was first struck by a
bullet which entered at the back of his neck and
exited through the lower front portion of his
neck, causing a wound which would not neces-
sarily have been lethal. The President was struck
a second time by a bullet which entered the right
rear portion of his head causing a massive and
? 'fatal wound.
(2) Governor Connally was struck by a bullet
which entered on the right side of his back and
travelled downward through the right side of his
chest, exiting below his right nipple. This bullet
then passed through his right wrist and entered
his left thigh where it caused a, superficial
THE FAILURE OF TC''E WARREN RE2
From: Commentary, October, 1966.
ALEXANDER M. BICKEL
THE WARREN COMMISSION (known
formally as the President's Commis-
sion on the Assassination of President John F.
Kennedy) was born of rampaging suspicions and
worldwide controversy. It was charged "to evalu-
ate all the facts and circumstances" surrounding
the assassination; "to satisfy itself that the truth
is known as far as it can be discovered," and thus
to satisfy everyone else. For a season, the task
seemed accomplished. The Commission's Report,
was generally received, in this country at least,
with rhapsodic relief. The few remaining voices
of dissent sounded increasingly remote and im-
plausible, and there was every apparent prospect
that they too would finally be still. Yet today, two
years after the publication of the Report, new
voices of dissent are heard, and it has become
clear that far from having "satisfied itself that the
truth is known," the Commission scarcely even
evaluated "all the facts and circumstances."
The Commission concluded that Lee Harvey
Oswald, acting alone, killed President Kennedy
and wounded Governor. John B. Connally of
Texas, then left the scene of this. crime, encoun-
tered Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit and shot
him also, and after his capture was himself killed
by Jack Ruby, who had no other connection with
the affair. Oswald, according to the Commission, .
shots on his targets, the Warren Commission said:
Although it is not necessary to any essential
findings of the Commission to determine just'
which shot hit Governor Connally, there is very
persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate
that the same bullet which pierced the Presi-
dent's throat also caused Governor Connally's
wounds. However, Governor Connally's testi-
mony and certain other factors have given rise
to some difference of opinion as to this prob-
ability but there is no question in the mind of
any member of the Commission that all the shots
which caused the President's and Governor Con-
nally's wounds were fired from the sixth-floor
window of the Texas School look Depository.
The "difference of opinion" about the "proba- .
bility" that the same bullet' pierced the Presi-,
dent's throat and infected all of Governor Con-
nally's wounds-this difference of opinion, it now
turns out, divided the Commission itself, and was
rather stronger than the word "some" suggests. In
interviews with five of the seven Commission
members, on which he reports in his book,
Inquest,* Edward Jay Epstein found that Com-
missioners Gerald R. Ford, Allen W. Dulles, and
John J. McCloy believed that one bullet had
gone through both President Kennedy and Gov-
ernor Connally, while Commissioners Richard B.
Russell, John Sherman Cooper, and Hale Boggs
were unpersuaded, and tended to the view that,
two separate bullets had inflicted the President's
first wound and the injuries to Governor Con-
nally. (The position of Chief Justice Warren is
not known.)
Before Mr. Epstein's book- was published, vir-
tually everyone who commented in print accepted
the Commission's assurance that it was "not
necessary to any essential findings" to choose
between the one-bullet and two-bullet hypotheses.
But the choice the commission failed to make is
,
in truth, essential. The assassination of President :.~.
Kennedy was recorded on motion-picture film by
a bystander, Mr. Abraham Zapruder. The film
shows the President reacting to a first wound, it
shows Governor Connally reacting to a wound,
and it unmistakably records the fatal hit to the
President's head. Motion-picture film comes, of
course, in frames, and a camera can 'be timed to
ItIll through it
,....-... .,,,, 4 L-%J ;,,, ~V11Lor0 is Vnancelwr I frames a second. Since certain landmarks show on. Kent professor of law and legal history y at at Yale University. -