Don’t they still have secret files on the JFK assassination? We’ve all heard about conspiracy theories and others besides Oswald being involved. I’ve heard that there were pressures brought to bear on the Warren Commission to conclude that Oswald acted alone, because the truth would have been hard on the country. Organized crime involvement, and a Cuban/Soviet connection to the assassination are two popular theories. And some say that reporting such involvement to the public back in those days would have been unthinkable. They say it was easier and cleaner to just conclude that a crazed gunman acted alone in killing the president.
The protection of the public’s sensibilities has always seemed to me an paltry argument. It would be absolutely criminal for LBJ or anyone else in the government to willfully ignore evidence of an international conspiracy. Luckily, no such evidence existed, nor has any ever been found. If that were not enough, common-sense dictates that the Soviets and Cubans had little motive (given that Kennedy’s successor was not theirs to choose) to try so reckless a move.
As to the notion that a foregone conclusion would quiet things down, there is no evidence that LBJ ordered the Commissioners to adopt any particular finding. There is only evidence to the contrary; evidence that everyone who worked for the Commission was advised to seek the truth. Now, I’m not naive enough to ignore that men have their prejudices, and entrenched powers have their mega-prejudices. But the notion that men without any known history of deceit, and no known personal incentive to lie on behalf of anyone would suddnely change tack and start to lie to the public is outrageous. And even if all the Commissioners themselves were in on the con, what motive did the men who did the real investigative work, the hungry young lawyers, have to participate in a cover-up? Revealing a conspiracy would have made their careers, and maybe put them in the history books.
To believe that the Commission rushed to quell the public’s anti-communist fears, one must believe that otherwise decent men lied and lied to hide a theory that was not very plausible in the first place.
No they don’t. Freedom of Information Act took care of that.
The Warren Commission worked backwards from their predetermined conclusion.
They were lucky enough to be correct.