Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

The appendices begin with Appendix I, reproducing Executive Order No. 11130, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29, 1963. The order appointed a Commission—Chief Justice Earl Warren as Chairman, Senator Richard B. Russell, Senator John Sherman Cooper, Congressman Hale Boggs, Congressman Gerald R. Ford, Allen W. Dulles, and John J. McCloy—to ascertain, evaluate, and report upon the facts of President Kennedy’s assassination and the subsequent death of his alleged assassin. The Commission could prescribe its own procedures, employ assistants, and pay expenses from the Emergency Fund for the President; all executive departments were directed to furnish facilities, services, and cooperation. Appendix II reproduces the White House press announcement of the same date, listing Commission members and noting consultation with Senate and House Majority and Minority Leadership. Appendix III reproduces Public Law 88-202 (S.J. Res. 137), approved December 13, 1963, authorizing the Commission to compel attendance and testimony and the production of evidence, defining “Commission,” granting subpoena power, providing judicial enforcement for contumacy, and detailing service of process, witness fees and mileage, and use immunity. The Senate passed it December 9 and the House December 10, 1963; the Congressional Record, Vol. 109 (1963), records the joint resolution as passed by the Senate on December 9 and considered and passed by the House on December 10, 1963.

Appendix IV provides biographical information and acknowledgments. Members were: Chief Justice Earl Warren (b. 1891, Los Angeles), former attorney general and Governor of California; Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia (b. 1897), in the Senate since 1933; Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky (b. 1901), former Ambassador to India and Nepal; Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana (b. 1914), majority whip; Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Michigan (b. 1913), House Republican Conference chairman; Allen W. Dulles (b. 1893), former Director of Central Intelligence; and John J. McCloy (b. 1895), former Assistant Secretary of War, World Bank President, and U.S. High Commissioner for Germany. General Counsel was J. Lee Rankin, former Solicitor General. Assistant Counsel: Francis W. H. Adams, Joseph A. Ball, David W. Belin, William T. Coleman, Jr., Melvin A. Eisenberg, Burt W. Griffin, Leon D. Hubert, Jr., Albert E. Jenner, Jr., Wesley J. Liebeler, Norman Redlich, W. David Slawson, Arlen Specter, Samuel A. Stern, and Howard P. Willens. Staff Members: Philip Barson, Edward A. Conroy, John Hart Ely, Alfred Goldberg, Murray J. Laulicht, Arthur K. Marmor, Richard M. Mosk, John J. O’Brien, Stuart R. Pollak, Alfredda Scobey, Charles N. Shaffer, Jr., and Lloyd L. Weinreb. Acknowledgments included U.S. attorneys’ offices, particularly Harold Barefoot Sanders, Jr. and Martha Joe Stroud of the northern district of Texas, and many lawyers, secretaries, and clerks.

Appendix V lists the 552 witnesses, noting whether they appeared before the Commission, were questioned in depositions, or supplied affidavits and statements. The list included Secret Service and FBI agents, Dallas police officers, Parkland Hospital doctors, Texas School Book Depository employees, Oswald’s acquaintances, witnesses to the assassination and Tippit killing, Jack Ruby’s associates, and Texas Employment Commission officers.

Appendix VI sets out procedures for taking testimony, including the Resolution Governing Questioning of Witnesses by Commission Staff, authorizing staff to administer oaths, examine witnesses, and receive sworn depositions, and rules for hearings before one or more Commissioners, covering notice, counsel, and transcripts.

Appendix VII presents a history of presidential protection. Four Presidents had been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963). Andrew Jackson (1835), Theodore Roosevelt (1912), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933), and Harry S. Truman (1950) survived attacks. The Secret Service was organized in 1865 to combat counterfeiting and informally assumed presidential protection in 1894 under Cleveland. McKinley was being guarded when shot by Czolgosz, whose pistols were concealed under a handkerchief. Full-time presidential protection became a permanent Secret Service function in 1902, after McKinley’s death. The White House Police Force was created in 1922, placed under the Secret Service Chief in 1930, and transferred to Treasury in 1962. The White House detail grew from two men in 1902 to 37 during World War II. 1951 legislation permanently authorized protection of the President, immediate family, the President-elect, and the Vice President upon request. The FBI, the largest investigative agency, included an item for “protection of the person of the President” that Director J. Edgar Hoover said was never directly exercised; the FBI’s contribution was largely the referral of dangerous persons’ names.

Appendix VIII reproduces Parkland Memorial Hospital medical reports: President Kennedy’s death summary; the operative records for Governor John Connally’s wounds (right fifth rib, right middle lobe of lung, compound fracture of right distal radius, and small left thigh wound); and the operative record of Lee Harvey Oswald, who arrived with a gunshot wound of the upper abdomen and chest with massive bleeding. Drs. Tom Shires, Malcolm Perry, Robert McClelland, and others performed an exploratory laparotomy, identifying injuries to the spleen, pancreas, aorta, inferior vena cava, right kidney, and liver; after cardiac arrest they opened the left chest and pericardium, performed cardiac massage, administered calcium chloride, epinephrine, and Xylocaine, defibrillated, and attempted pacing, but Oswald was pronounced dead at 1:07 p.m.

Appendix IX reproduces the autopsy report and supplemental report at the Naval Medical School, National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, beginning at 8:00 p.m. on November 22, 1963, by Commander J. J. Humes, Commander J. Thornton Boswell, and Lieutenant Colonel Pierre A. Finck. The body was a 72½-inch, 170-pound Caucasian male with reddish brown hair and blue eyes. A large irregular defect of the scalp and skull on the right involved chiefly the parietal bone, with stellate fractures up to 19 cm. A smaller posterior scalp wound about 2.5 cm. right of and slightly above the external occipital protuberance measured 15 by 6 mm. with inner beveling, indicating entry. The right cerebral hemisphere was extensively disrupted, the falx cerebri lacerated, and the superior sagittal sinus disrupted. The second wound, in the upper right posterior thorax above the scapula, was a 7 by 4 mm. oval with a corresponding low anterior neck exit. A contusion of the right apical pleura and right upper lung lobe was found. Cause of death was two perforating gunshot wounds from high-velocity projectiles fired from behind and slightly above. The supplementary report described the 1500-gram brain with a longitudinal parasagittal right-hemisphere laceration from occipital to frontal lobe, corpus callosum laceration, midbrain laceration through the third ventricle floor, and a tear through the left cerebral peduncle.