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

Conspiratorial Relationships

This section examines rumors of conspiratorial relationships involving Oswald, Jack Ruby, Patrolman J.D. Tippit, General Edwin A. Walker, and Bernard Weissman. The Commission conducted intensive inquiries into backgrounds and relationships but found no credible evidence linking these individuals in any plot. Specific findings establish that the three men’s residences were miles apart, that there was no evidence Ruby lent Oswald money (an IRS analysis showed Oswald could repay his State Department loan from earnings), and that television and film evidence showed no recognition between Oswald and Ruby before the shooting. A German newspaper allegation that the FBI intervened to prevent Dallas police from arresting Oswald and Ruby for the Walker attack was traced to a fabricated statement by a newspaper editor. Claims of Oswald being seen at the Carousel Club with Ruby, of prearranged meetings between Tippit, Weissman, and Ruby, and of Eva Grant’s statement that Ruby and Tippit were “like brothers” (denied by Grant) were all investigated and found baseless. The Commission also found no evidence Ruby was active in organized crime, and no connection between Warren Reynolds’s shooting and the assassination.

Other Rumors and Speculations

This section addresses miscellaneous rumors that did not fit into the preceding categories. The Commission found no evidence linking Oswald to the January 1958 death of Marine Pvt. Martin D. Schrand at Cubi Point, Philippines, despite Oswald’s presence at that station; the official Marine investigation had ruled the death an accidental discharge. A claim that the Texas School Book Depository was municipally owned (making Oswald a city employee requiring official sponsorship) was disproven, as the Depository was a private corporation and Oswald obtained his position through Ruth Paine’s arrangement of an interview with Superintendent Roy Truly. Finally, the Commission found that neither the Dallas police nor the Secret Service had searched other buildings along the motorcade route or elsewhere in Dallas prior to the President’s visit, contrary to speculation, and that such building searches were not Secret Service practice.