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

Psychiatric Report

In June 1922, 11-year-old Jack was referred to the Institute for Juvenile Research for “truancy and incorrigible at home.” By July 1922, the institute recommended placement in a new environment, and in March 1923 advised placement in a home with “intelligent supervision and discipline.” The 1922 examination found Jack “quick tempered” and “disobedient,” frequently defying his mother. Jack said he ran away because she lied and beat him. Self-administered questionnaires revealed he felt classmates picked on him and he could not keep friends, though he claimed to be a good ballplayer with no club or team memberships. His interviewer noted he reacted quickly but carelessly, with wandering attention. A letter described him as egocentric, shaped by early sex experiences and street gangs, with a mother lacking insight. Dr. Raymond E. Robertson later confirmed that Jack’s unstable, disorganized home could not provide necessary controls.

Placement in Foster Homes

A dependency hearing on July 10, 1923, involving Jack, his younger brothers Sam and Earl, and sister Eileen, was held in Chicago’s juvenile court. The children had been in their mother’s custody on Roosevelt Road. The court found dependency, appointed the Jewish Home Finding Society guardian with foster placement authority, and ordered Joseph to pay $4 weekly per child. On November 24, 1924, this order was vacated, signifying the guardianship’s end and the children’s return to their mother; on April 8, 1925, the case was continued “generally.” Despite records indicating the children were wards of the Jewish Home Finding Society only briefly in 1922-23, Jack and Eileen recalled spending about 4-5 years in foster homes. Earl testified that he and Sam first went to a private foster home, then a farm for over a year, while Jack was on a different farm “some distance away,” before the three brothers lived together in another foster home.