Why We Still Don’t Have the JFK Assassination Files

[Jon Banks]

If you don’t want to know if there was a conspiracy due to the national security implications or other possible reasons, you start with the narrative that Oswald was a “lone-nut” and ignore all information that points to other possible explanations.

As John noted, that’s what every government investigation of the Kennedy assassination except the HSCA did.

[Charles Collins]

If you don’t want to know if there was a conspiracy due to the national security implications or other possible reasons, you start with the narrative that Oswald was a “lone-nut” and ignore all information that points to other possible explanations.

As John noted, that’s what every government investigation of the Kennedy assassination except the HSCA did.

What specifically would you do differently in order to make it, in your opinion, a “real investigation”?

[Jon Banks]

What specifically would you do differently in order to make it, in your opinion, a “real investigation”?

In no particular order:

- I wouldn't have ignored or downplayed Jack Ruby's relationships with organized crime, the FBI, and the Dallas PD. I would've looked into who Ruby was calling and meeting with in the weeks leading up to the weekend of Kennedy's assassination and his murder of Oswald.

- I would've informed the Warren Commission members about the CIA-mafia plots against Castro.

- I wouldn't have discouraged US intelligence officials in Mexico City from investigating what Oswald did there and the people he allegedly was seen with.

- I wouldn't have waited til the very last minute to look into the Sylvia Odio-Oswald story and wouldn't have tried to discredit Ms. Odio who only reluctantly came forward to cooperate with investigators because she was scared.

- I would have tried to better explain the discrepancies between the accounts of Kennedy's wounds between the dozens of witnesses and autopsy photos. For example, many witnesses between Parkland and JFK's autopsy in Bethesda claimed that he had an exit wound in the back of his skull that isn't visible in his autopsy photos.

- I would've tried to resolve the numerous broken chain of custody problems with the evidence from the crime scenes. (The Book Depository and Dealey Plaza) 


That's a short list. I could go on.

The bottom-line is, the Warren Commission was a politically driven attempt to obscure the truth about the Kennedy assassination because our leaders at the time feared the national security or political consequences of JFK's murder being the result of a conspiracy.

Even if they ultimately got it right, that Oswald acted alone and there was no conspiracy, most people won't be satisfied with their conclusion because it's clear as day now that several government agencies engaged in a cover-up

[Charles Collins]

In no particular order:

- I wouldn't have ignored or downplayed Jack Ruby's relationships with organized crime, the FBI, and the Dallas PD. I would've looked into who Ruby was calling and meeting with in the weeks leading up to the weekend of Kennedy's assassination and his murder of Oswald.

- I would've informed the Warren Commission members about the CIA-mafia plots against Castro.

- I wouldn't have discouraged US intelligence officials in Mexico City from investigating what Oswald did there and the people he allegedly was seen with.

- I wouldn't have waited til the very last minute to look into the Sylvia Odio-Oswald story and wouldn't have tried to discredit Ms. Odio who only reluctantly came forward to cooperate with investigators because she was scared.

- I would have tried to better explain the discrepancies between the accounts of Kennedy's wounds between the dozens of witnesses and autopsy photos. For example, many witnesses between Parkland and JFK's autopsy in Bethesda claimed that he had an exit wound in the back of his skull that isn't visible in his autopsy photos.

- I would've tried to resolve the numerous broken chain of custody problems with the evidence from the crime scenes. (The Book Depository and Dealey Plaza) 


That's a short list. I could go on.

The bottom-line is, the Warren Commission was a politically driven attempt to obscure the truth about the Kennedy assassination because our leaders at the time feared the national security or political consequences of JFK's murder being the result of a conspiracy.

Even if they ultimately got it right, that Oswald acted alone and there was no conspiracy, most people won't be satisfied with their conclusion because it's clear as day now that several government agencies engaged in a cover-up

Thank you for the reply. I am going to first present a few paragraphs from pages 23-25 of “History Will Prove Us Right” by Howard Willens. Then I will make some more specific replies to your list as I get time.


The chief justice wanted the commission to hear as many witnesses as possible. He wanted to concentrate initially on witnesses who saw or participated in the events on November 22. Relying on the recommendations of five of the teams (excluding presidential protection), I prepared a draft memo for Rankin proposing a group of key witnesses for the commission and another group to be deposed by our lawyers. As we revised this memo, we assumed the commission should hear witnesses on all phases of this investigation, not just a few central issues, and that this first group should reflect Warren’s preferences. Rankin initially listed forty-nine commission witnesses, and offered this rationale for their selection: “[M]ost of these witnesses will supply testimony pertaining to the actual events on the day of the assassination, the medical treatment of President Kennedy and Governor Connally, the identity of the assassin, the background of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the security precautions taken by the Dallas Police Department after Oswald’s arrest.” Rankin left for future consideration the few “political” witnesses, such as President Johnson and Governor Connolly, because the commission had not decided whether these individuals should appear before it.3

 As I recorded in my journal, I thought that “the adoption of this schedule is perhaps a more significant event in the internal operations of the Commission than is generally realized. It marks the commitment by the Commission to taking a considerable amount of testimony from witnesses with relevant information and to frame conclusions based on this testimony independent of the investigation conducted previously” by the FBI and other agencies. I hoped that this approach would “win for its final report a much greater degree of public support than would otherwise have been the case.”4

Although many changes were made over the next several months to the lists of witnesses, the total number and range of witnesses demonstrated the commission’s commitment to pursue an exhaustive investigation. The facts refute the contention of future critics that our inquiry was seriously defective: Appendix V to the report lists 552 witnesses whose testimony, deposition, or statement we took. Whatever flaws or deficiencies are identified in these evidentiary materials, there can be no serious doubt that the commission fully carried out its mandate to conduct a comprehensive and independent investigation.

[John Iacoletti]

Yeah, they wanted to hear from as many witnesses as they could find and then ignore or discredit the ones that didn’t comport with the predetermined conclusion.

[Charles Collins]

Yeah, they wanted to hear from as many witnesses as they could find and then ignore or discredit the ones that didn’t comport with the predetermined conclusion.

Thanks for your “opinion”. I prefer the opinion of someone who was actually there and involved with the day to day activities of the WC.


From pages 132-133 of “History Will Prove Us Right” by Howard Willens:


With respect to Warren’s interest in a “clean record,” I do not believe that any of our lawyers curtailed their interrogation of a witness in order to avoid any conflicts in testimony. None of us took Warren’s comment as a directive that our investigation—or interrogation of witnesses—should be conducted to avoid full and truthful testimony from all our witnesses that might create inconsistencies in the record. It would have been unprofessional to pursue such an objective and impossible to achieve it; and the record we produced and made public illustrates that we did not do so. It is certainly true, however, that Warren, like a presiding trial judge, urged several of our lawyers on occasion to move on to another area of examination when he thought that a particular subject had been sufficiently explored.

[Charles Collins]

In no particular order:

- I wouldn't have ignored or downplayed Jack Ruby's relationships with organized crime, the FBI, and the Dallas PD. I would've looked into who Ruby was calling and meeting with in the weeks leading up to the weekend of Kennedy's assassination and his murder of Oswald.

- I would've informed the Warren Commission members about the CIA-mafia plots against Castro.

- I wouldn't have discouraged US intelligence officials in Mexico City from investigating what Oswald did there and the people he allegedly was seen with.

- I wouldn't have waited til the very last minute to look into the Sylvia Odio-Oswald story and wouldn't have tried to discredit Ms. Odio who only reluctantly came forward to cooperate with investigators because she was scared.

- I would have tried to better explain the discrepancies between the accounts of Kennedy's wounds between the dozens of witnesses and autopsy photos. For example, many witnesses between Parkland and JFK's autopsy in Bethesda claimed that he had an exit wound in the back of his skull that isn't visible in his autopsy photos.

- I would've tried to resolve the numerous broken chain of custody problems with the evidence from the crime scenes. (The Book Depository and Dealey Plaza) 


That's a short list. I could go on.

The bottom-line is, the Warren Commission was a politically driven attempt to obscure the truth about the Kennedy assassination because our leaders at the time feared the national security or political consequences of JFK's murder being the result of a conspiracy.

Even if they ultimately got it right, that Oswald acted alone and there was no conspiracy, most people won't be satisfied with their conclusion because it's clear as day now that several government agencies engaged in a cover-up

I will respond to your individual comments in no particular order and usually in separate posts. Here is my first response to one of them:

I would've informed the Warren Commission members about the CIA-mafia plots against Castro.


This was a decision apparently made by the CIA. I don’t believe that it would be fair to blame the WC for this. Here is some of what Willens had to say about it. From pages 156-157 of “History Will Prove Us Right” by Howard Willens:


Moving to what I assumed would be a contentious subject, we discussed the failure of the CIA to comply fully with some of the commission’s recent inquiries regarding pre-assassination documents in the CIA files on Oswald. Helms, one of the most fluent and self-confident government officials I ever met, exhibited not the slightest embarrassment at our complaint about his agency’s failure to comply fully with our request. He smoothly explained that the agency had not provided materials that utilized confidential communication techniques and revealed confidential sources. I responded that the commission did not need to know these confidential aspects, but it certainly needed more than the summaries provided by the earlier CIA memorandum. After some discussion, we reached a compromise that required the CIA to provide the commission with a paraphrase of any message or other writing requested by the commission, the original version of which would reveal a confidential source or confidential communications technique, and the commission staff would be permitted to review the actual messages to ensure that the paraphrases were complete and accurate.57

Having met with CIA representatives on several occasions over the past two months, I was impressed with their competence and apparent willingness to cooperate with the commission. They were always polite, seemingly accommodating when we requested information, and respectful of the commission’s obligation to conduct a thorough investigation of the assassination. I thought it might be “because they do not have any special axe to grind” in our investigation. As it turned out, I could not have been more wrong. The CIA had huge interests at stake in our efforts. As was revealed by congressional investigations in 1975–76, they were determined to keep extremely important information from the commission. We never knew that, among other things, the agency had been busying itself with various plots to assassinate Castro during 1960–63, including one plan scheduled to be implemented on November 22, 1963. Helms knew all about this as he looked at me across the table and promised full cooperation in providing any information that might be relevant to our work.58

Another investigation (of the CIA itself) uncovered the plots years later. Ironically, it was David Belin’s efforts that uncovered them. You can read all the details in Belin’s book “Final Disclocure”.