LBJ Forms Warren Commission: Seeking Truth After JFK

One week after John F. Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11130 on November 29, 1963, establishing a commission to investigate the murder. Led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the seven-member body would produce the most scrutinized government report in American history, concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that no conspiracy was involved. Johnson moved quickly for political reasons. Rumors of Soviet or Cuban involvement threatened to escalate into an international crisis. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had already declared Oswald a lone assassin, and Johnson wanted an authoritative civilian investigation to calm the public. The commission included members of both parties: Senators Russell and Cooper, Representatives Boggs and Ford, former CIA Director Allen Dulles, and banker John J. McCloy. The Warren Commission worked for ten months, interviewing 552 witnesses and reviewing tens of thousands of documents. Its 888-page report concluded that Oswald fired three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, with one missing, one causing Kennedy's fatal head wound, and one passing through both Kennedy and Governor Connally. This "single bullet theory," devised by assistant counsel Arlen Specter, became the report's most controversial element. Public trust eroded almost immediately. Critics challenged the single bullet trajectory, questioned reliance on FBI and CIA materials, and noted that key evidence had been withheld or destroyed. A 1979 House Committee concluded that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy." Polls consistently show a majority of Americans doubt the lone-gunman conclusion. The Warren Commission's report, intended to provide closure, instead became an enduring symbol of institutional distrust.