President John Fitzgerald Kennedys Assassination - Term Paper Example

The president was travelling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally and Connally’s wife, Nelle, in a presidential motorcade (Thompson, 1967). Discussion Kennedy’s assassination came as a shock to the U.S and many investigations were started to establish how the incident took place that fatally caused the wounds to the president and injured two people, Governor Connally and James Taque. Shaw & Harris state that “Lee Harvey Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby before he could stand trial” (1992, p.3). This added controversy to the investigations of the president’s assassination.

This is due to the fact that had Oswald been acting alone, his testimony would not have incriminated any third parties and therefore no sufficient reason for any person to want him dead unless it was a move to silence him. This was a major factor in all investigations that were carried out on the inquest to the president’s assassination. JFK's assassination was not a clear incident to be understood without thorough investigations. The intelligence Agencies including Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and committee of inquiry such as Warren Committee and United States House select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) were instituted to conduct investigations.

The findings of the various Agencies and committees differed in one way or another leading to different theories and speculations regarding the assassination. The Warren Commission On November 29, 1963, President Lyndon Johnson instituted the Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy. The commission was chaired by the Chief Justice, Earl Warren and would commonly be referred to as the Warren commission. The commission was instituted by the Executive Order EO 11130 (Twyman, 1997).

President Johnson instructed the commission to evaluate and analyze the facts surrounding the assassination of the president and the subsequent murder of the alleged assassin. The commission was then to compile and report its findings to the president. This was a ten months investigation by a commission of inquiry chaired by Warren. The commission relied on the FBI report of November 24, 1963. FBI was the first authority to investigate, in fact two days after JFK's assassination. The commission agreed with FBI's report of Edger Hoonar – the director of FBI, that 3 shots were fired but disagreed on which shot hit the President and which hit Governor Conally.

On December 13th of the same year, the United States Congress passed the joint resolution for the Senate 137 which gave authority to the commission to subpoena all the witnesses directed to testify before the commission. Warren et al. (1964) states that “Any individual deemed to possess vital information useful to the investigation was thus required to appear before the commission.” The witnesses would testify upon being summoned by the commission. In addition, the resolution gave the commission the power to compel or mandate the testimony of the witnesses.

Witnesses were granted immunity from being prosecuted as a result of the testimonies they would give to the commission. The Warren Commission presented its report to the president on September 24, 1964. Warren et al. notes that, “Each member of the commission concurred on the findings detailed in the report” (1964, p.32). This was soon followed by the publication of the 26 volumes of