Reactions to the Warren Report
Students of the JFK assassination usually collect a few of the books
published within the first few years after the Warren Report was issued in Fall
1964. But there is a whole literature of articles from that time as well that
has been largely neglected. These articles began within a month or so after the
report was issued and continued for years. They are written by a wider variety
of commentators than the books are, and show in more detail that the books do
how the attitudes toward the assassination and report evolved. Most importantly,
however, these articles represent the best and the brightest minds on all sides
of the question, many of whom had their initial say and then moved on to other
things. This is particularly true for supporters of the Commission and its
report, who because of the supportive tenor of the times felt that they did not
have to write whole books. The critics, however, whose cause was not taken up by
the general public for years, wrote the books. I am truly impressed by the high
level of many of these early articles, particularly from the supporters. The
quality of writers like Herbert L. Packer, Lord Devlin, John Kaplan, and Dwight
Macdonald was not equaled by the later book-writers. Their unique contributions
must not be allowed to remain unnoticed.
I have divided these reactions somewhat arbitrarily into
"early" and "later" periods, with early being something like
1964–1966 or 1967. The later period, which will
be developed further, runs until the early 1970s, when calls for a new
investigation began in earnest. Naturally, the calls overlapped criticism of the
Warren Commission.
I have also divided these early reactions into "Support from
the center," "Critics on the left," and "Critics on the
right." (So far, however, I have found no articles from critics on the
right.) From the list below, you will see that the early period contains roughly
twice as many supportive articles as critical articles, especially when Dwight
Macdonald and I. F. Stone's articles are counted as supportive. After this, the
proportions reversed, however, and have remained strongly weighted to the
critics right up to the present. Again, the quality of the critical articles
falls well below that of the supportive articles, which raises the interesting
question of why the supportive side never really caught on in America.
The supportive articles can be divided into those from the
general center, those from the legal community, and those from the left. Those
from the nonlegal center are strong, those from the legal community stronger
still. I have included David Belin's article under the general center even
though he was a lawyer (on the Warren Commission) because I wanted to restrict
the "legal community" to independent voices.
The articles are simply listed below. I will ultimately be
offering separate introductory comments on each article. These should be
consulted before reading the article.
Early reactions (1964–1966)
Support from the center
"20
Questions for the Warren Report" (Curtis Crawford, WBAI-FM, 29
September 1964)
"Warren
Report: Case for the Prosecution" (Murray Kempton, The New Republic,
10 October 1964)
"The
Triumph of Caliban" (Karl E. Meyer, The New Leader, 12 October
1964)
"The
Other Witnesses" (George and Patricia Nash, The New Leader, 12
October 1964)
'The
Warren Commission Was Right" (David W. Belin, Special Issue of Skeptic,
Sept/Oct 1975)
Reactions from the legal community
Comments
on the three papers from the legal community
The
three jurists and the physical evidence (6 August 2000)
"A
Measure of the Achievement" (Herbert L. Packer, The Nation, 2
November 1964)
"A
Lawyer's Notes on the Warren Commission Report" (Alfredda Scobey [staff
member of WC], American Bar Association Journal, January 1965)
"Death
of a President: The Established Facts" (Lord Devlin, Atlantic
Monthly, March 1965)
"The Assassins" (John Kaplan, American
Scholar, Spring 1967) (Outline
and comments)
"The
Warren Commission and the Legal Process" (Richard M. Mosk, Case and
Comment, May–June 1967, pages 13–20)
Split in the Left
Overview
of the split
Commentary on the split
Jim
DiEugenio on the Left and The Nation
Schotz on The Nation
Various items from The Nation
Todd
Gitlin on the Left
Sharrett
reviews Art Simon
Art Simon
Criticism from the left
"The
Warren Commission's Case Against Oswald" (Leo Sauvage, The New
Leader, 22 November 1965)
"Oswald's
Case Against the Warren Commission" (Leo Sauvage, The New
Leader, 20 December 1965)
"The
Case Against Mr. X" (Leo Sauvage, The New
Leader, 3 January 1966)
"The Warren Commission Report:
I. Some Unanswered Questions" (Fred J. Cook, The Nation, 13 June
1966)
"The Warren Commission Report:
II. Testimony of the Eyewitnesses" (Fred J. Cook, The Nation, 20 June
1966)
"The Truth Is Too Terrible"
(Fred J. Cook, in Maverick: Fifty Years of Investigative Reporting, 1984,
pages 273–282, 285–291)
"The Second Oswald: The Case for a
Conspiracy Theory" (Richard H. Popkin, The New York Review of Books,
28 July 1966)
Reply by
Josiah Thompson (The New York Review of Books, 6 October 1966)
Reply by
Curtis Crawford (The New York Review of Books, 6 October 1966)
Reply to Crawford by Popkin (The New York Review of Books, 6 October
1966)
"The
Warren Commission, The Truth, and Arlen Specter" (Gaeton Fonzi, Greater Philadelphia Magazine,
1 August 1966)
"Notes
for a New Investigation" (Sylvia Meagher, Esquire, December
1966)
"Who's
Afraid of the Warren Report?" (Edward Jay Epstein, Esquire,
December 1966)
Support from the left
"The
Left and the Warren Commission Report" (I. F. Stone, I. F. Stone's
Weekly, 5 October 1964)
"Comments
on I. F. Stone" (Ray Marcus, Addendum B, July 1995)
"A
Critique of The Warren Report" (Dwight Macdonald, Esquire, March
1965)
The
story behind the story
A
biographical sketch of Dwight Macdonald (as book review of A Rebel In
Defense Of Freedom)
"What the Warren Report Omits:
The Vital Documents" (Jacob Cohen, The Nation, 11 July 1966)
"Those
Missing Exhibits" (The Nation, 14 November 1966)
"The Warren Commission and Its
Critics" (Jacob Cohen, Frontier, November 1966)
Editorials in The Nation
"Focus
on Chapter V" (12 October 1964)
"The
Warren Commission" (2 November 1964)
"Hoover
the Vulgarian" (30 November 1964)
Criticism from the right
Coup
d'État (Medford Evans, AMERICAN OPINION, September 1967)
Support from the right
Later reactions (1967–1970)
Epstein's Inquest
Lane's Rush to Judgment
Meagher (various)
Thompson
Vincent Salandria (various articles)
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