PSC482G, Spring 2000
Assignment 5, due Monday 31 January 2000
Warren Commission Report 1
Read: Warren Commission Report Appendix I (p. 471), Appendix II (472), Appendix III (473–474), Foreword (ix–xv), and Chapter I (1–27).
Answer these questions:
1. Give at least three reasons why President Lyndon B. Johnson formed the Warren Commission.
2. What was the main charge to the Warren Commission?
3. Which other federal agencies provided information to the Commission? What types of information?
4. What powers did the Warren Commission have?
5. What were the professions of the commissioners and the staff of the Warren Commission? How might this distribution of professions have influenced the orientation or the conduct of the Commission’s work?
6. Why did President Kennedy travel to Texas in November 1963? Where had he stopped before Dallas?
7. What did the Warren Commission conclude about the number of shots fired?
8. Briefly recap Lee Harvey Oswald’s movements after the shooting. Do these movements point toward his guilt, toward his innocence, or toward neither?
9. Which law officer was first into the Texas School Book Depository after the shots, and why did he go there?
10. Very briefly, summarize the major conclusions of the Warren Commission.