Warren Commission

In their first public interview, two pathologists who performed the autopsy of John F. Kennedy say the president was struck by only two bullets fired from above and behind.The pathologists' findings support the Warren Commission's conclusion that Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963."In 1963, we proved at the autopsy table that President Kennedy was struck from above and behind by the fatal shot," Dr. James Joseph Humes, a former U.S. Navy pathologist, told the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In his new thriller, "The Third Bullet," novelist Stephen Hunter sets his sights on an American tragedy that's also the most famous gun mystery of all time - the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The questions surrounding the shooting as JFK rode in a motorcade in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, have never been fully put to rest. And the controversy is certain to intensify as the 50th anniversary of the assassination approaches this fall. As the novelist tells it, the decision to enlist his fictitious super-sniper, Bob Lee Swagger, to determine whether the gunman acted alone or as part of a conspiracy began as a joke.

The darts started flying 40 years ago, when the young assistant district attorney serving on the Warren Commission came up with the "single-bullet theory," leading to the conclusion that a lone gunman assassinated President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. The attacks on Arlen Specter continued for four decades as conspiracy theorists made a religion out of the case, though the commission's findings have never been conclusively disproved. Today, as the nation commemorates the 40th anniversary of that day in Dallas, darts are still flying at Specter, now 73 and a four-term Republican senator from Pennsylvania - but not just because most Americans still don't believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

THREE OF THIS nation's worst catastrophes - the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the 9/11 terrorist acts - have all been investigated by special federal commissions, with decidedly mixed results. It is extraordinarily difficult for the federal government to investigate itself, which is, unavoidably, what all of these panels attempted to do. That raises the question of whether such commissions warrant the public's trust at all, given their congenital conflicts of interest.

In his new thriller, "The Third Bullet," novelist Stephen Hunter sets his sights on an American tragedy that's also the most famous gun mystery of all time - the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The questions surrounding the shooting as JFK rode in a motorcade in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, have never been fully put to rest. And the controversy is certain to intensify as the 50th anniversary of the assassination approaches this fall. As the novelist tells it, the decision to enlist his fictitious super-sniper, Bob Lee Swagger, to determine whether the gunman acted alone or as part of a conspiracy began as a joke.

Howard Charles Hinman Donahue, a retired gunsmith and nationally known ballistics expert who concluded that a Secret Service agent fired the bullet that killed President John F. Kennedy, died Thursday of complications of pneumonia at his Towson home. He was 77.Mr. Donahue first came to national attention in 1967 when CBS television investigated the Warren Commission report and had several gunning experts test-fire the same make and model of the Mannlicher-Carcano Italian rifle that was used by Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot at Mr. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas.

The first thing that strikes you upon opening this new book on the assassination of John F. Kennedy is that author Gerald Posner has not seen the hundreds of thousands of pages of newly released documents. They were declassified pursuant to the JFK records act and signed into law by then-President Bush in January. I have spent countless evenings immersed in these files over the past six months and find that the very title of Mr. Posner's book is presumptuous: It asks us to believe he has closed the case before we have had a chance to digest the facts that have only now been made public.

FORMER Chief Justice Earl Warren, one of the great Americans of this century, is being honored by the issuance of a new postage stamp.At one time he was best known for his leadership in breaking down the barriers of discrimination through the landmark decision of Brown vs. Board of Education.But today's young Americans know him best as he is portrayed in the Warner Brothers film "J.F.K.": as a liar, an incompetent and as someone who participated in a cover-up of the truth about the assassination of President Kennedy.

SHORTLY after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson persuaded Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court to head a blue-ribbon investigation of the event. Everyone would calm down, Johnson thought, if "unimpeachable" authorities concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a deranged ne'er-do-well, had acted alone.Jim Garrison, the investigator-protagonist of director Oliver Stone's new movie, "JFK," is as impeachable as the next fellow. Thirty years ago, I shared the widespread suspicions about his character and methods, and I still do.Yet the basic question is not, "was there a conspiracy?

The chief CIA investigator of President John F. Kennedy's assassination has testified that another high CIA official -- noted for seeking conspiracies -- disobeyed orders in repeatedly conferring with the Warren Commission shortly after the murder.The witness also said a colleague once told him that the CIA official, the late James Angleton, "has ties to the Mafia."Almost 33 years after the assassination, the identity of the witness, who held various top-secret CIA jobs, is considered so sensitive that federal authorities insist on withholding his true name.

The darts started flying 40 years ago, when the young assistant district attorney serving on the Warren Commission came up with the "single-bullet theory," leading to the conclusion that a lone gunman assassinated President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. The attacks on Arlen Specter continued for four decades as conspiracy theorists made a religion out of the case, though the commission's findings have never been conclusively disproved. Today, as the nation commemorates the 40th anniversary of that day in Dallas, darts are still flying at Specter, now 73 and a four-term Republican senator from Pennsylvania - but not just because most Americans still don't believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

NEARLY 40 YEARS ago, the Warren Commission released its findings on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The report and its 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits, with 17,000 pages of testimony and more than 10 million words, initially were celebrated as the most comprehensive investigation in history. The commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald alone assassinated JFK - there was no domestic or foreign conspiracy behind the tragedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Over the years, the conclusions of the presidential commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren have come under sustained attack by critics who charge that they were nothing more than official mythology, a massive deception to cover up the politically unacceptable truth that Mr. Kennedy was a victim of a conspiracy.

Forty years after his death, nowhere is the memory of John F. Kennedy more alive than in the continuing drama over who killed him and why. A 1998 CBS News poll showed that 75 percent of Americans thought there was a conspiracy to kill JFK; only 10 percent believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. It is the stuff of countless books and speeches. "I'm going to give a talk to about 1,000 students who could not be more interested in what went on," Kermit Hall, Utah State University president, said recently.

WASHINGTON -- In the current blame game over the Bush administration's failure to detect the Sept. 11 attacks in advance, there's a certain amount of unreality going on. For openers, what were the Democrats blaming the president for? Not, certainly, for knowing such a devastating attack was coming against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and not doing anything about it. Only the most jaundiced would believe any such thing. It wasn't necessary, therefore, for the president to make that steely-eyed, jut-jawed declaration before the television cameras that had he known what was coming, he would have done everything within his power to prevent it. Of course he would have.

Howard Charles Hinman Donahue, a retired gunsmith and nationally known ballistics expert who concluded that a Secret Service agent fired the bullet that killed President John F. Kennedy, died Thursday of complications of pneumonia at his Towson home. He was 77.Mr. Donahue first came to national attention in 1967 when CBS television investigated the Warren Commission report and had several gunning experts test-fire the same make and model of the Mannlicher-Carcano Italian rifle that was used by Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot at Mr. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas.

The chief CIA investigator of President John F. Kennedy's assassination has testified that another high CIA official -- noted for seeking conspiracies -- disobeyed orders in repeatedly conferring with the Warren Commission shortly after the murder.The witness also said a colleague once told him that the CIA official, the late James Angleton, "has ties to the Mafia."Almost 33 years after the assassination, the identity of the witness, who held various top-secret CIA jobs, is considered so sensitive that federal authorities insist on withholding his true name.

Forty years after his death, nowhere is the memory of John F. Kennedy more alive than in the continuing drama over who killed him and why. A 1998 CBS News poll showed that 75 percent of Americans thought there was a conspiracy to kill JFK; only 10 percent believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. It is the stuff of countless books and speeches. "I'm going to give a talk to about 1,000 students who could not be more interested in what went on," Kermit Hall, Utah State University president, said recently.

The paroxysm of horror, fear and cynicism ignited by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy 28 years ago still lives in the national consciousness, feeding on the doubt that the true events of that day have ever been told.Conspiracy theories abound, and instead of fading with time they gain credence in the face of fresh discoveries. Last month, for example, ABC News opened the KGB file on Lee Harvey Oswald to find official Soviet doubt that the misfit American could have carried out the shooting alone.

WASHINGTON -- Cuban leader Fidel Castro, while denying complicity by his nation in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, believed the 1963 murder resulted from a conspiracy of perhaps three people, according to previously secret FBI documents.Mr. Castro also was quoted as saying that accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald became angry and threatened to kill Kennedy when he was denied a visa by the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City earlier in 1963.Many of more than 10,000 FBI reports and memos, which the National Archives made public yesterday, added some footnotes history by recounting the reactions to Kennedy's assassination in Cuba and in the former Soviet Union.

Book depository. Dealey Plaza. Magic bullet. Oswald. Mannlicher-Carcano. Tippit. Triple underpass. Zapruder film. Ruby.The names and phrases associated with the murder of President John F. Kennedy are as indelible and mysterious as ever, almost 30 years after the president was shot to death one sunny day in Dallas.The indelibility of the tragedy hurts, still. The mystery makes for a different kind of pain, the pain of frustration.That may explain why writer-attorney Gerald Posner has won heaps of praise (accompanied by huge sighs of relief)