ICHARD H. ROVERE’S introduction lauds Epstein as “a brilliant young academician” who avoids speculation and doesn’t challenge the fundamental integrity of the Commission. According to Rovere, Epstein is satisfied that Oswald’s guilt was solidly established (to what degree is debatable). Epstein asserts writing on the assassination generally falls into two categories: demonology from critics and blind faith from Warrenites; both camps share a belief that government can do (or get away with) what it wants. So, between March and September of 1965, Epstein interviewed most of the Commission and legal staff.

The book has four areas: 1) How did the Commission conduct such an unprecedented inquiry?
2) What degree did “political truth” affect the Commission?
3) What was the scope, depth and limits of the investigation?
4) How was the Report written; what evidence was selected and omitted? Area 1 is dealt with in the book’s first chapter. J. Lee Rankin was recommended by Warren to be general counsel (and “executive director”); Rankin “superintended the investigation and the writing of the Report.” Howard P. Willens (Dept. of Justice liaison) and Norman Redlich (Rankin’s special assistant) were “Rankin’s deputies.” “Senior counsel,” with commitments at own firms, served intermittently; “junior counsel” did bulk of work; eventually the distinction was dismissed. Wesley J. Liebeler, former Wall St. lawyer (“non-establishment”), played devil’s advocate.

Willens divided investigation into five areas, with a “senior” and “junior” attorney assigned to each. Two areas were considered principal: Adams and Spector looked into the basic facts of the assassination; and Ball and Belin fleshed out the identity of the assassin. There were three “peripheral panels:” Jenner and Liebeler probed Oswald’s background and motives; Coleman and Slawson looked into possible conspiratorial relationships; and Hubert and Griffin examined the death of Oswald. A sixth panel was added at the request of the Commission: Rankin and Stern reported on Presidential protection.

In late February, USAF historian Alfred Goldberg joined the staff; he proposed the “Speculation and Rumors” appendix and, along with Redlich, would write much of the Report. That same month, ABA president Walter E. Craig was asked to advise on proceedings’ legal principals (in light of non-attendance, assignment was “no more than a formality”). In March, Pollak replaced Coleman, and Adams rendered a “de facto resignation,” leaving Spector in full charge.

As the panels conducted field investigations and began drafting chapters, a new crop of attorneys arrived to question witnesses in (it was decided) closed hearings. The Commission now had two separate investigations: the on-going staff investigation and the hearings in Washington. In early May, Rankin told lawyers to “wrap up” investigation and submit chapters by June 1 (deadline to be repeatedly advanced), with release of Report at end of June.

On May 24th, Rankin, Redlich and Spector were in Dallas supervising a re-enactment of the assassination. On June 7th, Warren and Ford were in Dallas to hear Ruby and visit Dealey Plaza. By this time, Liebeler, Griffin and Slawson were the only assistant counsel working full-time. On June 17th, the hearings finally ended; faced with major rewrites, the deadline eased into September. On Sept. 24th, the Report was submitted to the President and made public on the 28th; with that, the Commission dissolved itself.

Area 2 (Part “One”) of Inquest concerned “political truth.” Epstein charged that while the Commission’s function was to ascertain facts, its purpose was to protect national interests (by dispelling rumors and lifting doubt cast over American institutions, US prestige was restored). The Commission’s investigative arm was the FBI (with its own self-interests).

Epstein notes how the Commission handled an early “dilemma:” the “dirty rumor” that Oswald was a paid FBI informer. The Commission staff relied entirely on the Bureau to settle the matter, setting a pattern of going through channels, and making specific and formal requests of the FBI; the bureaucratic process caused what Rankin termed “communications problems.”

It’s clear that the Single Bullet Theory is Epstein’s biggest problem, as he cites the non-transit of the neck wound in the FBI Summary Report (now who’s taking the FBI at face value?) and the Zapruder film showing Kennedy and Connally hit “within a period of one and a half seconds.” Epstein’s quotes four SS agents and publishes the clothing holes to demonstrate a bullet entry on the back too low to exit the lower throat. Discounts clothing “raised” as a doubled-up shirt would have more than the one hole found on its rear (how about the bunch being above the entry point?).

Epstein believes the throat wound was so small, it was “caused by a fragment rather than a whole bullet,” quoting Kellerman’s claim that he heard JFK speak after the first shot (which Epstein believes hit JFK in the back, too low to exit the throat to render JFK mute). Dr. Humes “deductively concluded in his autopsy report that a bullet transited the neck; in early March, Humes suggested to Spector the possibility of the bullet emerging from Kennedy’s throat and wounding Connally, and Spector set out to prove it.

Area 3 (“Part Two”) of Inquest probed the scope, depth and limits of the investigation. Hampering the scope was the procedure whereby legal staff analyzed and structured prodigious volumes of raw data into “manageable proportions,” so relevant issues and conflicts could be quickly evaluated by the Commission, whose members were hampered by limited time and outside work demands. Rather than being “exhaustive,” the inquiry was “an extremely superficial investigation limited in terms of both time and manpower.” Assembling the “basic facts of the assassination fell upon one lawyer—Arlen Spector” who “had to be selective” as arbitrary deadlines loomed.

“The threshold question,” writes Epstein: Was there more than one assassin? Epstein claims Spector negligent on issue of the nearly-whole bullet found on a Parkland stretcher, which Epstein discounts as Connally bullet because Finck thought “too many fragments described in wrist.” Epstein is obviously being selective here. Nor is Spector on Epstein’s page in the belief that the Tague wounding may be from a “fourth shot” and that the unidentified prints on cartons “could have indicated the presence of an accomplice.” Ballistics and medical evidence distracted Spector from accepting the five witnesses on the railroad overpass who “seen smoke rise from the knoll area.”

Reliance on the investigative reports of the FBI and other agencies limited the WC own primary investigation, although its staff “critically reassessed” the reports. Follow-up was limited by “practice of adhering to specific questions” usually concerning “the more protrusive facts.” Staff dissented with the Commission over the questioning of Marina; her appearance before a doting Commission inspired the term “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

The Hearings mainly concerned Lee Oswald (life, background, gov’t agencies) and “other peripheral problems” (DPD methods, Ruby, anti-Kennedy ads). Epstein claims “only a minor portion” of the Hearings were devoted to pertinent facts of the assassination. Since Epstein isn’t sold on the lone-assassin idea and would have liked more focus on conspiracy issues, the Oswald-themed Hearings seem a distraction. Deadline pressure left open questions such as Ruby’s access to the basement and the Odio sisters’ story of “Leon Oswald.”

Area 4 (“Part Three”) looked at the post-investigation stage of the Commission, when the facts were assembled, conclusions drawn and the Report written and edited. Rankin thought the writing would take one month—but it took nearly four. To expedite writing, Rankin formed a “Re-editing Committee.” Redlich edited the first four chapters, assessing Spector’s work on Chapters II and III, and Ball and Belin’s work on Chapter IV. Goldberg took on the next three chapters, and Willens the eighth and final chapter. Rankin served as intermediary between the staff writing and the Commission. Evidence in the Report had to be cited in the 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits, and approved by all 7 Commissioners, which led to “problems of consensus.”

The chapter in Inquest titled “The Selection Process” looked at WCR Chapter IV (identification of assassin as Oswald). This chapter was considered “crucial” and took ten weeks to rewrite. Ball was originally dubious of Brennan, Markham and Marina, but Redlich accorded more weight to Markham’s testimony. Redlich thought Marina lied on some points, but included her version of Oswald’s attempt on General Walker. The 26-page “Liebeler Memorandum” of Sept. 6 appraised Redlich’s re-write, finding “gaps” including Liebeler’s thoughts that the rifle was not proven to have been at the Paine garage, evidence of blanket fibers in bag weak, Oswald’s prints on cartons he normally handled, and the re-enactments devalued notion of “easy” shots.

Epstein pounces on the misses and wild shots in the firing tests, not acknowledging that Oswald “missed” JFK’s head twice in three attempts. Epstein also makes hay out of Nelson Delgado’s impression that Oswald was a poor shot in the Marine Corps (Epstein doesn’t allow for a defiant Oswald purposely missing). Epstein contends the “sniper missed Walker, a stationary, well-lit target, at relatively close range” without mentioning that the window sash caused a defection.

Epstein writes the Warren Report arrived at five main conclusions: 1) The shots came from the Depository.
2) There was “persuasive” evidence of the SBT.
3) The assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald.
4) WC “could not make any definitive determination of Oswald’s motives,” but suggested “five factors.”

5) WC “found no evidence of a conspiracy.” Epstein doesn’t dispute the conclusions, his concern being the procedure used to ascertain the findings. Epstein notes Oswald’s post-assassination actions “certainly were not the actions of an innocent person.” The Warren Commission “acted to reassure the nation and protect the national interest.”

xford Professor (and English eccentric?) systematically critiques conspiracy theories of popular authors with unique approach and style. But the reproach goes beyond a mere difference over the evidence. Sparrow has an axe to grind (or noble cause to champion); he’s resisting a generational/cultural threat to the old-school-tie establishment.

Doubts over WCR had brewed, then “halfway through 1966, the storm broke” and the “manufacture of conspiracy theories became a small-scale industry in the United States.” With that, Sparrow casts the efforts of critics as a britzkreig and his response to it a crusade.

Sparrow sees the conspiracy community as a unified entity intent on mischief. He writes: “The real mystery concerns not the doings of the protagonists in Dallas during the fatal week, but the subsequent performance of the mystery-makers themselves and the success of their campaign.” Sparrow asks: “How were its exponents able to cast their spells so widely and compel beliefs in their lurid denunciations?”

Sparrow denies “imput[ing] sinister motives” to critics; “to do so, would be to fall into their own besetting error.” Perhaps Sparrow expect conspiracists themselves to do the imputing: “If the critics turned their scrutiny upon themselves they might well detect in their own activities evidence of a sinister combination.” Not many (at that time, anyway) introspective researchers would find, in Sparrow’s view, a “host of crack-pots and rabble-rousing publicists, of ‘patriots’ with a self-appointed mission and Baconians with idèe fixe.” (Note: Baconians are obsessive researchers and advocates who attribute the works of Shakespeare to Francis Bacon.)

Sparrow credits the German conspiracy author Joachim Joesten on one score: “he has the courage of his own crazy convictions…he names his guilty men.” On Joesten’s dismissal of the Tippit evidence, Sparrow counters the record is “individually open to criticism but cumulatively overwhelming.” Killing Tippit afforded Oswald “a chance of escape, and a second murder could not increase the penalty he would suffer if he was caught.”

Unlike Joesten, both Lane and Weisberg avoid a measure of refutation: “they offer no connected account of what they think occurred.” Instead, Lane serves up a “steady barrage of innuendo” and “an atmosphere of suspicion which pervades his book.” Epstein’s “presuppositions…lead to a conclusion that is in fact ill-funded.” Popkin “follows the clue wherever it leads him, oblivious of attendant inconsistencies.” Meagher is a demonologist, while Thompson scores as a “serious inquirer.”

Sparrow suggests conspiracy theorists suffer from two fatal weaknesses: “an inability to see the wood through obsession with a single tree” and they “never thought themselves back into the circumstances existing at the relevant time.” Some theories require a broad cover-up involving everyone on the WC. But years of critical probing merely turned into a Mardi Gras: “the nets are empty, save for a handful of homosexual and other queer fish in New Orleans.”

Sparrow argues harsh reality and practical considerations take a terrible toll on conspiratorial elements: Oswald and Ruby unlikely recruits as assassins; Oswald window viewed target moving “slowly away from the marksman” (not across his field of vision); knoll gunman “got clean away in full view of the public;” Ruby randomly arrived at basement with just 30 seconds to spare.

Critics offer “paper possibilities, abstract and unreal, not credible in the context of real events; the actors in their drama are puppets.” Unlike WC supporters, conspiracists “have a more exciting story to tell.” Sparrow laments the irony in “critics who two years ago justly rebuked the public for accepting the Report without having looked at its contents are now profiting from the very same failure on the public’s part.”

Critics are motivated by “political prejudice”; the villains common to their theories are officials and on the Right, which appeals “to the rank and file of the Left and to its intellectual leaders.” To Sparrow, the “anti-Establishmentarians” swayed a public whose “faculty of judgment” was co-opted by “the media.”

From Sparrow’s perspective, 1967 was a time of overpowering reform, pushed by increased radicalization. For imperialists, a major portion of the remaining British Empire disappeared between 1957 and 1963—and under Conservatives. Movements like feminism, environmentalism and civil rights were viewed by some as threats; the old order in Britain had difficulty coping with the Common Market and Johnson’s Great Society.

Worst for the “Establishment” was yet to come in 1968, with major student demonstrations in Europe (a near-riot at the DNC convention in Chicago), assassinations and black unrest in the US, and the rise of the IRA. It would take the Garrison fiasco to dampen public support for the JFK conspiracy theorists.