[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

the JFK assassination and Oswald’s guilt. His most scathing comments were reserved for
one of the first critics of the Warren Commission, attorney Mark Lane, whom Belin
denounced as an “assassination profiteer.” 227
In both books, Belin defended the Warren Commission’s findings and painted the
familiar portrait of Oswald as a loner, malcontent, failure, and committed Marxist. He
claimed in both books that the evidence against Oswald was overwhelming, and that the
murder of Police Office J.D. Tippit was a key to understanding the assassination. He
argued that Oswald’s killing of Tippit makes clear his responsibility for the assassination
of President Kennedy. Why else kill Tippit? Of course, Belin omitted the possibility that
Oswald was involved a conspiracy and would still have a motivation to kill Tippit to
make his escape even if he was not the lone assassin.
In his second book Final Disclosure, Belin added to this portrait by
acknowledging the revelations about the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro and the Warren
Commission’s inability to find a direct motive for Oswald’s alleged assassination of
Kennedy. Belin himself served as executive director of the Rockefeller Commission in
1975 investigating the illegal domestic activities of the CIA. The Commission helped
uncover the anti-Castro skullduggery. Belin denounced the CIA for not providing
information of the plots to the Warren Commission, and belatedly concluded that
“Oswald may have wanted revenge against the person who was seeking, according to the
newspaper reports about Castro, to assassinate the political leader that Oswald admired
most. What better way for recognition in Cuba could there be than to kill the person –
227 Final Disclosure, 22.
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