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

assassination of Harry S. Truman by two Puerto Rican nationalists. Commissioner John
J. McCloy reminded Dulles of the Lincoln conspiracy, but Dulles dismissed this, saying
“one man [John Wilkes Booth] was so dominant that it almost wasn’t a plot.” 31 To the
commission’s critics, Dulles’ argument was not tenable: the Oswald case should have
been judged by the evidence and not a supposed pattern of past assassination. After all,
of the seven presidential assassinations and attempted assassinations, two of them, or
about 29 percent, were conspiracies.
In its report, the Warren Commission included a section on presidential protection
and the history of assassinations and attempted assassinations of U.S. presidents,
including former president and 1912 candidate Theodore Roosevelt and president-elect
Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Warren Commission emphasized the mental instability and
megalomania of the assassins and would-be assassins, even though often they had
political motives. This would buttress the Commission’s own portrait of Oswald. This
section of the report began with the first attempt on a president’s life: on January 10,
1835, Richard Lawrence fired two pistols at Andrew Jackson, but they misfired. The
report noted, “A jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity. He was confined in jails
and mental hospitals for the rest of his life.” 32
As for John Wilkes Booth, the Warren Commission described him as a “fanatical
Confederate sympathizer.” 33 The Commission emphasized Booth’s fanaticism rather
31 History Matters Archive. (Warren Commission Executive Session Transcript
December 16, 1963. pp. 51-52)
32 WC Report, 505.
33 WC Report, 506.
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