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

Democrats and Republicans, except for its chairman, Earl Warren, who had served as the
Republican governor of California but presumably was supposed to be above the political
fray as Chief Justice. The panel’s establishment also reflected the authority of President
Johnson, who at the same time sought validation from the Commission as the legitimate
successor of the slain president.
The Commission repeatedly accepted at face value the conclusions of other top
U.S. officials, including FBI director Hoover. At this time in U.S. history, perhaps many
Americans were not inclined to doubt the pronouncements of such figures, and the
Commission sought to cloak its conclusions in the authority of the government. In
declaring that there was no conspiracy, the Warren report listed seven top officials as
reaching the same conclusions “independently,” including Hoover, CIA director John A.
McCone, and the head of the Secret Service, James Rowley. 87 It apparently never
occurred to the Commission that these officials may have lied, or failed to adequately
investigate conspiracy theories that involved their own agencies. The Commission’s
judgments also were interwoven with the conclusions of these officials and agencies, and
were not independently arrived at.
In addition to its appeal to authority, the Warren Commission report used a
variety of rhetorical devices to convince the public of Oswald’s guilt. The way the text
was written and structured was designed to emphasize evidence that Oswald was the
assassin, and to bury contradictory evidence. The report included three sections offering
87 WC Report, 374.
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