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

to make it less definitive. He would later become the first commissioner to publicly
break with its lone assassin finding. 93
The report also consistently dismissed testimony or evidence counter to the
official version of events as “rumors” or “speculation.” In the body of the report, the
Commissioners dismissed all conspiracy theories, and for good measure included an
appendix entitled “Speculations and Rumors.” The introduction to the section piles
pejorative upon pejorative in dismissing these theories by automatically relegating them
to the realm of “misconceptions,” “sensational speculations, “hypotheses, rumors, and
speculations,” “conjectures,” “puzzlement,” and “misinformation.” 94 In addressing each
conspiracy theory, the Commission summarizes the theory in one or two lines and then
declares the “Commission finding” that quickly dismisses the issue.
The Commission also dealt differently with witnesses who supported the official
version and those who did not. For example, Howard Brennan testified that he saw
Oswald fire upon the motorcade from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book
Depository building. His description, according to the Commission, “most probably led
to the radio alert sent to police cars” to look for a “white, slender” suspect “weighing
about 165 pounds, about 5’10” tall and in his early thirties.” 95 Oswald was in fact
5’9”and weighted 140 pounds at his arrest. Brennan’s description probably fit thousands
of people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and is fairly general when compared with the
Commission’s own detailed description of Oswald’s pubic hair. Critics of the
93 See Marrs, 488, 467.
94 WC Report, 637.
95 WC Report, 144.
56