Drum Beat

I can not remember myself ever before in 50 years defending the Warren Commission Report.  This is the one that was supposed to explain the assassination of President Kennedy as he rode through downtown Dallas in an open-top convertible on November 22, 1963.

President Johnson appointed the Warren Commission, which was headed by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and included the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Central Intelligence Agency Director fired by Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs, a former president of the World Bank, chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, several former and future U.S. Ambassadors,  a future opponent of the War in Vietnam, and a future President of the United States.  I know there were only seven members of the Warren Commission.  Some changed jobs over time.  Some changed beliefs.

If you want to fish through the minnows swimming in the oceanic 26-volume final report of the Warren Commission, you can buy copies from  Amazon.com in hardback for as little as $4.05 or CD-ROM for  $12.99.

 The Warren Commission reported that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot Kennedy with a mail-order rifle and that Jack Ruby also acted alone when he shot Oswald with a hand-gun. Lee Harvey Oswald was a loner and nut case.  Jack Ruby was a night-club owner.  Texas lawmen in cowboy hats flanked Lee Harvey Oswald as Jack Ruby shot him at point blank range while television cameras broadcast live and in vivid black and white.

What if the Warren Commission had reported that Lee Harvey Oswald, a trained U.S. Marine Corps sniper, a double defector who lived in Russia long enough to find a bride, what if the Warren Commission had reported that Lee Harvey Oswald was an agent assassin for Soviet Union?  No.  Such a provocative conclusion was just not admissible by the political trust represented in the Warren Commission.  Barely 12 months previously the Cuban Missile Crisis had brought the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to the brink of nuclear war.  

I am remembering the Warren Commission this Labor Day weekend, when I should be remembering the struggles of working people to earn a living and the objections of corporations, even long before Wal-Mart. 

This Labor Day weekend, previously classified intelligence evidence that Syria has used chemical weapons against its own citizens has been released at the highest levels of the current U.S. government, not waiting for a Snowden or an Ellsberg.   CNN is aglow 24 hours around the clock with videos of unidentified origin showing innocents suffering the effects of chemical weapon attacks.  Over 100,000 Syrians have been killed, according to the news reports.  The sound of a drum beats in the background.