What do you think?
Rate this book
Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why
The Warren Commission's major conclusion was that Lee Harvey Oswald was the "lone assassin" of President John F. Kennedy. Gerald McKnight rebuts that view in a meticulous and devastating dissection of the Commission's work.
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy was officially established by Executive Order to investigate and determine the facts surrounding JFK's murder. The Warren Commission, as it became known, produced 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits, more than 17,000 pages of testimony, and a 912-page report. Surely a definitive effort. Not at all, McKnight argues. The "Warren Report" itself, he contends, was little more than the capstone to a deceptive and shoddily improvised exercise in public relations designed to "prove" that Oswald had acted alone.
McKnight argues that the Commission's own documents and collected testimony as well as thousands of other items it never saw, refused to see, or actively suppressed reveal two conspiracies: the still very murky one surrounding the assassination itself and the official one that covered it up. The cover-up actually began, he reveals, within days of Kennedy's death, when President Johnson, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and acting Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach all agreed that any official investigation must reach only one conclusion: Oswald was the assassin.
While McKnight does not uncover any "smoking gun" that identifies the real conspirators, he nevertheless provides the strongest case yet that the Commission was wrong and knew it. Oswald might have knowingly or unwittingly been involved, but the Commission's own evidence proves he could not have acted alone.
Based on more than a quarter-million pages of government documents and, for the first time ever, the 50,000 file cards in the Dallas FBI's "Special Index," McKnight's book must now be the starting point for future debate on the assassination.
Among the revelations in "Breach of Trust: "
Both CIA and FBI photo analysis of the Zapruder film concluded that the first shot could not have been fired from the sixth floor
The Commission's evidence was never able to place Oswald at the "sniper's nest" on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting.
JFK's official death certificate, signed by his own White House physician and contradicting the Commission's account of Kennedy's wounds, was left out of the official record.
The dissenting views of the naval doctors who performed the autopsy and those of the government's best ballistic experts were kept out of the official report.
The Commission's tortuous "Single Bullet" or "Magic Bullet" theory is finally and convincingly dismantled.
Oswald was probably a low-level asset of the FBI or CIA or both.
Commission members Gerald Ford (for the FBI) and Allen Dulles (for the CIA) acted as informers regarding the Commission's proceedings.
The strong dissenting views of Commission member Senator Richard Russell (D-Georgia) were suppressed for years.
"
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy was officially established by Executive Order to investigate and determine the facts surrounding JFK's murder. The Warren Commission, as it became known, produced 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits, more than 17,000 pages of testimony, and a 912-page report. Surely a definitive effort. Not at all, McKnight argues. The "Warren Report" itself, he contends, was little more than the capstone to a deceptive and shoddily improvised exercise in public relations designed to "prove" that Oswald had acted alone.
McKnight argues that the Commission's own documents and collected testimony as well as thousands of other items it never saw, refused to see, or actively suppressed reveal two conspiracies: the still very murky one surrounding the assassination itself and the official one that covered it up. The cover-up actually began, he reveals, within days of Kennedy's death, when President Johnson, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and acting Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach all agreed that any official investigation must reach only one conclusion: Oswald was the assassin.
While McKnight does not uncover any "smoking gun" that identifies the real conspirators, he nevertheless provides the strongest case yet that the Commission was wrong and knew it. Oswald might have knowingly or unwittingly been involved, but the Commission's own evidence proves he could not have acted alone.
Based on more than a quarter-million pages of government documents and, for the first time ever, the 50,000 file cards in the Dallas FBI's "Special Index," McKnight's book must now be the starting point for future debate on the assassination.
Among the revelations in "Breach of Trust: "
Both CIA and FBI photo analysis of the Zapruder film concluded that the first shot could not have been fired from the sixth floor
The Commission's evidence was never able to place Oswald at the "sniper's nest" on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting.
JFK's official death certificate, signed by his own White House physician and contradicting the Commission's account of Kennedy's wounds, was left out of the official record.
The dissenting views of the naval doctors who performed the autopsy and those of the government's best ballistic experts were kept out of the official report.
The Commission's tortuous "Single Bullet" or "Magic Bullet" theory is finally and convincingly dismantled.
Oswald was probably a low-level asset of the FBI or CIA or both.
Commission members Gerald Ford (for the FBI) and Allen Dulles (for the CIA) acted as informers regarding the Commission's proceedings.
The strong dissenting views of Commission member Senator Richard Russell (D-Georgia) were suppressed for years.
"
- GenresNonfictionHistory
488 pages, Paperback
First published September 12, 2005
10 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 12, 2008
It is well known that anyone who takes an interest in the assassinations of John and Robert F. Kennedy must be something of a crank, since most sane people "don't go in for conspiracies". I agree with this sentiment entirely. Most of the books written on these topics are wild, speculative, unreliable -- and give a bad odor to the entire topic.
This particular book is one of the few scholarly treatments of the Warren Commission -- and though somewhat dense and plodding, it is thorough -- exhaustively so -- and dismantles the Warren Commission brick by brick on a sound evidentiary basis. The author teaches at Hood College in Maryland, which shows that reputable schools will not support this type of work. But one should still read this and some of the other books I've marked in this category for oneself.
The ARRB was set up by Congressional Act in 1992:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin...
When I was in Dealey Plaza, I noticed a commemorative bronze-colored plaque laid in the pavement on Elm St., alongside the spot where the first bullet would have struck JFK. The plaque said that it had been laid in 1993 by order of the Department of the Interior. I found this last indication quite peculiar, since I would have thought that a plaque of this sort would have been laid 30 years earlier, and by local ordinance.
This particular book is one of the few scholarly treatments of the Warren Commission -- and though somewhat dense and plodding, it is thorough -- exhaustively so -- and dismantles the Warren Commission brick by brick on a sound evidentiary basis. The author teaches at Hood College in Maryland, which shows that reputable schools will not support this type of work. But one should still read this and some of the other books I've marked in this category for oneself.
The ARRB was set up by Congressional Act in 1992:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin...
When I was in Dealey Plaza, I noticed a commemorative bronze-colored plaque laid in the pavement on Elm St., alongside the spot where the first bullet would have struck JFK. The plaque said that it had been laid in 1993 by order of the Department of the Interior. I found this last indication quite peculiar, since I would have thought that a plaque of this sort would have been laid 30 years earlier, and by local ordinance.
December 4, 2011
The suggestions made by McKnight in the final chapter were surprising and, unfortunately, entirely plausible.
January 18, 2022
Following up on my JFK Assassination reading, after this was suggested in Twitter. Since the 4hr. version of “JFK Revisited “ is due out in February, I figured I’d read this to delve deeper into the genre . This book is full of minutia not found in previous books I’ve read, with 3 Appendices & 80 pages of footnotes.,This is a top shelf reference .
October 9, 2014
The Warren Commission has been the subject of a number of excellent books. Harold Weisberg declared it a 'whitewash' and Sylvia Meagher ripped it to shreds back in the '60's. Even the un-convinced Edward Jay Epstein wrote his 'Inquest'.
Gerald D. McKnight's 'Breach of Trust' published in 2005 must rank alongside these old standards. The author exposes not one conspiracy, but two. The one in Dallas, followed within hours by agencies of the U.S. government. "President Johnson, FBI director Hoover, the Justice Department, the Secret Service, the U.S. Navy, the CIA and the members of the Warren Commission. All of them conspired to foist a counterfeit solution to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on the American public. Although they all conspired, to one degree or another, to hide the truth that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy, it does not necessarily follow that any of them were guilty of the original crime-the planning and execution of JFK's murder. At the same time, that possibility cannot be excluded." McKnight continues in his conclusion to write, "With the crime now four decades in the past, no researcher can possibly truthfully answer the 'who' and 'why' of the JFK assassination. So far there has been no 'smoking gun' uncovered among the four or five million pages of government documents released into the public domain and currently housed at the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland; nor is there likely to be since those responsible for uncovering the facts of the assassination never investigated the crime. Although this book has not uncovered any such clue, it has unearthed out of the massive official record of the crime unanswered questions and impossibilities galore regarding ballistics, the nature of JFK's wounds, the ignored testimony of key witnesses, the suppression and destruction of evidence, and a pattern of official lies and cover-up that continues to this day despite national legislation that calls for full disclosure and release of documents and records relating to the JFK assassination."
Professor McKnight's thesis on 'How the Warren Commission failed the nation and why' may not have the razor edge of Weisberg or Meagher's 'Accessories after the fact'. However, as stated above, this book is very comparable with these past works and I highly recommend this book, especially to those who have swallowed the fiction that Lee Harvey Oswald was the 'lone assassin', or in fact any sort of assassin.
The learned prof's only errors are contained in the photographic pages. The picture described as 'The presidential limousine in front of the Texas School Book Depository seconds before the first gunshot' is in fact a photograph taken before the motorcade reached Dealey Plaza on Main St.
Another photo is captioned 'Dallas detectives and police search the area for the bullet that struck the curbstone near James Teague'. The photograph was one of a series taken by freelance photographer Jim Murray by the south curb of Elm Street, not the south curb of Main Street close to where Jim Teague was standing. However, many believe that this location was yet another stray bullet strike and that one was recovered by the un-identified agent.
Gerald D. McKnight's 'Breach of Trust' published in 2005 must rank alongside these old standards. The author exposes not one conspiracy, but two. The one in Dallas, followed within hours by agencies of the U.S. government. "President Johnson, FBI director Hoover, the Justice Department, the Secret Service, the U.S. Navy, the CIA and the members of the Warren Commission. All of them conspired to foist a counterfeit solution to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on the American public. Although they all conspired, to one degree or another, to hide the truth that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy, it does not necessarily follow that any of them were guilty of the original crime-the planning and execution of JFK's murder. At the same time, that possibility cannot be excluded." McKnight continues in his conclusion to write, "With the crime now four decades in the past, no researcher can possibly truthfully answer the 'who' and 'why' of the JFK assassination. So far there has been no 'smoking gun' uncovered among the four or five million pages of government documents released into the public domain and currently housed at the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland; nor is there likely to be since those responsible for uncovering the facts of the assassination never investigated the crime. Although this book has not uncovered any such clue, it has unearthed out of the massive official record of the crime unanswered questions and impossibilities galore regarding ballistics, the nature of JFK's wounds, the ignored testimony of key witnesses, the suppression and destruction of evidence, and a pattern of official lies and cover-up that continues to this day despite national legislation that calls for full disclosure and release of documents and records relating to the JFK assassination."
Professor McKnight's thesis on 'How the Warren Commission failed the nation and why' may not have the razor edge of Weisberg or Meagher's 'Accessories after the fact'. However, as stated above, this book is very comparable with these past works and I highly recommend this book, especially to those who have swallowed the fiction that Lee Harvey Oswald was the 'lone assassin', or in fact any sort of assassin.
The learned prof's only errors are contained in the photographic pages. The picture described as 'The presidential limousine in front of the Texas School Book Depository seconds before the first gunshot' is in fact a photograph taken before the motorcade reached Dealey Plaza on Main St.
Another photo is captioned 'Dallas detectives and police search the area for the bullet that struck the curbstone near James Teague'. The photograph was one of a series taken by freelance photographer Jim Murray by the south curb of Elm Street, not the south curb of Main Street close to where Jim Teague was standing. However, many believe that this location was yet another stray bullet strike and that one was recovered by the un-identified agent.
February 12, 2015
"Breach of Trust" is a scholarly and insightful dismantling of the Warren Commission. McBride's research into the working papers of the Commission's members and staff provides stark testament to the unwillingness to reveal the truth of the assassination of President Kennedy, but rather to craft a barely plausible lie that would serve as the "official explanation."
The commission was controlled by Allen Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who was fired by JFK following the utter failure of the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961. In addition, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover -- another Kennedy hater -- kept a tight reign on the flow of investigative reports that the FBI produced on the events of November 22, 1963. The Commission had no investigative staff of its own, so the FBI shaped the story by what they provided to the Commission members and staff.
"Establishment" historians, who certainly understand that the official story is nonsense, have chosen not to upset the apple cart for over fifty years. But McBride has done us all a great service with his scholarship and commitment to bringing to light the deficiencies of an official government body that intentionally obscured rather than enlightened.
"Breach of Trust" is well worth reading for those yearning for insight into why we are still in the dark about so many aspects of an event that still scars the national psyche.
The commission was controlled by Allen Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who was fired by JFK following the utter failure of the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961. In addition, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover -- another Kennedy hater -- kept a tight reign on the flow of investigative reports that the FBI produced on the events of November 22, 1963. The Commission had no investigative staff of its own, so the FBI shaped the story by what they provided to the Commission members and staff.
"Establishment" historians, who certainly understand that the official story is nonsense, have chosen not to upset the apple cart for over fifty years. But McBride has done us all a great service with his scholarship and commitment to bringing to light the deficiencies of an official government body that intentionally obscured rather than enlightened.
"Breach of Trust" is well worth reading for those yearning for insight into why we are still in the dark about so many aspects of an event that still scars the national psyche.
September 5, 2014
This book deals with the Warren Commission report and it's short comings. The author contends that by the evening of November 22, Johnson, Hoover, and acting attorney general kattzenbach had already decided that Oswald would be sold to the public as the sole assasin and no conspiracy was involved.
By suday the FBI had already issued their report of the assasination with Oswald as the only shooter. The warren commission followed the FBI report and excluded all evidence or shaped it to fit this conclusion. The chapters on the magic bullet and the autopsy or lack thereof are key to the authors thesis. The author also includes a chapter on the dissent of Richard Russell and how his objections to the report were subverted. The rumor that Oswald was an agent of either the FBI or CIA is also discussed. The book ends with a chapter on Cuba and how many in the Kennedy government (the military & CIA) were opposed to the way Cuba issue was being handled. The book leaves one with a lot to think about how the investigation was handled.
By suday the FBI had already issued their report of the assasination with Oswald as the only shooter. The warren commission followed the FBI report and excluded all evidence or shaped it to fit this conclusion. The chapters on the magic bullet and the autopsy or lack thereof are key to the authors thesis. The author also includes a chapter on the dissent of Richard Russell and how his objections to the report were subverted. The rumor that Oswald was an agent of either the FBI or CIA is also discussed. The book ends with a chapter on Cuba and how many in the Kennedy government (the military & CIA) were opposed to the way Cuba issue was being handled. The book leaves one with a lot to think about how the investigation was handled.
February 4, 2017
Informative. Convincing. But also very tedious at times. Thoroughly cited with comprehensive notes.
February 5, 2014
A sober and thorough enough account. You should read this one book out of the many books on the assassination of President Kennedy.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews