50 Years Ago: JFK Conspiracy Coverup?

Three years after the Warren Commission released its report on the death of President Kennedy, many Americans didn’t buy its conclusion. The Post’s editors believed a new study would put the matter to rest

The last thing the country needs is a spectacular sequel to the Warren Commission, with reporters and cameramen swarming around, with every bit of evidence spread out before the public, and with all the conspiracy-mongers crying out their dubious speculations. Publicity and politics are both dangers to such an inquiry. It would be difficult to find anyone totally immune to the pressures that would inevitably arise — pressures to suppress the unpleasant, to cover up any mistakes, to leak conflicting versions of the evidence. Nonetheless, it would be a total rejection of our society to assume that we cannot create a fact-finding committee of indisputable impartiality, skill, experience, rectitude, and concern for the truth.

—“A New Warren Commission?” Editorial, January 14, 1967