Editing Warren Commission (section)

=== The House Select Committee on Assassinations ===
The HSCA involved Congressional hearings and ultimately concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, probably as the result of a conspiracy.  The HSCA concluded that Oswald fired shots number one, two, and four, and that an unknown assassin fired shot number three (but missed) from near the corner of a picket fence that was above and to President Kennedy's right front on the [[Dealey Plaza]] [[grassy knoll]]. However, this conclusion has also been criticized, especially for its reliance upon [[John F. Kennedy assassination Dictabelt recording|disputed acoustic evidence]]. The HSCA Final Report in 1979 did agree with the Warren Report's conclusion in 1964 that two bullets caused all of President Kennedy's and Governor Connally's injuries, and that both bullets were fired by Oswald from the sixth floor of the [[Texas School Book Depository]].<ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0036a.htm HSCA Final Report], pp. 41-46.</ref>

In his September 1978 testimony to the HSCA, President Ford defended the Warren Commission's investigation as thorough.<ref name="Lawrence Journal Daily World; September 21, 1978">{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=September 21, 1978 |title=Ford defends panel's findings |volume=120 |page=1 |newspaper=Lawrence Journal Daily World |agency=AP |issue=226 |location=Lawrence, Kansas |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19780921&id=_oEyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rOYFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6063,3271481&hl=en |access-date=August 19, 2015}}</ref> Ford stated that knowledge of the assassination plots against Castro may have affected the scope of the Commission's investigation but expressed doubt that it would have altered its finding that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy.<ref name="Lawrence Journal Daily World; September 21, 1978" />

As part of its investigation, the HSCA also evaluated the performance of the Warren Commission, which included interviews and public testimony from the two surviving Commission members (Ford and McCloy) and various Commission legal counsel staff. The Committee concluded in their final report that the Commission was reasonably thorough and acted in good faith, but failed to adequately address the possibility of conspiracy:<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1d.html#wc|title=Findings|date=15 August 2016|website=archives.gov|access-date=25 March 2018}}</ref> ''"...the Warren Commission was not, in some respects, an accurate presentation of all the evidence available to the Commission or a true reflection of the scope of the Commission's work, particularly on the issue of possible conspiracy in the assassination."''<ref>{{Cite book |last=US House of representatives |first=House Select Committee on Assassinations |url=https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=800#relPageId=291 |title=Final Report : summary and findings |publisher=US Government Printing Office |date=January 2, 1979 |edition=First |location=Washington |pages=261 |language=en}}</ref>

The HSCA also pointed to the role of the mafia in the attack because of [[Cuba]]. Indeed, the Cuban Castro [[Cuban Revolution|Revolution]] of 1959 had caused the criminal organization to lose millions of dollars, which had tried in vain to win the favors of the Cuban leader during the change of regime. In 1959, the income generated by criminal activities amounted to an annual amount of 100 million dollars, i.e. 900 million reported in 2013.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Summer |first=Anthony |title=Not in Your Life Time |publisher=Headline Publishing Group |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-7553-6542-5 |location=London |language=en}}</ref>

The HSCA determined that the gradual change in policy of the Kennedy administration toward Cuba, first with the failure of the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]] in April 1961, then more sustainably with the [[Cuban Missile Crisis|missile crisis]] of October 1962, in order to appease relations with the Cuban regime on a lasting basis and to open up new prospects, contributed to directing, if not slightly, within the many groups of paramilitary operations the most radical fringe of anti-Castro Cubans, American intelligence agents and Mafia criminals who continued their operations to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro despite requests for formal arrests from the White House.<ref>{{Cite book |last=US House of representatives |first=House Select Committee on Assassinations |title=Volume X : The Ingredients of an Anti-Castro Cuban Conspiracy |publisher=US Government Publishing Office |year=1979 |edition=First |location=Washington |pages=5–18 |language=en}}</ref> The HSCA invited the Department of Justice to resume investigations. The latter would respond eight years later, arguing the absence of decisive evidence allowing the reopening of an investigation, which is equivalent to supporting the conclusions of Warren report.<ref name=":0" />