Special Section: THE WARREN COMMISSION REPORT

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sheet of paper was a small comment in the newspaper that, I don't know how it was stated, that Mrs. Kennedy may have to come back for the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald." He left his apartment about 11 a.m., a revolver in his pocket, drove to the point where Kennedy was shot and looked at wreaths scattered along the street.

Then he drove to the Western Union office. He paid for a telegram, got a receipt that was stamped 11:17 a.m. He left hurriedly, walked in the direction of the police department building where Oswald was being held. At 11:21 a.m. he lunged from a crowd of newsmen and cops to murder Lee Oswald.

Into the Past. Peering further into Ruby's background, the Warren Commission asked the FBI, the Muncie, Ind., Police Department, and the Indiana State Police to check a report that Ruby had been connected with Communist Party activities in Muncie in the 1940s. The Commission drew a blank. When Ruby was arrested in Dallas after he shot Oswald, he had in his possession radio scripts from ultraconservative Texas Billionaire H. L. Hunt's Life Line radio program. This of course led to reports that Ruby had been involved in a rightist plot against Kennedy; the Warren Commission found no grounds whatever for such a notion. There were reports that Oswald had been seen in Ruby's clubs. The Commission patiently chased down and canceled out each story. In answer to another rumor came this Commission statement: "The Commission has investigated rumors that Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald were both homosexuals and, thus, might have known each other in that respect. However, no evidence has been uncovered to support the rumors, the closest acquaintances of both men emphatically deny them and Ruby's nightclubs were not known to have been frequented by homosexuals."

Among the Commission's conclusions: "Ruby was regarded by most persons who knew him as moody and unstable—hardly one to have encouraged the confidence of persons involved in a sensitive conspiracy."

"Speculations & Rumors"

"Myths have traditionally surrounded the dramatic assassinations of history," writes the Warren Commission in its Appendix XII, titled "Speculations and Rumors." The report continues: "The rumors and theories about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln that are still being publicized were for the most part bruited within months of his death. Wherever there is any element of mystery in such dramatic events, misconceptions often result from sensational speculations."

In its probe into the assassination of President Kennedy, the Commission found that "many questions have been raised about the facts out of genuine puzzlement or because of misinformation which attended the early reporting of the fast-crowding events." The Commission says: "Throughout the country people reported overheard remarks, conversations, threats, prophecies, and opinions that seemed to them to have a possible bearing on the assassination. More than a few informants initially told their speculations or professed firsthand information to newspaper and television reporters. Later, many of them changed or retracted their stories in telling them to official investigators."

In short, the Warren Commission saw it as its duty not only to report what did happen relating to the Kennedy