Editing Warren Commission (section)

==Formation==
The creation of the Warren Commission was a direct consequence of the murder by [[Jack Ruby]] of the assassin [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] on November 24, 1963, carried live on national television in the basement of the Dallas police station. The lack of a public process addressing the mistakes of the Dallas Police, who concluded that the case was closed, created doubt in the mind of the public.<ref name=":0" />

The new president, [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], himself from Texas, the state where the two assassinations had taken place, found himself faced with the risk of a weakening of his presidency. Confronted with the results obtained by the Texas authorities, themselves seriously discredited and criticized, he decided after various consultations, including in particular that with FBI director [[J. Edgar Hoover]], to create a presidential commission of inquiry by Executive Order 11130 of November 29, 1963. This act made it possible both to avoid an independent investigation led by Congress and to avoid entrusting the case to the Attorney General, [[Robert F. Kennedy]], deeply affected by the assassination, whose federal jurisdiction would have been applied in the event of withdrawal of the share of the [[Texas|State of Texas]] for the benefit of the federal authorities in Washington.<ref name=":0" />

[[Nicholas Katzenbach]], Deputy Attorney General, provided advice that led to the creation of the Warren Commission.<ref name="Savage">{{cite news |last=Savage |first=David G. |date=May 10, 2012 |title=Nicholas Katzenbach dies at 90; attorney general under Johnson |url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-nicholas-katzenbach-20120510-story.html |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |location=Los Angeles |access-date=December 12, 2014}}</ref> On November 25 he sent a memo to Johnson's [[White House]] aide [[Bill Moyers]] recommending the formation of a [[Presidential Commission (United States)|Presidential Commission]]<!-- primary source may be needed to verify that he specifically recommended a PC --> to investigate the assassination.<ref name="Savage" /><ref name="Politico; May 9, 2012">{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Nicholas Katzenbach, JFK and LBJ aide, dead at 90 |url=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76118.html |newspaper=Politico |date=May 9, 2012 |agency=AP |access-date=December 12, 2014}}</ref> To combat [[John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories|speculation of a conspiracy]], Katzenbach said that the results of the FBI's investigation should be made public.<ref name="Savage" /><ref name="Politico; May 9, 2012" /> He wrote: ''The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large."<ref name="Politico; May 9, 2012" />

Four days after Katzenbach's memo, Johnson appointed to the commission some of the nation's most prominent figures, including [[Earl Warren]], [[Chief Justice of the United States]].<ref name="Savage" /><ref name="Politico; May 9, 2012" /> At first, Warren refused to head of the commission because he stated the principle of law that a member of the judicial power could not be at the service of the executive power. It was only under pressure from President Lyndon Johnson, who spoke of international tensions and the risks of war resulting from the death of his predecessor, that he agreed to chair the commission.<ref name=":0" /> The other members of the commission were chosen from among the representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties, in both houses of Congress, and added diplomat [[John J. McCloy]], former president of the World Bank, and former CIA director [[Allen Dulles]].<ref name=":0" />