The House Select Committee on Assassinations

The committee found that Oswald fired three shots, that the second and third struck Kennedy, and that the third killed him. It found that Oswald owned the rifle, was on the sixth floor, and that his “other actions tend to support the conclusion that he assassinated President Kennedy.” [1]

It then found that “scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired,” and that Kennedy “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.” [1]

It found that the Soviet government and the Cuban government were not involved. It found that anti-Castro Cuban groups and the national syndicate of organized crime, “as a group,” were not involved, “but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.” It found that the Secret Service, FBI and CIA were not involved. [1][2]

The committee’s conspiracy finding came from acoustic analysis of a Dallas police dictabelt recording from a motorcycle radio that had been stuck open. Experts told the committee in December 1978 there was a 95 percent probability that one of the sounds was a shot from the grassy knoll. The full story, and why a National Research Council panel rejected it in 1982, is in the acoustics file. [1][2]

The committee found that the knoll shot, if it was one, missed. Every wound was caused by shots from behind. [3]

The committee concluded that the FBI’s investigation of a possible conspiracy “was seriously flawed,” and that it was deficient in exactly the areas the committee found most worthy of suspicion: organized crime, pro- and anti-Castro Cubans, and Oswald’s associations. [1]

It found that the investigation of Oswald was “thorough and reliable,” that the investigation of conspiracy was “inadequate,” and that the conclusions were reached in good faith “but presented in a fashion that was too definitive.” It also found that Kennedy “did not receive adequate protection.” [2]