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On November 29, 1963, just one week after the shooting, President Johnson appointed a special commission to investigate the assassination. Known as the Warren Commission (WC), it submitted a final report to LBJ on September 24, 1964, less than a year after it was formed. The commission pretty much supported the conclusions of the FBI's report, but with some important exceptions. The commission concluded the following:
* Oswald, acting alone, shot Kennedy.
* There was no conspiracy. Oswald had no confederates, before, during, or after the assassination.
* Oswald fired three shots. One of these shots missed the entire limousine. No other shots were fired.
* The same bullet that struck Kennedy in the back exited his throat and went on to strike Governor Connally in the back, tore through his chest, hit his right wrist, and ended up embedded in his left thigh. This conclusion would quickly come to be known as the single-bullet theory or CE 399.
* Oswald used a 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, which is bolt-action weapon.
* Oswald killed Officer J. D. Tippit.
* Jack Ruby's killing of Oswald was a spontaneous act caused by Ruby's professed desire to spare Jackie Kennedy the ordeal of an Oswald trial.
* Ruby had no significant ties to the Mafia and did not kill Oswald to silence him on behalf of a conspiracy.
* Ruby most likely gained access to the police department's basement by walking down the Main Street ramp.
* One Phillip Willis took a series of 12 photos of Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot, in the minutes before and after the assassination. Mr. Willis' photos and testimony before the Commission appear in the report. He was not questioned about the eighth photo, a shot of the Book Depository entrance shortly after the shooting. As Willis later pointed out, one of the men in the photo "looks so much like (Jack Ruby), it's pitiful". F.B.I. agents questioning Willis agreed with him that the man bore a powerful resemblance to Ruby. When Willis mentioned this to the Commission, no interest was shown. When the photo was published in the Warren Report, a considerable part of the Ruby lookalike's face had been cropped away.
While the President's autopsy was underway at Bethesda Naval Hospital, federal agents removed the X-rays of the body from custody of the examining doctors. Though the X-rays undoubtedly would have been valuable in determining trajectories of the bullets hitting the President, and thus the shooter's location, they are neither published nor alluded to in the Warren Report. Thoughtfully, the Commission did provide in its report a dental chart made for Jack Ruby's mother 25 years before the assassination, as well as a detailed physical analysis of three of Oswald's pubic hairs.
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