The role of the Warren Commission
(Unsigned front page article)
Workers World, Vol. 5 No. 24
December 6, 1963
Will the Warren Commission frame the left and whitewash the ultra-right? The answer to this question will also, to a large degree, determine whether the remnants of bourgeois democracy will continue to exist or be wiped out.
For the moment at least, “sweet reasonableness,” a “return to sanity,” and even “tolerance” seems to be the dominant tone of the bourgeois press. Perhaps the ruling class has recoiled in horror at the prospect of an attempted fascist coup d’etat. Conceived as a way to help them, the more substantial section of the ruling class feared that it might also bring their entire system tumbling down to destruction.
ULTRA-RIGHT STILL INTACT, UNCOWED
Kennedy is dead. Oswald is dead. A new President promises to carry on and pursue the policies of his predecessor. But the forces of political reaction, virulent racism, “preventive war” militarism, which failed to combine at the critical moment to erect the totalitarian dictatorship, give only the appearance of being cowed. Actually they remain intact and intransigent. Here and there, a vile, ultra-right voice is muted, a neo-fascist meeting cancelled. But the reactionary elements which produced the Dallas assassinations remain uncurbed.
The frantic calls made by mealy-mouthed liberals to “eminent men of standing” (a euphemism for the financial oligarchies who rule the country) to speak out against the plotters remain unanswered.
The episode of the double assassination, having produced alternate moods of surprise, shock and horror, has made a period of pause inevitable under the circumstances.
But soon the eyes of the world will be focused on the seven member lily-white commission headed by Chief Justice Warren.
It is exceptionally important that the progressive minded people of the country and the world be adequately apprised both of the nature as well as the composition of the panel which has been appointed by President Johnson.
Already, the showers of praise the commission has received from the press is calculated more to disarm public opinion than to enlighten it. For instance, the New York Post, which seeks to represent what passes in this day and age for liberalism, commends the panel for its “eminence, wisdom and impartiality.”
CAN COMMISSION BE IMPARTIAL?
Rare indeed are historical examples in which significant political institutions or commissions rise above their narrow class interests and social background.
How, for instance, can such a political personage as Senator Russell from Georgia, who represents poisonous racism, big business privileges, and unbridled militarism, rise above his class and racial prejudice and become impartial?
How, too, can John J. McCloy rise above his close connections as former chairman of the Chase-Manhattan Bank, as well as a top administrator of the cold-war policy of the Dulles-Eisenhower administration which he served?
How can Allen Dulles, one of the principal conspirators of the Cuban invasion and the monstrous, war-provoking U-2 incident, be impartial in examining a plot like this?
And is Senator Cooper of Kentucky and Representative Boggs of Louisiana, or Representative Ford of Michigan – all servile tools of big-business interests – capable of rising above their class interests, business connections and race prejudice?
The people must be warned that the judgment of the commission will not be decided by considerations of abstract justice. The judgment of the panel will be based on the relationship of forces both nationally and internationally. It will be based, also, on the impact of intervening events, and the ability of the mass of the people, the labor movement and the liberation struggle, to act as an obstruction to the gathering forces of neo-fascism, and as a support for the preservation of democratic rights and civil liberties.
IMPLIED ADMISSION OF CONSPIRACY
The very convocation of such an extraordinary commission is in itself an implied admission of the existence of a conspiracy of the ultra-right and fascist forces which hoped through the assassination to achieve a coup. To establish the guilt or innocence of merely an individual, it should not be necessary to convoke such an extraordinary panel. This could easily be accomplished by lesser investigative and judicial processes.
To constitute such a broad committee makes it evident that it has a political task. That it in effect will pass on the degree to which the remnants of bourgeois democracy will continue in the U.S. and whether it is willing and capable to stand as a bulwark against a fascist conspiracy.
A whitewash would pave the way for a fascist dictatorship. The greatest danger, however, lies in the capitulation by the commission to the rightist hysteria, which would implicate the progressive, militant and anti-fascist forces in the U.S. in a monstrous frame-up.
The FBI has, according to the latest press dispatches, submitted a report on Oswald indicating not only that they consider him guilty, but also that they believe he carried out the assassination of President Kennedy without accomplices.
From this it would appear to follow that no foundation is being laid for the construction of a frame-up against the left. But let us not be deceived by appearances.
A more cogent reason for their report that Oswald was guilty and a “loner,” is to bar the way to an investigation of the fact that the assassination was part of a rightist plot with many accomplices.
History, however, also offers examples of how even the most reactionary parliamentary and judicial bodies are forced, under the impact of great struggles of the people, to hand down verdicts or findings which correspond to truth.
ONLY MASSES CAN WIN FAIR VERDICT – AS A ‘BY-PRODUCT OF CLASS STRUGGLE’
These are, in reality, concessions won by the masses. They are a by-product of the struggle, or as Engels put it, a “by-product of the class struggle.” Only if it is viewed in this light can one properly gauge the political direction of the Warren commission.
To those on the commission, if there are any who are motivated by genuine desire to do justice in uncovering the conspiracy which took the life of President Kennedy, we call their attention to the profound insight of a very early and penetrating student of the modern bourgeois state in relation to conspiracies – Machiavelli.
Although he lived at the very dawn of the capitalist system, the experiences of violence, intrigue and assassination which he studied, show that these phenomena are characteristic of the modern bourgeois state in the epoch of imperialist decay, where violence and assassination are much more the rule than they were in his day.
MACHIAVELLI ON CONSPIRACIES
“Conspiracies,” said Mchiavelli, “have for their originators, the great men of the state or those on terms of familiar intercourse with the prince (President – ed.)”! How true! How true! It is the great, powerful, wealthy men in and out of the bourgeois state apparatus, and who are “on terms of familiar intercourse with the” President, who are capable of such a monstrous conspiracy.
“None other,” observes Machiavelli, “can engage in conspiracy, for the men of low condition (the poor, the workers – ed.) ... have no chance ...” (From The Prince) Indeed the whole history of the working class and progressive movement shows them to be imbued with the spirit of abhorrence against individual terror, plots and intrigue because they are not necessary, and are even harmful for the success of the working class.
Finally, Machiavelli in his book, The Prince, makes this singularly significant observation. “Conspiracies have generally been set afoot ... by friends of the prince who have been prompted to it (the conspiracy) by excessive benefits ...”
Does this sound illogical?
TO OBTAIN ‘EXCESSIVE BENEFITS’
On the contrary, it is a highly perceptive observation. Indeed, the whole history of our epoch, the epoch of imperialism, has been characterized by wars and violence produced by conspiracies in order to obtain extortionate super-profits – “excessive benefits.” Yes, Machiavelli was right. Conspiracies are generally produced by the “great.” Who are the “great” referred to by Machiavelli? In this epoch they are, of course, the wealthy, the powerful. Who but they have free “access to the prince”? And who but they are prompted to take the “road of conspiracy” and murder to obtain “excessive benefits.”
And who are those who have obtained “an excess of benefits” from the Kennedy administration except the richest, most reactionary and most rabid elements whose appetites for war, for plunder, rose with each “excessive benefit” that they obtained from the very “prince” they sought to do away with.
What urges them to violence and assassination? “The lust for domination,” says Machiavelli.
MARX ON THE ‘LUST FOR DOMINATION’
However, Karly Marx discovered several centuries later, on the basis of the most comprehensive study of the capitalist system, that “the lust for domination” is not an innate characteristic of men, but only of class society in general and capitalist society in particular.
“The lust for domination,” to use the Machiavellian phrase, has its origin in private gain which the institution of private property developed further. “The lust for domination” took a might leap forward in human consciousness with the development of capital. The transformation of capital into monopoly capital converted the “lust for domination” into an irrepressible characteristic of all present day contemporary imperialist monopolies – of all the financial and industrial oligarchies that dominate the vital arteries of this land.
If the Warren commission seeks truth and justice in the Dallas assassination, it will find the most relevant evidence in the connection between the giant monopolies and the cabal of ultra-rightist, neo-fascist conspirators.
Therein lies the crux of the whole matter.
December 2, 1963
Last updated: 11 May 2026