Church Committee

Overlooking Oswald Church Committee

As the U. S. Senate's Church Committee probed alleged assassination attempts against foreign leaders, it raised questions regarding possible connections between these plots and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Questions were later raised about whether agencies adequately investigated these possible connections and whether information about these plots was provided to the Warren Commission. As a result, the Select Committee reviewed the performance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with respect to their investigations of the assassination of the President. This book exposes through documentary evidence and interviews that both the CIA and the FBI failed in, or avoided carrying out, certain of their responsibilities, both before and after the JFK assassination. It reveals the leads never followed up on by the CIA in terms of foreign connections to Cuba, other potential shooters at Dealey Plaza, and the minimal attention paid to the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald before the assassination, which led an Assistant Director of the FBI to worry that the general public would believe "we are responsible for negligence which might have resulted in the assassination of the President."