Report of the President's Commission on the Assasination of President John F. Kennedy
Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1964. 1st Edition. Thick octavo, publisher's stiff printed paper wraps, original press release slip tipped in.
First edition, paperback issue, of the Warren Commission Report, the official government study on the assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald, the working copy of American documentary filmmaker Al Wasserman, with his annotations. Co-authored by seven members of the commission appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson – including chief justice of the Supreme Court and chairman Earl Warren, US representative and future president Gerald Ford, US senator Richard Russell, Jr., and former CIA director Allen Dulles – this single-volume, final report summarizes every facet of the government's investigation into the assassination. Published concurrently with a larger 26-volume set of documentary evidence and witness testimony, this 888-page report reconstructs the timeline and events of November 22, 1963, outlining the principal findings that Oswald acted alone in killing the president and wounding Texas governor John Connally; surveying Oswald's early life, time in the USSR, and psychological profile; analyzing ballistics and the trajectory of the bullets with witness accounts from the scene; presenting the commission's findings regarding domestic or foreign conspiracies, with the conclusion that none existed; and reviewing Secret Service procedures while formulating improvements for future presidential security. Throughout the volume are investigative diagrams (overhead layouts of Dealey Plaza in Dallas), maps (tracking Oswald's movements), and photographs, including a frontispiece portrait of Kennedy. Wasserman used this copy to conduct research for his critically acclaimed television documentary The Age of Kennedy which he produced, directed, and wrote for NBC as a part of their "White Paper" public affairs series. Airing in May 1966, the two-part film was co-written with JFK adviser and resident White House historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The film’s reception was overwhelmingly positive, earning praise for avoiding an overly sentimental, hagiographic approach. Additionally, a Post-it note in an unidentified hand (likely Wasserman's wife, book editor Barbara Alson) notes that Wasserman produced and contributed to NBC's coverage of the report's publication in September 1964. Illustrated in black-and-white; with notes and an index. Press secretary George Reedy's press release slip printed in red cellotaped to front endpaper. Wasserman's name in pencil to upper wrap, along with the note "NBC - #10," and a later taped handwritten ownership note; sporadic pencil underlining and marginalia in Wasserman's hand throughout (heaviest from pp.231-242). Related later news clippings laid in. Spine creased, joints worn with minor splitting to ends, wraps with toning, soiling, and creasing; embrowning to preliminary leaves from old clippings. Good overall, with historic provenance. Item #13384
$600.00