Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Hearings Before the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy

Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, commonly known as the Warren Commission. These hearings, published in 26 volumes between 1964 and 1965, represent the primary evidentiary record gathered by the commission to investigate the events in Dallas. The production of these documents was a massive bureaucratic undertaking intended to provide a transparent, definitive public record of the testimonies and forensic analysis conducted during the investigation.

The volumes were compiled under the direction of the commission's legal staff and Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin. The presentation of the material was strictly utilitarian, designed as a comprehensive archival resource for historians, legal scholars, and government officials rather than for the general public. While the Commission's final report was widely disseminated, the individual volumes of testimony and exhibits were distributed primarily to libraries and repositories, serving as the foundational text for decades of subsequent debate regarding the assassination.