People & organizations

Lead domestic investigating agency in the immediate hours and years after the assassination; maintained voluminous files on Oswald and Ruby.

U.S. foreign-intelligence agency whose Mexico City station, counterintelligence staff, and Cuban operations feature heavily in the JFK file releases.

1976–1979 congressional inquiry that re-examined the Kennedy and King assassinations and published a 12-volume appendix of evidence.

Five-member independent panel (1994–1998) that oversaw declassification of the JFK Assassination Records Collection under the JFK Records Act of 1992.

FBI Director whose personal memoranda document the Bureau's hour-by-hour response to the assassination.

U.S. Marine veteran, defector to the Soviet Union, and the sole person charged by the Dallas Police Department with the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

1975–76 Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by Frank Church.

Presidential commission chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren that produced the first federal assassination report in September 1964.

Cuban Army officer and former July 26 Movement comandante recruited by the CIA under the cryptonym AMLASH-1 in 1961-1965 to assassinate Fidel Castro. Met with his CIA case officer in Paris o...

Chief of CIA Counterintelligence Staff from 1954 to 1974; supervised handling of the Oswald 201 file.

Mexican citizen employed at the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City in 1963; processed Oswald's visa inquiry during his September 27 visit. Testified before the Warren Commission by written state...

Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, 1977–1979.

Russian-born petroleum geologist in the Dallas-Fort Worth émigré circle who befriended Lee and Marina Oswald in 1962-1963. Testified before the Warren Commission in April 1964; died by suici...

Oswald's Soviet-born wife and a principal Warren Commission witness.

CIA Chief of Station in Mexico City from 1956 to 1969, including the period of Oswald's September–October 1963 visit.

Former Director of Central Intelligence (1953–1961) who served as a member of the Warren Commission.

CIA Chief of Covert Action, Mexico City station (1961–1965), with primary responsibility for Cuban operations. His role in the pre- and post-assassination Oswald cables is documented across...

New Orleans businessman and founder of the International Trade Mart; the only person ever criminally tried for conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. Acquitted by a jury in under one hour...

Dallas nightclub owner who shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters on November 24, 1963.

Elected District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana (1962–1973). Opened the only criminal prosecution ever brought by a U.S. jurisdiction in the Kennedy assassination; his case against Ne...

Los Angeles–based Mafia operative recruited by the CIA via Robert Maheu in 1960 to help organize the assassination of Fidel Castro. Testified before the Church Committee (June and September...

Head of the Chicago Outfit during much of the Kennedy era and one of three Mafia figures the CIA recruited through Robert Maheu in the 1960–1963 Castro plots. Murdered in his Oak Park, Illin...

Head of the Tampa, Florida organized-crime family and one of three Mafia figures the CIA recruited through Robert Maheu in the 1960–1963 Castro assassination plots. Testified before the Chur...

Senior CIA case officer in the Mexico City station during Oswald's September–October 1963 visits to the Cuban and Soviet embassies. Deputy to station chief Win Scott; handled the LIENVOY wir...

KGB officer assigned to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City; cited in CIA cables as a member of the KGB's Department 13 (Executive Action). Met with Oswald during the September 28, 1963 contac...

Senior liaison officer in the CIA's Counterintelligence Staff (CI/Liaison) under James Angleton. Signed the October 10, 1963 headquarters cable to Mexico City that summarized pre-assassinati...

Chief Justice of the United States who chaired the 1963–1964 Presidential Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.

Head of the New Orleans organized-crime family from 1947 until his 1980s incarceration. A primary target of Robert Kennedy's organized-crime task force; HSCA concluded he had "motive, means,...

Dallas dressmaker whose 26-second 8mm color home movie of the motorcade captured the assassination and became the single most-examined piece of visual evidence in the case.

Dallas Police Officer shot and killed in Oak Cliff on November 22, 1963, approximately 45 minutes after the assassination of President Kennedy.

Assistant counsel on the Warren Commission (1964) who drafted Chapter III of the Warren Report and is known as the principal author of the single-bullet conclusion. Later served five terms a...

Governor of Texas wounded alongside President Kennedy in the motorcade; a central witness to the single-bullet analysis.