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JFK Assassination

A Guide to Finding Government and Legal Information

Web version of this guide includes links to web resources.

Search Tips:

Mix and match these terms in searching the library catalog, WestCat , or use them to search journal articles and law reviews via the library's Databases page. You can also use them to search government information sites listed on our Starting Points page - click the tab and pay particular attention to the Top Six.

  • JFK
  • John F. Kennedy
  • Lee Harvey Oswald
  • Jack Ruby
  • forensic ballistics
  • organized crime
  • John Connally
  • Lyndon B Johnson
  • Warren Commission
  • Assassination
  • Zapruder film
  • lone gunman
  • conspiracies
  • CIA
  • Dealey Plaza
  • LBJ

Related Topics:
  • Cuban Missile Crisis
  • Bay of Pigs
  • Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy (Onassis)

An important source for many research topics is Congress. Congressional committees and subcommittees hold hearings on a wide variety of controversial and timely subjects. Simply add the word "hearing?" to a search string in WestCat .

Search Engines

Google and StartPage
Use these search engines to search for government information by typing "site:gov" in the search box preceding your search terms:

  • site:gov "jfk assassination"
Law Review Articles and Annotations

Law reviews are an important resource for legal topics like this one. They can lead you to laws and cases as well as discuss legal theory. A few law journals are indexed in multidisciplinary databases, but the best bang for your buck will be to search Nexis Uni for full-text access to many hundreds of law reviews.

Federal Government Information
President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection

This page includes links to the Warren Commission Report and Hearings, flight recordings and more.

Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy - a/k/a/ the Warren Report

This is the official report concerning the JFK assassination which added "single bullet theory" (and "magic bullet" by its detractors) to the American lexicon.
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/index.html
PR 36.8:K 38/R 29

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

This 26-volume set includes all the evidence and testimony seen and heard by the Warren Commission.
PR 36.8:K 38/H 35/
https://www.gpo.gov/featured/WarrenCommission.htm

Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Hearings Before the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives

This series of hearings, which contains no index of its own (see Master Index, next) and contains 12 volumes, was held fifteen years after-the-fact.
Y 4.AS 7:K 38

Master Index to the J. F. K. Assassination Investigations: the Reports and Supporting Volumes of the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the Warren Commission

The bulk of this index, located at the Reference desk (2nd floor), is directed toward the Select Committee on Assassinations hearings, as the Warren hearings have their own index.
REF. E842.9 .M395 1980

JFK Assassination Records

This page is a guide to searching and using the 5 million pages of assassination-related materials held by the National Archives and Records Administration, most of which are open for research.
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/

ARC Gallery: President John F. Kennedy

Browse through the Archival Research Catalog for records of materials held by NARA on President Kennedy's family government and assassination.
http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/topics/presidents/kennedy.html

November 22, 1963: Death of the President

This page from the JFK Library recounts the day of the assassination.
http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/November-22-1963-Death-of-the-President.aspx

John F. Kennedy -35

This is a short biography of the 35th President of the United States focusing on his administration's foreign policy.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/johnfkennedy

Post-JFK Assassination Air Force One Flight Deck Recording

This information page leads you here to the digital audio files of the 2 hour and 22 minute recording made before and during the return flight from Dallas to Andrews Air Force Base. The recording contains communications and phone calls to and from the Situation Room on Air force One with politicians and other airplanes carrying dignitaries as the news of the shooting and the response to it unfolds.
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/air-force-one-tape.html
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-NARA-JFK-ASSASSINATION-AUDIO/content-detail.html

Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board

This is the final report of the board created by the President John F. Kennedy Records Collection Act of 1992. The report describes the materials, where they came from, and issues regarding the transfer of records into the collection.
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board/report/
Y 3.2:AS 7/R 29

Legal Information
President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992

This legislation is the response to renewed popular interest caused by the Oliver Stone film JFK (1991). The law mandates that all assassination materials be transmitted to the Archivist and disclosed to the public (P.L. 102-526)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c102:S.3006:

http://www.wiu.edu/libraries/govpubs/guides/jfk.php

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