Dealey Plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum

The two findings

President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. The Warren Commission delivered its 888-page report to President Johnson on September 24, 1964. It concluded that three shots came from the sixth-floor southeast window of the Texas School Book Depository, that Oswald "acted alone," and that there was no evidence Oswald or Jack Ruby belonged to any domestic or foreign conspiracy.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations reached a different conclusion in 1979. It found that Kennedy "was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy," citing "a high probability that two gunmen fired." It said it was unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy. It also found that the Soviet and Cuban governments, the Secret Service, the FBI, and the CIA were not involved, and that anti-Castro Cuban groups and the national crime syndicate were not involved as groups, though individual members could not be ruled out.

The acoustic evidence

The committee's second-gunman finding rested on acoustic analysis of a police radio recording. In 1982, a National Research Council panel chaired by Norman Ramsey concluded that the analyses do not demonstrate a shot from the grassy knoll. A 2001 critique by D. B. Thomas disputed the panel, and in 2005 a reply from Ramsey and other physicists defended the panel's timing argument.

What people believe

A Gallup survey of 1,009 adults, taken October 2 to 23, 2023, found that 65 percent said Oswald worked with others and 29 percent said he acted alone. In November 1963, 52 percent said conspiracy and 29 percent said alone. Among those who believed in a conspiracy in 2023, 20 percent named the federal government, 16 percent the CIA, and 11 percent the Mafia.

The records

The JFK Records Act of 1992 required every assassination record to be public by October 26, 2017, unless the President certified that an identifiable harm to defense, intelligence, law enforcement, or foreign relations outweighed disclosure. The Assassination Records Review Board, which worked from 1994 to 1998, voted on more than 27,000 records that agencies had redacted and obtained consent to release more than 33,000 more. Its final report says it "does not offer conclusions about what the assassination records released did or did not prove."

The National Archives lists seven releases between July 24, 2017, and April 26, 2018, and further releases in December 2021, December 2022, and 2023. On December 15, 2022, it said over 97 percent of the collection was open and listed 515 documents withheld in full and 2,545 withheld in part. Executive Order 14176 of January 23, 2025, was followed by releases from March 18 to April 3, 2025, and by 11,022 pages on January 30, 2026. The Archives says those records were released without redactions. Its own pages put the size of the collection at both more than 5 million and more than 6 million pages. CBS reported that more than 500 IRS records, court-sealed material, and grand jury material remain withheld, and the Archives states no total for what is still held back.

The Sixth Floor Museum occupies the sixth and seventh floors of the former Texas School Book Depository. It is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 5pm, with the last entry at 4:15pm, and closed Monday and Tuesday. Entry is by timed ticket, and buying ahead is advised. At the door, adults pay $27, seniors $25, and youth $23. Online, adults pay $24, seniors $22, and youth $20, plus $1 per ticket. Children 5 and under are free. The museum's number is 214-747-6660.

Non-flash photography is permitted on the sixth and seventh floors and in the visitor center for personal use, unless an exhibit is marked otherwise. Dealey Plaza itself is a public space owned by the City of Dallas, and it is a National Historic Landmark District. Elm Street carries traffic, and the white X marks painted on it are best photographed from the curb.