Since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, many have questioned that legitimacy of the Warren Commission’s investigation and subsequent report.
Among those critics was former Philadelphia lawyer Vincent Salandria, who became one of the first public critics of the Commission, writes Nick Vadala for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
In October 1964, Salandria attended a Philadelphia Bar Association meeting at City Hall where he confronted then-assistant district attorney Arlen Specter, who is credited for developing the belief that Kennedy and then-Texas Governor John Connally were both wounded by the same bullet during the afternoon of the assassination.
Weeks later, an article written by Salandria was published in the Legal Intelligencer, the oldest law publication in the country. There, he concluded that Kennedy’s assassination was not solely the work of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Salandria argued there were multiple shooters, and that it was actually a coup d’etat led by the CIA and military leaders.
His early stance as a Warren Report critic led to him garnering quite negative attention. But that didn’t stop him from speaking out about what he believed to be the truth.
“I arrived at this scientifically. It’s not crazy. It makes a lot of sense,” Salandria said at the time.
He maintained his stance until he passed away in 2020.
Read more about Vincent Salandria and his Warren Report criticism in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on PHILADELPHIA Today in March 2025.
