I agree, John, that "the simplest answer is probably the best answer".

Here is the simplest answer: JFK's death was accomplished by more than one marksman, the fatal shot hit him from the front, as is plain in the Zapruder film, the numerous eyewitnesses who said they heard shots or saw shots coming from the Grassy Knoll that day were not lying....but....it was extremely important to the Johnson administration to quiet things down in America and get the country back to normal after such a traumatizing event. They felt that it was vital to simply "close the book" on the Kennedy assassination and move on. They did not want a revelatory conspiracy investigation to happen at all. So they instructed the Warren Commission (behind closed doors) to find the desired result: Oswald, a lone gunman with a disturbed mind, acted alone.

Their purpose was not to uncover the truth, their purpose was to "save the nation" from opening up a can of worms that could, in their view, tear the country apart with the ever-widening fierce divide between liberals and conservatives at the time. They put it to the Warren Commission in the strongest terms: You MUST pin this on Oswald alone, the fate of our nation rests upon it.

The Warren Commission did their patriotic duty, obeyed their president, and complied. End of story.

That is really quite simple, John, as it required a single decision by Lyndon Johnson, and that would be my best guess as to what happened. But I am also willing to consider that I am wrong, and that Oswald did it. In either case, the answer would be dead simple.

I'm not suggesting Johnson plotted to kill JFK (though he might have), I'm just suggesting that he felt it was absolutely vital to put the thing to rest with the "lone gunman" theory, and move on...

There are a number of possible reasons why he might have felt that way, depending on...who was involved. Castro? The Cuban exiles? The CIA? The Mafia? Texas right-wingers? Johnson himself? A very sticky situation indeed if the wrong people were behind who pulled the trigger(s). A situation that could potentially either tear the USA apart or even cause the Third World War.

It's worth covering up something like that. Think about it.