[3] Downing said that he was skeptical that Lee Harvey Oswald could accurately fire a bolt-action rifle within a short span of time, and he believed video footage of the assassination showed that Kennedy was struck from the front and the rear.

[1] According to a theory provided by Downing, one which he said was without evidence and based on speculation, anti-Castro Cuban exiles killed Kennedy due to his failure to support them after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

"[1] Prior to the investigation, James J. Kilpatrick described Downing as "a man of exception integrity and common sense" yet "not altogether unbiased in the matter of Kennedy's assassination".

[2] Robert P. Gemberling, head of the FBI's investigation of the assassination for thirteen years after the release of the Warren Commission's report, said in 1976 that Downing and his successor, Henry B. Gonzalez, had "preconceived conspiracy theories".

[4] He died from the complications of intestinal surgery at the age of 82, and is interred in Peninsula Memorial Park Cemetery, Newport News, Virginia.