Ford Told FBI About Panel's Doubts on JFK Murder

Houston Chronicle ^ | Aug. 9, 2008 | MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN

[kellynla]

WASHINGTON — Former President Ford secretly advised the FBI that two of his fellow members on the Warren Commission doubted the FBI's conclusion that John F. Kennedy was shot from the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository in Dallas, according to newly released records from Ford's FBI files.

Ford, still a congressman at the time, also told a senior FBI official about internal panel disputes over hiring staff, Chief Justice Earl Warren's timetable for completing the final report on the assassination and what panel members said about the FBI.

In turn, Assistant FBI Director Cartha "Deke" DeLoach confidentially advised Ford of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's position on panel disputes; discussed where leaks were coming from; and, with Hoover's personal approval, loaned him a bureau briefcase with a lock so he could securely take the FBI report on the 1963 assassination with him on a ski trip.

The new details were included in 500 pages of the FBI's large file on Ford, released in part this past week in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act that The Associated Press and others made on the day Ford died in December 2006. The FBI intends to release additional documents about Ford in several batches, all with parts censored for law enforcement and privacy reasons.

That Ford served as the FBI's eyes and ears inside the commission has been known for years. Long ago, the government released a 1963 FBI memo that said Ford, then a Republican congressman from Michigan, had volunteered to keep the FBI informed about the panel's private deliberations, but only if that relationship remained confidential. The bureau agreed.

It was also well-known Ford was an outspoken proponent of the bureau's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy acting alone.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

If nothing came out the back of his head, then what was Jackie climbing over the seat and reaching for after his head expldoed? Hmmmm?

[M-cubed]

whoops...the currency http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/kennedy.html

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Your understanding of ballistics and bullet behavior, not to mention bio-physics, is laughable.

[Zman516]

The Warren Commission worked backwards from their predetermined conclusion.

They were lucky enough to be correct.

[Labyrinthos]

I’ve been to the museum on the 6th floor and you can look out the window. I think I could make the shot with iron sights, it’s really not as far as it looks on TV.

I recently spent almost an entire day at the museum and the surrounding area and even stood on the "X's" on the road that marks the spots where Kennedy was hit. The distance to the sixth floor is not nearly as far as it looks on film or on television and when I looked down from the window area, I was convinced that I could have hit Kennedy with a rock. Nevertheless, after studying all the exhibits, watching all of the unedited news videos and home movies that were shot that morning, reading and listening to the accounts of eye-witnesses, and making my own observations from various vantage points, I am absolutely convinced that Oswald was not the lone gunman, although I have no reason to doubt that he took a couple of shots from the sixth floor window. In several videos, numerous witnesses look to the grassy knoll as the shots are fired, and I saw no one looking up to the sixth floor.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Good post! Thank you!

[kalee]

placemarker

[Shooter 2.5]

So your reaction when someone is shooting at you is to gather up body parts?

Is that how you handle someone shooting at you?

[MartinStyles]

The problem is that any shots from the knoll would’ve been within 15-30 feet firing over Zapruder’s shoulders. Unless they had some real high tech subsonic/supressed guns, I just don’t think it happened that way.

The camera would’ve at least moved, and he probably would’ve hit the deck. There were several people over there and they would’ve been deafened from any rifle blast.

[Common Tator]

Oswald wasn’t anything near a crack shot.

Yes you must believe that people who score sharpshooter in the Marines are lousy shots. In December of 1956 Oswald scored Sharpshooter qualifying with the M1 rifle during basic training.

Oswald was a radar operator in the Marine Corp. On his annual rifle qualifications after basic training he only qualified as a marksman. This is often given by the unknowing as evidence that Oswald was not all that great a shot.

But anyone who was in the service in that era knows that those with jobs that do not require the use of a rifle often shot their required annual rifle quailification with what they called back then an M1 Pencil. Tests were often faked. There were rarely enough workers available to give people such as radar operators requiring security clearance time off to go shoot annual qualifications. There were rarely enough range staff or enough ranges to test them and no one to do their job while they would take the test. So the Military routinely faked the rifle qualification tests for such people. It was SOP to give the trooper whose test was faked a low but qualifying score. And that appears to be the case with Oswald.

It was common back then to give troops who actually fired the test and only scored a 191, a 193 or 194 score so people would know they actually shot the test and were not too good.. But those whose annual firing was faked were given a 191 score so supperiors would know know the firing test was faked.

Shooting is a skill that is retained for life. Once one has mastered it, it can be repeated again and again. It just takes a bit of practice to get it back. Annual qualifications always allowed for pre qualification practice. Oswald scored sharp shooter once. That says to me he could score sharpshooter as long as eyesight remained good.

Plus the distance from the sixth floor in Dallas to the car beneath him was no more than 120 feet. A rifleman who can hit targets at 100 to 250 yards with Sharpshooter skill has little trouble hitting a target at 30 to 80 yards.

I was no great shooter in the military, but I would bet a bundle I could, even at my advanced age, hit slow moving target the size of Kennedys exposed body 2 out of 3 times from that distance. They were not particularly hard or difficult shots. It would have been very long pistol shots, but very close rifle shots. Any average guy with a even a low grade military rifle could do it.

And Oswald was the sharpshooter who did just that.

[verity]

Your commentary is spot-on.

[Zman516]

You have to remember that at the moment of the headshot, the limo was accelerating at full throttle, so there was probably at least a 35mph headwind to blow the blood/brains to the rear.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Without getting into the larger issue of whodunit, folks should read the book “The JFK Assasination Tapes” which are based on White House Tapes (they didn’t start with Nixon) during which time LBJ is arm-twisting folks to serve on the Warren Commission. This is pretty close to original source history, as you are reading the words as they were spoken, not conclusions made by advocates for one side or another.

After reading this book there is no doubt in my mind that LBJ put the commission together to quell any possible talk of conspiracy. The idea was to get the Bluest of Blue Ribbon panel members, and to get them to sign off on the party line.

Now as another poster has already said, it may turn out to be that that party line happens to be the truth. It may turn out not to be the case. Most likely we’ll never know.

But the conclusion was never in doubt and of that, there was never any doubt in LBJ’s mind.

[Shooter 2.5]

The speed of the limo didn’t change according to the Zapruder film. The limo was going at exactly eleven miles an hour close to 180 degrees from the Depository.

Prairie dog shooter call it “red mist”.

[kellynla]

Your “failure” to answer my question speaks volumes. LOL

Semper Fi,
Kelly

[kellynla]

Thank you!

[Pistolshot]

Zapruder had vertigo, and had to be supported by his secretary while he was filming. If you watch closely, each time there is a shot the camera giggles.

IF, and that is HUGE in the way of emperical evidence, there had been a shot to Zapruders right the camera would have giggled in such a fashoin as to make the head shot a complete blur. The proximity fo the shot IF from the grassy knoll would have been in FEET instead of the yards from the TSBD.

That is not the case. The frames showing the head shot are crisp, without residual distortion of blurring from the report until AFTER the sound fo the shot has reached Zapruder.

I have walked the length of Dealy Plaza on many occassions. It is a fishbowl. Especially along Elm from the TSBD.

The Zapruder film shows all three shots and the aftermath. Kennedy is in his back brace, which he wears because of the surgery he has had to repai part of a disc. It is a horrible contraption that does not allow for much movement. It is a contributing factor to his death.

1st shot. A clean miss. Possibly due to the scope being off from Oswald dumping the rifle after the Walker attempt. The first shot hits the street behind the motorcade sraying the occupants with gravel and shrapnel (the autopsy report shows shrapnel pieces in the outer skull area including a piece of the jacket.) and wounding James Tauge under the Triple overpass.

Oswald realizes the scope is not going to work. The scope itself is on a mount the goes over the action, but allows for iron sight usage.

2nd shot. Oswald concentrates on Kennedy's head and fires. He does not allow for 'lead' and the bullet strikes Kennedy just at the collar line. This is the 'magic bullt shot' We will get to this in a moment and most likely would have been fatal.
[335] “There is an undisplaced fracture of the proximal portion of the right transverse process of T1.” Quote from the report of the HSCA consulting radiologist, G.M. McDonnel, MD, in: HSCA vol.7: 219.

3rd shot. Oswald does it right. The slope of Elm Street now has Kennedy almost moving away in a straight line at about 9 mph. The brace Kennedy is wearing is holding him almost straight up. The second shot has left him virtually paralyzed with damage to the spinal collum.

I have examined hundreds of Carcano rifles and carbines, including one just yesterday that was factory fresh with cosmoline still in the reciever. The action was as smooth as any rifle action. It would only take a few turns of the bolt to take any of the 'rough edges' of a military rifle out. There is ample evidence Oswald did just that.

The 6.5 Carcano cartridge is a high velocity(2296 fps muzzle velocity), lightweight cartridge. It has a heavy copper-nickle jacket according to Geneva Convention. It is meant for high penetration evidenced by the damage done to Kennedy and Connaly. The 'magic' bullet is anything BUT pristine.

[KC_Conspirator]

Oswald was guily. As Gerald Posner said, Case CLosed.

[KC_Conspirator]

You are right. Oswald was a marksman in the marines. He was a crack shot. Anything else is a lie. Hitting Kennedy from 70 yards was a lead pipe cinch for him.