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Many think Gerald Ford to be the last honest politician. They would be wrong.

Smarmy Ford
Posted by Lew Rockwell at December 28, 2006 04:27 PM

Writes Larry Ludlow: "Dear Lew: Regarding former President Ford, my wife and I have followed the Kennedy assassination pseudo-investigations over the years, and I recalled this FOIA-revealed mention of Ford’s role as the FBI’s snitch on the Warren Commission. It is footnote 3 on pages 43-44 of Mark Lane’s book, Plausible Denial, 1991. Later is a mention of Ford’s attempt to cover-up the investigation of the CIA by Senator Church. In other words, organized team sports seem to build or at least reinforce a lack of character—at least in politicians. It makes them consummate 'team players.'

“'After many years in the House as a representative from Michigan, Gerald Ford had distinguished himself with but one piece of legislation: he had led the effort to impeach Earl Warren. As a member of the Warren Commission, he betrayed the trust invested in him and became the FBI’s agent there.

"'Years after the Warren Report was issued and the commission disbanded, the Freedom of Information Act was amended to make it possible to secure documents that had previously been inaccessible. With the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union and Morton Halperin, former deputy assistant secretary of defense, and the Center for National Security Studies, I brought various actions to secure documents from the intelligence agencies.

"'FBI documents not previously available revealed an intimate and furtive relationship between Ford and the FBI. The documents show Ford fed top-secret information to the FBI while he was a member of the Warren Commission.

"'An internal FBI memo dated December 17, 1963, details the items Ford passed to Cartha D. DeLoach, then the assistant to the FBI director. Ford did not disclose to the other six members of the Warren Commission his course of improper and illegal conduct.

"'DeLoach reported that Ford agreed to continue to betray his colleagues on the commission. Ford said, DeLoach reported, "I should call him any time his assistance was needed."

"'Ford, with the approval of Hoover, was given "an FBI agent briefcase containing a lock" so that he could carry top-secret Warren Commission documents with him on a skiing trip.

"'From his vacation chalet, Ford told the FBI officials which Commission members required additional FBI efforts in order to bring them into line with the FBI view of the assassination. He reported to DeLoach that two commission members said they had serious doubts the president had been shot from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Ford predicted the two dissenters could be brought to the FBI view.

"'Ford reported to DeLoach that at a top-secret meeting of the commission held on December 16, 1963, the commission’s general counsel, J. Lee Rankin, had been empowered to retain two "so-called technicians." The two who were under consideration were Francis W.H. Adams, a former New York City police commissioner, and Albert E. Jenner, Jr., a Chicago lawyer. Ford, the documents disclose, could only remember the last names of the two men. The FBI then began an investigation to determine who "Adams" and "Jenner" were. DeLoach, who was the number-three man in the FBI, ranking just under Hoover and his friend Clyde Tolson, reported, "I told Congressman Ford in strict confidence that apparently Chief Justice Warren was quite close to Drew Pearson [a leading syndicated columnist] and obviously used Pearson from time to time to get his thoughts across as to the percentage of the facts in these articles that were absolutely false." [sic]'

"In a later part of his book (p.374), Mark Lane details Senator Frank Church’s reaction (who was chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) to the firing of William Colby and the naming of George H.W. Bush as Director of the CIA:

“The initial reaction of Senator Frank Church, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to the firing of William Colby and the naming of Bush as Director of Central Intelligence in 1975 was to complain that it was part of a pattern of attempts by President Gerald Ford (a former member of the Warren Commission) to impede the Church committee’s nearly concluded investigation into the C.I.A. assassination plots, with which Colby was cooperating but which Ford was trying vainly to keep secret.” http://blog.lewrockwell.com/