From: bhart@cyberramp.net (Michael Parks)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: First Reports, DMN, 7-3-97
Date: 7 Jul 1997 07:55:16 GMT

First Reports, The Dallas Morning News, 7-3-97

Still the yes-man for the CIA and FBI, non-president Ford 
shows his true colors in the following document.  
Enjoy...................................Michael Parks

Start quote

Ford altered key detail in JFK Slaying Report
Change Strengthened Single-Bullet Theory
By Berta Delgado

   Reports that Gerald R. Ford made a slight change in the Warren Commission's
key sentence about where a bullet entered John F. Kennedy's body 
provided new fodder for conspiracy theorists Wednesday.
   In the reports, made public by the federal agency assigned to oversee 
the JFK assassination records, Mr. Ford also criticized the Dallas Police 
Department's handling of the Lee Harvey Oswald murder, saying the 
department got off easy and was negligent.
   Dallas police officials declined to comment Wednesday.
   The effect of Mr. Ford's change in the sentence was to strengthen the 
commission's conclusion that a single bullet passed through Kennedy and 
severely wounded Texas Gov. John Connally - a crucial element in its 
finding that Oswald was the sole gunman.
   A small change, Mr. Ford said Wednesday when it came to light, one 
intended to clarify meaning, not alter history.
   "My changes had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory," he said in 
a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Beaver Creek, 
Colo., where he was visiting.  "My changes were only an attempt to be 
more precise."
   Mr. Ford's handwritten notes are contained in 40,000 pages of records 
kept by J. Lee Rankin, chief counsel of the Warren Commission.  The 
personal papers were donated to the JFK Collection by Mr. Rankin's son 
and are available to the public at the National Archives.
   "I believe we let the Dallas Police Dept. off too easily. Somebody, or 
the Dept. itself, was remiss," Mr. Ford wrote in the margins of the 
draft regarding Oswald's killing.  Mr. Ford was House Republican leader 
at the time and one of seven members of the commission headed by Chief 
Justice Earl Warren.
   President Kennedy was killed on Nov. 22, 1963, while riding in a 
motorcade in Dallas.  Oswald was arrested two hours later, and he was 
killed by Jack Ruby two days later.
   In examining how Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, managed to enter 
police headquarters and shoot Oswald, the commission's draft report said: 
"Despite the fact that there is no evidence that any police official 
knowingly helped Ruby gain access to the basement, the Dallas Police 
Department must bear major responsibility for Ruby's slaying of Oswald."
   Paul McCaghren, a retired police lieutenant who was not present but 
later investigated the fatal shooting in the basement, said that Ruby's 
access to the basement was just lucky timing on his part.
   He said that in hindsight, he agrees things should have been done 
differently, but that the department had never experienced any similar 
situation.
   "We really had a lot to learn . . .," he said. "But as far as police 
officer negligence, not no, but hell no."
   According to the report, an armored truck was to be used to transport 
Oswald to county jail from the city jail.  But according to the report, 
police decided that "an unmarked police car would be better from the 
standpoint of both speed and deception. . . . Such car, bearing Oswald, 
should follow the armored truck."  But the police lieutenant driving the 
squad car was forced to go the wrong way on a ramp at police headquarters 
to pull in front of the armored car because the exit was blocked, Mr. 
McCaghren said.  Another police officer, who was guarding that area, 
was surprised when the lieutentant "pulled in and honked to hold the 
pedestrian traffic."  That's when Ruby slipped into the basement, he said.
   "He goes immediately down the ramp. . . . Lee Harvey Oswald was coming 
out.  He couldn't have timed it better," Mr. McCaghren said. ". . .You 
couldn't have written a better sequence on it. It's just the way it came out."
   As to the subtle reference that somebody in the Police Department who 
knew Ruby might have let him in, Mr. McCaghren said that didn't happen.
   "Hell, all the police knew him, but nobody let him in," said Mr. 
McCaghren, who is retired from the force and now runs a private investi-
gative agency in Dallas. ". . . We interviewed some 90 people and nobody 
let him in."
   Dallas County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Ewell, who was a police 
reporter with The Dallas Morning News at the time, wasn't surprised that 
the allegations against the Police Department are again news. 
   "This has come up so many times over the last 30 years," he said."But 
the police, I felt, always made a credible defense of it."
   Mr. Ewell said that Police Department officials would have done things 
differently in the transfer of Oswald, but top city officials overruled them.
   "Had they put a tight lid on it, the media would have been left out in 
the street, so to speak," he said.  "They [city officials] wanted to 
make sure that the world knew that Oswald was not being mistreated."
   Mr. Ewell, who was not at police headquarters when the assassination 
occurred, said he recalls the officers complaining that the high 
intensity of the television lights was blinding them.
   "It's no wonder Ruby was able to move through them they way he did," he 
said.
   Mr. Ford suggested the change in the wording describing the location of 
the wound on Kennedy's body.  This change was also accepted in the final 
report.
   The draft read: "A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above 
the shoulder and to the right of the spine."
   Ford suggested: "A bullet had entered the back of his neck at a point 
slightly to the right of the spine."
   The final report said: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of 
his neck slightly to the right of the spine."
   Mr. Ford's editing was seized upon by conspiracy theorists, who reject 
the commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone.
   "This is the most significant lie in the whole Warren Commission report," 
said Robert D. Morningstar, a computer systems specialist in New York City 
who said he has studied the assassination since it occurred and has 
written an Internet book about it.
   The effect of Ford's editing, Mr. Morningstar said, was to suggest that 
a bullet struck Kennedy in the neck, "raising the wound two or three 
inches.  Without that alteration, they could never have hoodwinked the 
public as to the true number of assassins."
   The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that a single bullet - fired by 
a "discontented" Oswald - passed through Kennedy's body and wounded his 
fellow motorcade passenger, Connally, and that a second, fatal bullet, 
fired from the same place, tore through Kennedy's head.
   Wednesday, Mr. Ford recalled making the change but said that clarity, 
not conspiracy, was the purpose.
   He said he supposed the commission's overriding conclusion - that Oswald 
acted alone - would always be challenged.  But, he said, "I think our 
judgments have stood the test of time."

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