Do it in the name of Heaven, you can justify it in the end

Gerald Ford died. So sad. Kindly old Grandpa, yadda yadda yadda. He was the unifier:

"My fellow Americans," Ford said, "our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule."

Sure, whatever.

He was actually a Republican über-Macher behind the scenes. For example, he was this guy:

A key edit in the Warren Report may have helped. The report's first draft said: "A bullet had entered his [President Kennedy's] back at a point slightly below the shoulder to the right of the spine." Had that stood, the trajectory would have made it impossible for the bullet that struck Kennedy to come out his neck, and then somehow critically wound Connally.

Newly released documents show, however, that Warren Commission member Congressman Gerald Ford pressed the panel to change its description of the wound and place it higher in Kennedy's body. Ford wanted the wording changed to: "A bullet had entered the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine." The panel's final version was: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine."

This crucial change only came to light in 1997, when the Assassination Record Review Board released handwritten notes made by Ford that had been kept by J. Lee Rankin, the Warren Commission's chief counsel. Ford's change is even at odds with his own declaration in the Oct. 2, 1964 issue of Life: "I personally believe that one of these three shots missed entirely – but which of the three may never be known. I believe that another bullet struck the president in the back and emerged from his throat (and went on to strike Connally.)"


When the alteration was brought to Ford's attention in 1997, he said it "had nothing to do with (thwarting) a conspiracy theory" and was made "only in an attempt to be more precise." Assassination researcher Robert Morningstar, however, called the change "the most significant lie in the whole Warren Commission report." He pointed out that if the bullet had hit Kennedy in the back, it could not have gone on to strike Connally the way the commission said it did. Morningstar contended that the effect of Ford's editing suggested that a bullet hit the president 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."

Ford's alteration supports the single-bullet theory by making a specific point that the bullet entered Kennedy's body ''at the back of his neck'' rather than in his uppermost back, as the commission staff originally wrote.

M'kay. He's also this guy:

Gerald Ford was so close to Hoover that he served as the FBI director's informant while he was on the Warren Commission. This is confirmed by an internal FBI memo of Dec. 12, 1963. Written to Hoover by his deputy Cartha DeLoach, it says: "Ford indicated he would keep me thoroughly advised as to the activities of the commission. He stated that would have to be done on a confidential basis; however, he thought it had to be done." The Washington Post disclosed the memo in 1991. Newsweek had earlier described Ford as "the CIA's best friend in Congress."

Hoover biographer Curt Gentry concurs that Ford was Hoover's informant on the commission. In fact, in his 1991 book J. Edgar Hoover, Gentry notes that the Hoover-Ford connection went back a number of years. Discussing the FBI's "favored politicians," the author said such people "were warned who their opponents would be, what background they had, and what skeletons might be hidden in their closets. In some cases, they were even elected with the FBI's help. Impressed with a young congressional hopeful in Michigan, the bureau in 1946 arranged support for Gerald Ford, who then expressed his thanks in his maiden speech in the House by asking for a pay raise for J. Edgar Hoover."

And this guy:

Gerald Ford, former President and last surviving member of the Warren Commission, has demonstrated his strategy again: Disguise your crimes by attacking the attacker. I am increasingly flabbergasted about what is possible in America. Why is the world and the History Channel swallowing his attack on the documentary "The guilty men"? For those who missed this headline news, it is the last episode of "The men who killed Kennedy" series, aired last November and originally scheduled for re-runs over the next nine years, which makes a case for Lyndon Johnson as a main conspirator in JFK's murder. Ford's coordinated protest with former Johnson cronies like Bill Moyers, Jack Valenti and Johnson's widow, has now even resulted in complete cancellation of all three new episodes, including those which were not attacked, like "The Love Affair" with Judyth Vary Baker, who makes a credible case for having been Lee Harvey Oswald's girlfriend, exonerating him from the Government's THEORY that he was the lone assassin. To my knowledge, this is an unprecedented form of censorship in the United States.

And this guy:

Citing his experience on the Warren Commission, which investigated the 1963 Kennedy assassination, former President Gerald Ford said Monday he opposes the appointment of an independent commission to investigate whether President Bush had enough advance knowledge of terrorist threats to be able to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

And at long last, this guy (note: some speculation, some verified truth):

Whether Nixon was directly involved in planning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy does not have to be settled here. What is important is that Nixon was directly involved in covering up the truth about who did kill Kennedy. Evidence from the Nixon-Haldeman tapes of June 1972 indicated that Nixon knew the truth about the assassination when he suggested Gerald Ford be part of the Warren Commission.[12]
A close personal friendship had developed between Ford and Nixon during their days together in the Congress, when both were strong, ultra-conservative, "red, white and blue", anti-Communist, "religious" members who thought and talked alike.
When Nixon realized that John Kennedy had been killed almost under his nose in Dallas by some of his Bay of Pigs friends, the PCG convinced him he had to do everything in his power to cover it up and to bide his time until his powerful military and intelligence friends could place him in the White House. It took one more murder by the PCG (Robert Kennedy) to get him there, and still another attempted murder to keep him there (George Wallace).
Control over the investigations of these murders was essential for Nixon and the PCG. In order to guide a presidential commission away from the truth, the closed small circle of people in the PCG who knew what had happened to John Kennedy had to be enlarged. Allen Dulles was no problem. He knew the cause was an intelligence/military one from the day it happened. Earl Warren was a different matter. He had to be fooled and later talked into remaining silent "for the good of the country."

A ringleader inside the Warren Commission was crucial. It had to be someone the PCG and Nixon could trust, one who had an honest and trustworthy appearance. Nixon called on Gerry Ford, and he convinced LBJ that Ford should be on the Commission.[13]
Nixon told Ford at some point prior to January, 1964 who killed JFK and why. He convinced Ford that every effort should be made to make sure Oswald was found to be the lone assassin. Ford did an excellent job. He not only steered the Commission away from the facts[14] whenever a key witness was interviewed or an embarrassing situation developed, but he also nailed Oswald's coffin shut personally by publishing his own book on Oswald.[15] This, coming from the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, served to firmly plant in the American mind the idea that there was no conspiracy, that Oswald was the lone assassin, and that the Warren Commission had done a good job.
From the day Ford's book was published, Nixon and Ford became totally beholden to each other. They also both became totally beholden to the members of the PCG who were at or near the top of things and who were part of the small knowledgeable circle. Other members of the PCG's inner circle included J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Helms.