When Ford learned as president that the #CIA had engaged members of the #Mafia in a failed effort to kill #FidelCastro during the #Eisenhower & #Kennedy years,he was dismayed & decided to form a special commission to investigate abuses by the intelligence community & suggest reforms. Days after announcing the formation of the #RockefellerCommission in Jan 1975, Ford accidentally shared at an off-the-record lunch with execs & editors from NYT that his concern about abuses involved #assassination.
As a US representative, Ford was a member of the #WarrenCommission, which investigated the #assassination of President #JohnFKennedy. The experience affected him profoundly. During a site visit to the Texas School Book Depository, the members of the committee took a rifle similar to the one used by Lee Harvey Oswald & looked through its scope at the traffic below. “Kennedy had been my friend,” Ford later recalled. “The thought we were reconstructing his assassination sent a chill down my spine.”
When Ford learned as president that the #CIA had engaged members of the #Mafia in a failed effort to kill #FidelCastro during the #Eisenhower & #Kennedy years,he was dismayed & decided to form a special commission to investigate abuses by the intelligence community & suggest reforms. Days after announcing the formation of the #RockefellerCommission in Jan 1975, Ford accidentally shared at an off-the-record lunch with execs & editors from NYT that his concern about abuses involved #assassination.