Another view of Gerald Ford
Hey Folks,
As often is the case, the more we learn about someone the less heroic they seem.
Below is what Terry Lodge, a knowledgable contributor to the Columbus NION list serv, had to say about former President Gerald Ford.
- Uke Man
Folks, I just cannot stand one more minute of history revisionism about Gerald Ford. All this "lookback fondly" dreck is thoroughly disgusting.
Besides his pardon of Richard Nixon - Nixon, a bonafide war criminal who should have been prosecuted assuch for, among many other things, his evil secretbombings of Cambodia during the Vietnam war, theWatergate breakin and its coverup - Gerald Ford himself was directly involved in the prosecution and coverup of a secret war.
In 1975 Ford and Kissinger were returning from an official tour of Asia and stopped over in Jakarta, Indonesia, to meet for several hours with President Suharto, the country's murderous dictator.
In the course of that meeting, it was revealed from government documents released in 2001, Henry Kissingerand Gerald Ford assured Suharto he could invade the neighboring small island country of East Timor with impunity for several weeks and that the Ford administration would not publicly take issue with the illegal use of US weaponry and military aid being used to conduct an offensive war.
Moreover, Kissinger, in the presence of Ford, pledged to minimize and obfuscate the actual conduct of the war, which in the ensuing three decades has cost the lives of perhaps 500,000 Timorese (and at least 100,000 in the first year or so of the Indonesian invasion and occupation).
Another Ford production was the coverup of the Pinochet regime's involvement in the Washington, D.C. midday assassination of Orlando Letelier in 1976 in downtown Washington - the only such crime ever, before or since, in our capital. According to the noted investigative reporter Robert Parry, in fall 1976,George H.W. Bush, then CIA Director under Gerald Ford,deflected a scandal about the terrorist bombing of former (under Allende) defense minister and Pinochet critic Orlando Letelier and a fellow activist.
Though immediately in possession of incriminating evidence pointing to the U.S.-backed Pinochet government's DINA secret police as the murderers, Bush's CIA steered investigators away from the real killers. Gerald Ford was in a close race with Jimmy Carter for election, and keeping this sensational murder a mystery throughout the campaign allowed Ford to surge from behind and only narrowly to lose to Carter.
The Letelier murder was solved only years later when a criminal in custody in New York provided evidence to the FBI, whom Bush the Elder deliberately stonewalled and lied to when he was at the CIA. In 2000, the FBI recommended that Augosto Pinochet be indicted for the murder of Orlando Letelier.
When I hear what a damned nice guy Gerald Ford was, how he was so "common" and had "integrity" and brought"calm" to America after Watergate, how he presided over the end of the Vietnam War, what I think of is a conniving schlump too lacking in principle to question or block the murderous fascism of Henry Kissinger,certainly one of the most singularly ruthless and evil murderers of that, or indeed, any, era; and George H.W. Bush, who was later to figure centrally in Iran-Contra and the secret wars of Central America.
The URLs and introductory information for two excellent sources appear below:
http://www.gwu. edu/~nsarchiv/ NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/
FORD, KISSINGER AND THE INDONESIAN INVASION, 1975-76 Ford and Kissinger Gave Green Light to Indonesia's Invasion of East Timor, 1975: New Documents Detail Conversations with Suharto National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No.62 Edited by William Burr and Michael L. Evans December 6, 2001
http://www.scoop. co.nz/stories/ HL0609/S00350. htm
Bush Shields Dad on Chile Terrorism By Robert Parry Consortium News & Truthout Friday 22 September 2006 Chilean investigators say the Bush administration is undercutting their case against former dictator Augusto Pinochet for his alleged role in the terrorist assassination of a political rival on the streets ofWashington three decades ago, a crime that then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush appears to have tolerated and then helped cover-up.
As often is the case, the more we learn about someone the less heroic they seem.
Below is what Terry Lodge, a knowledgable contributor to the Columbus NION list serv, had to say about former President Gerald Ford.
- Uke Man
Folks, I just cannot stand one more minute of history revisionism about Gerald Ford. All this "lookback fondly" dreck is thoroughly disgusting.
Besides his pardon of Richard Nixon - Nixon, a bonafide war criminal who should have been prosecuted assuch for, among many other things, his evil secretbombings of Cambodia during the Vietnam war, theWatergate breakin and its coverup - Gerald Ford himself was directly involved in the prosecution and coverup of a secret war.
In 1975 Ford and Kissinger were returning from an official tour of Asia and stopped over in Jakarta, Indonesia, to meet for several hours with President Suharto, the country's murderous dictator.
In the course of that meeting, it was revealed from government documents released in 2001, Henry Kissingerand Gerald Ford assured Suharto he could invade the neighboring small island country of East Timor with impunity for several weeks and that the Ford administration would not publicly take issue with the illegal use of US weaponry and military aid being used to conduct an offensive war.
Moreover, Kissinger, in the presence of Ford, pledged to minimize and obfuscate the actual conduct of the war, which in the ensuing three decades has cost the lives of perhaps 500,000 Timorese (and at least 100,000 in the first year or so of the Indonesian invasion and occupation).
Another Ford production was the coverup of the Pinochet regime's involvement in the Washington, D.C. midday assassination of Orlando Letelier in 1976 in downtown Washington - the only such crime ever, before or since, in our capital. According to the noted investigative reporter Robert Parry, in fall 1976,George H.W. Bush, then CIA Director under Gerald Ford,deflected a scandal about the terrorist bombing of former (under Allende) defense minister and Pinochet critic Orlando Letelier and a fellow activist.
Though immediately in possession of incriminating evidence pointing to the U.S.-backed Pinochet government's DINA secret police as the murderers, Bush's CIA steered investigators away from the real killers. Gerald Ford was in a close race with Jimmy Carter for election, and keeping this sensational murder a mystery throughout the campaign allowed Ford to surge from behind and only narrowly to lose to Carter.
The Letelier murder was solved only years later when a criminal in custody in New York provided evidence to the FBI, whom Bush the Elder deliberately stonewalled and lied to when he was at the CIA. In 2000, the FBI recommended that Augosto Pinochet be indicted for the murder of Orlando Letelier.
When I hear what a damned nice guy Gerald Ford was, how he was so "common" and had "integrity" and brought"calm" to America after Watergate, how he presided over the end of the Vietnam War, what I think of is a conniving schlump too lacking in principle to question or block the murderous fascism of Henry Kissinger,certainly one of the most singularly ruthless and evil murderers of that, or indeed, any, era; and George H.W. Bush, who was later to figure centrally in Iran-Contra and the secret wars of Central America.
The URLs and introductory information for two excellent sources appear below:
http://www.gwu. edu/~nsarchiv/ NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/
FORD, KISSINGER AND THE INDONESIAN INVASION, 1975-76 Ford and Kissinger Gave Green Light to Indonesia's Invasion of East Timor, 1975: New Documents Detail Conversations with Suharto National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No.62 Edited by William Burr and Michael L. Evans December 6, 2001
http://www.scoop. co.nz/stories/ HL0609/S00350. htm
Bush Shields Dad on Chile Terrorism By Robert Parry Consortium News & Truthout Friday 22 September 2006 Chilean investigators say the Bush administration is undercutting their case against former dictator Augusto Pinochet for his alleged role in the terrorist assassination of a political rival on the streets ofWashington three decades ago, a crime that then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush appears to have tolerated and then helped cover-up.
1 Comments:
Hi Tom,
Terry Lodge may be correct about some of his accusations, but so what? I didn't hear him saying any of these things when Ford was alive. What good does it do now? Perhaps HE should run for office and see how he could improve the world. I was probably too busy in my own life and with my own problems to pay as much attention to Ford's presidency as I should have. However, I don't mind being told he was a decent man who let his kids think for themselves while living in the White House or that he remembered Ann Fisher's parents. Thanks for sharing anyway. Sondra
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