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Lot 60
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Unique Gerald Ford inscription "Oswald was the assassin"
Unique Gerald Ford inscription "Oswald was the assassin"
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Description:

Portrait of the Assassin, by Gerald Ford, first edition, first printing, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1965, measuring 6 1/2" x 8 1/2" x 1". Near fine copy in a near fine original dust jacket. Vibrant red cloth boards with unfaded titles to the spine. The book has sharp corners with no edge wear. Black top stain as applied by publisher. The interior of the book is clean and bright with the pages appearing as unread. The book comes with a near fine dust jacket with just a few tiny nicks to top edge. Large bold inscription covering the front fly leaf by Gerald Ford dated "11/8/1994", and signed by Gerald Ford in full signature as "Gerald Ford". A spectacular and highly revealing inscription by Gerald Ford, who at the time was the sole surviving member of the Warren Commission, the committee established by President Johnson to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy, and who was a heavy promoter of the "Single Bullet theory". His inscription was written as shown in full below: "To Paul Hartunian, As sole surviving member of Warren Commission I fully endorse two basic conclusions of Commission: 1) Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin 2) The Commission found no evidence of a conspiracy foreign or domestic Gerald Ford 11/8/1994" This highly controversial inscription is consistent with Gerald Ford’s notes when he changed the Warren Commission's key sentence regarding the assassin’s bullet hole entry point. By endorsing the infamous "Single Bullet Theory", Ford strengthened the commission's conclusion that a single bullet passed through Kennedy and severely wounded Texas Gov. John Connally, and was a crucial element supporting its conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman. A small change, said Ford, one intended to clarify meaning, not alter history. ''My changes had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory,'' he said in a telephone interview from Beaver Creek, Colo. ''My changes were only an attempt to be more precise.'' Yet this edit/change was seized upon by members of the conspiracy community, which rejects 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 and written an Internet book about it. The effect of Ford's editing, 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.'' If the bullet had hit Kennedy in the back, it could not have struck Connolly in the way the commission said it did, he said. 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. The assassination of the president occurred November 22, 1963, in Dallas; Oswald was arrested that day but was shot and killed two days later as he was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail. Conspiracy theorists reject the idea that a single bullet could have hit both Kennedy and Connally and done such damage. Thus, they argue that a second gunman must have been involved. Ford's changes tend to support the single-bullet theory by emphasizing 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. Ford's handwritten notes were contained in 40,000 pages of records kept by J. Lee Rankin, chief counsel of the Warren Commission. They were later made public by the Assassination Record Review Board, an agency created by Congress to amass all relevant evidence in the case. The documents will be available to the public in the National Archives. Completely challenging Ford's statement, the staff of the commission had written: ''A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine.'' Ford suggested changing that to read: ''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.'' Ford, then House Republican leader and later elevated to the presidency with the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon, is the sole surviving member of the seven-member commission chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren. And the conspiracy theory still lives on today …. Somewhat ironically, as even during the investigation at the time, the final Warren Commission report stated that not all investigators believed the single bullet theory to be accurate. A phenomenal and lengthy revealing inscription by Gerald Ford within a near fine example of his book!

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