Tag: Valery GIscard D’Estaing

President Ford spoke of a JFK plot, says former French president

Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford (left) looks on as Chief Justice Earl Warren presents the Commission’s report to President Lyndon Johnson

It was a private moment between two aspiring statesmen.

On the evening of May 19, 1976, President Valery Giscard d’Estaing of France visited President Gerald Ford in Washington. Giscard, a calculating centrist, had come for a state visit. Ford, the former Michigan congressman, had succeeded the disgraced Richard Nixon. Both men were new to their high offices.

In the limousine ride to the state banquet at George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon, Giscard asked Ford about a sensitive issue: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy 13 years before.

‘Here is an indiscrete question, Giscard said, “You were with the Warren Commission. What was your take?’ …

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