Deep Politics Forum

Gerald Ford's motorcade passing through Dealey Plaza in 1976.



Not quite the turnout that JFK received.

Yes, and no lone nuts that day as they only seem to come out for the progressive politicians.

Ja. The reich restored. Post Viet Nam people-less landscape and politics.

Judging by the headlights, it looks like late afternoon. Is that a convertible he's riding in?
I have to say that this photo doesn't bolster the arguments of those who say the motorcade route was changed to go down Elm St only for the JFK assassination. Obviously Ford's motorcade took the same route.

Tracy Riddle Wrote:Obviously Ford's motorcade took the same route.

For old time's sake.

Or maybe for boasting...



This photo shows what an impossible shot it was.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/neve...-for-time/

Late in his 1976 campaign, Ford's media team produced the 5-minute commercial that shows Ford (who had survived two near-miss assassination attempts) giving a speech. A cherry bomb goes off, the President clearly presumes it is an assassin firing, and flinches. In the following scenes, we see Ford parading through Dallas in a motorcade similar to John Kennedy's fatal caravan of 1963. "Neither the cherry bombs of a misguided prankster nor all the memories of recent years can keep people and their President apart," says the narrator. "When a limousine can parade openly through the streets of Dallas, there's a change that's come over America."
Ford's team hoped the commercial would show that their man had closed down the bad years that led from JFK's assassination to Vietnam and Watergate. But when pollster Bob Teeter showed the commercial to a secret focus group, he discovered that "it was shocking to them," as he later told Jules Witcover, author of "Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency 1972-1976." "It was just too emotional. …It was just frightening."
Memories of the Kennedy murder and of Ford's close calls were too recent. Some on Ford's team feared that the spot would harm the campaign in Texas. The Secret Service would also have been right to worry that the film might incite a third assassin to assault the President. The commercial was kept in the vault and never aired.

Dealy Plaza always looks bigger in pictures than it really is. When I visited it for the first time, I was quite shocked how close everything really is.

I wonder if this motorcade made the same trip down Main, then from Houston to Elm; or did it come right down Elm?

Clearly, choosing a different motorcade route - even with hindsight and (almost) no one watching - might have appeared suspicious.

I wonder if Gary Mack has any information about the route this motorcade took to get to Elm?