Volume 21, Number 18 · November 14, 1974
Mr. Ford's Deceptions
By I.F. Stone
There is no need to repeat what so many others have said about the charade of Ford's hearing before the House Judiciary Committee—the time wasted in fulsome obeisance to His Imperial Majesty, the abject thankfulness of the leadership for the privilege of being conned, the subcommittee's disastrous lack of preparation for the hearing, the chance given Ford to waste most of the precious time available in a prepared statement which filibustered by repeating the evasive inadequacies he had already repeated so many times before, the strict five-minute rule which guaranteed grasshopper-minded interrogation, and above all the refusal to allow Bella Abzug of New York and John Conyers of Detroit to participate in the questioning their resolutions of inquiry[1] had precipitated. To the general praise of Ms. Holtzman for the sole attempt at militant inquiry we would add only our dismay at what wet firecrackers the other two liberal members, Kastenmeier of Wisconsin and Edwards of California, turned out to be. Conyers deserves mention for the astute final words of the despairing statement he issued afterward, 'The resolution of inquiry has been used shrewdly to forestall a thorough inquiry.' Ford—like Nixon before him—has temporarily at least turned investigation into self-serving theater.
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