A researcher named Doug Weldon, under the mentoring of Dr. James Fetzer, conducted an interview with a man he describes as a "Ford Man" in 1993. If you read this chapter in "Murder in Dealey Plaza" You will notice that there are virtually no substantiating details in this interview, or in fact anywhere in his discussions about this man. Weldon has chosen to do no additional research since that point to independently validate or discredit this man's statements using either sources available at a local library, on the internet, or the resources of the Ford Motor Company itself. Weldon insisted that you accept all of this man's statements without question. The basis of Weldon's faith that this man is telling the truth appears to be the fact that he supposedly met the man and liked him. This interview was included in "Murder In Dealey Plaza", Part Two, the chapter on the Kennedy Limousine.
Weldon claimed this witness was a "Man from the Ford Motor Company." This is a misrepresentation. This man had no identity. The researcher was to trust that this man had a connection to the Ford Motor Company. We were later told that this lone mystery-witness was actually a union employee of the Ford Rouge complex Assembly Plant B -- a far cry from the Ford Experimental Garage where 100X was built. The reseracher was led to think that this lone mystery-witness worked in a "repair and maintenance" garage somewhere at Ford, that had a "Glass Plant Lab" attached to it. The researcher was encouraged to believe that there was nobody else around when the 8,000 lb. limousine SS-100-X was brought into "B Building" to have its windshield replaced. The resercher was encouraged to trust this man who has no descriptive references for the "lab men" that actually did the replacement, except that they are now deceased. The Nameless "Witness" had no inside information into the condition of 100X on 11/25/63, and he was presented as the the only witness to "see" a through and through bullet hole in the Shaeffer /Altgens 1-6 "spiral nebulae"position. He tried to give the impression that he and he alone had any knowledge of thd inner workings of the Ford Motor Company. Weldon also attempted to impugn the credibility of witnesses who actually saw 100X after the assassination; such people as the FBI's Robert Frazier, and DC Ford's F. Vaughn Ferguson.
Reading this chapter demands objectivity Go ahead and ask "Does this make sense or not?"
Dr. Fetzer has chosen to include this questionable if not fraudulent account in his latest compendium "MIDP". Dr. Fetzer has chosen do do so knowing the story is most probably entirely false. When presented with exhaustive research done at considerable expense through the Henry Ford Museum, refuting this man's story, Dr. Fetzer took it upon himself to try to discredit the messenger, researcher and author Pamela McElwain-Brown.
The "B Building" this man mentioned is, in fact, part of the 1,100 acre Ford River Rouge Complex.t is the final assembly building for this complex, where, during the early sixties, the Ford Falcon was assembled. From early 1964 on, the Ford Mustang has been assembled there. The building was designed as an assembly building. It has since been repeatedly updated as an assembly building, to give it state-of-the art equipment.
The Rouge also supplies parts to many Ford assembly plants, because it contains a steel mill (Rouge Steel, now spun off) and a Glass Plant (that makes windshields and automotive glass) and a Stamping Plant (that makes doors, roofs, trunks, etc, all metal vehicle parts made from rolled steel). It also contains a Power Plant (that is now being rebuilt after a tragic explosion in 1998) that supplies steam and electricity to the Rouge Complex; it could power a city the size of Boston. The Rouge, at it's height in WWII, employed as many as 130,000 people; in 1963 it employed over 10,000 people. The Rouge is a security complex, so everyone entering and leaving it needed identification. Tours through the Rouge will be available starting in the Spring of 2004 for anyone interested in attempting to recreate the events this Nameless "Witness" mentions.
According to the Henry Ford Museum, B Building had NO facilities for automobile repair. It was designed and run as an assembly building only. According to them, The Rouge Complex B building would NOT have been a place that 100X would have been taken, were it to have come to Ford. The appropriate place would have been the Experimental Garage at the Proving Grounds, about a mile away. This was where 100X actually was taken whenever it was at Ford. There were facilities there for repairs and maintenance, as well as any other specialized function that might be needed. This facility would also be relatively isolated in terms of the number of people around, and far more private, had any covert activity needed to take place.
All of the issues with the Nameless "Witness" have been presented to Weldon on one or more occasions. This interview is at the core of Weldon's theory regarding 100X. All attempts to discuss issues regarding it have been greeted only with arrogant hostility, in which Dr. Fetzer (Weldon has apparently left the research community) challenged not only Mrs. McElwain-Brown's information, but information from the Henry Ford Museum and from the Ford Archives, yet without providing any documented information to the contrary. Why?Is this shoddy research, or something even worse? Is this really just a hoax? Is the only bintent to stir things up? Weldon and Fetzer had seven years to objectively verify information in this interview, and never bothered to do so. They have not even bothered to communicate to the research community that the B Building was in the Rouge Complex; that information, as has the rest of the substantiating information, came from Pamela McElwain-Brown. Weldon has also given copies of this interview to several "trusted researchers",among them Jack White, who have also had access to it for years. None of them have ever come forward and asked any questions regarding it either. Why not? Yet on the JFKResearch Board (which some call the disinfo board) Jack White repeatedly defended even the most ridiculous of this man's statments, such as referencing 100X as a "convertible". Are these issues the sort of thing that can only come from a specialist in the area of the Presidential Limousine, or are many of them simple common sense?
What is going on here? Are Fetzer and Weldon attempting to direct our attention away from something? Are we being distracted to think the Ford Motor Company is responsible for what happened to 100X after the assassination, leaving the Secret Service blameless? Are Fetzer and Weldon sincerely working to move the research effort forward or simply create disinformation that will generate conflict in the conspiracy camp? You will have to decide for yourself.