Washington ? Former President Ford secretly advised the FBI that two of his fellow members on the Warren Commission doubted the FBI’s conclusion that John F. Kennedy was shot from the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository in Dallas, according to newly released records from Ford’s FBI files.

Ford, still a congressman at the time, also told a senior FBI official about internal panel disputes over hiring staff, Chief Justice Earl Warren’s timetable for completing the final report on the assassination and what panel members said about the FBI.

In turn, Assistant FBI Director Cartha “Deke” DeLoach confidentially advised Ford of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s position on panel disputes; discussed where leaks were coming from; and, with Hoover’s personal approval, loaned him a bureau briefcase with a lock so he could securely take the FBI report on the 1963 assassination with him on a ski trip.

The new details were included in 500 pages of the FBI’s large file on Ford, released in part this past week in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act that The Associated Press and others made on the day Ford died in December 2006. The FBI intends to release additional documents about Ford in several batches, all with parts censored for law enforcement and privacy reasons.