It was pretty standard practice to use 38 Special loads in 357 Mag chambers in the FBI and other agencies at that time.
And yes, it appears most students of the debacle and its aftermath agree that demonizing the 9mm and 38/357 was not the real lesson that needed to be learned. Fortunately, a lot of people have taken the better lessons of the firefight to heart, and as a result being that LEO's are much, much better armed and trained for gunfighting today than they were 30 years ago.
