Rich in irony- Blaine actually posted this on HIS blog LOL

About ANOTHER presidential guard who drank and was derelict in his duties- the same could be said for JFK's guards: they failed to protect JFK and drank the night before...well, Clint Hill, Jack Ready, Paul Landis, Glen Bennett and four others did


What happened to Officer John Parker, the man who chose the wrong night to leave his post at Ford's Theater?

By Paul Martin

After President Lincoln settled in to enjoy Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre, his guard left to drink at a nearby saloon, leaving Lincoln vulnerable.


When a celebrity-seeking couple crashed a White House state dinner last year, the issue of presidential security dominated the news. The Secret Service responded by putting three of its officers on administrative leave and scrambled to reassure the public that it takes the job of guarding the president very seriously. “We put forth the maximum effort all the time,” said Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan.

That kind of dedication to safeguarding the president didn’t always exist. It wasn’t until 1902 that the Secret Service, created in 1865 to eradicate counterfeit currency, assumed official full-time responsibility for protecting the president. Before that, security for the president could be unbelievably lax. The most astounding example was the scant protection afforded Abraham Lincoln on the night he was assassinated. Only one man, an unreliable Washington cop named John Frederick Parker, was assigned to guard the president at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865.

Today it’s hard to believe that a single policeman was Lincoln’s only protection, but 145 years ago the situation wasn’t that unusual. Lincoln was cavalier about his personal safety, despite the frequent threats he received and a near-miss attempt on his life in August 1864, as he rode a horse unescorted. He’d often take in a play or go to church without guards, and he hated being encumbered by the military escort assigned to him. Sometimes he walked alone at night between the White House and the War Department, a distance of about a quarter of a mile.

John Parker was an unlikely candidate to guard a president—or anyone for that matter. Born in Frederick County, Virginia, in 1830, Parker moved to Washington as a young man, originally earning his living as a carpenter. He became one of the capital’s first officers when the Metropolitan Police Force was organized in 1861. Parker’s record as a cop fell somewhere between pathetic and comical. He was hauled before the police board numerous times, facing a smorgasbord of charges that should have gotten him fired. But he received nothing more than an occasional reprimand. His infractions included conduct unbecoming an officer, using intemperate language and being drunk on duty. Charged with sleeping on a streetcar when he was supposed to be walking his beat, Parker declared that he’d heard ducks quacking on the tram and had climbed aboard to investigate. The charge was dismissed. When he was brought before the board for frequenting a whorehouse, Parker argued that the proprietress had sent for him.

In November 1864, the Washington police force created the first permanent detail to protect the president, made up of four officers. Somehow, John Parker was named to the detail. Parker was the only one of the officers with a spotty record, so it was a tragic coincidence that he drew the assignment to guard the president that evening. As usual, Parker got off to a lousy start that fateful Friday. He was supposed to relieve Lincoln’s previous bodyguard at 4 p.m. but was three hours late.

Lincoln’s party arrived at the theater at around 9 p.m. The play, Our American Cousin, had already started when the president entered his box directly above the right side of the stage. The actors paused while the orchestra struck up “Hail to the Chief.” Lincoln bowed to the applauding audience and took his seat.

Parker was seated outside the president’s box, in the passageway beside the door. From where he sat, Parker couldn’t see the stage, so after Lincoln and his guests settled in, he moved to the first gallery to enjoy the play. Later, Parker committed an even greater folly: At intermission, he joined the footman and coachman of Lincoln’s carriage for drinks in the Star Saloon next door to Ford’s Theatre.

John Wilkes Booth entered the theater around 10 p.m.. Ironically, he’d also been in the Star Saloon, working up some liquid courage. When Booth crept up to the door to Lincoln’s box, Parker’s chair stood empty. Some of the audience may not have heard the fatal pistol shot, since Booth timed his attack to coincide with a scene in the play that always sparked loud laughter.


No one knows for sure if Parker ever returned to Ford’s Theatre that night. When Booth struck, the vanishing policeman may have been sitting in his new seat with a nice view of the stage, or perhaps he had stayed put in the Star Saloon. Even if he had been at his post, it’s not certain he would have stopped Booth. “Booth was a well-known actor, a member of a famous theatrical family,” says Ford’s Theatre historical interpreter Eric Martin. “They were like Hollywood stars today. Booth might have been allowed in to pay his respects. Lincoln knew of him. He’d seen him act in The Marble Heart, here in Ford’s Theatre in 1863.”
A fellow presidential bodyguard, William H. Crook, wouldn’t accept any excuses for Parker. He held him directly responsible for Lincoln’s death. “Had he done his duty, I believe President Lincoln would not have been murdered by Booth,” Crook wrote in his memoir. “Parker knew that he had failed in duty. He looked like a convicted criminal the next day.” Parker was charged with failing to protect the president, but the complaint was dismissed a month later. No local newspaper followed up on the issue of Parker’s culpability. Nor was Parker mentioned in the official report on Lincoln’s death. Why he was let off so easily is baffling. Perhaps, with the hot pursuit of Booth and his co-conspirators in the chaotic aftermath, he seemed like too small a fish. Or perhaps the public was unaware that a bodyguard had even been assigned to the president.

Incredibly, Parker remained on the White House security detail after the assassination. At least once he was assigned to protect the grieving Mrs. Lincoln before she moved out of the presidential mansion and returned to Illinois. Mrs. Lincoln’s dressmaker, former slave Elizabeth Keckley, recalled the following exchange between the president’s widow and Parker: “So you are on guard tonight,” Mrs. Lincoln yelled, “on guard in the White House after helping to murder the President.”

“I could never stoop to murder,” Parker stammered, “much less to the murder of so good and great a man as the President. I did wrong, I admit, and have bitterly repented. I did not believe any one would try to kill so good a man in such a public place, and the belief made me careless.”

Mrs. Lincoln snapped that she would always consider him guilty and ordered him from the room. Some weeks before the assassination, she had written a letter on Parker’s behalf to exempt him from the draft, and some historians think she may have been related to him on her mother’s side.

Parker remained on the Metropolitan Police Force for three more years, but his shiftlessness finally did him in. He was fired on August 13, 1868, for once again sleeping on duty. Parker drifted back into carpentry. He died in Washington in 1890, of pneumonia. Parker, his wife and their three children are buried together in the capital’s Glenwood Cemetery—on present-day Lincoln Road. Their graves are unmarked. No photographs have ever been found of John Parker. He remains a faceless character, his role in the great tragedy largely forgotten.

December 16-17 1961 - President John F. Kennedy visits Venezuela and Colombia

December 16-17 1961 - President John F. Kennedy visits Venezuela and Colombia



MORE Blaine lies exposed: agents on rear of limo, nice speed of cars, full bubbletop (no rain; nice weather), good motorcycle formation, press/ photographers in front of JFK's limo

The White House Detail in 1963 (nice ripoff of my video [s] and sources LOL)

The White House Detail in 1963

JFK Hawaii Visit 1963 (New Footage)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqUGLapfrW4

JFK Hawaii Visit 1963 (New Footage)





Excellent film/ video! Notice the agents running beside JFK's limo. As my research has shown, if they would have been there (as they normally were) on 11/22/63, JFK would have lived. This augments OTHER films and videos from the same trip confirming this protective formation. Also depicts the press/ photographers flatbed trucks in FRONT of the limo, something also missing in Dallas

Agent Mike Shannon: on JFK's Texas trip

Monday, July 11, 2011

Former Secret Service agent: Betty Ford looked after us

Written by
The Associated Press

GRAND RAPIDS — An ex-Secret Service agent says former First Lady Betty Ford was like “a mother” to him and his colleagues.

Mike Shannon signed a condolence book for Ford at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids. He was among many who came to express their sympathy to the Ford family after Betty Ford's death in California on Friday.

Shannon told WOOD-TV that he protected the Fords, and Betty Ford was always concerned about the agents and their families. He says she once sent him home with a bag of oranges for his wife.

The museum says its lobby will be open around the clock until further notice so people can sign the book.

Her body will be sent to Michigan for burial at the museum alongside her husband.




http://www.thetimesherald.com


Michael J. Shannon (V.P./ LBJ Detail): on duty at LBJ Ranch on
11/21/63; went to Hotel Texas on the night of 11/21/63 [12 Mid-8 a.m.
11/22/63]; went back to Johnson City, TX afterwards

One Pissed Off Veteran re: "The Kennedy Detail"

http://opovet.blogspot.com/2011/06/kennedy-detail-book-review.html

"Thursday, June 23, 2011
The Kennedy Detail: Book Review
I don't ordinarily do book reviews except for my Book of the Month selections, but I have to talk about this one.

I just read The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence by former Kennedy-era Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine (cowritten -- i.e., ghostwritten -- by Lisa McCubbin).

As you might expect, it's basically a cover-your-ass account of the inner workings of the Secret Service White House detail leading up to, at the time of, and immediately following the JFK assassination. We don't get any breathless accounts of Kennedy's womanizing, for example, or any real behind-the-scenes gossip. Instead, the authors take great defensive pains to cover up or explain away the many failures of their protection of the president, and to support the official Oswald-did-it-and-did-it-alone Warren Report version of events.

Except for one notable exception. Taken from the narratives and reports of the actual boots-on-the-ground Secret Service agents who were actually at the scene, two of whom were in the death car and four of whom were on the outside of the followup car, it becomes clear that they all agree that two different shots hit JFK and John Connally.

This is almost buried in the almost-too-much-extraneous-detail of the events in Dealey Plaza, but it is a bombshell. Or it should be, if the media was doing its job.

Even a casual student of the assassination knows that if JFK and Connally were hit by two different bullets (which is what Connally said all along and which is what a careful examination of the infamous Zapruder film shows), then the flimsy fabric of the Warren Report is left in shreds.

Here's why: The Warren Commission found that only three shots were fired (this was a foregone conclusion even before the commission was set up, since the FBI "established" that there were only three empty shells and stated without a doubt that Oswald was a lone assassin. There's also the basic physics involved. Given the obstructions provided by a large signboard and a couple of trees, there just wasn't enough time for more than three shots to be fired with the weapon found in the building).

One shot went wide and hit a curbstone before wounding slightly a bystander named James Teague. One shot -- the final one -- blew off Kennedy's head. That leaves only one bullet left, which had to do all the work of going completely through JFK, making multiple entries and exits through various bones in John Connolly before ending up in his thigh, only to emerge later, "found" at Parkland Hospital, in almost pristine condition. (Connally's thigh wound, it should be noted, contained more lead than was missing from the bullet.)

The bullet became the notorious Commission Exhibit 399, and you can see why even supporters of the Warren Commission's conclusions call it the "Magic Bullet".

It was physically impossible, given the self-imposed restrictions of the commission ("Oswald did it alone") and the physical restrictions of the crime scene, to account for two men getting hit by different bullets.

If the agents are right, then there were four shots (witnesses testified to hearing more than three shots but they were slighted or ignored) fired.

Which means at least two shooters.

Which means a conspiracy."

Vince Palamara's Amazon.Com review of Barry Ernest's "The Girl On The Stairs"

Barry Ernest has written a nice gem of a book with "The Girl On The Stairs." Clocking in at a little over 400 pages, the reader will enjoy the well-written, nicely structured feel of the book; very user-friendly, so to speak. Along with Doug Horne's 5-volume masterpiece and Jim Douglass' brilliant tome, Ernest's book is a very nice and essential addition to the JFK assassination library. Like those other seminal works, this is not the "same-ole-same-ole" or just theories---proof of conspiracy and cover-up in the JFK murder abounds. Along the way, we are treated to a nicely done telling of Ernest's journey towards truth and enlightenment. In addition, there are some other essential nuggets of information that add to the general notion of conspiracy, in general, as well as to the specific details of "The Girl On The Stairs", Victoria Adams, in particular (just how important her observations are come to light in this work, moreso than in any other previous work that either briefly mentions her in passing or, in many cases, not at all). Penn Jones was indeed correct when he stated that every serious researcher should "research the heck out a specific idea" (as, for example, I have done with the Secret Service). Barry Ernest has followed Jones' advice admirably (as well as that of his other, perhaps foremost, mentor in his quest for truth, Harold Weisberg).

To be honest, I purchased this book on a whim, unsure of what I was getting myself into. As a very jaded (at times) author and researcher, I feel I have "seen and heard it all before"...once again, as in the case of the aforementioned books by Horne and Douglass, I am glad to be proven wrong, especially at this late juncture. Buy this book asap!

"The Kennedy Detail": review by author Barry Ernest

The Kennedy Detail, by Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin, Gallery Books, 2010.

Synopsis: A 404-page cathartic response to the often-cited failure by the U.S. Secret Service of preventing the murder of President Kennedy.



The book supports the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Oswald did it alone. Yet it raises decisive questions about just that. Two points to ponder:

1) According to the Warren Report, three shots were fired by Oswald that day: one struck both Kennedy and Governor Connally; one missed and hit bystander James Tague; a third hit Kennedy in the head. The lone-assassin scenario hinged on one bullet causing seven non-fatal wounds to both men, a feat later characterized as the “single-bullet theory.” But Blaine sees it differently. He writes, “Follow-up car driver Sam Kinney’s responsibility was to maintain his focus on the president’s car. He saw Kennedy’s reaction to the first shot…. His eyes were still focused on President Kennedy when he heard the second shot and saw Governor Connally slump toward his wife.” (P. 214)

In the next paragraph, Blaine, referring to Gov. Connally, states, “He turned forward again and was just about to look over his left shoulder to make eye contact with President Kennedy when he felt a crippling blow to his back. Like Clint [Hill], the adrenaline coursing through his veins threw his system into such shock that he never heard the sound of the second shot, the very shot that hit him.” (Ibid) Connally’s wife, Nellie, agrees, for Blaine states, “She turned to her husband just as the sound of the second shot permeated the car. Immediately the governor doubled over….” (Ibid)

Note the credibility Blaine attaches to agent Kinney and Mrs. Connally when he says, “…of all the people who witnessed the assassination, only two were able to observe and recall those five seconds with constant clarity—Sam Kinney and Nellie Connally.” (Page 218)

Blaine also describes the First Lady’s reaction: “Jacqueline Kennedy was facing to her left when the first shot was fired. As she turned to the right, toward the sound, the president slumped to the left. Not knowing what was happening, she reached her right arm behind him, around his shoulders, just as the second shot hit the governor.” (Page 216)

The implication of all this is that both Kennedy and Connally were hit by separate bullets. Admittedly, Blaine was not in Dallas that day, but his recitation of events is taken directly from those who were. Because of timing problems and the total disregard for the injury to Tague, the account Blaine describes suggests that at least four shots were fired, a scenario implied as well by the FBI in its official conclusions of December 9, 1963.

2) The Warren Report stated Kennedy was killed by a bullet that entered the back of his head and blew out a portion of his brain and skull on his right side slightly in front of his ear. A film taken by witness Abraham Zapruder shows this. So do the autopsy photographs. How then does one account for this comment, attributed to agent Clint Hill, who had rushed forward into the presidential limousine (my emphasis in italics):

“And slumped across the seat, President Kennedy lay unmoving, a bloody, gaping, fist-sized hole clearly visible in the back of his head.” (Page 217)

Or this comment attributed to Admiral George Burkley, the president's physician, at Parkland Hospital: “He was still breathing, but he had a gaping hole in the back of his head.” (Page 232)

Or this, as agents unloaded the casket from Air Force One in Washington: “Now the men who just four and a half hours earlier had seen the back of President Kennedy’s head blown off hauled the casket holding his dead body off the forklift…” (Page 258)

Or this, from Clint Hill who was called into the autopsy specifically to view the body wounds: “All Clint could see was that the right rear portion of President Kennedy’s head was completely gone.” (Page 266)

Such damage conforms with what many doctors described. It also fits with Navy Commander John Ebersole, summoned to take x-rays of the president’s body, who said in a March 8, 1978, newspaper article [Lancaster (Pa.) Intelligencer Journal] that “…the back of his [Kennedy’s] head was blown off.” So too with Thomas Robinson, the funeral director responsible for embalming Kennedy. He told the House Select Committee that he saw a small, quarter-inch wide wound to the president’s right temple, and a ragged, somewhat circular wound about the size of an orange “directly behind the back of his head.” (HSCA Document 180-10089-10178) Robinson said the wound was so large a piece of rubber had to be inserted in order to fill the void so that stitching could take place during the embalming process.

The testimonies of Ebersole and Robinson, including the drawing the funeral director made of the head wound he had described, were not published in the House Committee's final volumes.

The implications of all this imply a shot from the front, not the rear. And that doesn’t include Blaine stating, “Sam Kinney felt the warm blood of the president’s head as it sprayed over the top of his windshield.” (Page 216) Kinney, remember, was driving the follow-up car. Or Kinney, having to look “through his own blood-splattered windshield….” (Page 218)

We are also left to question why Blaine describes the back seat of the presidential limo as being “untouched” (Page 261) and the bubble-top being placed on the car at Parkland Hospital “to protect the evidence of a crime scene” (Pages 244-45) when photos show agents cleaning the back seat with a bucket of water. Or why, in several instances, the non-fatal wound to Kennedy's back is described as being, “Six inches down from the neckline, just to the right of the spinal column…” (Page 266), a position lower than where the Warren Commission would ultimately place it.

Near the end, Blaine comments, “The conspiracy theories—and that’s all they were: theories, not fact—had been born out of the inability of people to cope with the simple truth.” (Page 364)

Unfortunately, they are also born out of conflicting tales to the tragedy.

James P. Hosty, Investigated Oswald, Dies at 86

James P. Hosty, Investigated Oswald, Dies at 86


By PAUL VITELLO
Published: June 19, 2011

Special Agent James P. Hosty had a few dozen cases in his portfolio in October 1963 when his supervisor in the Dallas office of the F.B.I. handed him another. It was the well-thumbed file on a suspected communist agitator and possible spy named Lee Harvey Oswald.

James P. Hosty testifying before Congress in 1975.

Mr. Hosty tried to find Oswald during two trips into the field in early November, without any luck.

The two men met for the first time on Nov. 22, 1963.

Oswald was being held at Dallas police headquarters, charged with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the killing of a Dallas police officer. Mr. Hosty, taking notes as the police interrogated Oswald, was beginning the half of his life that would remain painfully entangled in the mystery and national trauma of the Kennedy assassination.

Mr. Hosty, who died of prostate cancer on June 10 in Kansas City, Mo., at 86, always said he regretted not having found Oswald in those weeks before the assassination. But he insisted it would not have made a difference.

Oswald had been on the F.B.I.’s radar since returning to the United States in 1962, with his Russian wife, after an unsuccessful effort to settle in the Soviet Union. He had been interviewed by other F.B.I. agents and described in their reports as an avowed communist, a potential spy and a heavy drinker, but never as a potential assassin.

When asked by a Congressional committee years later why he did not alert the Secret Service to Oswald before the president’s visit, Mr. Hosty replied: “The only thing that we could tell the Secret Service was a direct threat to the president. He made no direct threat to the president. Therefore we could not tell them.”

In fact, it was Mr. Hosty’s contacts with Oswald, rather than the lack of them, that came to haunt him. In 1975, testifying before Congress, Mr. Hosty admitted having received a letter from Oswald in the weeks before the assassination and destroying it on the day Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby, Nov. 24.

He said the letter included Oswald’s sharp protest over Mr. Hosty’s having questioned Oswald’s wife, Marina, when the agent made two visits to their home while Oswald was out. Mr. Hosty testified that he destroyed the letter on orders from his supervisor, J. Gordon Shanklin. (Mr. Shanklin denied giving such an order.)

Mr. Hosty also figured in a deception involving Oswald’s address book. Mr. Hosty’s name and phone number appeared in the book, but F.B.I. agents in Washington, taking inventory of the contents of it for the Warren Commission, left his name out. (Commission lawyers later obtained the address book and discovered the omission.)

Both incidents made Mr. Hosty a lightning rod for suspicion about the credibility of the F.B.I. in the aftermath of the assassination, raising questions for some about what the agency knew and would not tell. For others, the incidents suggested darker possibilities.

Mr. Hosty’s name is ubiquitous in the conspiracy literature. Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie “JFK” has a fictionalized version of him at the center of a conspiracy of government operatives who kill the president and set up Oswald — an F.B.I. informant in the film — to take the fall.

“The irony was, my dad was a devout Irish-Catholic Democrat Kennedy supporter,” said Thomas Hosty, one of Mr. Hosty’s nine children, a lawyer, who helped his father write his 1995 memoir, “Assignment: Oswald.” They conceived the project after “JFK,” he said, to set the record straight. “Being portrayed as part of a plot to kill the president, it was just so hurtful to him.”

In his memoir, Mr. Hosty acknowledges some mistakes but contends that F.B.I. officials made bigger errors — first by trying to eliminate evidence that might make it seem as though the agency had any hint of Oswald’s plans, and then by letting commission investigators portray Mr. Hosty as a bumbler when the evidence emerged about his contact with Oswald in the weeks before the assassination.

“I came to understand that one of our jobs was to protect the bureau’s image at all costs,” he wrote.

Mr. Hosty was among 12 agents reprimanded for various investigative improprieties after the release of the Warren Commission’s report. In 1965, he was transferred to the F.B.I.’s Kansas City office, where he served until his mandatory retirement at age 55, in 1979.

After retiring, he granted interviews to every writer and documentary filmmaker who asked him about Dallas, Thomas Hosty said. “Even the ones who had some conspiracy agenda,” he added. “He figured if these people met him, they would see who he was — a straight arrow.”

James Patrick Hosty was born on Aug. 28, 1924, in Chicago, one of seven children of Charlotte Irene and James Hosty Sr., an executive in a sugar company. He served in World War II and later graduated from the University of Notre Dame. He joined the F.B.I. in 1952.

He and his wife, Janet, who died in 1999, had 9 children, 7 of whom survive, along with 22 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren.

In his testimony before the Warren Commission in 1964, Mr. Hosty said he spent the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, in meetings, none of them related to Oswald. On his lunch hour, he went outside to watch the president’s motorcade go by and then crossed the street to get lunch. While he was eating, a waitress told him what she had just heard on the radio.

“I immediately stopped my lunch,” he said, “and got back to the office.”

He found out two hours later that the Dallas police had arrested a suspect and identified him as Lee Harvey Oswald.

“What was your reaction?” the commission investigator asked.

“Shock,” Mr. Hosty said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 22, 2011

An obituary on Monday about James P. Hosty, an F.B.I. agent who investigated Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963, misstated at one point Mr. Hosty’s testimony before the Warren Commission. He did not tell the commission that he had received a letter from Oswald in the weeks before President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and later destroyed it; Mr. Hosty did not publicly acknowledge receiving that letter until he testified before Congress in 1975.

The Kennedy Detail's Robert Faison

(from Blaine's website)

"Monday, July 4, 2011
The Kennedy Detail's Robert Faison

It is with deep sadness that we must inform you of the death of Kennedy Detail agent Robert Faison, after a long illness. He was a true American patriot, and he will be greatly missed. Having served in the U.S. Army during the Korean conflict, Bob became the first African American permanently assigned to the Secret Service White House Detail, in 1962. After a distinguished career, Bob Faison retired from the Secret Service in 1982 as Assistant Inspector, in the Inspections Division."

The Kennedy Detail's Robert Faison

"Robert Roy Faison, 81, of Palm Coast, FL passed away at Stuart F. Meyer Hospice on June 28, 2011. A memorial service will be held on Tuesday, July 5th at 11:00 am at Palm Coast United Methodist Church, 5200 Belle Terre Pkwy., Palm Coast.

Bob was a Special Agent with the US Secret Service, he was the first African American permanently assigned to the White House and served during the Kennedy and Johnson administration. Bob traveled to thirty countries while assigned to the White House Detail. He was the third African American Special Agent hired by the Secret Service.

Bob was assigned to the midnight shift in Fort Worth Texas the night before President Kennedy's assassination. The Shift had flown to Austin where they received word the President had been shot. The shift immediately flew to Washington DC and protected President Johnson at his home the night of the assassination.

Bob served his country in the US Army, during the war in Korea. He rose to the rank of Warrant Officer, and was the youngest 1st Sgt. in a combat infantry company. He was awarded the Bronze Star while in Korea.

Bob was commissioned by the Secret Service in 1962 and was assigned to the Washington Field Office. He was assigned to President Kennedy in October 1963 after serving a thirty day temporary assignment on the Detail. He retired from the Secret Service after achieving the rank of Inspector.
He was a member of the Palm Coast United Methodist Church, a fifty year member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, a member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, The African American Cultural Society, and the Association of Former Agents of the Secret Service, the NAACP, and the Eagles Golf Club.

Bob will be missed by his fellow agents."

The Kennedy Detail: A couple of key facts incorrect

The Kennedy Detail: A couple of key facts incorrect


2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A couple of key facts incorrect, July 4, 2011
By Marshmallow3706 - Amazon Verified Purchase
This review is from: The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence (Hardcover)
Overall a decent book, but the shooting sequence has two major inaccuracies. First, Governor Connally and the President were struck by the same bullet (the second fired by Oswald). Anyone watching the Zapruder film can see this. The authors claim this is two different shots when history and more technical analysis have shown that it was indeed one bullet that struck both the President and Governor Connally. Oswald's first shot glanced off a tree branch and missed the motorcade all together. His third shot was of course the fatal head shot. I understand conspiracy theorists aren't going to like hearing that, but facts are stubborn things.

Secondly (and even worse in my opinion), is that the authors state that the driver of the presidential limo, Bill Greer, stepped on the gas after the second shot. Watching the Zapruder film you can see Greer, who for some reason looks back to Kennedy TWO TIMES after he has already been struck - so that he is also looking right at the president when the fatal head shot occurs. Only then does he step on the gas as Agent Hill struggles to climb on board. The book also states that Greer was not looking at the president during the fatal shot - proven wrong by the Zapruder film.

Now, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do not believe that the Secret Service, including driver agent Bill Greer were complicit in the assassination. But clearly this book is meant as a way to cover up incompetent behavior on the agents' part. This shouldn't really be unexpected from a book written in part by a member of Kennedy's Secret Service detail, but the reader may want to know this up front.

“The Kennedy Detail” – Inaccuracy perpetuated by Steve B Davis

“The Kennedy Detail” – Inaccuracy perpetuated by Steve B Davis


I purchased this book and read it recently hoping to get the inside on the protective agents. What a disappointment. This book in which the Secret Service agents assigned to the “Kennedy detail” speak for the first time simply covers-up and perpetuates inaccuracies of the past. Here are examples using excerpts from the book,

“By the time the motorcade reached the stretch of roadway where the assassination occurred, however, agents could no longer ride on the fenders, Blaine says.”We were going into a freeway, and that’s where you take the speeds up to 60 and 70 miles an hour. So we would not have had any agents there anyway,” he said.”

Facts- The motorcade was traveling 10-11 mph in Dealey Plaza. There should have been agents on the car. In fact the car had come to almost a complete stop by the time of the fatal head shot (likely the fourth or fifth shot).
“There’s no question in my mind he (Oswald) was the assassin,” Hill says. “I was there. I know what happened.”

Fact – Clint Hill and the motorcycle patrolman to the left rear of Kennedy were both splattered with blood and brain tissue from the head shot that came from the front of Kennedy. Scientific evidence done by a noted physicist, G. Paul Chambers in his book, “Head Shot” published in 2010, proves conclusively the kill shot to the head came from the Grassy Knoll to the right front of Kennedy. Respectfully Mr. Hill you were there, but as a participant you don’t know the whole truth of what occurred, so why state so emphatically you do.
The book does admit the Secret Service did not take the threats against Kennedy seriously, and that tall buildings along the motorcade route were not monitored or screened.
These agents also confirm that there were not any Secret Service agents on the ground in Dealey Plaza that day. The question then arises, Who were the men who produced Secret Service ID when stopped and questioned on the Grassy Knoll after the assassination by police and witnesses? The police allowed them to leave when they produced this false ID.
My impression of the book is this, it is an interesting collection of memories of working in Kennedy’s protective detail during his presidency. The agents still have not come clean about the drinking parties the night before the assassination, and the failure to follow proper procedure during the motorcade. Documents show Kennedy did not order the agents to stay off his car and drop back from their proper locations.
The Secret Service has a systemic problem – they refuse to believe a president has ever or could ever be killed by a conspiracy. They hang on to the lone nut scenario. Until this attitude is cleansed from the organization, this is likely to happen again.