US Archives releases longer audio tape from Air Force One after Kennedy assassination
01/30/2012 4:23 PM
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- The Kennedy assassination was one of the most heart-wrenching and chaotic events in modern American history -- and one still replete with mysteries.
But now a little more light has been shed on one of them: What was edited out of the flight deck recording from Air Force One as it carried John F. Kennedy’s body and the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, from Dallas to Washington.
The National Archives and Records Administration today released a newly discovered recording – running about 2 hours and 20 minutes -- that is nearly 40 minutes longer than the only version previously known to exist.
The more complete recording was discovered last year by the Raab Collection, a manuscript collector in Pennsylvania, after one of its agents purchased at auction a box of personal effects from the estate of General Chester Clifton, who was Kennedy’s military aide.
The whereabouts of the complete Air Force One radio transmissions from Nov. 22, 1963, still remain a mystery. But what makes this a historically significant find is that it is an earlier version of the raw transmissions than the one housed at the LBJ Library, which was more heavily edited and runs only about an hour and 40 minutes.
Clifton, who died in 1991, left the White House in 1965, while the LBJ Library version was made public in 1971.
“This is the earliest that likely exists,” said Nathan Raab, vice president of the Raab Collection in Ardmore, Pa.
The newly found tape, a copy of which was donated to the Archives, includes never-before-heard transmissions between the White House Situation Room and another plane taking Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other Cabinet members to Tokyo at the time of Kennedy’s shooting and was turned back. It also contains an urgent request to locate the head of the Air Force, General Curtis LeMay, whose whereabouts in the immediate aftermath of the assassination have remained an obsession for generations of conspiracy theorists.
Some of the newly discovered radio traffic is raw and uncensored, such as when Rusk and his party are informed of the shooting while flying over the Pacific.
“Kennedy apparently shot in head,” the male radio operator in the Situation Room reports. “He fell face down in back seat of his car, blood was on his head, Mrs. Kennedy cried ‘oh, no’ and tried to hold up his head.”
Also heard are more mundane things, such as the pilots of Air Force One discussing how to avoid tornados in Arkansas and Mississippi along the flight path from Dallas to Washington, D.C.
Raab said he was most intrigued by the portion involving LeMay. Kennedy and the hawkish Air Force chief were widely known to mistrust each other and all references to LeMay were deleted in the Johnson Library version of the recording.
In the longer version, one of LeMay’s aides, a Colonel Dorman, contacts the White House Situation Room seeking to reach the general, who he tells them is flying in a C-140 aircraft with the last three numbers 497 and whose code name is “Grandson.”
“And I want to talk to him,” the colonel says. Any delay, he adds, “would be too late.”
But he is told they will have to interrupt transmissions with Air Force One to do so. The Situation Room reports that they are using both frequencies available to communicate with the presidential aircraft.
Summarizing the portions of the tape not made public before, the National Archives cited “references to new code names and incidents; a private conversation between Jerry Behn, the head of the Secret Service, and an unidentified individual about the disposition of the president’s body; an urgent effort by an aide to Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay to reach [him]; and attempts to locate various members of Congress from the Texas delegation.”
Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero said the recording “provides additional documentation concerning the immediate response of the US Government on the day of President Kennedy’s assassination.”
The tape, added, Raab, “will allow the public a more complete view of the chaotic circumstances following the assassination of President Kennedy.”
But the recording only goes so far. Several hours of raw tape are still missing. The transmissions heard on Air Force One that day should cover more than four hours -- from before 2 p.m. Eastern time to after 6 p.m., when the new president and the casket bearing JFK arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland.
“The raw tapes never resurfaced after 1965-66, and the very existence of the first Air Force One assassination tape [found among Clifton’s papers] was forgotten,” said the Raab Collection. “Over the years all the efforts to find the raw tapes or any other original version proved fruitless. They are no longer with the White House Communications Agency, where they were created.”
The Raab Collection is selling the original copy of the reel-to-reel recording for $500,000, along with other items found among Clifton’s estate, including an autographed photograph of President Kennedy.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Blaine wasn't there; THIS guy was. Blaine wants $$$ for his books; this guy wants zero profit---believe THIS guy
Dallas surgeon recounts JFK operation
Dr. Robert McClelland believes there was more than one shooter
Photo by Chris Beattie
Dr. Robert McClelland recounts to the Rotary Club of McKinney what happened Nov. 22, 1963 in the Parkland Memorial Hospital operating room where former President John F. Kennedy took his final breaths.
Almost 49 years later, mystery still surrounds the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.
Was Lee Harvey Oswald the real shooter? If so, was he the only one? There is someone who knows the truth about what happened on that November day in Dallas -- at least part of it.
"It was not just a single shooter," said Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the surgeons who operated on Kennedy at Parkland Memorial Hospital. "It wasn't just some crazy young man who wasn't connected to anything."
Such a conclusion, shared by millions across America, came to McClelland long before Friday, when he recapped his experience to the Rotary Club of McKinney. Though he admittedly "kept a distance from all of it," McClelland's personal connection to the event was hard for anyone else to ignore.
Just moments after Kennedy slunk to his left, sending horror through thousands of spectators, he was fighting for every breath inside a Parkland operating room, his head inches away from McClelland.
"He was in terrible shape; the right side of his brain had been blown out," McClelland said. "We worked on him for only eight or 10 minutes, from the time they made the incision to the time he lost all of his cardiac activity.
"There was no chance of saving him."
But memories of the futile operation, and the surrounding chaos, were never lost. McClelland spoke to Rotarians the past two Fridays about his recollections. His story dropped jaws and drew curious silence.
He reignited the wonder of any listeners who'd pushed the conspiracy theories away, out of mind. That's what McClelland said he tried to do, but the mysterious pieces always found him.
Some pieces seemingly fell from the gun -- or guns -- of Kennedy's killer.
"My supposition, and that of a lot of people, is that the first shot probably was fired from the sixth floor of the [Texas School Book Depository]...whether by Oswald or someone else, I don't know," McClelland told Rotarians. "The next shot apparently came from behind the picket fence by the grassy knoll -- all kinds of things indicate that is indeed what happened."
One glaring indicator, to which McClelland was uniquely close, was Kennedy's neck wound. Dr. Malcolm Perry, the chief surgeon for Kennedy and Oswald, cut an incision into Kennedy's neck to explore the wound.
Perry told reporters minutes later that it looked like an entrance wound -- meaning the shot had come from somewhere other than the sixth floor of the Depository. Referencing a recently published book about the assassination, McClelland said Secret Service agents allegedly accosted Perry after his statement and told him never to say it again.
"After the assassination, if you ever mentioned anything about it to Dr. Perry, he would tell you, 'I don't want to talk about it,' and he would really get angry if you pressed him about it," McClelland said. "We always wondered why that was."
Perry took his reluctance to the grave, dying from lung cancer two years ago in Tyler. McClelland, the only surviving member of the historic surgical team, stayed clear of the chaos as long as he could. He and Perry were two of four doctors who tried to save the president Nov. 22, 1963.
"People always ask if he was dead, and he wasn't," McClelland said. "He was making attempts to breath. But we didn't stand around and ask questions, we just started acting."
The team, which also included Drs. Charles J. Carrico and Charles Baxter, afterward sat, dazed, in a nearby nurse's station. Secret Service agents gave them note pads and asked each to write his impressions of the president's wounds.
Their notes later became evidence in the Warren Commission's investigation of the assassination. Perry eventually changed his initial story and said the bullet hole near Kennedy's Adam's apple was an exit wound.
But the Warren Commission's report has since been directly refuted by numerous eyewitness accounts, one of whom McClelland met a few years ago in Dallas.
Ed Hoffman, who is deaf, had his daughter tell McClelland what he saw near the grassy knoll, behind the picket fence, when Kennedy went down.
Hoffman, 27 at the time, had left work around the time of the president's arrival in Dallas to get a toothache inspected at the dentist. The presidential motorcade forced Hoffman to pull off on the edge of Stemmons Freeway, about 700 feet away from the knoll, Hoffman told McClelland.
He said he saw one suited man pull out a rifle, place it on top of the fence and fire at Kennedy, then toss the gun to another man dressed in work clothes. That man dissembled the gun, put it in his tool bag and disappeared into the crowd, Hoffman said.
Moments later, Hoffman saw a policeman question the suited man, then walk into the crowd with him following a short glimpse of the man's identification.
Two high school history teachers came to Dallas several years ago to study Hoffman's story, and wrote a book that McClelland said is "very well-detailed in establishing what Mr. Hoffman saw."
Just as in Perry's case, though, Hoffman was quickly shut out, McClelland said. Hoffman told his father and his uncle -- a Dallas police officer at the time -- days after the shooting, and both told him he better keep his mouth shut.
After recounting his conversation with Hoffman and his daughter, the Rotarians focused on his every word, McClelland summarized other prominent theories surrounding Kennedy's death. He answered questions about the "magic bullet" and the assassination's potential connection to Kennedy's involvement in the Cold War.
Dr. Jerry Sims, the Rotarian who invited McClelland to speak in McKinney, was a young intern at Parkland on that day. He recalled how the First Lady asked him outside the operating room if she could smoke a cigarette -- a habit that few knew she had, Sims said.
McClelland, who still spends time in hospitals teaching young doctors, packed up his notes to standing applause. One by one, Rotarians came to him with more questions.
He was the closest most of them would ever come to knowing what happened the day JFK was killed.
But, even for McClelland, the mystery remains.
"It was the most memorable thing of my life," he said. "Yet, we may never know the exact truth."
Dr. Robert McClelland believes there was more than one shooter
Photo by Chris Beattie
Dr. Robert McClelland recounts to the Rotary Club of McKinney what happened Nov. 22, 1963 in the Parkland Memorial Hospital operating room where former President John F. Kennedy took his final breaths.
Almost 49 years later, mystery still surrounds the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.
Was Lee Harvey Oswald the real shooter? If so, was he the only one? There is someone who knows the truth about what happened on that November day in Dallas -- at least part of it.
"It was not just a single shooter," said Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the surgeons who operated on Kennedy at Parkland Memorial Hospital. "It wasn't just some crazy young man who wasn't connected to anything."
Such a conclusion, shared by millions across America, came to McClelland long before Friday, when he recapped his experience to the Rotary Club of McKinney. Though he admittedly "kept a distance from all of it," McClelland's personal connection to the event was hard for anyone else to ignore.
Just moments after Kennedy slunk to his left, sending horror through thousands of spectators, he was fighting for every breath inside a Parkland operating room, his head inches away from McClelland.
"He was in terrible shape; the right side of his brain had been blown out," McClelland said. "We worked on him for only eight or 10 minutes, from the time they made the incision to the time he lost all of his cardiac activity.
"There was no chance of saving him."
But memories of the futile operation, and the surrounding chaos, were never lost. McClelland spoke to Rotarians the past two Fridays about his recollections. His story dropped jaws and drew curious silence.
He reignited the wonder of any listeners who'd pushed the conspiracy theories away, out of mind. That's what McClelland said he tried to do, but the mysterious pieces always found him.
Some pieces seemingly fell from the gun -- or guns -- of Kennedy's killer.
"My supposition, and that of a lot of people, is that the first shot probably was fired from the sixth floor of the [Texas School Book Depository]...whether by Oswald or someone else, I don't know," McClelland told Rotarians. "The next shot apparently came from behind the picket fence by the grassy knoll -- all kinds of things indicate that is indeed what happened."
One glaring indicator, to which McClelland was uniquely close, was Kennedy's neck wound. Dr. Malcolm Perry, the chief surgeon for Kennedy and Oswald, cut an incision into Kennedy's neck to explore the wound.
Perry told reporters minutes later that it looked like an entrance wound -- meaning the shot had come from somewhere other than the sixth floor of the Depository. Referencing a recently published book about the assassination, McClelland said Secret Service agents allegedly accosted Perry after his statement and told him never to say it again.
"After the assassination, if you ever mentioned anything about it to Dr. Perry, he would tell you, 'I don't want to talk about it,' and he would really get angry if you pressed him about it," McClelland said. "We always wondered why that was."
Perry took his reluctance to the grave, dying from lung cancer two years ago in Tyler. McClelland, the only surviving member of the historic surgical team, stayed clear of the chaos as long as he could. He and Perry were two of four doctors who tried to save the president Nov. 22, 1963.
"People always ask if he was dead, and he wasn't," McClelland said. "He was making attempts to breath. But we didn't stand around and ask questions, we just started acting."
The team, which also included Drs. Charles J. Carrico and Charles Baxter, afterward sat, dazed, in a nearby nurse's station. Secret Service agents gave them note pads and asked each to write his impressions of the president's wounds.
Their notes later became evidence in the Warren Commission's investigation of the assassination. Perry eventually changed his initial story and said the bullet hole near Kennedy's Adam's apple was an exit wound.
But the Warren Commission's report has since been directly refuted by numerous eyewitness accounts, one of whom McClelland met a few years ago in Dallas.
Ed Hoffman, who is deaf, had his daughter tell McClelland what he saw near the grassy knoll, behind the picket fence, when Kennedy went down.
Hoffman, 27 at the time, had left work around the time of the president's arrival in Dallas to get a toothache inspected at the dentist. The presidential motorcade forced Hoffman to pull off on the edge of Stemmons Freeway, about 700 feet away from the knoll, Hoffman told McClelland.
He said he saw one suited man pull out a rifle, place it on top of the fence and fire at Kennedy, then toss the gun to another man dressed in work clothes. That man dissembled the gun, put it in his tool bag and disappeared into the crowd, Hoffman said.
Moments later, Hoffman saw a policeman question the suited man, then walk into the crowd with him following a short glimpse of the man's identification.
Two high school history teachers came to Dallas several years ago to study Hoffman's story, and wrote a book that McClelland said is "very well-detailed in establishing what Mr. Hoffman saw."
Just as in Perry's case, though, Hoffman was quickly shut out, McClelland said. Hoffman told his father and his uncle -- a Dallas police officer at the time -- days after the shooting, and both told him he better keep his mouth shut.
After recounting his conversation with Hoffman and his daughter, the Rotarians focused on his every word, McClelland summarized other prominent theories surrounding Kennedy's death. He answered questions about the "magic bullet" and the assassination's potential connection to Kennedy's involvement in the Cold War.
Dr. Jerry Sims, the Rotarian who invited McClelland to speak in McKinney, was a young intern at Parkland on that day. He recalled how the First Lady asked him outside the operating room if she could smoke a cigarette -- a habit that few knew she had, Sims said.
McClelland, who still spends time in hospitals teaching young doctors, packed up his notes to standing applause. One by one, Rotarians came to him with more questions.
He was the closest most of them would ever come to knowing what happened the day JFK was killed.
But, even for McClelland, the mystery remains.
"It was the most memorable thing of my life," he said. "Yet, we may never know the exact truth."
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Dan Emmett has a new website!
PLEASE CHECK OUT:
http://danemmett.com/
FROM HIS WEBSITE:
"I'm Dan Emmett, author of Within Arm's Length: The Extraordinary Life and Career of a Special Agent in the United States Secret Service.
This book is the story of my life in the Secret Service and the events that lead up to my selection as an agent after being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. In these pages the reader will experience through my words and descriptions what it is like to be a Secret Service agent assigned to the Presidential Protective Division. Here I describe for the first time in a book the experiences of an agent running with President Clinton through the streets of Washington, driving him in an armored limousine, flying with him on Air Force One, and traveling throughout the world with him as well as Presidents Bush 41 and 43. In addition I devote a large part of the book to describing my experiences as a field office agent in New York where we regularly executed warrants in the worst parts of the city, never knowing what was on the other side of the door we were about to break down.
There are many interesting yet fun stories as well as interesting commentary throughout the book. I believe anyone with an interest in federal law enforcement and the Secret Service will enjoy the work.
About the Author
Dan Emmett earned a bachelor's degree from North Georgia College in criminal justice and a master's degree from Troy University. A former captain in the US Marine Corps, he worked twenty-one years as a special agent in the US Secret Service. Subsequent to retiring from the Secret Service Emmett was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency where he worked six more years, primarily in the Directorate of Operations. Emmett is currently an adjunct professor of criminal justice and security consultant for the United States Government as well as the private sector. He lives with his family in the southeastern United States."
http://danemmett.com/
FROM HIS WEBSITE:
"I'm Dan Emmett, author of Within Arm's Length: The Extraordinary Life and Career of a Special Agent in the United States Secret Service.
This book is the story of my life in the Secret Service and the events that lead up to my selection as an agent after being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. In these pages the reader will experience through my words and descriptions what it is like to be a Secret Service agent assigned to the Presidential Protective Division. Here I describe for the first time in a book the experiences of an agent running with President Clinton through the streets of Washington, driving him in an armored limousine, flying with him on Air Force One, and traveling throughout the world with him as well as Presidents Bush 41 and 43. In addition I devote a large part of the book to describing my experiences as a field office agent in New York where we regularly executed warrants in the worst parts of the city, never knowing what was on the other side of the door we were about to break down.
There are many interesting yet fun stories as well as interesting commentary throughout the book. I believe anyone with an interest in federal law enforcement and the Secret Service will enjoy the work.
About the Author
Dan Emmett earned a bachelor's degree from North Georgia College in criminal justice and a master's degree from Troy University. A former captain in the US Marine Corps, he worked twenty-one years as a special agent in the US Secret Service. Subsequent to retiring from the Secret Service Emmett was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency where he worked six more years, primarily in the Directorate of Operations. Emmett is currently an adjunct professor of criminal justice and security consultant for the United States Government as well as the private sector. He lives with his family in the southeastern United States."
Monday, January 23, 2012
From Barry Ernest's excellent website "The Girl On The Stairs" (based off his excellent book of the same name): my article
http://mysite.verizon.net/restu5kb/id12.html
THE KENNEDY DETAIL DEBUNKED
by VINCE PALAMARA
CE 1025, the 5 Secret Service reports submitted by Chief James J. Rowley on 4/22/64 (exactly 5 months to the day after the assassination) to the Warren Commission's General Counsel, J. Lee Rankin, ONLY because Rankin asked via a letter dated 4/3/64, were supposed to specifically address, quote, "expressions by President Kennedy regarding the placement of Secret Service agents on or near his car during the motorcade," obviously meaning THE fateful motorcade in Dallas on 11/22/63 when JFK was assassinated. However, not one of the five reports even addresses the DALLAS motorcade; only the Tampa, FL motorcade of 11/18/63 (and a few earlier motorcades) are addressed. Out of roughly 36 agents of the White House Detail (the number slightly fluctuates if you include "the brass"), Rowley chose to obtain written statements from just five: SAIC Gerald Behn (not in Dallas or Tampa; on leave during this time), ASAIC Floyd Boring (not in Dallas; in Tampa), ATSAIC Emory Roberts (in Tampa and Dallas), SA John Ready (not in Tampa but in Dallas), and Clint Hill (like Ready, not in Tampa but in Dallas). Why Roy Kellerman, the agent nominally in charge of the Texas trip, nor Winston Lawson, the lead advance agent, nor even the other 5 agents in the follow up car in Dallas (McIntyre, Kinney, Landis, Bennett, and Hickey), were not asked their thoughts on the matter raises suspicion (all the other agents on the Dallas trip, and prior trips, for that matter, could have participated). Importantly, NO MENTION is made of JFK's staff (Ken O'Donnell, Dave Powers, Larry O'Brien) being involved in this issue in any way whatsoever---the same goes for the Warren Report (and accompanying testimony of the JFK agents they spoke to---Kellerman, Hill, & Greer), Jim Bishop's book, and William Manchester's tome. With that said, a look at each report is warranted.
SAIC Behn's two-page report, dated 4/16/64 (the fourth report submitted to Rowley, and on blank paper, to boot; not official treasury Department stationary), first mentions the Mexico trip of 1962 and the trip to Berlin in 1963---both trips involved agents on and near the rear of the limo, as the film/ photo record exhaustively proves, so whatever JFK allegedly said on the matter, one way or the other, is moot. As for the other trips he mentions on page two of his report (Seattle, Phoenix, Bonham, TX, and "other stops" [no specifics]), two points must be made. These all occurred in November of 1961, a whopping two years before the assassination! So, if there was not a standing order for the agents to stay off the car by order of JFK (which the film/ photo record, just by viewing the aforementioned Mexico and Berlin trips, proves), these alleged statements by JFK are not really germane to a trip two years after the (alleged) fact, to put it mildly. The second point is a recent discovery: the Bonham, TX stop was for the funeral of former Speaker Sam Rayburn and it involved a HARDTOP car without handholds for the agents to begin with: JFK was well protected, so mentioning this trip isn't germane, either. Keep in mind a valuable point in looking at all these reports: this was before the internet and before many of these films and photos were somewhat accessible to the lay person. Back in 1964, it was very easy to believe the pronouncements of official government employees, especially with JFK dead and not able to defend himself by stating HIS real views on the matter.
Quite surprisingly, when I asked Behn about this on 9/27/92, he told me: "I don't remember Kennedy ever saying that he didn't want anybody on the back of his car." Behn further stated: “I think if you watch the newsreel pictures you’ll find agents on there from time to time.” Since Behn's report is "signed" by a stamp-pad signature, one wonders if he actually even wrote this. If he did, his statements to myself (a total stranger on the phone [now a You Tube video]) tell me that, late in life, he told me the REAL story, NOT the one he was force-fed to state for the record to his boss to collectively cover the ass of the Secret Service, as the agency was rightfully worried about their future.
Behn ended his report by stating: "As late as November 18, of last year [1963], he [JFK] told ASAIC Boring the same thing. He [Boring or JFK?] gave me no reason for this." With this in mind, we will take an even more detailed look at Boring's report, as well as the major ramifications of his report via the effect it had on several major books and so forth.
ASAIC Boring's one-page report, dated 4/8/64 (the very first report submitted to Rowley and, once again, on blank paper), deals mainly with the Tampa, FL trip of 11/18/63, while also mentioning the Italy trip of 7/2/63. Boring claims in this report that JFK told him to have the agents remove themselves from the rear of the limousine. However, films/ photos exhaustively prove that the agents rode on or near the rear of the car either the entire motorcade, or, at the very least, the vast majority of the trek, in Tampa, so, once again, whatever JFK allegedly said to Boring is moot. What's more, as the author discovered via research at the JFK Library, films and photos depict agents on and near the rear of the limo in Italy, as well! Regarding the Tampa trip, the author wrote to former Florida Congressman Samuel Melville Gibbons. Gibbons response in full, dated 1/15/04: “I rode with Kennedy every time he rode. I heard no such order. As I remember it the agents rode on the rear bumper all the way. Kennedy was very happy during his visit to Tampa. Sam Gibbons.” Furthermore, an amazing document was released in the 1990’s concerning, among many other related topics, the issue of the agents’ presence (or lack thereof) on the limousine. This is a 28-page “Sensitive "memorandum from Belford Lawson, the attorney in charge of the Secret Service area for the HSCA, addressed to Gary Cornwell & Ken Klein dated 5/31/77 and revised 8/15/77. Apparently, Attorney Lawson was suspicious of Mr. Boring, for he wrote on the final page of this lengthy memorandum: “Subject: Florida Motorcades in November 1963…Was Floyd Boring, the Senior SS Agent on the White House detail, lying to SS Agent Hill when he told Hill that JFK had said in Tampa…that he wanted no agents riding upright on the rear bumper step of the JFK limousine? Did JFK actually say this? Did Boring know when he told this to Hill that Hill would be riding outboard on the JFK follow-up car in Dallas on November 22, 1963? Did Boring say this to Ready or Roberts? [Lawson’s emphasis]” On page 27 of the same memo, Lawson wrote: “Why did only one Agent, Hill, run forward to the JFK limousine?”
As or even more surprising than the shocking comments by Behn, Floyd Boring told the author, in reference to JFK's alleged "desires" mentioned by Jim Bishop, Manchester (“quoting” Boring), and himself in his own report: "He actually - No, I told them...He didn't tell them anything...He just - I looked at the back and I seen these fellahs were hanging on the limousine - I told them to return to the car...[JFK] was a very easy-going guy...he didn't interfere with our actions at all" (emphasis added)! The author reiterated the point - Mr. Boring was still adamant that JFK never issued any orders to the agents; he even refuted Manchester's book. Floyd Boring (and quite a few of his colleagues) categorically denied to the author what William Manchester reports in his acclaimed massive best-seller “The Death of a President”: "Kennedy grew weary of seeing bodyguards roosting behind him every time he turned around [indicating the frequency of the event], and in Tampa on November 18 [1963], just four days before his death, he dryly asked Agent Floyd Boring to 'keep those Ivy League charlatans off the back of the car.' Boring wasn't offended. There had been no animosity in the remark. (Emphasis added)." (In his "defense", Manchester also wrote: “It was a good idea, for example, to have agents perched on the broad trunk of the Presidential Lincoln when crowds threatened to grow disorderly. The trouble was that they were always there [emphasis added].”)
Incredibly, Boring told this author: "I never told him that." As for the merit of the quote itself, as previously mentioned, Boring said: "No, no, no-that's not true,” thus contradicting his own report in the process. Incredibly, BORING WAS NOT EVEN INTERVIEWED FOR MANCHESTER’S BOOK! We may never know Mr. Manchester's source for this curious statement: he told the author on 8/23/93 that "all that material is under seal and won't be released in my lifetime" and denied the author access to his notes (Manchester has since passed away). Interestingly, Manchester did interview the late Emory Roberts, Manchester’s probable and---as we shall see---very questionable “source.” [Of the 21 agents/ officials interviewed by Manchester, only Roberts, Greer, Kinney, and Blaine were on the Florida trip. Blaine was the advance agent for Tampa (riding in the lead car), Greer drove JFK’s car, Kinney drove the follow-up car, and Roberts was the commander of the follow-up car. That said, in the author’s opinion, Roberts is still the main suspect of the four as being Manchester’s dubious source for this quote: after all, he was asked to write a report about JFK’s so-called desires, citing Boring as the source for the order via radio transmission. The others---Greer, Kinney, & Blaine---were not asked to write a similar report. In addition, Manchester had access to this report while writing his book). Also, unlike the other three, Roberts was interviewed twice and, while Greer never went on record with his feelings about the matter, one way or the other, Kinney adamantly denied the veracity of Manchester’s information, while Blaine denied the substance of the information, although he DID mention the “Ivy league charlatan” remark coming from a secondary source. Finally, of the 21 agents interviewed by Manchester, Blaine is the only agent---save two headquarters Inspectors (see next footnote)---whose interview comments are not to be found in the text or index. Since, in addition to Blaine, three other agents---Lawton, Meredith & Newman---also mentioned the remark as hearsay, in some fashion or another, it is more than likely that Manchester seized upon the remark and greatly exaggerated its significance…AND attributed it to Boring, while his actual source was likely Roberts (and/ or Blaine). Again, since Boring wasn’t interviewed, the comment had to come second-hand from another agent, who, in turn, received the remark second-hand from Boring. Ultimately, the question is: did Boring really give out this order on instructions from JFK?]
Needless to say, Manchester left his mark on this issue. [Interestingly, Manchester, having interviewed 21 different agents/ officials for his book [pages 660-669], chose to include interviews with Secret Service Inspectors Burrill Peterson and Jack Warner. What’s the problem? Well, these men, not even associated with the Texas trip in any way, were interviewed more than any of the other agents: four times each (Peterson: 10/9/64, 11/17/64, 11/18/64, 2/5/65; Warner: 6/2/64, 11/18/64, 2/5/65, 5/12/65)! Only Emory Roberts, Clint Hill, Roy Kellerman, and Forrest Sorrels had two interviews apiece, while all the other agents/ officials garnered just one interview each. And, more importantly, unlike all the other 19 agents, save one, Gerald Blaine (a Texas trip WHD agent), these two Inspectors are not even mentioned in the actual text or the index; their comments are “invisible” to the reader. It appears, then, that Manchester’s book was truly a sanitized, “official” book, more so than we thought before (as most everyone knows, the book was written with Jackie Kennedy’s approval: it was her idea, in fact [page ix]. Manchester even had early, exclusive access to the Warren Commission itself: “At the outset of my inquiry the late Chief Justice Earl Warren appointed me an ex officio member of his commission…and provided me with an office in Washington’s VFW building, where the commission met and where copies of reports and depositions were made available to me [page xix]). Inspector Peterson figured prominently in the post-assassination press dealings (or lack thereof)---as Agent Sorrels testified: “…I don't think at any time you will see that there is any statement made by the newspapers or television that we said anything because Mr. Kelley, the Inspector, told me ‘Any information that is given out will have to come from Inspector Peterson in Washington.’"[7 H 359] Peterson became an Assistant Director for Investigations in 1968 [“20 Years in the Secret Service” by Rufus Youngblood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), page 220], while Inspector Warner would go on to become Director of Public Affairs (a position he held until the 1990’s), acting as a buffer to critical press questions during the assassination attempts on President Ford and other related matters [“The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency” (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003) by Philip Melanson with Peter Stevens, pages 101, 201, 224, 237]. Warner would also later become a consultant to the 1993 Clint Eastwood movie “In the Line of Fire.”]
Jim Bishop, in his own massive best-selling book entitled "The Day Kennedy was Shot, "does nothing more than repeat the written record of the Warren Commission and the previously mentioned five reports, taken at face value. Again, Mr. Boring was not interviewed for the book. With Mr. Bishop dead, this is where the matter rests with his account. That said, Jim Bishop did sum up the situation best: "No one wanted to weigh the possibilities that, if a Secret Service man had been on the left rear bumper going down Elm Street, it would have been difficult to hit President Kennedy (emphasis added).” Bishop also noted: "The Secret Service men were not pleased because they were in a "hot" city and would have preferred to have two men ride the bumper of the President's car with two motorcycle policemen between him [JFK] and the crowds on the sidewalks."
Still, thanks to the Secret Service reports above (and, in large measure, to Agent Boring himself), three massive best-sellers still in print or in libraries ---the Warren Report The Warren Report , Manchester‘s “The Death of a President“, and Bishop’s “The Day Kennedy Was Shot”--- have created the myth that JFK was difficult to protect and had ordered the agents off his car and the like, a dangerous myth that endures to this day in classrooms and in the media, thus doing great damage to the true historical record.
Remember, Boring is admitting it came from him, and not JFK! With regard to exactly who makes the decision regarding the agents’ proximity to the President, Agent Jerry Parr told Larry King: “I would say it was the agent in charge who makes that decision.” When asked, point blank, if JFK had ever ordered the agents off the rear of the limousine, including in Tampa on 11/18/63, Boring told the author again : "Well that's not true. That's not true. He was a very nice man; he never interfered with us at all." In a letter received by the author on, of all dates, 11/22/97, Boring confirmed what he had previously told the author on two previous occasions (9/22/93 and 3/4/94, respectively) when he wrote: "President Kennedy was a very congenial man knowing most agents by their first name. He was very cooperative with the Secret Service, and well liked and admired by all of us (emphasis added)." Not only does Boring NOT mention anything about JFK’s alleged “desires” to restrict security during his two lengthy oral histories, the agent stated: “…of all the administrations I worked with, the president and the people surrounding the president were very gracious and were very cooperative. As a matter of fact, you can’t do this type of security work without cooperation of the people surrounding the president…[emphasis added]” Indeed, Chief James J. Rowley told the JFK Library in 1976: "...you could talk to them [JFK’s staff]...It made for a very happy relationship."
ATSAIC (Shift Leader) Emory Roberts one-page report (dated 4/10/64, the second one submitted to Rowley and finally on Treasury Department letterhead) deals exclusively with the Tampa FL trip of 11/18/63 and states nothing other than confirmation that he heard ASAIC Boring tell him, via radio, to get the agents off the back of JFK's car; nothing about the President's alleged wishes or anything else. From an evidentiary standpoint, moot and useless. Roberts was a "good soldier": he ordered an agent back from JFK's limo at Love Field (as this author discovered back in 1991 and had popularized for the first time back in 1995 and, again, in 2003 on The History Channel, long before this clip became something of an internet sensation), recalled an agent during the shooting and, as Sam Kinney told me, ordered the men on the follow-up car not to move! So, needless to say, like Boring, I am suspicious of Mr. Roberts (deceased 1973).
Special Agent John (Jack) Ready's one-page report (dated 4/11/64, the third one submitted to Rowley and, like Roberts, also on Treasury Department letterhead) deals exclusively with the 11/18/63 Tampa, Florida trip. However, Mr. Ready was not on this specific trip: Mr. Boring was, once again, his source for JFK's alleged request. Ready would not respond to written inquiries from the author. The author phoned Mr. Ready on 6/13/05 and asked him if it was true that Boring said this, based on JFK’s request. After confirming he wasn’t on the Tampa trip, Ready stated: “Not on the phone [will I answer you]. I don’t know you from Adam. Can you see my point?”
Special Agent Clint Hill's one-page report (strangely undated and, presumably, the last one submitted to Rowley) deals with the 11/18/63 Tampa, Florida trip and Boring second-hand because, like Ready, Mr. Hill was not on this trip, either. Mr. Hill lives incommunicado in Virginia and will not grant private interviews. That said, the author was the first private researcher to get through to Mr. Hill (more on this in a moment). Interestingly, Mr. Hill’s brother-in-law is none other than fellow former agent David B. Grant, a former advance agent who worked on the planning of the Florida and Texas trips with none other than Mr. Boring.
Agent Hill's report was the most honest of the five: "I...never personally was requested by President John F. Kennedy not to ride on the rear of the Presidential automobile. I did receive information passed verbally from the administrative offices of the White House Detail of the Secret Service to Agents assigned to that Detail that President Kennedy had made such requests. I do not know from whom I received this information...No written instructions regarding this were ever distributed... (I) received this information after the Presidents return to Washington, D. C. This would have been between November 19, 1963 and November 21, 1963 [note the time frame!]. I do not know specifically who advised me of this request by the President (emphasis added)."
Mr. Hill's undated report was presumably written in April 1964, as the other four reports were written at that time. Why Mr. Hill could not "remember" the specific name of the agent who gave him JFK's alleged desires is very troubling - he revealed it on 3/9/64, presumably before his report was written, in his (obviously pre-rehearsed) testimony under oath to the future Senator Arlen Specter, then a lawyer with the Warren Commission:
Specter: "Did you have any other occasion en route from Love Field to downtown Dallas to leave the follow-up car and mount that portion of the President's car [rear portion of limousine]?"
Hill: "I did the same thing approximately four times."
Specter: "What are the standard regulations and practices, if any, governing such an action on your part?"
Hill: "It is left to the agent's discretion more or less to move to that particular position when he feels that there is a danger to the President: to place himself as close to the President or the First Lady as my case was, as possible, which I did."
Specter: "Are those practices specified in any written documents of the Secret Service?"
Hill: "No, they are not."
Specter: "Now, had there been any instruction or comment about your performance of that type of a duty with respect to anything President Kennedy himself had said in the period immediately preceding the trip to
Texas?"
Hill: "Yes, sir; there was. The preceding Monday, the President was on a trip to Tampa, Florida, and he requested that the agents not ride on either of those two steps."
Specter: "And to whom did the President make that request?"
Hill: "Assistant Special Agent in Charge Boring."
Specter: "Was Assistant Special Agent in Charge Boring the individual in charge of that trip to Florida?"
Hill: "He was riding in the Presidential automobile on that trip in Florida, and I presume that he was. I was not along."
Specter: "Well, on that occasion would he have been in a position comparable to that occupied by Special Agent Kellerman on this trip to Texas?"
Hill: "Yes sir; the same position."
Specter: "And Special Agent Boring informed you of that instruction by President Kennedy?"
Hill: "Yes sir, he did."
Specter: "Did he make it a point to inform other special agents of that same instruction?"
Hill: "I believe that he did, sir."
Specter: "And, as a result of what President Kennedy said to him, did he instruct you to observe that Presidential admonition?"
Hill: "Yes, sir."
Specter: "How, if at all, did that instruction of President Kennedy affect your action and - your action in safeguarding him on this trip to Dallas?"
Hill: "We did not ride on the rear portions of the automobile. I did on those four occasions because the motorcycles had to drop back and there was no protection on the left-hand side of the car." (Emphasis added)
On 9/18/96, by request of the author, the ARRB’s Doug Horne interviewed Mr. Boring regarding this matter. Horne wrote: "Mr. Boring was asked to read pages 136-137 of Clint Hill's Warren Commission testimony, in which Clint Hill recounted that Floyd Boring had told him just days prior to the assassination that during the President's Tampa trip on Monday, 11/18/63, JFK had requested that agents not ride on the rear steps of the limousine, and that Boring had also so informed other agents of the White House detail, and that as a result, agents in Dallas (except Clint Hill, on brief occasions) did not ride on the rear steps of the limousine. MR BORING AFFIRMED THAT HE DID MAKE THESE STATEMENTS TO CLINT HILL, BUT STATED THAT HE WAS NOT RELAYING A POLICY CHANGE, BUT RATHER SIMPLY TELLING AN ANECDOTE ABOUT THE PRESIDENT'S KINDNESS AND CONSIDERATION IN TAMPA IN NOT WANTING AGENTS TO HAVE TO RIDE ON THE REAR OF THE LINCOLN LIMOUSINE WHEN IT WAS NOT NECESSARY TO DO SO BECAUSE OF A LACK OF CROWDS ALONG THE STREET (Emphasis added).”
The author finds this admission startling, especially because the one agent who decided to ride on the rear of the limousine in Dallas anyway---and on at least 4 different occasions--- was none other than CLINT HILL himself.
This also does not address what the agents were to do when the crowds were heavier, or even what exactly constituted a "crowd", as AGENTS DID RIDE ON THE REAR STEPS OF THE LIMOUSINE IN TAMPA ON NOVEMBER 18, 1963 ANYWAY (agents Donald J. Lawton, Andrew E. Berger, & Charles T. Zboril, to be exact)!
Furthermore, as noted above, both Clint Hill's written report and his testimony sure convey a more strict approach than one stemming from an alleged kind anecdote. In fact, as mentioned above, Hill twice stated in his report that he DID NOT RECALL who the agent was who told him, and the other agents, not to ride on the rear of the limousine, yet named him under oath to Counsel Specter: Floyd Boring.
So of the five Secret Service reports, four have as their primary source for JFK's alleged request Agent Boring, including one by Boring himself, while the remaining report, written by Mr. Behn, mentions the same 11/18/63 trip with Mr. Boring as the others do (again, Boring’s report was the first one written, then came one each from Roberts, Ready, Behn, and Hill, respectively). Both Behn and Boring totally contradicted the contents of their reports at different times, independent of each other, to the author. In addition, agents did ride on the rear of the limousine on 7/2/63 and 11/18/63 anyway, despite these alleged Presidential requests, as the film and photo record proves.
Needless to say, with Boring joining Behn in refuting the substance of their reports, the official Secret Service ‘explanation’ falls like a house of cards. Behn’s, Boring’s, and Hill’s reports are not even on any Secret Service or Treasury Dept. stationary, just blank sheets of paper. In fact, as noted above, Hill’s report is undated, a bizarre error to make in an official government report written by request of the head of the Secret Service. All are supposedly evidence of JFK expressing his desire to keep Secret Service agents off the limousine, particularly in Tampa, Florida on 11/18/63.
Importantly, no mention is made of any alleged orders via President Kennedy’s staff.
And, again, THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT WHAT JFK SAID OR "REQUESTED" ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963, THE CRITICAL DAY IN QUESTION!
POST SCRIPT ONE:
The “one-two” punch was provided in the late 1990’s by both former Carter & Reagan SAIC Jerry Parr’s comments to Larry King on CNN dated 7/14/98, as well as, controversially, then-current Clinton Secret Service Director Lewis C. Merletti. For his part, Parr, a major consultant to the “In The Line of Fire” movie, told Larry King: “The critical factor [in Dallas]…was the fact that he ordered the two agents off the car…which made him very vulnerable to Lee Oswald’s attack.” Regarding Merletti, “The Washington Post” reported on 5/14/98: “During private meetings, sources said, Merletti told officials from [Kenneth] Starr's office [investigating the President Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky matter] and the Treasury and Justice departments that trust and proximity to a president are crucial to protecting him [In fact, Clint Hill and Jerry Parr where 2 of the nine living former SAIC’s of the WHD who signed a petition to try to block Kenneth Starr from interviewing Secret Service officials. The other 7 were unnamed in the article. (“Washington Post”, 6/16/98)]...the service ran through the history of assassination attempts, showing instances where they succeeded or failed, possibly depending on how close agents were to an intended victim. Sources said they produced rare photographs of John F. Kennedy's fateful 1963 motorcade through Dallas, where agents were not standing on running boards on the back of his exposed automobile when shots rang out because the president several days before had ordered them not to…Merletti indicated to the court that the assassination in a moving limousine of President John F. Kennedy "might have been thwarted had agents been stationed on the car's running boards (emphasis added).” To drive the point home even further, here is an excerpt from Director Merletti’s testimony, as reported in “The Washington Post” from 5/20/98: "I have attached, as Exhibit A to this Declaration, photographs of President John F. Kennedy's visit to Tampa, Florida on November 18, 1963. We use these photographs, and the ones attached as Exhibit B, in our training exercises. Exhibit A demonstrates the lengths to which protective personnel have been forced to go to try to maintain proximity to the President. In the photographs contained in Exhibit A, agents are kneeling on the running board of the Presidential limousine, while the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed [note: a contradiction---according to prior official agency mythology, the agents shouldn’t even be there at all!]. I can attest that this requires extraordinary physical exertion. Nevertheless, they performed this duty in an attempt to maintain close physical proximity to the President. Exhibit B, by contrast, scarcely needs any introduction. It is a series of photographs of the Presidential limousine, taken just four days later, on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. As can be seen, at the instruction of the President, Secret Service agents had been ordered off of the limousine's running boards. An analysis of the ensuing assassination (including the trajectory of the bullets which struck the President) indicates that it might have been thwarted had agents been stationed on the car's running boards. In other words, had they been able to maintain close proximity to the President during the motorcade, the assassination of John F. Kennedy might have been averted. Exhibit C contains a series of photographs taken during the actual assassination that demonstrate how critical and tragic the absence of proximity to the protectee can be (emphasis added).”
POST SCRIPT TWO:
J. Frank Yeager, WHD (on Texas trip but not the Dallas stop)---In a letter to the author dated 12/29/03, Yeager wrote: “I did not think that President Kennedy was particularly “difficult” to protect. In fact, I thought that his personality made it easier than some because he was easy to get along with…” With regard to the author’s question, “Did President Kennedy ever order the agents off the rear of his limousine,” Yeager responded: “I know of no “order” directly from President Kennedy. I think that after we got back from Tampa, Florida where I did the advance for the President, a few days before Dallas…[it was] requested that the Secret Service agents not ride the rear running board of the Presidential car during parades involving political events so that the president would not be screened by an agent. I don’t know what form or detail that this request was made to the Secret Service… I also do not know who actually made the final decision, but we did not have agents on the rear of the President’s car in Dallas [emphasis added].” Like Hill’s report mentioned above, please note the timing.
Gerald S. Blaine, WHD (on Texas trip but not the Dallas stop) --- Blaine told the author on 2/7/04 that President Kennedy was “very cooperative. He didn’t interfere with our actions. President Kennedy was very likeable---he never had a harsh word for anyone. He never interfered with our actions [emphasis added].” When the author asked Blaine how often the agents rode on the back of JFK’s limousine, the former agent said it was a “fairly common” occurrence that depended on the crowd and the speed of the cars. In fact, just as one example, Blaine rode on the rear of JFK’s limousine in Germany in June 1963, along with fellow Texas trip veterans Paul A. Burns and Samuel E. Sulliman.
Blaine added, in specific reference to the agents on the follow-up car in Dallas: “You have to remember, they were fairly young agents,” seeming to imply that their youth was a disadvantage, or perhaps this was seen as an excuse for their poor performance on 11/22/63. Surprisingly, Blaine, the WHD advance agent for the Tampa trip of 11/18/63, said that JFK did make the comment “I don’t need Ivy League charlatans back there,” but emphasized this was a “low-key remark” said “kiddingly” and demonstrating Kennedy’s “Irish sense of humor.” However, according to the “official” story, President Kennedy allegedly made these remarks only to Boring while traveling in the presidential limousine in Tampa: Blaine was nowhere near the vehicle at the time, so Boring had to be HIS source for this story! In addition to Emory Roberts, one now wonders if Blaine was a source (or perhaps the source) for Manchester’s exaggerated ‘quote’ attributed to Boring, as Agent Blaine was also interviewed by Manchester (see above). Blaine would not respond to a follow-up letter on this subject. However, when the author phoned Blaine on 6/10/05, the former agent said the remark “Ivy League charlatans” came “from the guys…I can’t remember who [said it]…I can’t remember (emphasis added).” Thus, Blaine confirms that he did not hear the remark from JFK (When asked if agents rode on the rear of the limousine on the Italy trip in 1963, Blaine said forcefully: “Oh yeah, oh yeah.” It turns out he was one of the agents) Blaine also added that the lack of agents on the rear of the car “had no impact,” adding: “Well, maybe a hesitation.” That is all it took. The former agent also said: “Don’t be too hard on Emory Roberts. He was a double, even a triple checker. He probably took Jack Ready’s life into consideration.” If only he would have taken Jack Kennedy’s life with the same degree of concern.
Donald J. Lawton, WHD; rode on rear of limousine 3/23/63 (Chicago) & 11/18/63 (Tampa); relegated to airport duty 11/22/63---When the author told Lawton on 11/15/95 what fellow agent Kinney said, namely, that JFK never ordered the agents off the rear of the limousine, he said: "It's the way Sam said, yes" (Meaning, he agrees with Kinney, it happened the way Kinney said). Asked to explain how he dismounted the rear of the limousine in Tampa, Lawton said: " I didn't hear the President say it, no. The word was relayed to us---I forget who told us now---you know, 'come back to the follow-up car. '“This would have been Boring, by radio, to Roberts, then finally to the agents---Lawton, Zboril, and Berger---on the limousine. According to Lawton, JFK was "very personable...very warm." Asked about the tragedy in Dallas, Lawton said, "Everyone felt bad. It was our job to protect the President. You still have regrets, remorse. Who knows, if they had left guys on the back of the car...you can hindsight yourself to death (emphasis added).” Paradoxically, when I asked Lawton if JFK really made the statement to Boring mentioned above, Lawton said: “The President told him [Boring], I think he said 'get the college kids off the back of the car.'” (See Blaine, Meredith & Newman, above and below.) That said, in a letter to the author dated, ironically, 11/22/97, Lawton wrote: "Since I am currently employed by the Secret Service I do not believe it appropriate that I comment on former or current protectees of the Service. If you spoke with Bob Lilley as you stated then you can take whatever information he passed on to you as gospel [see Lilley’s comments, below].”
Robert E. Lilley, WHD agent with JFK from election night until Oct. 1963: transferred to Boston Office - When the author told this former agent what Mr. Behn said in September 1992, that Kennedy never said a thing about having the agents removed from the limousine (thus repudiating his own report), Lilley responded: "Oh, I'm sure he [JFK] didn't [order agents off his car, agreeing with Behn]. He was very cooperative with us once he became President. He was extremely cooperative. Basically, 'whatever you guys want is the way it will be'." In interviews and correspondence on four separate occasions, Lilley reiterated this view. Lilley also refuted the Bishop and Manchester accounts, adding that, as an example, on a trip with JFK in Caracas, Venezuela, he and "Roy Kellerman rode on the back of the limousine all the way to the Presidential palace" at speeds reaching "50 miles per hour." Furthermore, Lilley did the advance work for JFK’s trip to Naples, Italy in the summer of 1963: again, agents rode on the rear of the limousine.
Aide David F. Powers (rode in the follow-up car on 11/22/63) & Jacqueline Kennedy (rode with President Kennedy in the limousine)- In a personal letter to the author dated 9/10/93, Mr. Powers wrote: "Unless they were ‘running’ along beside the limo, the Secret Service rode in a car behind the President, so, no, they never had to be told to "get off" the limousine" (emphasis added). This comment rivals Behn’s shocking statements to the author due to the source: President Kennedy’s longtime friend and aide and a man who was on countless trips with the President. For the record, Agent Bob Lilley endorsed Mr. Powers view: "Dave would give you factual answers." In addition, the ARRB’s Tom Samoluk told the author that, during the course of an interview he conducted with Powers in 1996, the former JFK aide and friend agreed with the author’s take on the Secret Service!
For her part, Jackie “played the events over and over in her mind…She did not want to accept Jack’s death as a freak accident, for that meant his life could have been spared---if only the driver in the front seat of the presidential limousine [Agent William R. Greer] had reacted more quickly and stepped on the gas…if only the Secret Service had stationed agents on the rear bumper…[emphasis added]” (“Just Jackie: Her Private Years” by Edward Klein (Ballantine Books, 1999), pages 58-59 & 374: based off an interview Klein had with Kitty Carlisle Hart re: Hart’s conversation with Jackie)
Winston G. Lawson, WHD (lead) advance agent for the Dallas trip (rode in the lead car on 11/22/63): In a stunning letter to the author dated 1/12/04, Lawson wrote: “I do not know of any standing orders for the agents to stay off the back of the car. After all, foot holds and handholds were built into that particular vehicle. I am sure it would have been on a “case by case” basis depending on event, intelligence, threats, etc. Jerry Behn as Special Agent in Charge of the White House Detail…would have been privy to that type of info more than I [see above]. However, it never came to my attention as such. I am certain agents were on the back on certain occasions [emphasis added].” The agent should be certain of that last understatement---he rode on the back of the limousine on the 7/2/63 Italy trip. Coming from one of the chief architects of security planning in Dallas, this is very important, to say the least.
Anthony Sherman (WHD, 9/61-10/63)---Sherman wrote the author: “Yes, it is common knowledge, contrary to the denial of SAIC Behn [see above], that agents were advised not to ride on the rear of the limo during the Dallas motorcade. I suggest to further discuss this question you contact former Special Agent Tim McIntyre, [address deleted for privacy]. Retired SAIC McIntyre was riding the “follow up car” immediately behind the limo. I was not in Dallas, having been transferred to the Field in Oct. 1963. I was sent to Dallas immediately after the assassination and spent three months on the protective/ investigative team representing the Secret Service [Emphasis added].” See McIntyre’s comments, below. Ironically, Sherman added: “May I suggest that you get a copy of THE SECRET SERVICE: THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AN ENIGMATIC AGENCY by Professor Phillip Melanson, PhD. This book is by far the best, most professional “study” of the USSS I have ever read. I believe it will give you other answers to your questions.” What Sherman apparently did not know or remember was that the author’s work was included in Melanson’s book!
Larry Newman, WHD (October 1961 to October 1963, then Washington Field Office)---In a friendly if somewhat contentious interview conducted on 2/7/04 (Newman had seen the author on “The Men Who Killed Kennedy” in November 2003 and thought I was some “20 year old kid” (actually, 36 at the time!). He also mentioned my letter he received and chose not to answer back in 1997), Newman told the author that there was “no policy” regarding the use of agents on the rear of Kennedy’s car, further adding that the question was “hard to answer: it depends on the crowd, the threat assessment, and so forth. There was not a consistent rule of thumb [emphasis added].” This comment will become important later. In addition, regarding the controversial “Ivy League Charlatan” remark first mentioned in Manchester’s book and noted by Lawton and Blaine (above), Newman said: “When Kennedy went to Florida [11/18/63], supposedly, I didn’t hear this directly, Kennedy said to Boring ‘Get the Ivy League charlatans off the back of the car [emphasis added].’” The former agent added that Manchester’s work, while with some merit, became “part of myth, part of truth.” This author couldn’t agree more. With regard to Boring, Newman said: “Boring will only tell you the company line. I’m no friend of Boring’s.” Actually, what Boring told the author went against the “company line” he espoused back in 1964. And, from the latter comment, Newman obviously has no love lost for his former boss on the WHD. The former agent said that both Behn and Boring were “extremely loyal to JFK,” adding: “Boring told you Kennedy didn’t want any agents on the car; then again, he’s been a proponent that JFK wasn’t a womanizer.” Both comments are true. Newman phoned the author unexpectedly on 2/12/04 to say that “there was not a directive, per se” from President Kennedy to remove the agents from their positions on the back of his limousine. The former agent seemed troubled by the author’s research into the matter. Newman did ridicule former Director Merletti’s testimony in 1998 (see above). Regarding Roberts’ order not to move and his conduct, in general, Newman said: “They were probably afraid to hit the street at that speed.” When told that the cars were actually traveling quite slowly, including the limousine’s decelerating speed from a meager 11.2 mph, he had nothing to say in response. When asked if Tim McIntyre may shed more light on the matter (knowing full well that he said as much to the author on 2/7/04), Newman now said he is “hiding out” and “probably, he wouldn’t talk to you anyway” (see McIntyre’s comments, below) Newman seemed concerned yet strangely helpful in conversation with the author. He reiterated that he has no good feelings for Boring (in contrast to his warm feelings for Kellerman) and that---describing himself--- said: “I’m not a good guy.” (!) Finally, Newman said: “You need to get inside the nuts and bolts.” That is what the author is attempting to do with his research and his book.
William “Tim” McIntyre, WHD (rode on the follow-up car on 11/22/63): The author contacted McIntyre on 6/13/05 (McIntyre had previously been contacted via mail in 2004, based on the strong recommendations of former agents’ Larry Newman and Tony Sherman, but did not respond back). Asked about the Tampa trip of 11/18/63, the former agent said: “I was there on the follow-up car.” Regarding the question of agents being on the back of the car, McIntyre said: “I believe so---Zboril was on the back,” which he was (He also mentioned Don Lawton and Emory Roberts as being on the trip, which they were). Regarding the matter at hand, McIntyre stated: “I can’t remember if they were told to be off the car.” So, in spite of these strong recommendations from his colleagues to ask him about this specific subject, McIntyre now allegedly “can’t remember”?
Arthur L. Godfrey, ATSAIC of WHD---The former agent told the author on 5/30/96, regarding the notion that JFK ordered the agents not to do certain things which included removing themselves from the rear of the limousine: "That's a bunch of baloney; that's not true. He never ordered us to do anything. He was a very nice man...cooperative.” Godfrey reiterated this on 6/7/96. Asked if whether Aide Ken O'Donnell did any similar ordering, Godfrey said emphatically: "He did not order anyone around." As just one example, Godfrey was on the Italy trip mentioned in Boring’s report above and agents frequently rode on the rear of the limousine- one of the agents was none other than Winston G. Lawson. In a letter dated 11/24/97, Godfrey stated the following: "All I can speak for is myself. When I was working [with] President Kennedy he never ask [ed] me to have my shift leave the limo when we [were] working it," thus confirming what he had also told the author telephonically on two prior occasions.
Samuel A. Kinney, WHD---The affable former agent told the author on 3/5/94, regarding the “official” notion of history that President Kennedy ordered the agents off the rear of the limousine and the like: "That is absolutely, positively false...no, no, no: he had nothing to do with that [ordering agents off the rear of the limousine]...No, never-the agents say, 'O.K., men, fall back on your posts'...President Kennedy was one of the easiest presidents to ever protect; Harry S. Truman was a jewel just like John F. Kennedy was...99% of the agents would agree...(JFK) was one of the best presidents ever to control-he trusted every one of us [Emphasis added]." In regard to the infamous quote from William Manchester, Kinney said, "That is false. I talked to William Manchester; he called me on the book...for the record of history that is false - Kennedy never ordered us to do anything. I am aware of what is being said but that is false." Finally, just to nail down this issue, the author asked Kinney if an exception was made on 11/22/63: "Not this particular time, no. Not in this case". Kinney also told the author that Ken O'Donnell did not interfere with the agents: "Nobody ordered anyone around.”
Secret Service Chiefs James J. Rowley and Urbanus E. “U.E.” Baughman---Rowley told the Warren Commission: "No President will tell the Secret Service what they can or cannot do.” Apparently, Rowley thought the agents DID ride on the rear of the limousine throughout the motorcade, for he added: “…the men at some point came back to this [follow-up] car.” In fact, Rowley’s predecessor, former Chief U.E. Baughman, who had served under JFK from Election Night 1960 until Sept. 1961, had written in his 1962 book “Secret Service Chief”: "Now the Chief of the Secret Service is legally empowered to countermand a decision made by anybody in this country if it might endanger the life or limb of the Chief Executive. This means I could veto a decision of the President himself if I decided it would be dangerous not to. The President of course knew this fact." Indeed, an AP story from 11/15/63 stated: “The (Secret) Service can overrule even the President where his personal security is involved.“To the point, when Baughman was asked by U.S. News & World report on 12/23/63 about the Service’s protective efforts in Dallas, he said: “I can’t understand why Mrs. Kennedy had to climb over the back of the car, as she did, to get help…[this matter] should be resolved.” Apparently, Baughman was puzzled by the lack of agents on or near the rear of the limousine.
Cecil Stoughton, WH photographer---Stoughton wrote the author: "I did see a lot of the activity surrounding the various trips of the President, and in many cases I did see the agents in question riding on the rear of the President's car. In fact, I have ridden there a number of times myself during trips...I would jump on the step on the rear of the [Lincoln] Continental until the next stop. I have made photos while hanging on with one hand...in Tampa [11/18/63], for example. As for the [alleged] edict of not riding there by order of the President- I can't give you any proof of first hand knowledge." Stoughton went on to write: "I am bothered by your interest in these matters". In a later letter, Stoughton merely corroborated his prior written statements: "I would just jump on and off [the limo] quickly- no routine, and Jackie had no further remarks to me". It should be explained that, according to Stoughton's book, Jackie had told him to stay close to the limo in July 1963, and he did up to and including the Houston, TX trip of 11/21/63 (There are photos that Stoughton made from the follow-up car that day, as well). “Then, for some unknown reason, Stoughton was relegated to a position further away from JFK on 11/22/63 .
Charles T. Zboril, WHD, Lawton's partner on the rear of the limo in Tampa on 11/18/63 ---Former Agent Zboril curiously did not give the author a straight answer on this issue when interviewed on 11/15/95. Zboril said: "Well, Don Lawton and I are just sub-notes [sic] because somebody else testified on behalf of us about what happened in Tampa"- this was Clint Hill, testifying to Arlen Specter about why agents were not on the rear of the car during the assassination. When asked if it was true that JFK had ordered the agents off the limousine four days before Dallas, which the author already knew not to be true, Zboril got emotional: "Where did you read that? I...If-if you read it in the Warren Report, that's what happened...Do you want me commenting officially? I’m pretty sure it’s there [in the Warren Report]…I'm talking to someone I don't know. I’m talking to you as frank as I can...If you read it in there [the Warren Report], it happened…I gave you more than I would give someone else". The agent also added: “There is an old adage that we used in the Secret Service: ‘Don’t believe anything you read and only half of what you see,’” the identical sentiment used by Jean (and Jerry) Behn, above. Zboril then gave the author his home address and requested that the author send him anything on this matter, promising to respond back. He never did. Included in the package the author sent was a video of Agent Rybka being recalled at Love Field by Agent Roberts.
Press Secretary Pierre Salinger: JFK had a good relationship with the Secret Service and, more importantly, did NOT argue with their security measures. This was based on the author's correspondence with noted journalist Roger Peterson from 2/99 (from Peterson's very recent conversations with Salinger).
Samuel E. Sulliman, WHD (On Texas trip, in Dallas, at the Trade Mart): Sulliman told the author on 2/11/04 that agents were on the back of the limousine a lot; in fact, he remembered riding there on the trips to Ireland and Germany. When told of Art Godfrey’s comments on the matter (see above), the former agent agreed with his colleague. Regarding the notion that JFK ordered the agents off the car, Sulliman told the author twice: “I don’t think so.” Sulliman also said that JFK was “easy to get along with.” As for who exactly was responsible for the decision to remove the agents from the rear area of the limousine, Sulliman told the author: “I can’t tell you who made the decision.” The author took this to mean that he honestly did not know, rather than the notion that he was hiding the true answer.
Frank G. Stoner, PRS: During an interview conducted on 1/17/04, former agent Stoner, who served in the Secret Service from January 1945 until 1969, said that Manchester was “probably trying to sell books” when he suggested that Kennedy ordered the agents off the back of the limousine. In fact, the 84-year-old former agent laughed at the mere suggestion. Stoner also agreed with several of his colleagues that JFK was “very personable”: “He was an old Navy man. He understood security. He wouldn’t have ordered them off the car.”
Gerald W. “Jerry” O’Rourke, WHD (on Texas trip but not the Dallas stop; on WHD from Eisenhower to LBJ/1964)---In a letter to the author dated 1/15/04, O’Rourke wrote: “Did President Kennedy order us (agents) off the steps of the limo? To my knowledge President Kennedy never ordered us to leave the limo. ” (Emphasis added) The agent added: “President Kennedy was easy to protect as he completely trusted the agents of the Secret Service. We always had to be entirely honest with him and up front so we did not lose his trust.”
Vincent P. Mroz, WHD (Truman, Eisenhower, and part-time with JFK, LBJ [9 months], and Nixon)---During an interview with the author conducted on 2/7/04, the former agent said that President Kennedy was “friendly, congenial---he was really easy to get along with…just like Truman.” When asked, point blank, if JFK had ever ordered the agents off the car, Mroz said forcefully: “No, no---that’s not true.” When asked a second time, the former agent responded with equal conviction: “He did not order anybody off the car.”
J. Walter Coughlin, WHD (on Texas trip but not the Dallas stop)--- The author e-mailed the former agent, asking him: “How often did agents ride on the rear of the limousine during JFK's time (and/ or walk, jog, or run nearby)? Coughlin responded: “In almost all parade situations that I was involved w [ith] we rode or walked the limo [Emphasis added].” Coughlin later wrote: “We often rode on the back of the car.” Also, the author, in the same message, asked Coughlin: “What was President Kennedy like? Was he easy to protect?” The former agent responded in the same reply: “Very funny and very friendly. Knew all the agents by first name.” (Regarding LBJ, Coughlin wrote: “Didn't like anyone and could be very surly. Hard to protect - did not like to take advice.”) Coughlin later wrote: “The rear steps [of the limousine] were very adaquete [sic] for safety.”Finally, to clarify this matter further, the author asked Coughlin: “So far, combing the literature, books, interviews, etc., I've found that Behn, Boring, Blaine, Mroz, Godfrey, Lawson, and Dave Powers said that President Kennedy did not order the agents off his limousine---do you think William Manchester and others took "poetic license" on this matter?” Coughlin responded: “Yes I do.”
Darwin David Horn, Sr. (Secret Service, Los Angeles office; former WHD agent; served in the agency from 1951 to 1981): Horn wrote the author on 1/30/04: “You asked about Kennedy. I have worked him primarily in Los Angeles on several occasions …and never heard him tell the agents to get off of the car. It is possible. You will have to ask some of the other agents who worked him full time. [Art] Godfrey would have been perfect but he passed away some time ago [emphasis added].” See Godfrey’s comments, above. Horn later wrote the author: “Agents on the rear of JFK's car might have made a difference. They may have been hit instead of the President. That would have been all right with all of us. Agents normally would have been on the sides [of the car] (emphasis added).”
Maurice G. Martineau, SAIC of Chicago office: Martineau joined his colleagues in refuting the Manchester story that JFK ordered the agents off the rear of the car. Martineau said this to the author in two telephonic interviews on 9/21/93 and 6/7/96, respectively.
Abraham W. Bolden, Sr. - In reference to Kennedy's alleged "requests", Mr. Bolden told the author on numerous occasions in 1993-1996 that he "didn't hear anything about that...I never believed that Kennedy said that [ordering removal of agents]”. Bolden, an ardent critic of the agency’s lax protection since 1963, also wrote the author: “No-one could have killed our President without the shots of omission fired by the Secret Service. Observe the feet of [four] Secret Service agents glued to the running boards of the follow-up car as bullets [sic?] pierce the brain of our President!!!" (In addition to being a WHD agent on temporary assignment in 1961, as well as a Chicago Office agent afterwards, Bolden saw action on the 3/23/63 and (cancelled) 11/2/63 trips to Chicago)
DNC Advance man Martin E. “Marty” Underwood - He could not believe that Mr. Behn wrote in his report that JFK desired to have the agents off the car (later repudiated by Mr. Behn, of course), citing Clint Hill's actions on 11/22/63 as just one of "many times" that agents were posted on the back of the JFK limousine. During this 10/9/92 interview, Underwood confirmed to the author that JFK never ordered the agents off the rear of the car.
Robert I. Bouck, SAIC of PRS: On 9/27/92, Bouck confirmed to the author that having agents on the back of the limousine depended on factors independent of any alleged Presidential "requests": “Many times there were agents on his car.” On 4/30/96, the ARRB’s Doug Horne questioned Bouck: “Did you ever hear the President personally say that he didn’t want agents to stand on the running boards on his car, or did you hear that from other agents?” Bouck: “I never heard the President say that personally. I heard that from other agents (emphasis added).” The former agent also told the ARRB that JFK was the “most congenial” of all the presidents he had observed (Bouck served from FDR to LBJ).
Rufus W. Youngblood, ASAIC of LBJ Detail: On 10/22/92, Youngblood confirmed to the author: "There was not a standing order" from JFK to restrict agents from the back of the limousine - the agents had "assigned posts and positions" on the back of the President's car. On 2/8/94, Youngblood added: "President Kennedy wasn't a hard ass...he never said anything like that [re: removing agents from limo and the like]. As a historian, he [Manchester] flunked the course---don't read Manchester." Youngblood knows of what he speaks: he was interviewed by Manchester on 11/17/64.
John F. Norris, Uniformed Division of the Secret Service: On 3/4/94, in an interview with the author, Norris also joined his colleagues in refuting the notion that JFK ordered the agents off the rear of the limo: “I would doubt that very much,” Norris said.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1:40 p.m., 11/29/63: "You see, there was no Secret Service man standing on the back of the car. Usually the presidential car in the past has had steps on the back, next to the bumpers, and there's usually been one [agent] on either side standing on these steps...[ellipsis in text]...Whether the President asked that that not be done, we don't know (emphasis added).” "So, as of 11/29/63, a week after the murder, the myth hadn’t been set in motion yet. From Hoover’s Memorandum for Messrs. Tolson, Belmont, & Mohr, November 29, 1963: “…there was no Secret Service Agent on the back of the car; that in the past they have added steps on the back of the car and usually had an agent on either side standing on the bumper; that I did not know why this was not done - that the President may have requested it… [emphasis added].” One now wonders if Hoover was the originator of the blame-the-President campaign and if he had any influence on Agent Boring who, by date, had written the first report about these matters to former FBI agent---and Hoover friend and colleague---Chief James Rowley.
Newsmen: ABC’s Ron Gardner, ABC’s Jim Haggerty (former Eisenhower Press Secretary), & UPI’s Robert J. Serling: Shortly after the assassination on 11/22/63 before a television audience of many millions of people, Gardner reported: “Secret Service agents normally walk directly beside the car. We can’t see any in these pictures (emphasis added).” Also on the very same day before an enormous television audience, Haggerty maintained that agents normally walked or jogged near the rear of the president’s car, adding that he had a hand in planning many motorcades (as did his successor, Pierre Salinger). For his part, Serling wrote on 11/23/63, based in part on “private conversations” with unnamed agents: “There are two absolute rules for motorcade protection: The agent running or riding at the President's shoulder must never leave that position unless relieved. The other is to turn out the manpower in all secret service cars the moment trouble arises and get secret service bodies around the President [emphasis added].” (In the same UPI story written by Serling from Washington entitled “Secret Service Men Wary of Motorcade”: “The United States Secret Service… has always feared a motorcade assassination attempt more than anything else. In private conversations and in books published by high officials after they left the service, agents admit that Chief Executives riding in open cars down crowded city streets are at their most vulnerable as the targets of assassination… For motorcades the secret service checks every manhole cover and sewer along the parade route for bombs or dynamite. Buildings frequently are checked, along with records of occupants to make sure there are no known President-haters on the premises… They are trained never to watch the President himself but the people and crowds around him. They are also sworn to throw themselves in front of their charge at the first indication of gunfire -- to take the bullets, if possible, meant for the Chief Executive… An agent is the only man in the world who can order a President of the United States around if the latter's safety is believed at stake… in certain situations an agent outranks even a President [emphasis added].”)
Lynn S. Meredith (WHD, “Kiddie Detail”/ Kennedy Children; served in the Secret Service from 1951 to 1983)---In yet another potential dissenting voice that is, like Agent Sherman (above) not what it seems to be, Meredith wrote to the author on 3/9/04: “…it is my very definite understanding that President Kennedy did, in fact, politely request that Secret Service agents not ride on platforms to the rear of his limousine shortly before he was assassinated. The President was campaigning in Tampa, Florida, on or about November 19, 1963 [actually, 11/18/63] (3 days before he was assassinated in Dallas on November22), when he requested that agents not ride on the rear of his vehicle because they tended to obstruct the view of the crowd and take attention away from him and others riding with him. He said something to the effect to senior agent Roy Kellerman [sic: allegedly to Floyd Boring; Kellerman was not even on this trip] at the time, “Do you suppose we could get those Ivy Leaguers off the back of my limo so the people can get a good look at us instead of you guys?” He was obviously inferring that the people along the motorcade route in Tampa were seeing the two agents on the rear of the limo and not concentrating on him and the First Lady [sic: also not on this trip] and the other dignitaries riding in the back seat. I must admit that I was not along on the trip and was back at the White House with Caroline and John, Jr., when this happened in Tampa, but I’m pretty sure this is accurate information, and was the main reason there were no agents on the back of the limousine in Dallas, Texas, at the time of the assassination. If the Secret Service could not respond to the President by saying it was absolutely necessary for two agents to be there, then his request had to be honored. And in Dallas, the Secret Service had no reliable information that Dallas was a dangerous place and we certainly did not know at the time that Lee Harvey Oswald existed. Incidentally, I’m pretty sure that neither Jerry Behn or Sam Kinney were on this trip [wrong re: Kinney---on the Florida and Texas trips]…I do believe if agents had been riding on the rear of the limo in Dallas that President Kennedy would not have been assassinated as they would have been in Oswald’s line of fire…To elaborate a little more on the assassination in Dallas, I have always believed that the following adverse situations all contributed to the unnecessary and unfortunate death of President Kennedy: (1) No Secret Service agents riding on the rear of the limousine…[Emphasis added]” In a follow-up letter to the author dated 5/22/05, Meredith wrote: “…I do not know first hand if President Kennedy ordered agents off the back end of his limousine…I have been under the impression through the years that he did just that politely in Tampa Bay (sic) ...they [the agents] took this as a polite order from the President not to take these upright positions on the back of the limousine…on November 22, 1963. So don’t take my word as the gospel truth on this matter.” Meredith continued: “If you really want to receive a very definite and accurate statement of fact about this, I strongly recommend that you try to contact former Agent Clint Hill…Here is Hill’s mailing address [deleted for privacy]…I don’t know how successful you would be in contacting Clint Hill…But I wish you “Good Luck” in this regard.”
On 6/2/05, the author mailed a lengthy, 22-page letter to former WHD agent Clinton J. Hill (Certified, Return Receipt Requested with a S.A.S.E. to boot) summarizing this entire chapter in great detail. On 6/13/05, after not receiving a reply, the author phoned Mr. Hill, who was quite apparently angry---he first pretended not to know about the lengthy letter he had to sign for (of which the author received his signed receipt): “About what?,” Hill exclaimed in response to the author’s inquiry. Then, forcefully, Hill added: “I’m just not interested in talking to you.”
Author Jim Bishop revealed the seemingly unknown fact that Floyd Boring was the number one agent involved in the Dallas trip back in the 1960's in his book "The Day Kennedy Was Shot": "...[LBJ] called Secret Service Chief James Rowley. ‘Rufe [Youngblood] did a brave thing today,’ he said. ‘He jumped on me and kept me down. I want you to do whatever you can, the best that can be done, for that boy." He hung up [this was 11/22/63]. It had not occurred to him that Rowley, too, was lonely. If there was any blame, any official laxness, it didn't matter that the planning of the Texas trip had been in the capable hands of Floyd Boring (Emphasis added).” And, to the JFK Library in the 1970's, Boring said: "Part of my job at the White House during the entire President Kennedy administration was to be in charge of the advance work. I used to assign people to do the advance work, and most of the overseas trips I did myself in conjunction with other people on the detail." To the Truman Library in the 1980's, Boring added: "I was on all the advance work out of there. I was assigned all the advance work, sort of an administrator... I was second in charge [behind Special Agent in Charge Jerry Behn]." Finally, fellow former agent Sam Kinney told this author, in regard to SAIC Gerald A. "Jerry" Behn's absence from the Texas trip, leaving ASAIC (#2) Floyd M. Boring to be the agent in charge of the Texas trip: "Here’s the story on that. We got, as agents, federal employees, thirty days a year annual leave. We lose it, because they can’t let us go…there was only " x " amount of agents back then in the whole wide world… they could not let us off …Jerry Behn had probably worked three years without any annual leave at all and this particular time, he could get some time off and he didn’t go to Dallas. Roy Kellerman was third in charge, so he took the thing (sic), which is, you know-he's qualified. Floyd Boring stayed home- he could get his time off and he could still handle what ever came about from his house; there was very little correspondence between [the agents in Dallas] because Win Lawson had the advance (emphasis added)." Back to the ARRB interview of Boring: "Boring independently recalled that he was the person who assigned Winston Lawson as the S.S. advance agent for the Dallas leg of the Texas trip, but could not recall why or how "Win" Lawson was given that assignment." Agent David Grant, who worked hand in glove with Boring on the controversial 11/18/63 Florida trip, assisted Lawson in the advance preparations in Dallas. Boring was also involved in the pre-11/22/63 checks of the Protective Research Section (PRS) files of any potential threats to JFK reported in Dallas which, incredibly, yielded nothing, a matter fellow ASAIC Roy Kellerman found unusual , as did fellow agent Abraham Bolden , as common sense would seem to dictate (interestingly, according to his Truman Library oral history, Boring worked for PRS back in the 1940’s!). Yet Boring had begun his ARRB interview exclaiming: "I didn't have anything to do with it, and I don't know anything," a similar sentiment he first gave to the author before probing further into the mystery. The author later asked Boring: “Were you involved in any of the planning of the Texas trip?” Then, the agent finally admitted: “Well, no, I sent-ah, yeah, I was involved in that, yeah”. And, if that weren’t enough, during researcher Dan Robertson’s interview of the lucid, 90 year old Boring in 2006, the former agent quite shockingly claimed that "He [JFK] was responsible for his own death." Indeed, Mr. Boring IS interesting, to say the least.
While it is certainly true that the agents were not always stationed on the rear of the limousine, President Kennedy was not in the equation regarding the circumstances for this (they DID often walk, jog, or run near the rear of the limousine, though). If the Secret Service would only have taken their rightful responsibility for not having agents positioned there (as was the usual practice), this would not really be an issue, only a "what if" situation. However, because they lied and blamed it on JFK's alleged "desires" and "requests", they blew their cover story for their "negligence." Furthermore, merely as a hypothetical inference, in the highly unlikely event, in light of all the previous evidence to the contrary, JFK DID in fact somehow or other tell the agents not to ride on the rear of the car a few times in the past, this was clearly the exception, NOT the rule from him; turning an isolated incident from 1961 into a rule to be followed on 11/22/63 simply isn’t credible. And, again---agents DID ride on the rear of the car during the Florida trip…but not on the very next trip to Texas which began a mere three days later, allegedly by “Presidential request” (a kind anecdote), courtesy of Agent Boring, who informed his men between 11/19 and 11/21/63.
If you don’t believe the “kind anecdote” story as told to the ARRB (as the author does not), then why did Mr. Boring take it upon himself to order the men not to take their usual positions on or near the rear of the Presidential limousine? Why did they blame it on JFK? Why didn't the agent physically present and nominally in charge of the trip (ASAIC Kellerman) mention JFK's desires even once during his very lengthy, two-session interview with the Warren Commission, not to mention his reports and his later HSCA and private researcher contacts? Why, indeed.
Marty Underwood told the author that Chief Rowley's best friend was Clint Hill. In keeping with Mr. Hill's honesty noted earlier, it appears that Mr. Rowley exhibited a little of it himself during his testimony to the Warren Commission when, as previously mentioned, he stated: "No President will tell the Secret Service what they can or cannot do" (emphasis added).
Even President Truman agreed, stating: “the Secret Service was the only boss that the President of the United States really had.”
To summarize, the point is that this was a Secret Service decision, not a JFK desire as "official" history (Warren Commission/ Bishop/ Manchester/ Secret Service) has told us all. The Secret Service lied, using JFK as a scapegoat. To blame the deceased President after-the-fact is very suspicious, to say the least; why Mr. Boring took it upon himself to relay these orders between 11/19 and 11/21/63 (according to both Clint Hill and Frank Yeager) is an important issue, especially when considering the timing in relation to the start of the Texas trip: 11/21/63. If “the devil is in the details,” the author would also add that the timing is everything; the sequence of events is crucial. And, if it was necessary during the Watergate scandal to “follow the money,” the author chose in this case to follow the lies told by the Secret Service, find out who specifically told the lies, and why, as well as the incumbent results of these lies.If an agent (or agents) would have been positioned on or near the rear of the limousine or, at the very least, if John Ready, in particular, would have been permitted to run to his position on JFK's side of the limousine during the shooting, history would have been changed: the agent (or agents) may have blocked one or more shots or, at the very least, would have been able to cover JFK before the fatal head shot. As former agent Harry Neal wrote: “It is my personal belief that had they [Secret Service] been permitted to stay on the presidential car, the body of one of the agents might have completely obscured the President from Oswald’s vision. In that event, either no shots would have been fired, or the agent might have been killed or wounded. But the President would not have been hit.” “An unnamed former JFK-era agent told author Philip Melanson in February 2002 that not having agents on the running boards of the limousine was a major factor in Kennedy’s death. Former Secret Service Chief Frank J. Wilson wrote: “Agents on running boards at Dallas might not have saved the President from the first bullet but might have saved him from the second one, which was fatal,” a view later shared by Reagan Agent Joseph Petro. Ironically, former JFK Secret Service Chief U.E. Baughman wrote in 1962: “... the Secret Service knows from experience that a car directly behind the President may save his life in certain emergencies…” In addition to the various still and motion pictures demonstrating the agents on or near the rear of the President’s car, the Honolulu, Hawaii trip in the summer of 1963 bears mute testimony to an important, often neglected facet of the protective mission: the agents also frequently RAN beside the car, even while the limousine was going at a fair clip. Agents walked, jogged, or ran beside the car, and were often on the rear of the limousine whether the car was traveling at a modest speed or even at a high rate of speed. If some look at this as "Monday morning quarterbacking", ask yourself this: Why did the Secret Service, in charge of the "defense", alter history's "official" verdict? Why, indeed.
ASAIC Floyd Boring’s favorite President was Harry S. Truman (actually, he was a favorite of Behn, Kinney, and a host of other JFK-era agents). Truman was famous for the saying “The buck stops here.” With regard to the assassination of President Kennedy and the protective measures used—and not used---on that fateful day, the buck stops with the Secret Service…and Boring, especially.
POST SCRIPT THREE---JFK'S STAFF? NOT:
Ronald M. Pontius, WHD (on Texas trip, but not the Dallas stop): In reference to an e-mail inquiry from the author (“did JFK ever order the agents to not ride on the rear of his limousine? Author William Manchester claims he did, while Behn, Kinney, & Youngblood said he did not”), Pontius e-mailed the author back on 10/30/00 and wrote: “He did through his staff (emphasis added).” Presidential Aide (Chief of Staff/ Appointments Secretary) Kenneth P. O’Donnell does not mention anything with regard to telling the agents to remove themselves from the limousine (based on JFK’s alleged “desires”) during his lengthy Warren Commission testimony (nor to author William Manchester, nor even in his or his daughter’s books, for that matter); the same is true for the other two Presidential aides: Larry O’Brien and Dave Powers. In fact, as mentioned above, Powers refutes this whole idea. Again, JFK’s staff is not mentioned as a factor during any of the agent’s Warren Commission testimony, nor in the five reports submitted in April 1964. (7 H 440-457. Manchester, page 666 (O’Donnell was interviewed 5/4/64, 6/4/64, 8/6/64 & 11/23/64). O’Donnell passed away 9/9/77. For what it’s worth, neither Presidential Aide’s Larry O’Brien [7 H 457- 472] or Dave Powers [7 H 472-474] mentioned any JFK “desires”, either (also, see Powers, above). In addition, nothing of the sort is mentioned in “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye” by O'Donnell, Kenneth P., David F. Powers, and Joseph McCarthy (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1972 [see especially page 20], nor in Kenny O’Donnell’s daughter’s book “A Common Good: The Friendship of Robert F. Kennedy and Kenneth P. O’Donnell (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1998), written by Helen O’Donnell, who wrote: “Much of the material in this book has been gathered from the private tapes of my father, Kenneth P. O’Donnell.” [Author’s Note]) In addition, former agent’s Godfrey and Kinney denounced the “staff/ O’Donnell” notion (see above). It is interesting to note that, like JFK, O’Donnell was not blamed for any security deficiencies and the like until only after his death (in 1977), when he was thus unable to refute any allegations as such.
Breaking news: Author Helen O'Donnell, the daughter of the late Ken O'Donnell, told me in October 2010, based on her memory AND her father's many audio tapes, that JFK did not order the agents off the car and neither did her father!
THE KENNEDY DETAIL DEBUNKED
by VINCE PALAMARA
CE 1025, the 5 Secret Service reports submitted by Chief James J. Rowley on 4/22/64 (exactly 5 months to the day after the assassination) to the Warren Commission's General Counsel, J. Lee Rankin, ONLY because Rankin asked via a letter dated 4/3/64, were supposed to specifically address, quote, "expressions by President Kennedy regarding the placement of Secret Service agents on or near his car during the motorcade," obviously meaning THE fateful motorcade in Dallas on 11/22/63 when JFK was assassinated. However, not one of the five reports even addresses the DALLAS motorcade; only the Tampa, FL motorcade of 11/18/63 (and a few earlier motorcades) are addressed. Out of roughly 36 agents of the White House Detail (the number slightly fluctuates if you include "the brass"), Rowley chose to obtain written statements from just five: SAIC Gerald Behn (not in Dallas or Tampa; on leave during this time), ASAIC Floyd Boring (not in Dallas; in Tampa), ATSAIC Emory Roberts (in Tampa and Dallas), SA John Ready (not in Tampa but in Dallas), and Clint Hill (like Ready, not in Tampa but in Dallas). Why Roy Kellerman, the agent nominally in charge of the Texas trip, nor Winston Lawson, the lead advance agent, nor even the other 5 agents in the follow up car in Dallas (McIntyre, Kinney, Landis, Bennett, and Hickey), were not asked their thoughts on the matter raises suspicion (all the other agents on the Dallas trip, and prior trips, for that matter, could have participated). Importantly, NO MENTION is made of JFK's staff (Ken O'Donnell, Dave Powers, Larry O'Brien) being involved in this issue in any way whatsoever---the same goes for the Warren Report (and accompanying testimony of the JFK agents they spoke to---Kellerman, Hill, & Greer), Jim Bishop's book, and William Manchester's tome. With that said, a look at each report is warranted.
SAIC Behn's two-page report, dated 4/16/64 (the fourth report submitted to Rowley, and on blank paper, to boot; not official treasury Department stationary), first mentions the Mexico trip of 1962 and the trip to Berlin in 1963---both trips involved agents on and near the rear of the limo, as the film/ photo record exhaustively proves, so whatever JFK allegedly said on the matter, one way or the other, is moot. As for the other trips he mentions on page two of his report (Seattle, Phoenix, Bonham, TX, and "other stops" [no specifics]), two points must be made. These all occurred in November of 1961, a whopping two years before the assassination! So, if there was not a standing order for the agents to stay off the car by order of JFK (which the film/ photo record, just by viewing the aforementioned Mexico and Berlin trips, proves), these alleged statements by JFK are not really germane to a trip two years after the (alleged) fact, to put it mildly. The second point is a recent discovery: the Bonham, TX stop was for the funeral of former Speaker Sam Rayburn and it involved a HARDTOP car without handholds for the agents to begin with: JFK was well protected, so mentioning this trip isn't germane, either. Keep in mind a valuable point in looking at all these reports: this was before the internet and before many of these films and photos were somewhat accessible to the lay person. Back in 1964, it was very easy to believe the pronouncements of official government employees, especially with JFK dead and not able to defend himself by stating HIS real views on the matter.
Quite surprisingly, when I asked Behn about this on 9/27/92, he told me: "I don't remember Kennedy ever saying that he didn't want anybody on the back of his car." Behn further stated: “I think if you watch the newsreel pictures you’ll find agents on there from time to time.” Since Behn's report is "signed" by a stamp-pad signature, one wonders if he actually even wrote this. If he did, his statements to myself (a total stranger on the phone [now a You Tube video]) tell me that, late in life, he told me the REAL story, NOT the one he was force-fed to state for the record to his boss to collectively cover the ass of the Secret Service, as the agency was rightfully worried about their future.
Behn ended his report by stating: "As late as November 18, of last year [1963], he [JFK] told ASAIC Boring the same thing. He [Boring or JFK?] gave me no reason for this." With this in mind, we will take an even more detailed look at Boring's report, as well as the major ramifications of his report via the effect it had on several major books and so forth.
ASAIC Boring's one-page report, dated 4/8/64 (the very first report submitted to Rowley and, once again, on blank paper), deals mainly with the Tampa, FL trip of 11/18/63, while also mentioning the Italy trip of 7/2/63. Boring claims in this report that JFK told him to have the agents remove themselves from the rear of the limousine. However, films/ photos exhaustively prove that the agents rode on or near the rear of the car either the entire motorcade, or, at the very least, the vast majority of the trek, in Tampa, so, once again, whatever JFK allegedly said to Boring is moot. What's more, as the author discovered via research at the JFK Library, films and photos depict agents on and near the rear of the limo in Italy, as well! Regarding the Tampa trip, the author wrote to former Florida Congressman Samuel Melville Gibbons. Gibbons response in full, dated 1/15/04: “I rode with Kennedy every time he rode. I heard no such order. As I remember it the agents rode on the rear bumper all the way. Kennedy was very happy during his visit to Tampa. Sam Gibbons.” Furthermore, an amazing document was released in the 1990’s concerning, among many other related topics, the issue of the agents’ presence (or lack thereof) on the limousine. This is a 28-page “Sensitive "memorandum from Belford Lawson, the attorney in charge of the Secret Service area for the HSCA, addressed to Gary Cornwell & Ken Klein dated 5/31/77 and revised 8/15/77. Apparently, Attorney Lawson was suspicious of Mr. Boring, for he wrote on the final page of this lengthy memorandum: “Subject: Florida Motorcades in November 1963…Was Floyd Boring, the Senior SS Agent on the White House detail, lying to SS Agent Hill when he told Hill that JFK had said in Tampa…that he wanted no agents riding upright on the rear bumper step of the JFK limousine? Did JFK actually say this? Did Boring know when he told this to Hill that Hill would be riding outboard on the JFK follow-up car in Dallas on November 22, 1963? Did Boring say this to Ready or Roberts? [Lawson’s emphasis]” On page 27 of the same memo, Lawson wrote: “Why did only one Agent, Hill, run forward to the JFK limousine?”
As or even more surprising than the shocking comments by Behn, Floyd Boring told the author, in reference to JFK's alleged "desires" mentioned by Jim Bishop, Manchester (“quoting” Boring), and himself in his own report: "He actually - No, I told them...He didn't tell them anything...He just - I looked at the back and I seen these fellahs were hanging on the limousine - I told them to return to the car...[JFK] was a very easy-going guy...he didn't interfere with our actions at all" (emphasis added)! The author reiterated the point - Mr. Boring was still adamant that JFK never issued any orders to the agents; he even refuted Manchester's book. Floyd Boring (and quite a few of his colleagues) categorically denied to the author what William Manchester reports in his acclaimed massive best-seller “The Death of a President”: "Kennedy grew weary of seeing bodyguards roosting behind him every time he turned around [indicating the frequency of the event], and in Tampa on November 18 [1963], just four days before his death, he dryly asked Agent Floyd Boring to 'keep those Ivy League charlatans off the back of the car.' Boring wasn't offended. There had been no animosity in the remark. (Emphasis added)." (In his "defense", Manchester also wrote: “It was a good idea, for example, to have agents perched on the broad trunk of the Presidential Lincoln when crowds threatened to grow disorderly. The trouble was that they were always there [emphasis added].”)
Incredibly, Boring told this author: "I never told him that." As for the merit of the quote itself, as previously mentioned, Boring said: "No, no, no-that's not true,” thus contradicting his own report in the process. Incredibly, BORING WAS NOT EVEN INTERVIEWED FOR MANCHESTER’S BOOK! We may never know Mr. Manchester's source for this curious statement: he told the author on 8/23/93 that "all that material is under seal and won't be released in my lifetime" and denied the author access to his notes (Manchester has since passed away). Interestingly, Manchester did interview the late Emory Roberts, Manchester’s probable and---as we shall see---very questionable “source.” [Of the 21 agents/ officials interviewed by Manchester, only Roberts, Greer, Kinney, and Blaine were on the Florida trip. Blaine was the advance agent for Tampa (riding in the lead car), Greer drove JFK’s car, Kinney drove the follow-up car, and Roberts was the commander of the follow-up car. That said, in the author’s opinion, Roberts is still the main suspect of the four as being Manchester’s dubious source for this quote: after all, he was asked to write a report about JFK’s so-called desires, citing Boring as the source for the order via radio transmission. The others---Greer, Kinney, & Blaine---were not asked to write a similar report. In addition, Manchester had access to this report while writing his book). Also, unlike the other three, Roberts was interviewed twice and, while Greer never went on record with his feelings about the matter, one way or the other, Kinney adamantly denied the veracity of Manchester’s information, while Blaine denied the substance of the information, although he DID mention the “Ivy league charlatan” remark coming from a secondary source. Finally, of the 21 agents interviewed by Manchester, Blaine is the only agent---save two headquarters Inspectors (see next footnote)---whose interview comments are not to be found in the text or index. Since, in addition to Blaine, three other agents---Lawton, Meredith & Newman---also mentioned the remark as hearsay, in some fashion or another, it is more than likely that Manchester seized upon the remark and greatly exaggerated its significance…AND attributed it to Boring, while his actual source was likely Roberts (and/ or Blaine). Again, since Boring wasn’t interviewed, the comment had to come second-hand from another agent, who, in turn, received the remark second-hand from Boring. Ultimately, the question is: did Boring really give out this order on instructions from JFK?]
Needless to say, Manchester left his mark on this issue. [Interestingly, Manchester, having interviewed 21 different agents/ officials for his book [pages 660-669], chose to include interviews with Secret Service Inspectors Burrill Peterson and Jack Warner. What’s the problem? Well, these men, not even associated with the Texas trip in any way, were interviewed more than any of the other agents: four times each (Peterson: 10/9/64, 11/17/64, 11/18/64, 2/5/65; Warner: 6/2/64, 11/18/64, 2/5/65, 5/12/65)! Only Emory Roberts, Clint Hill, Roy Kellerman, and Forrest Sorrels had two interviews apiece, while all the other agents/ officials garnered just one interview each. And, more importantly, unlike all the other 19 agents, save one, Gerald Blaine (a Texas trip WHD agent), these two Inspectors are not even mentioned in the actual text or the index; their comments are “invisible” to the reader. It appears, then, that Manchester’s book was truly a sanitized, “official” book, more so than we thought before (as most everyone knows, the book was written with Jackie Kennedy’s approval: it was her idea, in fact [page ix]. Manchester even had early, exclusive access to the Warren Commission itself: “At the outset of my inquiry the late Chief Justice Earl Warren appointed me an ex officio member of his commission…and provided me with an office in Washington’s VFW building, where the commission met and where copies of reports and depositions were made available to me [page xix]). Inspector Peterson figured prominently in the post-assassination press dealings (or lack thereof)---as Agent Sorrels testified: “…I don't think at any time you will see that there is any statement made by the newspapers or television that we said anything because Mr. Kelley, the Inspector, told me ‘Any information that is given out will have to come from Inspector Peterson in Washington.’"[7 H 359] Peterson became an Assistant Director for Investigations in 1968 [“20 Years in the Secret Service” by Rufus Youngblood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), page 220], while Inspector Warner would go on to become Director of Public Affairs (a position he held until the 1990’s), acting as a buffer to critical press questions during the assassination attempts on President Ford and other related matters [“The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency” (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003) by Philip Melanson with Peter Stevens, pages 101, 201, 224, 237]. Warner would also later become a consultant to the 1993 Clint Eastwood movie “In the Line of Fire.”]
Jim Bishop, in his own massive best-selling book entitled "The Day Kennedy was Shot, "does nothing more than repeat the written record of the Warren Commission and the previously mentioned five reports, taken at face value. Again, Mr. Boring was not interviewed for the book. With Mr. Bishop dead, this is where the matter rests with his account. That said, Jim Bishop did sum up the situation best: "No one wanted to weigh the possibilities that, if a Secret Service man had been on the left rear bumper going down Elm Street, it would have been difficult to hit President Kennedy (emphasis added).” Bishop also noted: "The Secret Service men were not pleased because they were in a "hot" city and would have preferred to have two men ride the bumper of the President's car with two motorcycle policemen between him [JFK] and the crowds on the sidewalks."
Still, thanks to the Secret Service reports above (and, in large measure, to Agent Boring himself), three massive best-sellers still in print or in libraries ---the Warren Report The Warren Report , Manchester‘s “The Death of a President“, and Bishop’s “The Day Kennedy Was Shot”--- have created the myth that JFK was difficult to protect and had ordered the agents off his car and the like, a dangerous myth that endures to this day in classrooms and in the media, thus doing great damage to the true historical record.
Remember, Boring is admitting it came from him, and not JFK! With regard to exactly who makes the decision regarding the agents’ proximity to the President, Agent Jerry Parr told Larry King: “I would say it was the agent in charge who makes that decision.” When asked, point blank, if JFK had ever ordered the agents off the rear of the limousine, including in Tampa on 11/18/63, Boring told the author again : "Well that's not true. That's not true. He was a very nice man; he never interfered with us at all." In a letter received by the author on, of all dates, 11/22/97, Boring confirmed what he had previously told the author on two previous occasions (9/22/93 and 3/4/94, respectively) when he wrote: "President Kennedy was a very congenial man knowing most agents by their first name. He was very cooperative with the Secret Service, and well liked and admired by all of us (emphasis added)." Not only does Boring NOT mention anything about JFK’s alleged “desires” to restrict security during his two lengthy oral histories, the agent stated: “…of all the administrations I worked with, the president and the people surrounding the president were very gracious and were very cooperative. As a matter of fact, you can’t do this type of security work without cooperation of the people surrounding the president…[emphasis added]” Indeed, Chief James J. Rowley told the JFK Library in 1976: "...you could talk to them [JFK’s staff]...It made for a very happy relationship."
ATSAIC (Shift Leader) Emory Roberts one-page report (dated 4/10/64, the second one submitted to Rowley and finally on Treasury Department letterhead) deals exclusively with the Tampa FL trip of 11/18/63 and states nothing other than confirmation that he heard ASAIC Boring tell him, via radio, to get the agents off the back of JFK's car; nothing about the President's alleged wishes or anything else. From an evidentiary standpoint, moot and useless. Roberts was a "good soldier": he ordered an agent back from JFK's limo at Love Field (as this author discovered back in 1991 and had popularized for the first time back in 1995 and, again, in 2003 on The History Channel, long before this clip became something of an internet sensation), recalled an agent during the shooting and, as Sam Kinney told me, ordered the men on the follow-up car not to move! So, needless to say, like Boring, I am suspicious of Mr. Roberts (deceased 1973).
Special Agent John (Jack) Ready's one-page report (dated 4/11/64, the third one submitted to Rowley and, like Roberts, also on Treasury Department letterhead) deals exclusively with the 11/18/63 Tampa, Florida trip. However, Mr. Ready was not on this specific trip: Mr. Boring was, once again, his source for JFK's alleged request. Ready would not respond to written inquiries from the author. The author phoned Mr. Ready on 6/13/05 and asked him if it was true that Boring said this, based on JFK’s request. After confirming he wasn’t on the Tampa trip, Ready stated: “Not on the phone [will I answer you]. I don’t know you from Adam. Can you see my point?”
Special Agent Clint Hill's one-page report (strangely undated and, presumably, the last one submitted to Rowley) deals with the 11/18/63 Tampa, Florida trip and Boring second-hand because, like Ready, Mr. Hill was not on this trip, either. Mr. Hill lives incommunicado in Virginia and will not grant private interviews. That said, the author was the first private researcher to get through to Mr. Hill (more on this in a moment). Interestingly, Mr. Hill’s brother-in-law is none other than fellow former agent David B. Grant, a former advance agent who worked on the planning of the Florida and Texas trips with none other than Mr. Boring.
Agent Hill's report was the most honest of the five: "I...never personally was requested by President John F. Kennedy not to ride on the rear of the Presidential automobile. I did receive information passed verbally from the administrative offices of the White House Detail of the Secret Service to Agents assigned to that Detail that President Kennedy had made such requests. I do not know from whom I received this information...No written instructions regarding this were ever distributed... (I) received this information after the Presidents return to Washington, D. C. This would have been between November 19, 1963 and November 21, 1963 [note the time frame!]. I do not know specifically who advised me of this request by the President (emphasis added)."
Mr. Hill's undated report was presumably written in April 1964, as the other four reports were written at that time. Why Mr. Hill could not "remember" the specific name of the agent who gave him JFK's alleged desires is very troubling - he revealed it on 3/9/64, presumably before his report was written, in his (obviously pre-rehearsed) testimony under oath to the future Senator Arlen Specter, then a lawyer with the Warren Commission:
Specter: "Did you have any other occasion en route from Love Field to downtown Dallas to leave the follow-up car and mount that portion of the President's car [rear portion of limousine]?"
Hill: "I did the same thing approximately four times."
Specter: "What are the standard regulations and practices, if any, governing such an action on your part?"
Hill: "It is left to the agent's discretion more or less to move to that particular position when he feels that there is a danger to the President: to place himself as close to the President or the First Lady as my case was, as possible, which I did."
Specter: "Are those practices specified in any written documents of the Secret Service?"
Hill: "No, they are not."
Specter: "Now, had there been any instruction or comment about your performance of that type of a duty with respect to anything President Kennedy himself had said in the period immediately preceding the trip to
Texas?"
Hill: "Yes, sir; there was. The preceding Monday, the President was on a trip to Tampa, Florida, and he requested that the agents not ride on either of those two steps."
Specter: "And to whom did the President make that request?"
Hill: "Assistant Special Agent in Charge Boring."
Specter: "Was Assistant Special Agent in Charge Boring the individual in charge of that trip to Florida?"
Hill: "He was riding in the Presidential automobile on that trip in Florida, and I presume that he was. I was not along."
Specter: "Well, on that occasion would he have been in a position comparable to that occupied by Special Agent Kellerman on this trip to Texas?"
Hill: "Yes sir; the same position."
Specter: "And Special Agent Boring informed you of that instruction by President Kennedy?"
Hill: "Yes sir, he did."
Specter: "Did he make it a point to inform other special agents of that same instruction?"
Hill: "I believe that he did, sir."
Specter: "And, as a result of what President Kennedy said to him, did he instruct you to observe that Presidential admonition?"
Hill: "Yes, sir."
Specter: "How, if at all, did that instruction of President Kennedy affect your action and - your action in safeguarding him on this trip to Dallas?"
Hill: "We did not ride on the rear portions of the automobile. I did on those four occasions because the motorcycles had to drop back and there was no protection on the left-hand side of the car." (Emphasis added)
On 9/18/96, by request of the author, the ARRB’s Doug Horne interviewed Mr. Boring regarding this matter. Horne wrote: "Mr. Boring was asked to read pages 136-137 of Clint Hill's Warren Commission testimony, in which Clint Hill recounted that Floyd Boring had told him just days prior to the assassination that during the President's Tampa trip on Monday, 11/18/63, JFK had requested that agents not ride on the rear steps of the limousine, and that Boring had also so informed other agents of the White House detail, and that as a result, agents in Dallas (except Clint Hill, on brief occasions) did not ride on the rear steps of the limousine. MR BORING AFFIRMED THAT HE DID MAKE THESE STATEMENTS TO CLINT HILL, BUT STATED THAT HE WAS NOT RELAYING A POLICY CHANGE, BUT RATHER SIMPLY TELLING AN ANECDOTE ABOUT THE PRESIDENT'S KINDNESS AND CONSIDERATION IN TAMPA IN NOT WANTING AGENTS TO HAVE TO RIDE ON THE REAR OF THE LINCOLN LIMOUSINE WHEN IT WAS NOT NECESSARY TO DO SO BECAUSE OF A LACK OF CROWDS ALONG THE STREET (Emphasis added).”
The author finds this admission startling, especially because the one agent who decided to ride on the rear of the limousine in Dallas anyway---and on at least 4 different occasions--- was none other than CLINT HILL himself.
This also does not address what the agents were to do when the crowds were heavier, or even what exactly constituted a "crowd", as AGENTS DID RIDE ON THE REAR STEPS OF THE LIMOUSINE IN TAMPA ON NOVEMBER 18, 1963 ANYWAY (agents Donald J. Lawton, Andrew E. Berger, & Charles T. Zboril, to be exact)!
Furthermore, as noted above, both Clint Hill's written report and his testimony sure convey a more strict approach than one stemming from an alleged kind anecdote. In fact, as mentioned above, Hill twice stated in his report that he DID NOT RECALL who the agent was who told him, and the other agents, not to ride on the rear of the limousine, yet named him under oath to Counsel Specter: Floyd Boring.
So of the five Secret Service reports, four have as their primary source for JFK's alleged request Agent Boring, including one by Boring himself, while the remaining report, written by Mr. Behn, mentions the same 11/18/63 trip with Mr. Boring as the others do (again, Boring’s report was the first one written, then came one each from Roberts, Ready, Behn, and Hill, respectively). Both Behn and Boring totally contradicted the contents of their reports at different times, independent of each other, to the author. In addition, agents did ride on the rear of the limousine on 7/2/63 and 11/18/63 anyway, despite these alleged Presidential requests, as the film and photo record proves.
Needless to say, with Boring joining Behn in refuting the substance of their reports, the official Secret Service ‘explanation’ falls like a house of cards. Behn’s, Boring’s, and Hill’s reports are not even on any Secret Service or Treasury Dept. stationary, just blank sheets of paper. In fact, as noted above, Hill’s report is undated, a bizarre error to make in an official government report written by request of the head of the Secret Service. All are supposedly evidence of JFK expressing his desire to keep Secret Service agents off the limousine, particularly in Tampa, Florida on 11/18/63.
Importantly, no mention is made of any alleged orders via President Kennedy’s staff.
And, again, THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT WHAT JFK SAID OR "REQUESTED" ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963, THE CRITICAL DAY IN QUESTION!
POST SCRIPT ONE:
The “one-two” punch was provided in the late 1990’s by both former Carter & Reagan SAIC Jerry Parr’s comments to Larry King on CNN dated 7/14/98, as well as, controversially, then-current Clinton Secret Service Director Lewis C. Merletti. For his part, Parr, a major consultant to the “In The Line of Fire” movie, told Larry King: “The critical factor [in Dallas]…was the fact that he ordered the two agents off the car…which made him very vulnerable to Lee Oswald’s attack.” Regarding Merletti, “The Washington Post” reported on 5/14/98: “During private meetings, sources said, Merletti told officials from [Kenneth] Starr's office [investigating the President Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky matter] and the Treasury and Justice departments that trust and proximity to a president are crucial to protecting him [In fact, Clint Hill and Jerry Parr where 2 of the nine living former SAIC’s of the WHD who signed a petition to try to block Kenneth Starr from interviewing Secret Service officials. The other 7 were unnamed in the article. (“Washington Post”, 6/16/98)]...the service ran through the history of assassination attempts, showing instances where they succeeded or failed, possibly depending on how close agents were to an intended victim. Sources said they produced rare photographs of John F. Kennedy's fateful 1963 motorcade through Dallas, where agents were not standing on running boards on the back of his exposed automobile when shots rang out because the president several days before had ordered them not to…Merletti indicated to the court that the assassination in a moving limousine of President John F. Kennedy "might have been thwarted had agents been stationed on the car's running boards (emphasis added).” To drive the point home even further, here is an excerpt from Director Merletti’s testimony, as reported in “The Washington Post” from 5/20/98: "I have attached, as Exhibit A to this Declaration, photographs of President John F. Kennedy's visit to Tampa, Florida on November 18, 1963. We use these photographs, and the ones attached as Exhibit B, in our training exercises. Exhibit A demonstrates the lengths to which protective personnel have been forced to go to try to maintain proximity to the President. In the photographs contained in Exhibit A, agents are kneeling on the running board of the Presidential limousine, while the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed [note: a contradiction---according to prior official agency mythology, the agents shouldn’t even be there at all!]. I can attest that this requires extraordinary physical exertion. Nevertheless, they performed this duty in an attempt to maintain close physical proximity to the President. Exhibit B, by contrast, scarcely needs any introduction. It is a series of photographs of the Presidential limousine, taken just four days later, on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. As can be seen, at the instruction of the President, Secret Service agents had been ordered off of the limousine's running boards. An analysis of the ensuing assassination (including the trajectory of the bullets which struck the President) indicates that it might have been thwarted had agents been stationed on the car's running boards. In other words, had they been able to maintain close proximity to the President during the motorcade, the assassination of John F. Kennedy might have been averted. Exhibit C contains a series of photographs taken during the actual assassination that demonstrate how critical and tragic the absence of proximity to the protectee can be (emphasis added).”
POST SCRIPT TWO:
J. Frank Yeager, WHD (on Texas trip but not the Dallas stop)---In a letter to the author dated 12/29/03, Yeager wrote: “I did not think that President Kennedy was particularly “difficult” to protect. In fact, I thought that his personality made it easier than some because he was easy to get along with…” With regard to the author’s question, “Did President Kennedy ever order the agents off the rear of his limousine,” Yeager responded: “I know of no “order” directly from President Kennedy. I think that after we got back from Tampa, Florida where I did the advance for the President, a few days before Dallas…[it was] requested that the Secret Service agents not ride the rear running board of the Presidential car during parades involving political events so that the president would not be screened by an agent. I don’t know what form or detail that this request was made to the Secret Service… I also do not know who actually made the final decision, but we did not have agents on the rear of the President’s car in Dallas [emphasis added].” Like Hill’s report mentioned above, please note the timing.
Gerald S. Blaine, WHD (on Texas trip but not the Dallas stop) --- Blaine told the author on 2/7/04 that President Kennedy was “very cooperative. He didn’t interfere with our actions. President Kennedy was very likeable---he never had a harsh word for anyone. He never interfered with our actions [emphasis added].” When the author asked Blaine how often the agents rode on the back of JFK’s limousine, the former agent said it was a “fairly common” occurrence that depended on the crowd and the speed of the cars. In fact, just as one example, Blaine rode on the rear of JFK’s limousine in Germany in June 1963, along with fellow Texas trip veterans Paul A. Burns and Samuel E. Sulliman.
Blaine added, in specific reference to the agents on the follow-up car in Dallas: “You have to remember, they were fairly young agents,” seeming to imply that their youth was a disadvantage, or perhaps this was seen as an excuse for their poor performance on 11/22/63. Surprisingly, Blaine, the WHD advance agent for the Tampa trip of 11/18/63, said that JFK did make the comment “I don’t need Ivy League charlatans back there,” but emphasized this was a “low-key remark” said “kiddingly” and demonstrating Kennedy’s “Irish sense of humor.” However, according to the “official” story, President Kennedy allegedly made these remarks only to Boring while traveling in the presidential limousine in Tampa: Blaine was nowhere near the vehicle at the time, so Boring had to be HIS source for this story! In addition to Emory Roberts, one now wonders if Blaine was a source (or perhaps the source) for Manchester’s exaggerated ‘quote’ attributed to Boring, as Agent Blaine was also interviewed by Manchester (see above). Blaine would not respond to a follow-up letter on this subject. However, when the author phoned Blaine on 6/10/05, the former agent said the remark “Ivy League charlatans” came “from the guys…I can’t remember who [said it]…I can’t remember (emphasis added).” Thus, Blaine confirms that he did not hear the remark from JFK (When asked if agents rode on the rear of the limousine on the Italy trip in 1963, Blaine said forcefully: “Oh yeah, oh yeah.” It turns out he was one of the agents) Blaine also added that the lack of agents on the rear of the car “had no impact,” adding: “Well, maybe a hesitation.” That is all it took. The former agent also said: “Don’t be too hard on Emory Roberts. He was a double, even a triple checker. He probably took Jack Ready’s life into consideration.” If only he would have taken Jack Kennedy’s life with the same degree of concern.
Donald J. Lawton, WHD; rode on rear of limousine 3/23/63 (Chicago) & 11/18/63 (Tampa); relegated to airport duty 11/22/63---When the author told Lawton on 11/15/95 what fellow agent Kinney said, namely, that JFK never ordered the agents off the rear of the limousine, he said: "It's the way Sam said, yes" (Meaning, he agrees with Kinney, it happened the way Kinney said). Asked to explain how he dismounted the rear of the limousine in Tampa, Lawton said: " I didn't hear the President say it, no. The word was relayed to us---I forget who told us now---you know, 'come back to the follow-up car. '“This would have been Boring, by radio, to Roberts, then finally to the agents---Lawton, Zboril, and Berger---on the limousine. According to Lawton, JFK was "very personable...very warm." Asked about the tragedy in Dallas, Lawton said, "Everyone felt bad. It was our job to protect the President. You still have regrets, remorse. Who knows, if they had left guys on the back of the car...you can hindsight yourself to death (emphasis added).” Paradoxically, when I asked Lawton if JFK really made the statement to Boring mentioned above, Lawton said: “The President told him [Boring], I think he said 'get the college kids off the back of the car.'” (See Blaine, Meredith & Newman, above and below.) That said, in a letter to the author dated, ironically, 11/22/97, Lawton wrote: "Since I am currently employed by the Secret Service I do not believe it appropriate that I comment on former or current protectees of the Service. If you spoke with Bob Lilley as you stated then you can take whatever information he passed on to you as gospel [see Lilley’s comments, below].”
Robert E. Lilley, WHD agent with JFK from election night until Oct. 1963: transferred to Boston Office - When the author told this former agent what Mr. Behn said in September 1992, that Kennedy never said a thing about having the agents removed from the limousine (thus repudiating his own report), Lilley responded: "Oh, I'm sure he [JFK] didn't [order agents off his car, agreeing with Behn]. He was very cooperative with us once he became President. He was extremely cooperative. Basically, 'whatever you guys want is the way it will be'." In interviews and correspondence on four separate occasions, Lilley reiterated this view. Lilley also refuted the Bishop and Manchester accounts, adding that, as an example, on a trip with JFK in Caracas, Venezuela, he and "Roy Kellerman rode on the back of the limousine all the way to the Presidential palace" at speeds reaching "50 miles per hour." Furthermore, Lilley did the advance work for JFK’s trip to Naples, Italy in the summer of 1963: again, agents rode on the rear of the limousine.
Aide David F. Powers (rode in the follow-up car on 11/22/63) & Jacqueline Kennedy (rode with President Kennedy in the limousine)- In a personal letter to the author dated 9/10/93, Mr. Powers wrote: "Unless they were ‘running’ along beside the limo, the Secret Service rode in a car behind the President, so, no, they never had to be told to "get off" the limousine" (emphasis added). This comment rivals Behn’s shocking statements to the author due to the source: President Kennedy’s longtime friend and aide and a man who was on countless trips with the President. For the record, Agent Bob Lilley endorsed Mr. Powers view: "Dave would give you factual answers." In addition, the ARRB’s Tom Samoluk told the author that, during the course of an interview he conducted with Powers in 1996, the former JFK aide and friend agreed with the author’s take on the Secret Service!
For her part, Jackie “played the events over and over in her mind…She did not want to accept Jack’s death as a freak accident, for that meant his life could have been spared---if only the driver in the front seat of the presidential limousine [Agent William R. Greer] had reacted more quickly and stepped on the gas…if only the Secret Service had stationed agents on the rear bumper…[emphasis added]” (“Just Jackie: Her Private Years” by Edward Klein (Ballantine Books, 1999), pages 58-59 & 374: based off an interview Klein had with Kitty Carlisle Hart re: Hart’s conversation with Jackie)
Winston G. Lawson, WHD (lead) advance agent for the Dallas trip (rode in the lead car on 11/22/63): In a stunning letter to the author dated 1/12/04, Lawson wrote: “I do not know of any standing orders for the agents to stay off the back of the car. After all, foot holds and handholds were built into that particular vehicle. I am sure it would have been on a “case by case” basis depending on event, intelligence, threats, etc. Jerry Behn as Special Agent in Charge of the White House Detail…would have been privy to that type of info more than I [see above]. However, it never came to my attention as such. I am certain agents were on the back on certain occasions [emphasis added].” The agent should be certain of that last understatement---he rode on the back of the limousine on the 7/2/63 Italy trip. Coming from one of the chief architects of security planning in Dallas, this is very important, to say the least.
Anthony Sherman (WHD, 9/61-10/63)---Sherman wrote the author: “Yes, it is common knowledge, contrary to the denial of SAIC Behn [see above], that agents were advised not to ride on the rear of the limo during the Dallas motorcade. I suggest to further discuss this question you contact former Special Agent Tim McIntyre, [address deleted for privacy]. Retired SAIC McIntyre was riding the “follow up car” immediately behind the limo. I was not in Dallas, having been transferred to the Field in Oct. 1963. I was sent to Dallas immediately after the assassination and spent three months on the protective/ investigative team representing the Secret Service [Emphasis added].” See McIntyre’s comments, below. Ironically, Sherman added: “May I suggest that you get a copy of THE SECRET SERVICE: THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AN ENIGMATIC AGENCY by Professor Phillip Melanson, PhD. This book is by far the best, most professional “study” of the USSS I have ever read. I believe it will give you other answers to your questions.” What Sherman apparently did not know or remember was that the author’s work was included in Melanson’s book!
Larry Newman, WHD (October 1961 to October 1963, then Washington Field Office)---In a friendly if somewhat contentious interview conducted on 2/7/04 (Newman had seen the author on “The Men Who Killed Kennedy” in November 2003 and thought I was some “20 year old kid” (actually, 36 at the time!). He also mentioned my letter he received and chose not to answer back in 1997), Newman told the author that there was “no policy” regarding the use of agents on the rear of Kennedy’s car, further adding that the question was “hard to answer: it depends on the crowd, the threat assessment, and so forth. There was not a consistent rule of thumb [emphasis added].” This comment will become important later. In addition, regarding the controversial “Ivy League Charlatan” remark first mentioned in Manchester’s book and noted by Lawton and Blaine (above), Newman said: “When Kennedy went to Florida [11/18/63], supposedly, I didn’t hear this directly, Kennedy said to Boring ‘Get the Ivy League charlatans off the back of the car [emphasis added].’” The former agent added that Manchester’s work, while with some merit, became “part of myth, part of truth.” This author couldn’t agree more. With regard to Boring, Newman said: “Boring will only tell you the company line. I’m no friend of Boring’s.” Actually, what Boring told the author went against the “company line” he espoused back in 1964. And, from the latter comment, Newman obviously has no love lost for his former boss on the WHD. The former agent said that both Behn and Boring were “extremely loyal to JFK,” adding: “Boring told you Kennedy didn’t want any agents on the car; then again, he’s been a proponent that JFK wasn’t a womanizer.” Both comments are true. Newman phoned the author unexpectedly on 2/12/04 to say that “there was not a directive, per se” from President Kennedy to remove the agents from their positions on the back of his limousine. The former agent seemed troubled by the author’s research into the matter. Newman did ridicule former Director Merletti’s testimony in 1998 (see above). Regarding Roberts’ order not to move and his conduct, in general, Newman said: “They were probably afraid to hit the street at that speed.” When told that the cars were actually traveling quite slowly, including the limousine’s decelerating speed from a meager 11.2 mph, he had nothing to say in response. When asked if Tim McIntyre may shed more light on the matter (knowing full well that he said as much to the author on 2/7/04), Newman now said he is “hiding out” and “probably, he wouldn’t talk to you anyway” (see McIntyre’s comments, below) Newman seemed concerned yet strangely helpful in conversation with the author. He reiterated that he has no good feelings for Boring (in contrast to his warm feelings for Kellerman) and that---describing himself--- said: “I’m not a good guy.” (!) Finally, Newman said: “You need to get inside the nuts and bolts.” That is what the author is attempting to do with his research and his book.
William “Tim” McIntyre, WHD (rode on the follow-up car on 11/22/63): The author contacted McIntyre on 6/13/05 (McIntyre had previously been contacted via mail in 2004, based on the strong recommendations of former agents’ Larry Newman and Tony Sherman, but did not respond back). Asked about the Tampa trip of 11/18/63, the former agent said: “I was there on the follow-up car.” Regarding the question of agents being on the back of the car, McIntyre said: “I believe so---Zboril was on the back,” which he was (He also mentioned Don Lawton and Emory Roberts as being on the trip, which they were). Regarding the matter at hand, McIntyre stated: “I can’t remember if they were told to be off the car.” So, in spite of these strong recommendations from his colleagues to ask him about this specific subject, McIntyre now allegedly “can’t remember”?
Arthur L. Godfrey, ATSAIC of WHD---The former agent told the author on 5/30/96, regarding the notion that JFK ordered the agents not to do certain things which included removing themselves from the rear of the limousine: "That's a bunch of baloney; that's not true. He never ordered us to do anything. He was a very nice man...cooperative.” Godfrey reiterated this on 6/7/96. Asked if whether Aide Ken O'Donnell did any similar ordering, Godfrey said emphatically: "He did not order anyone around." As just one example, Godfrey was on the Italy trip mentioned in Boring’s report above and agents frequently rode on the rear of the limousine- one of the agents was none other than Winston G. Lawson. In a letter dated 11/24/97, Godfrey stated the following: "All I can speak for is myself. When I was working [with] President Kennedy he never ask [ed] me to have my shift leave the limo when we [were] working it," thus confirming what he had also told the author telephonically on two prior occasions.
Samuel A. Kinney, WHD---The affable former agent told the author on 3/5/94, regarding the “official” notion of history that President Kennedy ordered the agents off the rear of the limousine and the like: "That is absolutely, positively false...no, no, no: he had nothing to do with that [ordering agents off the rear of the limousine]...No, never-the agents say, 'O.K., men, fall back on your posts'...President Kennedy was one of the easiest presidents to ever protect; Harry S. Truman was a jewel just like John F. Kennedy was...99% of the agents would agree...(JFK) was one of the best presidents ever to control-he trusted every one of us [Emphasis added]." In regard to the infamous quote from William Manchester, Kinney said, "That is false. I talked to William Manchester; he called me on the book...for the record of history that is false - Kennedy never ordered us to do anything. I am aware of what is being said but that is false." Finally, just to nail down this issue, the author asked Kinney if an exception was made on 11/22/63: "Not this particular time, no. Not in this case". Kinney also told the author that Ken O'Donnell did not interfere with the agents: "Nobody ordered anyone around.”
Secret Service Chiefs James J. Rowley and Urbanus E. “U.E.” Baughman---Rowley told the Warren Commission: "No President will tell the Secret Service what they can or cannot do.” Apparently, Rowley thought the agents DID ride on the rear of the limousine throughout the motorcade, for he added: “…the men at some point came back to this [follow-up] car.” In fact, Rowley’s predecessor, former Chief U.E. Baughman, who had served under JFK from Election Night 1960 until Sept. 1961, had written in his 1962 book “Secret Service Chief”: "Now the Chief of the Secret Service is legally empowered to countermand a decision made by anybody in this country if it might endanger the life or limb of the Chief Executive. This means I could veto a decision of the President himself if I decided it would be dangerous not to. The President of course knew this fact." Indeed, an AP story from 11/15/63 stated: “The (Secret) Service can overrule even the President where his personal security is involved.“To the point, when Baughman was asked by U.S. News & World report on 12/23/63 about the Service’s protective efforts in Dallas, he said: “I can’t understand why Mrs. Kennedy had to climb over the back of the car, as she did, to get help…[this matter] should be resolved.” Apparently, Baughman was puzzled by the lack of agents on or near the rear of the limousine.
Cecil Stoughton, WH photographer---Stoughton wrote the author: "I did see a lot of the activity surrounding the various trips of the President, and in many cases I did see the agents in question riding on the rear of the President's car. In fact, I have ridden there a number of times myself during trips...I would jump on the step on the rear of the [Lincoln] Continental until the next stop. I have made photos while hanging on with one hand...in Tampa [11/18/63], for example. As for the [alleged] edict of not riding there by order of the President- I can't give you any proof of first hand knowledge." Stoughton went on to write: "I am bothered by your interest in these matters". In a later letter, Stoughton merely corroborated his prior written statements: "I would just jump on and off [the limo] quickly- no routine, and Jackie had no further remarks to me". It should be explained that, according to Stoughton's book, Jackie had told him to stay close to the limo in July 1963, and he did up to and including the Houston, TX trip of 11/21/63 (There are photos that Stoughton made from the follow-up car that day, as well). “Then, for some unknown reason, Stoughton was relegated to a position further away from JFK on 11/22/63 .
Charles T. Zboril, WHD, Lawton's partner on the rear of the limo in Tampa on 11/18/63 ---Former Agent Zboril curiously did not give the author a straight answer on this issue when interviewed on 11/15/95. Zboril said: "Well, Don Lawton and I are just sub-notes [sic] because somebody else testified on behalf of us about what happened in Tampa"- this was Clint Hill, testifying to Arlen Specter about why agents were not on the rear of the car during the assassination. When asked if it was true that JFK had ordered the agents off the limousine four days before Dallas, which the author already knew not to be true, Zboril got emotional: "Where did you read that? I...If-if you read it in the Warren Report, that's what happened...Do you want me commenting officially? I’m pretty sure it’s there [in the Warren Report]…I'm talking to someone I don't know. I’m talking to you as frank as I can...If you read it in there [the Warren Report], it happened…I gave you more than I would give someone else". The agent also added: “There is an old adage that we used in the Secret Service: ‘Don’t believe anything you read and only half of what you see,’” the identical sentiment used by Jean (and Jerry) Behn, above. Zboril then gave the author his home address and requested that the author send him anything on this matter, promising to respond back. He never did. Included in the package the author sent was a video of Agent Rybka being recalled at Love Field by Agent Roberts.
Press Secretary Pierre Salinger: JFK had a good relationship with the Secret Service and, more importantly, did NOT argue with their security measures. This was based on the author's correspondence with noted journalist Roger Peterson from 2/99 (from Peterson's very recent conversations with Salinger).
Samuel E. Sulliman, WHD (On Texas trip, in Dallas, at the Trade Mart): Sulliman told the author on 2/11/04 that agents were on the back of the limousine a lot; in fact, he remembered riding there on the trips to Ireland and Germany. When told of Art Godfrey’s comments on the matter (see above), the former agent agreed with his colleague. Regarding the notion that JFK ordered the agents off the car, Sulliman told the author twice: “I don’t think so.” Sulliman also said that JFK was “easy to get along with.” As for who exactly was responsible for the decision to remove the agents from the rear area of the limousine, Sulliman told the author: “I can’t tell you who made the decision.” The author took this to mean that he honestly did not know, rather than the notion that he was hiding the true answer.
Frank G. Stoner, PRS: During an interview conducted on 1/17/04, former agent Stoner, who served in the Secret Service from January 1945 until 1969, said that Manchester was “probably trying to sell books” when he suggested that Kennedy ordered the agents off the back of the limousine. In fact, the 84-year-old former agent laughed at the mere suggestion. Stoner also agreed with several of his colleagues that JFK was “very personable”: “He was an old Navy man. He understood security. He wouldn’t have ordered them off the car.”
Gerald W. “Jerry” O’Rourke, WHD (on Texas trip but not the Dallas stop; on WHD from Eisenhower to LBJ/1964)---In a letter to the author dated 1/15/04, O’Rourke wrote: “Did President Kennedy order us (agents) off the steps of the limo? To my knowledge President Kennedy never ordered us to leave the limo. ” (Emphasis added) The agent added: “President Kennedy was easy to protect as he completely trusted the agents of the Secret Service. We always had to be entirely honest with him and up front so we did not lose his trust.”
Vincent P. Mroz, WHD (Truman, Eisenhower, and part-time with JFK, LBJ [9 months], and Nixon)---During an interview with the author conducted on 2/7/04, the former agent said that President Kennedy was “friendly, congenial---he was really easy to get along with…just like Truman.” When asked, point blank, if JFK had ever ordered the agents off the car, Mroz said forcefully: “No, no---that’s not true.” When asked a second time, the former agent responded with equal conviction: “He did not order anybody off the car.”
J. Walter Coughlin, WHD (on Texas trip but not the Dallas stop)--- The author e-mailed the former agent, asking him: “How often did agents ride on the rear of the limousine during JFK's time (and/ or walk, jog, or run nearby)? Coughlin responded: “In almost all parade situations that I was involved w [ith] we rode or walked the limo [Emphasis added].” Coughlin later wrote: “We often rode on the back of the car.” Also, the author, in the same message, asked Coughlin: “What was President Kennedy like? Was he easy to protect?” The former agent responded in the same reply: “Very funny and very friendly. Knew all the agents by first name.” (Regarding LBJ, Coughlin wrote: “Didn't like anyone and could be very surly. Hard to protect - did not like to take advice.”) Coughlin later wrote: “The rear steps [of the limousine] were very adaquete [sic] for safety.”Finally, to clarify this matter further, the author asked Coughlin: “So far, combing the literature, books, interviews, etc., I've found that Behn, Boring, Blaine, Mroz, Godfrey, Lawson, and Dave Powers said that President Kennedy did not order the agents off his limousine---do you think William Manchester and others took "poetic license" on this matter?” Coughlin responded: “Yes I do.”
Darwin David Horn, Sr. (Secret Service, Los Angeles office; former WHD agent; served in the agency from 1951 to 1981): Horn wrote the author on 1/30/04: “You asked about Kennedy. I have worked him primarily in Los Angeles on several occasions …and never heard him tell the agents to get off of the car. It is possible. You will have to ask some of the other agents who worked him full time. [Art] Godfrey would have been perfect but he passed away some time ago [emphasis added].” See Godfrey’s comments, above. Horn later wrote the author: “Agents on the rear of JFK's car might have made a difference. They may have been hit instead of the President. That would have been all right with all of us. Agents normally would have been on the sides [of the car] (emphasis added).”
Maurice G. Martineau, SAIC of Chicago office: Martineau joined his colleagues in refuting the Manchester story that JFK ordered the agents off the rear of the car. Martineau said this to the author in two telephonic interviews on 9/21/93 and 6/7/96, respectively.
Abraham W. Bolden, Sr. - In reference to Kennedy's alleged "requests", Mr. Bolden told the author on numerous occasions in 1993-1996 that he "didn't hear anything about that...I never believed that Kennedy said that [ordering removal of agents]”. Bolden, an ardent critic of the agency’s lax protection since 1963, also wrote the author: “No-one could have killed our President without the shots of omission fired by the Secret Service. Observe the feet of [four] Secret Service agents glued to the running boards of the follow-up car as bullets [sic?] pierce the brain of our President!!!" (In addition to being a WHD agent on temporary assignment in 1961, as well as a Chicago Office agent afterwards, Bolden saw action on the 3/23/63 and (cancelled) 11/2/63 trips to Chicago)
DNC Advance man Martin E. “Marty” Underwood - He could not believe that Mr. Behn wrote in his report that JFK desired to have the agents off the car (later repudiated by Mr. Behn, of course), citing Clint Hill's actions on 11/22/63 as just one of "many times" that agents were posted on the back of the JFK limousine. During this 10/9/92 interview, Underwood confirmed to the author that JFK never ordered the agents off the rear of the car.
Robert I. Bouck, SAIC of PRS: On 9/27/92, Bouck confirmed to the author that having agents on the back of the limousine depended on factors independent of any alleged Presidential "requests": “Many times there were agents on his car.” On 4/30/96, the ARRB’s Doug Horne questioned Bouck: “Did you ever hear the President personally say that he didn’t want agents to stand on the running boards on his car, or did you hear that from other agents?” Bouck: “I never heard the President say that personally. I heard that from other agents (emphasis added).” The former agent also told the ARRB that JFK was the “most congenial” of all the presidents he had observed (Bouck served from FDR to LBJ).
Rufus W. Youngblood, ASAIC of LBJ Detail: On 10/22/92, Youngblood confirmed to the author: "There was not a standing order" from JFK to restrict agents from the back of the limousine - the agents had "assigned posts and positions" on the back of the President's car. On 2/8/94, Youngblood added: "President Kennedy wasn't a hard ass...he never said anything like that [re: removing agents from limo and the like]. As a historian, he [Manchester] flunked the course---don't read Manchester." Youngblood knows of what he speaks: he was interviewed by Manchester on 11/17/64.
John F. Norris, Uniformed Division of the Secret Service: On 3/4/94, in an interview with the author, Norris also joined his colleagues in refuting the notion that JFK ordered the agents off the rear of the limo: “I would doubt that very much,” Norris said.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1:40 p.m., 11/29/63: "You see, there was no Secret Service man standing on the back of the car. Usually the presidential car in the past has had steps on the back, next to the bumpers, and there's usually been one [agent] on either side standing on these steps...[ellipsis in text]...Whether the President asked that that not be done, we don't know (emphasis added).” "So, as of 11/29/63, a week after the murder, the myth hadn’t been set in motion yet. From Hoover’s Memorandum for Messrs. Tolson, Belmont, & Mohr, November 29, 1963: “…there was no Secret Service Agent on the back of the car; that in the past they have added steps on the back of the car and usually had an agent on either side standing on the bumper; that I did not know why this was not done - that the President may have requested it… [emphasis added].” One now wonders if Hoover was the originator of the blame-the-President campaign and if he had any influence on Agent Boring who, by date, had written the first report about these matters to former FBI agent---and Hoover friend and colleague---Chief James Rowley.
Newsmen: ABC’s Ron Gardner, ABC’s Jim Haggerty (former Eisenhower Press Secretary), & UPI’s Robert J. Serling: Shortly after the assassination on 11/22/63 before a television audience of many millions of people, Gardner reported: “Secret Service agents normally walk directly beside the car. We can’t see any in these pictures (emphasis added).” Also on the very same day before an enormous television audience, Haggerty maintained that agents normally walked or jogged near the rear of the president’s car, adding that he had a hand in planning many motorcades (as did his successor, Pierre Salinger). For his part, Serling wrote on 11/23/63, based in part on “private conversations” with unnamed agents: “There are two absolute rules for motorcade protection: The agent running or riding at the President's shoulder must never leave that position unless relieved. The other is to turn out the manpower in all secret service cars the moment trouble arises and get secret service bodies around the President [emphasis added].” (In the same UPI story written by Serling from Washington entitled “Secret Service Men Wary of Motorcade”: “The United States Secret Service… has always feared a motorcade assassination attempt more than anything else. In private conversations and in books published by high officials after they left the service, agents admit that Chief Executives riding in open cars down crowded city streets are at their most vulnerable as the targets of assassination… For motorcades the secret service checks every manhole cover and sewer along the parade route for bombs or dynamite. Buildings frequently are checked, along with records of occupants to make sure there are no known President-haters on the premises… They are trained never to watch the President himself but the people and crowds around him. They are also sworn to throw themselves in front of their charge at the first indication of gunfire -- to take the bullets, if possible, meant for the Chief Executive… An agent is the only man in the world who can order a President of the United States around if the latter's safety is believed at stake… in certain situations an agent outranks even a President [emphasis added].”)
Lynn S. Meredith (WHD, “Kiddie Detail”/ Kennedy Children; served in the Secret Service from 1951 to 1983)---In yet another potential dissenting voice that is, like Agent Sherman (above) not what it seems to be, Meredith wrote to the author on 3/9/04: “…it is my very definite understanding that President Kennedy did, in fact, politely request that Secret Service agents not ride on platforms to the rear of his limousine shortly before he was assassinated. The President was campaigning in Tampa, Florida, on or about November 19, 1963 [actually, 11/18/63] (3 days before he was assassinated in Dallas on November22), when he requested that agents not ride on the rear of his vehicle because they tended to obstruct the view of the crowd and take attention away from him and others riding with him. He said something to the effect to senior agent Roy Kellerman [sic: allegedly to Floyd Boring; Kellerman was not even on this trip] at the time, “Do you suppose we could get those Ivy Leaguers off the back of my limo so the people can get a good look at us instead of you guys?” He was obviously inferring that the people along the motorcade route in Tampa were seeing the two agents on the rear of the limo and not concentrating on him and the First Lady [sic: also not on this trip] and the other dignitaries riding in the back seat. I must admit that I was not along on the trip and was back at the White House with Caroline and John, Jr., when this happened in Tampa, but I’m pretty sure this is accurate information, and was the main reason there were no agents on the back of the limousine in Dallas, Texas, at the time of the assassination. If the Secret Service could not respond to the President by saying it was absolutely necessary for two agents to be there, then his request had to be honored. And in Dallas, the Secret Service had no reliable information that Dallas was a dangerous place and we certainly did not know at the time that Lee Harvey Oswald existed. Incidentally, I’m pretty sure that neither Jerry Behn or Sam Kinney were on this trip [wrong re: Kinney---on the Florida and Texas trips]…I do believe if agents had been riding on the rear of the limo in Dallas that President Kennedy would not have been assassinated as they would have been in Oswald’s line of fire…To elaborate a little more on the assassination in Dallas, I have always believed that the following adverse situations all contributed to the unnecessary and unfortunate death of President Kennedy: (1) No Secret Service agents riding on the rear of the limousine…[Emphasis added]” In a follow-up letter to the author dated 5/22/05, Meredith wrote: “…I do not know first hand if President Kennedy ordered agents off the back end of his limousine…I have been under the impression through the years that he did just that politely in Tampa Bay (sic) ...they [the agents] took this as a polite order from the President not to take these upright positions on the back of the limousine…on November 22, 1963. So don’t take my word as the gospel truth on this matter.” Meredith continued: “If you really want to receive a very definite and accurate statement of fact about this, I strongly recommend that you try to contact former Agent Clint Hill…Here is Hill’s mailing address [deleted for privacy]…I don’t know how successful you would be in contacting Clint Hill…But I wish you “Good Luck” in this regard.”
On 6/2/05, the author mailed a lengthy, 22-page letter to former WHD agent Clinton J. Hill (Certified, Return Receipt Requested with a S.A.S.E. to boot) summarizing this entire chapter in great detail. On 6/13/05, after not receiving a reply, the author phoned Mr. Hill, who was quite apparently angry---he first pretended not to know about the lengthy letter he had to sign for (of which the author received his signed receipt): “About what?,” Hill exclaimed in response to the author’s inquiry. Then, forcefully, Hill added: “I’m just not interested in talking to you.”
Author Jim Bishop revealed the seemingly unknown fact that Floyd Boring was the number one agent involved in the Dallas trip back in the 1960's in his book "The Day Kennedy Was Shot": "...[LBJ] called Secret Service Chief James Rowley. ‘Rufe [Youngblood] did a brave thing today,’ he said. ‘He jumped on me and kept me down. I want you to do whatever you can, the best that can be done, for that boy." He hung up [this was 11/22/63]. It had not occurred to him that Rowley, too, was lonely. If there was any blame, any official laxness, it didn't matter that the planning of the Texas trip had been in the capable hands of Floyd Boring (Emphasis added).” And, to the JFK Library in the 1970's, Boring said: "Part of my job at the White House during the entire President Kennedy administration was to be in charge of the advance work. I used to assign people to do the advance work, and most of the overseas trips I did myself in conjunction with other people on the detail." To the Truman Library in the 1980's, Boring added: "I was on all the advance work out of there. I was assigned all the advance work, sort of an administrator... I was second in charge [behind Special Agent in Charge Jerry Behn]." Finally, fellow former agent Sam Kinney told this author, in regard to SAIC Gerald A. "Jerry" Behn's absence from the Texas trip, leaving ASAIC (#2) Floyd M. Boring to be the agent in charge of the Texas trip: "Here’s the story on that. We got, as agents, federal employees, thirty days a year annual leave. We lose it, because they can’t let us go…there was only " x " amount of agents back then in the whole wide world… they could not let us off …Jerry Behn had probably worked three years without any annual leave at all and this particular time, he could get some time off and he didn’t go to Dallas. Roy Kellerman was third in charge, so he took the thing (sic), which is, you know-he's qualified. Floyd Boring stayed home- he could get his time off and he could still handle what ever came about from his house; there was very little correspondence between [the agents in Dallas] because Win Lawson had the advance (emphasis added)." Back to the ARRB interview of Boring: "Boring independently recalled that he was the person who assigned Winston Lawson as the S.S. advance agent for the Dallas leg of the Texas trip, but could not recall why or how "Win" Lawson was given that assignment." Agent David Grant, who worked hand in glove with Boring on the controversial 11/18/63 Florida trip, assisted Lawson in the advance preparations in Dallas. Boring was also involved in the pre-11/22/63 checks of the Protective Research Section (PRS) files of any potential threats to JFK reported in Dallas which, incredibly, yielded nothing, a matter fellow ASAIC Roy Kellerman found unusual , as did fellow agent Abraham Bolden , as common sense would seem to dictate (interestingly, according to his Truman Library oral history, Boring worked for PRS back in the 1940’s!). Yet Boring had begun his ARRB interview exclaiming: "I didn't have anything to do with it, and I don't know anything," a similar sentiment he first gave to the author before probing further into the mystery. The author later asked Boring: “Were you involved in any of the planning of the Texas trip?” Then, the agent finally admitted: “Well, no, I sent-ah, yeah, I was involved in that, yeah”. And, if that weren’t enough, during researcher Dan Robertson’s interview of the lucid, 90 year old Boring in 2006, the former agent quite shockingly claimed that "He [JFK] was responsible for his own death." Indeed, Mr. Boring IS interesting, to say the least.
While it is certainly true that the agents were not always stationed on the rear of the limousine, President Kennedy was not in the equation regarding the circumstances for this (they DID often walk, jog, or run near the rear of the limousine, though). If the Secret Service would only have taken their rightful responsibility for not having agents positioned there (as was the usual practice), this would not really be an issue, only a "what if" situation. However, because they lied and blamed it on JFK's alleged "desires" and "requests", they blew their cover story for their "negligence." Furthermore, merely as a hypothetical inference, in the highly unlikely event, in light of all the previous evidence to the contrary, JFK DID in fact somehow or other tell the agents not to ride on the rear of the car a few times in the past, this was clearly the exception, NOT the rule from him; turning an isolated incident from 1961 into a rule to be followed on 11/22/63 simply isn’t credible. And, again---agents DID ride on the rear of the car during the Florida trip…but not on the very next trip to Texas which began a mere three days later, allegedly by “Presidential request” (a kind anecdote), courtesy of Agent Boring, who informed his men between 11/19 and 11/21/63.
If you don’t believe the “kind anecdote” story as told to the ARRB (as the author does not), then why did Mr. Boring take it upon himself to order the men not to take their usual positions on or near the rear of the Presidential limousine? Why did they blame it on JFK? Why didn't the agent physically present and nominally in charge of the trip (ASAIC Kellerman) mention JFK's desires even once during his very lengthy, two-session interview with the Warren Commission, not to mention his reports and his later HSCA and private researcher contacts? Why, indeed.
Marty Underwood told the author that Chief Rowley's best friend was Clint Hill. In keeping with Mr. Hill's honesty noted earlier, it appears that Mr. Rowley exhibited a little of it himself during his testimony to the Warren Commission when, as previously mentioned, he stated: "No President will tell the Secret Service what they can or cannot do" (emphasis added).
Even President Truman agreed, stating: “the Secret Service was the only boss that the President of the United States really had.”
To summarize, the point is that this was a Secret Service decision, not a JFK desire as "official" history (Warren Commission/ Bishop/ Manchester/ Secret Service) has told us all. The Secret Service lied, using JFK as a scapegoat. To blame the deceased President after-the-fact is very suspicious, to say the least; why Mr. Boring took it upon himself to relay these orders between 11/19 and 11/21/63 (according to both Clint Hill and Frank Yeager) is an important issue, especially when considering the timing in relation to the start of the Texas trip: 11/21/63. If “the devil is in the details,” the author would also add that the timing is everything; the sequence of events is crucial. And, if it was necessary during the Watergate scandal to “follow the money,” the author chose in this case to follow the lies told by the Secret Service, find out who specifically told the lies, and why, as well as the incumbent results of these lies.If an agent (or agents) would have been positioned on or near the rear of the limousine or, at the very least, if John Ready, in particular, would have been permitted to run to his position on JFK's side of the limousine during the shooting, history would have been changed: the agent (or agents) may have blocked one or more shots or, at the very least, would have been able to cover JFK before the fatal head shot. As former agent Harry Neal wrote: “It is my personal belief that had they [Secret Service] been permitted to stay on the presidential car, the body of one of the agents might have completely obscured the President from Oswald’s vision. In that event, either no shots would have been fired, or the agent might have been killed or wounded. But the President would not have been hit.” “An unnamed former JFK-era agent told author Philip Melanson in February 2002 that not having agents on the running boards of the limousine was a major factor in Kennedy’s death. Former Secret Service Chief Frank J. Wilson wrote: “Agents on running boards at Dallas might not have saved the President from the first bullet but might have saved him from the second one, which was fatal,” a view later shared by Reagan Agent Joseph Petro. Ironically, former JFK Secret Service Chief U.E. Baughman wrote in 1962: “... the Secret Service knows from experience that a car directly behind the President may save his life in certain emergencies…” In addition to the various still and motion pictures demonstrating the agents on or near the rear of the President’s car, the Honolulu, Hawaii trip in the summer of 1963 bears mute testimony to an important, often neglected facet of the protective mission: the agents also frequently RAN beside the car, even while the limousine was going at a fair clip. Agents walked, jogged, or ran beside the car, and were often on the rear of the limousine whether the car was traveling at a modest speed or even at a high rate of speed. If some look at this as "Monday morning quarterbacking", ask yourself this: Why did the Secret Service, in charge of the "defense", alter history's "official" verdict? Why, indeed.
ASAIC Floyd Boring’s favorite President was Harry S. Truman (actually, he was a favorite of Behn, Kinney, and a host of other JFK-era agents). Truman was famous for the saying “The buck stops here.” With regard to the assassination of President Kennedy and the protective measures used—and not used---on that fateful day, the buck stops with the Secret Service…and Boring, especially.
POST SCRIPT THREE---JFK'S STAFF? NOT:
Ronald M. Pontius, WHD (on Texas trip, but not the Dallas stop): In reference to an e-mail inquiry from the author (“did JFK ever order the agents to not ride on the rear of his limousine? Author William Manchester claims he did, while Behn, Kinney, & Youngblood said he did not”), Pontius e-mailed the author back on 10/30/00 and wrote: “He did through his staff (emphasis added).” Presidential Aide (Chief of Staff/ Appointments Secretary) Kenneth P. O’Donnell does not mention anything with regard to telling the agents to remove themselves from the limousine (based on JFK’s alleged “desires”) during his lengthy Warren Commission testimony (nor to author William Manchester, nor even in his or his daughter’s books, for that matter); the same is true for the other two Presidential aides: Larry O’Brien and Dave Powers. In fact, as mentioned above, Powers refutes this whole idea. Again, JFK’s staff is not mentioned as a factor during any of the agent’s Warren Commission testimony, nor in the five reports submitted in April 1964. (7 H 440-457. Manchester, page 666 (O’Donnell was interviewed 5/4/64, 6/4/64, 8/6/64 & 11/23/64). O’Donnell passed away 9/9/77. For what it’s worth, neither Presidential Aide’s Larry O’Brien [7 H 457- 472] or Dave Powers [7 H 472-474] mentioned any JFK “desires”, either (also, see Powers, above). In addition, nothing of the sort is mentioned in “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye” by O'Donnell, Kenneth P., David F. Powers, and Joseph McCarthy (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1972 [see especially page 20], nor in Kenny O’Donnell’s daughter’s book “A Common Good: The Friendship of Robert F. Kennedy and Kenneth P. O’Donnell (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1998), written by Helen O’Donnell, who wrote: “Much of the material in this book has been gathered from the private tapes of my father, Kenneth P. O’Donnell.” [Author’s Note]) In addition, former agent’s Godfrey and Kinney denounced the “staff/ O’Donnell” notion (see above). It is interesting to note that, like JFK, O’Donnell was not blamed for any security deficiencies and the like until only after his death (in 1977), when he was thus unable to refute any allegations as such.
Breaking news: Author Helen O'Donnell, the daughter of the late Ken O'Donnell, told me in October 2010, based on her memory AND her father's many audio tapes, that JFK did not order the agents off the car and neither did her father!
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
THE best book EVER written on the Secret Service is available NOW: "Within Arm's Length: The Extraordinary Life and Career of a Special Agent in the United States Secret Service" by Dan Emmett
THE best book EVER written on the Secret Service is available NOW: "Within Arm's Length: The Extraordinary Life and Career of a Special Agent in the United States Secret Service" by Dan Emmett
Available at Amazon.Com:
http://www.amazon.com/Within-Arms-Length-Extraordinary-Special/dp/1462070728/ref=cm_rdp_product
Also Available at iUniverse:
softcover-
http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000455072/Within-Arms-Length.aspx
as an E-book-
http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000455074/Within-Arms-Length.aspx
in hardcover-
http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/Default.aspx?bookId=SKU-000455073
Available in late February from Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, Kendall, Nook and others.
Dan Emmett was just eight years old when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The events surrounding the president’s death shaped the course of young Emmett’s life as he set a goal of becoming a US Secret Service agent—one of a special group of people willing to trade their lives for that of the president, if necessary.
Within Arm’s Length narrates the story of Emmett’s journey in this coveted job—from the application process to his retirement as assistant to the special agent in charge on the elite Presidential Protective Division (PPD). Here he discusses some of his more high-profile assignments in his twenty-one years of service, including the PPD and the Counter Assault Team where he provided arm’s length protection worldwide for Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, and George W. Bush.
This memoir describes the professional challenges faced by Secret Service agents as well as the physical and emotional toll that can be inflicted on both agents and their families. Within Arm’s Length also shares firsthand details about the duties and challenges of conducting presidential advances, dealing with the media, driving the president in a bullet-proof limousine, running alongside him through the streets of Washington, and flying with him on Air Force One.
With fascinating anecdotes, Emmett weaves keen insight into the unique culture and history of the Secret Service
The best book on the Secret Service ever written! A must have! Outstanding!
Former Secret Service agent Dan Emmett, author of "Within Arm's Length", is to be commended on putting together a refreshing take on a well-worn subject as of late: the United States Secret Service. While many of the books written by former agents are ghost-written, dry, dull, and are often dated, Emmett's is exciting, never boring, compelling, and employed no co-author or ghost-writer; this work is solely his own. After the recent debacle of best-selling author Ronald Kessler's dubious tome "In The President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect", a book that seemingly betrayed the trust of the agents, past and present, that the author took into his confidence, littering the literary landscape with dubious tawdry tales of presidential sex, alleged agency incompetence, or worse, Emmett's book will be embraced by scholars, the public and, perhaps most important of all, his colleagues.
Someone needed to take up the mantle and do away with all the controversy, poor writing, myopic outlook, and compromising information out there on the Secret Service and write a book the agency would be proud of AND that would also appeal to the lay public, as well. Dan Emmett took up the quest and succeeded admirably. In short, "Within Arm's Length" is the antidote to Kessler, McCarthy, and all the silly and overwrought books and television specials that violate the agency's code of being Worthy of Trust and Confidence. If there was a literary Medal of Valor the Secret Service could award Emmett for his book, they should hold the ceremony tomorrow. Emmett's book truly reads like he had this epiphany: "I have had enough with Kessler, the hero worship, the gossip, the untruths, and all the crap---here is the TRUE story of an agent without the junk... and no compromising information, dammit!" Mission accomplished.
In short, Dan Emmett provides the reader with the nuts and bolts without giving away the game, so to speak.
"Within Arm's Length" grabs the reader from the very first sentence and doesn't ever let up.
"Within Arm's Length" is, without question, the best book ever written about the Secret Service: current, well-written, classy, very informative, but, most importantly, does not indulge in hero worship of presidents or reveal "inside secrets" or other compromising details. In short, "WITHIN ARM'S LENGTH" makes you feel like you are THERE! Emmett is a great guy with an impressive background who truly represents the valor of the Secret Service. Emmett has given a blueprint for all agents---past, present, and future---to follow and admire. Worthy of Trust & Confidence indeed! Dan Emmett is an example of a great American.
Vince Palamara, literary Secret Service expert
Available at Amazon.Com:
http://www.amazon.com/Within-Arms-Length-Extraordinary-Special/dp/1462070728/ref=cm_rdp_product
Also Available at iUniverse:
softcover-
http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000455072/Within-Arms-Length.aspx
as an E-book-
http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000455074/Within-Arms-Length.aspx
in hardcover-
http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/Default.aspx?bookId=SKU-000455073
Available in late February from Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, Kendall, Nook and others.
Dan Emmett was just eight years old when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The events surrounding the president’s death shaped the course of young Emmett’s life as he set a goal of becoming a US Secret Service agent—one of a special group of people willing to trade their lives for that of the president, if necessary.
Within Arm’s Length narrates the story of Emmett’s journey in this coveted job—from the application process to his retirement as assistant to the special agent in charge on the elite Presidential Protective Division (PPD). Here he discusses some of his more high-profile assignments in his twenty-one years of service, including the PPD and the Counter Assault Team where he provided arm’s length protection worldwide for Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, and George W. Bush.
This memoir describes the professional challenges faced by Secret Service agents as well as the physical and emotional toll that can be inflicted on both agents and their families. Within Arm’s Length also shares firsthand details about the duties and challenges of conducting presidential advances, dealing with the media, driving the president in a bullet-proof limousine, running alongside him through the streets of Washington, and flying with him on Air Force One.
With fascinating anecdotes, Emmett weaves keen insight into the unique culture and history of the Secret Service
The best book on the Secret Service ever written! A must have! Outstanding!
Former Secret Service agent Dan Emmett, author of "Within Arm's Length", is to be commended on putting together a refreshing take on a well-worn subject as of late: the United States Secret Service. While many of the books written by former agents are ghost-written, dry, dull, and are often dated, Emmett's is exciting, never boring, compelling, and employed no co-author or ghost-writer; this work is solely his own. After the recent debacle of best-selling author Ronald Kessler's dubious tome "In The President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect", a book that seemingly betrayed the trust of the agents, past and present, that the author took into his confidence, littering the literary landscape with dubious tawdry tales of presidential sex, alleged agency incompetence, or worse, Emmett's book will be embraced by scholars, the public and, perhaps most important of all, his colleagues.
Someone needed to take up the mantle and do away with all the controversy, poor writing, myopic outlook, and compromising information out there on the Secret Service and write a book the agency would be proud of AND that would also appeal to the lay public, as well. Dan Emmett took up the quest and succeeded admirably. In short, "Within Arm's Length" is the antidote to Kessler, McCarthy, and all the silly and overwrought books and television specials that violate the agency's code of being Worthy of Trust and Confidence. If there was a literary Medal of Valor the Secret Service could award Emmett for his book, they should hold the ceremony tomorrow. Emmett's book truly reads like he had this epiphany: "I have had enough with Kessler, the hero worship, the gossip, the untruths, and all the crap---here is the TRUE story of an agent without the junk... and no compromising information, dammit!" Mission accomplished.
In short, Dan Emmett provides the reader with the nuts and bolts without giving away the game, so to speak.
"Within Arm's Length" grabs the reader from the very first sentence and doesn't ever let up.
"Within Arm's Length" is, without question, the best book ever written about the Secret Service: current, well-written, classy, very informative, but, most importantly, does not indulge in hero worship of presidents or reveal "inside secrets" or other compromising details. In short, "WITHIN ARM'S LENGTH" makes you feel like you are THERE! Emmett is a great guy with an impressive background who truly represents the valor of the Secret Service. Emmett has given a blueprint for all agents---past, present, and future---to follow and admire. Worthy of Trust & Confidence indeed! Dan Emmett is an example of a great American.
Vince Palamara, literary Secret Service expert
Saturday, January 14, 2012
BEST Secret Service book EVER, 'Within Arm's Length", coming out very soon
An honor to be on the cover of former Secret Service Agent Dan Emmett's new book "Within Arm's Length", due out in late January 2012 (Emmett served from 1983-2004 and frequently jogged with President Clinton)
Friday, January 6, 2012
Great tidbits from the NEW edition of "Murder From Within" (1974/ 2011)- blames LBJ & the Secret Service for JFK's death
PAGE 104:
"Indeed, the Secret Service made an effort "...to ascertain whether any [movie news] film could be found showing special agents on the ground alongside the Presidential automobile at any point along the parade route." [Commission Document No. 87, page 434]
PAGE 142:
"A new story at Connally's death on June 15, 1993, quoted a friend about Connally's concern for security [Connally was wounded on 11/22/63 and was later the Secretary of the Treasury during the Nixon years!]. When he ran for president as a Republican he refused Secret Service protection. "I don't want Secret Service protection that's going to get you killed", Connally told his fiend." [NPR Radio Austin Texas 6/16/93 Wade Goodwin reporter]
"Indeed, the Secret Service made an effort "...to ascertain whether any [movie news] film could be found showing special agents on the ground alongside the Presidential automobile at any point along the parade route." [Commission Document No. 87, page 434]
PAGE 142:
"A new story at Connally's death on June 15, 1993, quoted a friend about Connally's concern for security [Connally was wounded on 11/22/63 and was later the Secretary of the Treasury during the Nixon years!]. When he ran for president as a Republican he refused Secret Service protection. "I don't want Secret Service protection that's going to get you killed", Connally told his fiend." [NPR Radio Austin Texas 6/16/93 Wade Goodwin reporter]
Thursday, January 5, 2012
"Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir" by Clint Hill & Lisa McCubbin, The Kennedy Detail profiteers are back for more money grubbing
Book Description
Publication Date: April 3, 2012
An intimate and fascinating memoir by Clint Hill, who spent four years as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s Secret Service agent. Even today, decades after JFK’s presidency and Jackie’s death, the public continues to be fascinated with the former First Lady. Clint Hill will forever be remembered as the agent who jumped onto the car after President Kennedy was shot and clung to the sides of the car as it sped toward the hospital. Now, in Mrs. Kennedy and Me, he recounts those painful memories along with his fonder recollections of the First Lady’s strength, class, dignity, and beauty during the time he was assigned as her personal agent.
Hill was by Mrs. Kennedy’s side for some of the happiest moments in her life as well as the darkest. He was there for the birth of John, Jr. as well as for the birth and sudden death of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy on August 8, 1963. Hill was there for Jackie’s first meetings with men like Aristotle Onassis, Gianni Agnelli, and Andre Malraux; Jackie’s trips to Europe, Asia, and South America; Kennedy-family holidays in Hyannis Port; and the dark days following the assassination. They addressed each other as “Mrs. Kennedy” and “Mr. Hill,” even though they were often closer to each other than they were to their respective spouses—yet their relationship remained professional. An astonishing and intimate portrait, told for the first time, Mrs. Kennedy and Me is a remarkable and true story of heroism, heartbreak, and humanity.
Publication Date: April 3, 2012
An intimate and fascinating memoir by Clint Hill, who spent four years as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s Secret Service agent. Even today, decades after JFK’s presidency and Jackie’s death, the public continues to be fascinated with the former First Lady. Clint Hill will forever be remembered as the agent who jumped onto the car after President Kennedy was shot and clung to the sides of the car as it sped toward the hospital. Now, in Mrs. Kennedy and Me, he recounts those painful memories along with his fonder recollections of the First Lady’s strength, class, dignity, and beauty during the time he was assigned as her personal agent.
Hill was by Mrs. Kennedy’s side for some of the happiest moments in her life as well as the darkest. He was there for the birth of John, Jr. as well as for the birth and sudden death of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy on August 8, 1963. Hill was there for Jackie’s first meetings with men like Aristotle Onassis, Gianni Agnelli, and Andre Malraux; Jackie’s trips to Europe, Asia, and South America; Kennedy-family holidays in Hyannis Port; and the dark days following the assassination. They addressed each other as “Mrs. Kennedy” and “Mr. Hill,” even though they were often closer to each other than they were to their respective spouses—yet their relationship remained professional. An astonishing and intimate portrait, told for the first time, Mrs. Kennedy and Me is a remarkable and true story of heroism, heartbreak, and humanity.
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