"A Closer Look at the Secret Service"

A Closer Look at the Secret Service Apr. 30, 2012, 8:00 AM | Secret Service agents are one category of law enforcement whose agents typically get the glory treatment. Recent books by members of JFK’s secret service detail, almost devoid of revelations or candor, have nevertheless received lots of positive coverage. Meanwhile, legitimate questions about the service—how it works, what kinds of people it employs, how effective it is—are pushed aside. Maybe that’s why the media reacted with such astonishment to learn that Secret Service agents preparing for Obama’s visit to Cartagena, Colombia, consorted with prostitutes. Eight agents have been forced out of their jobs, and a ninth is on his way out. Military personnel along on the trip are under investigation as well. The activity raised questions not only about the appropriateness of such conduct, but of whether this behavior threatened the President’s safety. Just a One-Time Thing, Folks Now the government is saying that the Cartagena hijinks were an aberration. Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano assured the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that the Secret Service’s Office of Professional Responsibility had received zero complaints of agent misconduct in the last two and a half years. That means total good behavior in roughly 900 foreign and 13,000 domestic trips. But here’s the problem: it’s the Secret Service assuring us that the Secret Service is squeaky clean. The matter of self-policing came up last week when Napolitano faced the Senate committee. As ABC reports, Napolitano claimed that the Homeland Security Inspector General was supervising the investigation, but the IG’s own office said it was merely “monitoring” the Secret Service’s self-examination, and would review it when it was complete. Since the events of April 12, a probe has grown, and investigators are very much just getting started. And not just about Colombia: the Associated Press reported on inquiries into possible Secret Service liaisons with strippers and prostitutes leading up to an Obama visit to El Salvador last year. And some agents are contending that cavorting and drinking heavily is actually quite common. In fact, there are many other questions about the Secret Service and about presidential security that are not being properly addressed. Coming as we approach the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s violent death, these are not idle concerns. Obama and Kennedy As we have noted here previously, the agency has been involved in serious security lapses and misjudgment before. For example, in Obama’s first year in office, the agency failed to keep an unauthorized couple with a hankering for publicity from getting into the White House and close to the President—and there may be more to the story. Then, in 2011, a classified booklet containing Obama’s schedule, down to the minute, along with details on his security contingent, was found lying in a Canberra, Australia, gutter during an Obama visit to that country. Those incidents are reported to have upset Obama—and that’s certainly understandable. Meanwhile, his trip to Colombia, intended to showcase new trade initiatives with Latin America, was totally overshadowed by the scandal. Presidential trips are carefully calculated to generate positive publicity and create goodwill at home and abroad, so the prostitution sideshow just wiped that one out. Such incidents are not just bad for image—they raise all kinds of issues in the safety area. For one thing, the agents themselves are compromised, even made susceptible to pressure and blackmail, particularly if they want to keep their jobs and if, as in numerous cases, the agents were married. But this is not new. Go back almost half a century, and look at the most shocking dereliction of duty ever—the failures that made it easy for someone (or someones) to assassinate John F Kennedy. The failings are endless, from not insisting that the bubble top go on Kennedy’s car, to having too few Secret Service agents protecting the president, to authorizing a particularly dangerous route that slowed the car way down, to allowing it to go through a canyon of windows—and then not checking or securing the windows or installing spotters or sharpshooters. A grade school kid could have done a more serious job of protecting the president. Here’s an excerpt from Warren Commission questions to Special Agent Winston Lawson, who headed the Secret Service detail for Kennedy’s Dallas trip: Mr. McCloy: During the course of the motorcade while the motorcade was in motion, no matter how slowly, you had no provision for anyone on the roofs? Mr. Lawson: No, sir. Mr. McCloy: Or no one to watch the windows? Mr. Lawson: Oh, yes. The police along the area were to watch the crowds and their general area. The agents riding in the followup car as well as myself in the lead car were watching the crowds and the windows and the rooftops as we progressed. [snip] Mr. Stern: What were the instructions that you asked be given to the police who were stationed on overpasses and railroad crossings? Mr. Lawson: They were requested to keep the people to the sides of the bridge or the overpass so that-or underpass– so that people viewing from a vantage point like that would not be directly over the President’s car so that they could either inadvertently knock something off or drop something on purpose or do some other kind of harm. And yet we continue to let this agency off the hook. We forgot that even LBJ, a direct beneficiary of the agency’s sloppiness with his former boss, trusted the outfit so little himself that he inquired at one point whether he could have the FBI protect him instead. A Telling Bumper Sticker It is foolish to ignore the worldviews and attitudes of people expected to protect presidents. Former Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden has described rampant racism and widespread contempt for Kennedy and his policies among Bolden’s fellow officers. Now, here are a few salient details about the Secret Service today that go beyond trying to get a little “R&R”: When Washington Post reporters visited the Virginia home of Texas native David R. Chaney, one of the Secret Service supervisors on the Colombia trip, they found a silver pickup truck parked in front. On the vehicle they spotted a bumper sticker with an outline of the state of Texas, and the word “secede.” It is interesting to note that Chaney’s father served in the Secret Service when Kennedy was in office. As assistant agent in charge of personnel, he was friends with many of the agents who were in Dallas in November, 1963. Speaking of Dallas, consider these excerpts from a Warren Commission affidavit of Texas Sen. Ralph Yarborough, who was riding in the motorcade: After the shooting, one of the secret service men sitting down in the car in front of us pulled out an automatic rifle or weapon and looked backward. However, all of the secret service men seemed to me to respond very slowly, with no more than a puzzled look. In fact, until the automatic weapon was uncovered, I had been lulled into a sense of false hope for the President’s safety, by the lack of motion, excitement, or apparent visible knowledge by the secret service men, that anything so dreadful was happening. Knowing something of the training that combat infantrymen and Marines receive, I am amazed at the lack of instantaneous response by the Secret Service, when the rifle fire began. I make this statement in this paragraph reluctantly, not to add to the anguish of anyone, but it is my firm opinion, and I write it out in the hope that it might be of service in the better protection of our Presidents in the future. In the early 60s, Secret Service protection was downright awful. Henry Bosworth, the late editor of the Quincy Sun newspaper in Massachusetts, used to recount how he climbed aboard a press bus with no credentials, was asked no questions nor frisked for weapons, and found himself inside Hyannisport having drinks with JFK himself. And how is it now? Here’s an account of a WhoWhatWhy friend, from an Obama campaign stop in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in April, 2008. The night before I went to the convention center/domed stadium about 10pm & was walking the convention center concourse when I encountered a private security guard. We made small talk & soon he volunteered that his job the next day was to escort Obama from the ballroom through the kitchen into the main arena for the speech. I said to him that sounds like the scenario from the RFK scene in 1968. He didn’t know what I meant. I clued him in. The point is the SS was stupid enough to allow an amateur to be a part of security. The next day I positioned myself by the kitchen exit, not that close but in a position to be the 1st person that Obama would greet if he were to go toward those seats. I reminded an SS agent about the discussion with the security guard from the night before & he agreed that it shouldn’t have happened but he wasn’t in the area when Obama did walk out as I had been told he would. The security guard actually walked over to me & thanked me for giving him a story to tell his grandkids. I guess the glitches in security are more common than we imagine—but more likely if you have hookers on your mind. Oh, by the way: during renewed government inquiries into JFK’s death in the 1990s, the Secret Service destroyed crucial assassination-related records. WHOWHATWHY http://www.businessinsider.com/a-closer-look-at-the-secret-service-2012-4

Great new "Kennedy Detail" review

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful 1.0 out of 5 stars Boring, April 28, 2012 By S. P. Fitzgerald (Plymouth, Michigan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME) Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: The Kennedy Detail (Kindle Edition) Boring is about the worst thing that could be said of a story with so much potential. Bought this expecting an insider's account of JFK or Jackie or the Secret Service or the assassination or gossip or .... something. Instead what the reader gets is several hundred pages of low-level bureaucratic whining about being overworked. If I wanted to hear that I'd just go hang around the DMV. Which, in truth, would have been about as interesting as this book. You can almost hear yourself sighing at the prospect of another report. Did I mention the author, Blaine, wasn't even in Dallas? No mention of Fiddle or Faddle or Mimi or Mariyn either. Did I mention that the author almost drilled LBJ with a Tommy gun the night of the assassination but didn't? That is not far off from the author's own description and about as dramatic.

BAN the Blaine & Atchity "Kennedy Detail" movie!

- "The Kennedy Detail" book [co-written with Lisa McCubbin] WAS written because of my 22-page letter to Clint Hill in June 2005: Hill (whom I spoke to) and Blaine (whom I spoke to twice and corresponded with) were angry at my findings (because the truth hurts), Blaine's attorney sent me a letter, Blaine & Hill spoke about me on C-SPAN, and I am mentioned on pages 359-360 of their crap book (which they got all wrong; typical). THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER: their book did not sway public opinion at all, reviews were decidedly mixed, and it was only an "extended list" NY Times Best Seller (many of the pro conspiracy books released during the "JFK" movie fared far better, and on smaller publishing houses, to boot). Please see: http://www.ctka.net/reviews/kennedydetailreview.html EPIC FAIL---next... -"The Kennedy Detail" documentary was an improvement, as far as the NON-assassination/ NON-Tampa information (almost a visual sneak preview of the Clint Hill book to come), but, despite an EMMY nomination (they lost+remember: even crappy sitcoms get "Emmy nominations"), the ratings were not very good, it was never released on DVD and, quite frankly, from a public opinion standpoint, the documentary sank without a trace. Please see: http://ctka.net/reviews/slick_propaganda.html EPIC FAIL---next... -Whenever a book does reasonably well, the publisher will often ask for a follow-up work...so Lisa McCubbin decided to get Clint Hill to "tell his story" (nothing new but, in extended form, interesting). The result was a MUCH better book, "Mrs Kennedy and Me", a much better selling NY Times best-seller with far better reviews. Please see: http://www.ctka.net/reviews/MrsKennedy_Hill_Review_Palamara.html However, the 11/18-11/22 blame-the-victim mantra from the first book reappears on a couple pages...but, since this is essentially a JACKIE KENNEDY book and NOT an assassination book, per se, no one seems to notice or care. SUCCESS (Jackie Kennedy anecdotes and, to a lesser extent, Hill's story [although, as many have noticed, Gwen Hill is virtually ignored and we are left to wonder: did they divorce? Is she still alive?])...but EPIC FAIL as far as swaying the public opinion of the assassination and so forth (to be fair, THIS project does not seem to have been written for that purpose)---next... -Now, Blaine & Atchity, obviously enjoying the success and profit ($$$$$$) from their products related to the Secret Service failing to protect JFK, yet having to know that their efforts to date have FAILED to change public opinion one iota, are now going to try their hand at a movie version of "The Kennedy Detail" timed for the 50th anniversary of the assassination (Fall 2013). However, to COUNTER THEIR MOVIE, a slew of PRO conspiracy books and movies will be released: LEONARDO DICAPRIO IS COMING OUT WITH A MAJOR PRO CONSPIRACY MOVIE, BASED ON A BOOK I AM IN , "LEGACY OF SECRECY"! Also, Mark Lane and Abraham Bolden (both of whom are in a book I am in, "Last Word", with several chapters that debunk Blaine's work) have a major movie of their own coming out! I can see it all now---Blaine will have some cheesey actor portraying JFK---scene: Tampa, FL, 11/18/63---reading from his script: "I command you, and this is a firm command: get the hell off my limousine, dammit! I have a rendezvous with death- that IS my favorite poem, after all. Don't worry if something happens a few days from now-drink up and party, you have done your best. Oh, another thing: when some young whippersnapper named Palamara ruffles your feathers in 2005, be sure to write a book all about this." Prediction for Blaine's movie: EPIC FAIL P.S. Preliminary response from OTHERS to Blaine's projected movie so far: http://www.deadline.com/2012/04/jfk-film-planned-for-50th-anniversary-of-assignation/ COMMENTS (19) Is this movie going to detail (excuse the pun) how bad of a job they did? JFK closed the book on all other Kennedy movies. Nothing can come close to that. Please spare us this one. Comment by x — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 11:05am PDT Reply to this post Couldn’t agree more. JFK might be the best film of its decade. Comment by Dave — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 11:53am PDT Reply to this post Oliver Stone has probably stated 100x that his movie is a “counter myth” to the “Warren Commission myth.” The movie never presents any facts incorrectly, it merely speculates on the connections between them. And it does that brilliantly. As does Don Delillo’s book LIBRA. People who believe the Warren Commission are complete suckers. Comment by jack — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 12:29pm PDT Reply to this post I agree. I feel bad for Caroline. This movie is only being made because of the anniversary. Sad. This is blood money. Comment by Stan — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 12:55pm PDT Reply to this post The book and the documentary were self serving, full of self pitty and excuses. Basically what it boils down to is “except for the President getting shot and killed we did everything right and it wasn’t our fault”. Comment by RPF — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 11:35am PDT Reply to this post Will the movie depict heavy drinking reportedly done by members of the detail at Jack Ruby’s bar “The Cellar” the night before the assassination? Comment by scrivener — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 11:39am PDT Reply to this post Very good scrivener. Nice. Comment by Hollywood Dodger Mark — Friday April 20, 2012 @ 1:16am PDT Reply to this post If done right, this could be a great movie. Clint Hill’s story is a very dramatic one. Comment by Adam — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 12:15pm PDT Reply to this post The Secret Service was drinking heavily? Were they frequenting the company of prostitutes, too? Comment by Next Stop, Cartagena! — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 12:30pm PDT Reply to this post I’m a big fan of the theory that Castro, having survived several (very silly) plots on his life, ordered the hit on Kennedy in retaliation. Comment by SimAlex2000 — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 1:23pm PDT Reply to this post Or, in other words, round up the usual suspects. Comment by scrivener — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 1:57pm PDT Reply to this post Kennedy and a few choice cabinet members were the only ones standing in the way of that exact thing happening to Castro. Bay of Pigs was the “disaster” it was because Kennedy was trying to avoid the all out war blatantly assassinating Castro would have caused. Bottom line is, and this is according to E.Howard Hunt himself, the CIA was the front runner in Kennedy’s death and cover up. Comment by VRam — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 2:05pm PDT Reply to this post “Kennedy and a few choice cabinet members were the only ones standing in the way of that exact thing happening to Castro.” correction: Both John and Robert Kennedy were the ones who ordered the hit(s). Comment by SimAlex2000 — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 8:10pm PDT Reply to this post You are half right. The other half is he mob. And two other things that are very possible is that the actual hit team was the one hired to kill Castro but then shut down by JFK. Part of Bobby’s remorse is that he was part of the group that hired the team for the Castro job. Another interesting theory is that Howard Hughes might have put up the money. Comment by Jerry — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 8:39pm PDT Reply to this post Hey, I’m just happy for Ken Atchity that he has a “go” gig. Comment by Santayana — Monday April 16, 2012 @ 1:59pm PDT Reply to this post Comment by Dennis Patten — Tuesday April 17, 2012 @ 12:23am PDT Reply to this post Jfk rfk both had so many enemies: the mob, the military, the rightwing…big oil…it goes on and on…as soon as jfk was dead..Bobby probably thought….what hell hath we wrought? Comment by larry Arnette — Wednesday April 18, 2012 @ 3:54pm PDT Reply to this post The plot was hatched ion the midst of the plot to get Castro and backfired when many participants realized JFK and RFK were the ones standiing in the way; at this point, Oliver Stone’s movie does have relevance as the powers that be realized, with LBJ at the top, they could get their way Comment by larry Arnette — Wednesday April 18, 2012 @ 3:59pm PDT Reply to this post Forthcoming Film To Coincide With JFK Assassination 50th Anniversary http://www.boomtron.com/2012/04/film-jfk-assassination-50th-anniversary/ by John Converse The more I think about it, the more I think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Not so much because I believe the cooked-up testimonials and ballistics of the Warren Commision Report, but because if I can convince myself of the theory of a Lone Gunman, I can cease giving a shit about the whole thing. All right, so I’m full of shit. Of course I can’t convince myself of the theory of a Lone Gunman. First of all, the words “Dallas, Texas” inherently imply the presence of more than a single manned rifle in any given space. Second, if I have to stop believing in Shadow Government, in a way, I have to start believing in Dick Cheney, and that’s something that I can never allow to happen. So I will embrace this latest foray into That Fateful Day In Dallas, based upon the book, The Kennedy Detail, which retells the story from the perspective of the Secret Service agents who were on duty at the time of the assassination. This may, once and for all, be the last conceivable angle from which this particular event can be covered. And if you are a particularly jaded sonofabitch, as I am, you might say that this is also the least relevant angle, because if the Secret Service had ever had any particularly valid perspective on the assassination of President Kennedy, they would have done something to stop it. Like closing a couple of windows. Maybe leaving the top on the Lincoln. According to Deadline, the plan is to get the thing shot, edited, and into theaters in late 2013 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the assassination. I suppose as far as your cold, calculated, exploitative business decisions go, this is probably a sound little bit of business strategy. Never mind that a documentary based upon the same source material was put out in 2010. I mean, duh. Like, who the fuck watches documentaries anyway?

Daily Kos article

This article quotes my work: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/24/1085819/-Lincoln-Kennedy-Obama-and-the-Secret-Service Tue Apr 24, 2012 at 06:21 AM PDT. Lincoln, Kennedy, Obama and the Secret Serviceby Michael Alton Gottlieb Follow . Tweet permalink 16 Comments In November 1864 the Washington police force created the first security detail to protect the President of the United States. The man who was supposed to protect the President at Ford's Theater on April 14th 1865 was three hours late for duty and had been drinking at the same tavern John Wilkes Booth had been. Needless to say, the president's security detail failed and Lincoln was shot in the head. . On November 22 1963, the Secret Service suffered catastrophic failure to the point many Kennedy Assassination researchers [VMP- HERE, THE ARTICLE REFERENCES JUST MY JFK LANCER ARTICLE: http://www.jfklancer.com/LNE/limo.html#.T5al98RShXc] believe the Secret Service was involved in the conspiracy to murder JFK. Others believe it was their heavy drinking, carousing and arrogance. But drinking didn't cause Kennedy's Limo to be the lead car in the motorcade against protocol and not have a single agent riding on the car: Though maybe it accounts for the fact the Secret Service agent riding shotgun in the presidential limo made no move to protect the President during the nearly six seconds of shooting or the Secret Service driver of the limo who slowed down in the kill zone instead of stepping on the gas when they knew shots were being fired. According to Abraham Bolden, the first African American Secret Service agent assigned to the White House, the Secret Service agents assigned to protect President Kennedy in conversation amongst themselves said they would not lift a finger to protect Kennedy if there was an assassination attempt. And indeed, on 11/22/63 that is exactly what they did. Bolden claims many agents in JFK's personal security detail were Southern rednecks. I bring this up because I wonder at the safety of our current President given the history of the Secret Service's culture of debauchery and history of failure. Considering how many assassination attempts and plots have been hatched over the years, perhaps only four actual assassinated Presidents is success. But I get the feeling most attempts have failed due to the poor quality of the assassin rather than the excellence of the Secret Service. The recent scandal in Colombia only highlights the dangers to the Commander-in-Chief. The pundits and other Serious People will have you believe this was an exception to the rule carried out by a few rogue agents. Pretty much what they told us about the torturers at Abu Ghraib. A few rogue soldiers. But this was a lie. What happened at Abu Ghraib was policy. Torture was American policy and not some crazy shit done by a few sexual deviants and drunken soldiers. Fully a dozen Secret Service agents and perhaps a dozen other government employees were caught with their pants down. Was this a rogue occurrence or par for the course? We'll never know. The only time the Public is told anything is when folks get caught with their pants down. Then Serious People tend to cover things up, lie, obfuscate – tell us this was a one-off. A few bad apples. But it's not a few rogue bad apples – it's the culture of power and arrogance. It's the hubris of empire. We got soldiers doing unspeakable things to innocent men, women and children. We have a political class co-opted by greed and stupidity. We have a corporate class drunk on money and entitlement. We have rigged markets, not free markets. We have a bread and circuses nightmare of talent shows and white trash Realty TV millionaires. We have an industrial prison system which lobbies for more laws to throw more people in jail. And we have consumers who trample each other to death to get Black Friday deals while two billion people on the planet live on less than two dollars a day. For the last ten years at least the military has been recruiting right-wing nutjobs to kill Muslims with impunity and without remorse. Our police forces around the country have been militarized and propagandized to stun, shoot and beat first and ask questions later. We have an epidemic of bullying and just plain mean nastiness among the people who strive to fix blame on the decrepit society they find themselves in. The great empire of America is bankrupt, corrupt and cruel. 45 million folks on food-stamps. 50 million without healthcare. One in five American children live in poverty. But the elites and Serious People have money to burn and a culture of arrogance and indifference toward their fellow human beings. Is it any wonder the Secret Service, the Military, the CIA, the NSA and Americas's police forces are seriously debauched? No. It's not. It's expected. Aren't they all just playing catch up to politicians, lobbyists and CEOs? I don't know if the Secret Service is still filled with right-wing, racist bigots. It doesn't sound like the culture has changed too much since those heady days when they failed to protect a President's life. A president who stood up to the War Machine and the oil lobby. A man who dreamed of going to the moon, ending the Cold War and usher in an age of world peace. Prosecuting the Abu Ghraib “rogues” did not end torture, rendition, secret prisons and American war crimes. Dumping a dozen Secret Service agents for drinking and whoring will not stop American arrogance and entitlement. Abraham Bolden's boss at the Secret Service pulled him aside one day and told him he was a born a nigger and would never be anything but a nigger and to never forget it. Does the Secret Service have the same culture it did in 1963? I don't know, but in the current climate of right-wing hate and hysteria toward Obama, if it does, I worry for the President. .TagsAbraham LincolnAbu GhraibBarack ObamaColombiajohn kennedysecret servicetorture. [why I felt "safe" to cut and paste this one] © Kos Media, LLC Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified GOOD COMMENT I'll bet there are secret service agents who take their jobs very, very seriously indeed - and there are other agents who are simple-minded fuck-ups. I'll bet there were agents after Dallas who were totally grief- and guilt-stricken by their Failure to protect JFK... and there were others who figure that rich, snotty bastard just got what he had coming to him. People in real life are not simplistic cartoons of Good and Evil -- unlike most Conspiracy Theories.

Excellent review of Mimi Alford's book-best to date

A HERO BUT NOT A SAINT, April 14, 2012 By Steven G. JonesThis review is from: Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath (Hardcover) Mimi Alford's story is very believable and the book is well written. It is obvious that sharing her long held secret was necessary for her emotional healing and no one has a right to criticize her for telling her story. And her story is important for historians to get a better understanding of one aspect of Kennedy's character. Psychologists today would say that Kennedy had a compulsive sexual addiction. He used his power, money and good looks to seduce women as a way of escaping stress and distracting him from the almost constant physical pain that he suffered from. Also the steroids he took for his Addison's Disease most likely increased his sex drive. However, if we think more deeply this book can help teach us an important lesson. Unless a politician forcibly rapes someone or sexually molests a child or adolescent it is best that, while they are living, their sex lives be kept private just like everyone else's. If the public had known about Kennedy's sex life in 1960 he never would have been elected. Richard Nixon, who was closely aligned with the right-wing hawks in the Pentagon and CIA( as Vice President Nixon helped plan the Bay of Pigs invasion) would have given us a war with Cuba in 1961; a much earlier escalation of the conflict in Vietnam; and a showdown with the Soviets over Berlin very possibly resulting in a nuclear confrontation. Not to mention what would have happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The media that covered Washington in the days of FDR, Eisenhower and Kennedy were wiser than their current brethren. They had the common sense to realize that human sexuality is deeply personal and very complex and has little, or nothing, to do with the way a leader conducts himself in office. That is why despite the public knowledge of Kennedy's numerous sexual affairs he was still ranked as our sixth greatest president in the most recent American Historical Association poll of professional historians The saddest thing about this book is not how it tarnishes the image of JFK, but that it might distract us from the much more important( for us as citizens) task of understanding the significance of Kennedy's presidency and why he was murdered by the CIA. For that I direct readers to " JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters" by James Douglass. Sure we would all prefer a president who conducted himself morally in both private and public matters. but if given a choice between someone such as Kennedy who showed enormous courage and restraint in his efforts to keep us out of war; or someone like George W. Bush who, though faithful to his wife, lied and manipulated us into an unnecessary war, I would gladly take the former. We certainly know by now that John F. Kennedy was not a saint. But he most certainly was a hero.

Commentary: There's nothing new in latest Secret Service scandal

Commentary: There's nothing new in latest Secret Service scandal Bob Ray Sanders The Fort Worth Star-Telegram Bob Ray Sanders Updated: 2012-04-25T10:49:43Z Secret Service agents and military personnel, part of a security advance team in a foreign country for the U.S. president's visit, decide to party hardy. The result? A major "scandal" that has led to an extensive internal review, calls for a congressional investigation, the questioning of the "culture" within the Secret Service and a demand by some for heads to roll, especially the agency's director, Mark Sullivan. Before commenting further on this latest national "embarrassment," let's go back to another time, another president and another group of agents charged with protecting the leader of the free world. It was the night of Nov. 21, 1963. Based on the account from William Manchester's The Death of the President, Air Force One and two other planes landed at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth shortly after 11 p.m. There was a light rain and no one in the presidential party expected to see many people turn out at that time of night. But throngs of folks (10,000 according to the Star -Telegram) lined the West Freeway from the base to downtown. The Hotel Texas lobby was full of people, causing the Secret Service some alarm as the president and Jacqueline Kennedy made their way to their three-room suite on the eighth floor. It had been a very long day and Jacqueline Kennedy was "exhausted." Her husband, while tired, was exhilarated by what was turning out to be a great trip to Texas. They went to bed. The on-duty Secret Service agents went about their duties, with the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift guarding outside Suite 850. There was an agent posted at the hotel entrance; another inspected the parking lot, secured the president's car and checked the entrances and exits the president would use the next day. There also were guards posted at the plane, routine even at a Strategic Air Command base. "But nine agents of the White House detail, unknown to [agent-in-charge Roy] Kellerman, were out on the town," Manchester writes. "They started with beer and mixed drinks at the Fort Worth Press Club with Mac Kilduff; then seven of them continued at a colorful establishment called 'The Cellar,' ordering 'Salty Dicks,' a nonalcoholic specialty of the house. One stayed until 5 a.m." Manchester continues, "Fellow drinkers during those early-morning hours included four agents who were to ride in the President's follow-up car in Dallas, and whose alertness was vital to his safety. At various times they were joined by three agents of the twelve-to-eight shift -- who were officially on duty, assigned to guard the President's bedroom door -- and chose to break the boredom of sentry duty in this fashion." When I became a member of the Press Club of Fort Worth (its official name so as not to be confused with a club of the Fort Worth Press newspaper), I often heard old-timers describe how they had broken the law that night, keeping the club open past legal hours for the partying Secret Service agents. Conspiracy theorists for years have pointed to the agents' actions as contributing to what happened the next day in Dallas. There has never been any proof that the behavior of mostly off-duty agents had anything to do with Kennedy's assassination. The truth is many federal agents, just as many local law enforcement officers, drink when they are off duty. It is their way of winding down after long, stressful and sometimes boring work days. What happened in Cartagena, Colombia, is inexcusable. As many as 11 Secret Service agents and up to 10 military personnel are under investigation because they reportedly brought 20 prostitutes to their hotel rooms. Some agents allegedly had detailed information about the president's itinerary and travel routes. Although Congress loves to investigate things, I don't know that we need an official congressional hearing over this, and it is far too premature to call for the dismissal of the director. Salacious scandals feed the appetite of a 24-hour news cycle, but we should allow this one to take its course through the normal review process without the usual rush to judgment.

Report: Rampant Secret Service drinking, sex in 2011 trip

Report: Rampant Secret Service drinking, sex in 2011 trip By Douglas Stanglin, USA TODAY A Seattle TV station is reporting that a Secret Service team in El Salvador last year to prepare for President Obama's visit allegedly engaged in heavy drinking and sexual activity similar to escapades in Colombia last month. In an exclusive report for KIRO-TV, investigative reporter Chris Halsne quotes a U.S. government subcontractor in San Salvador as saying he worked extensively with a dozen members of the Secret Service advance team and found that the majority regularly visited a popular strip club and were "wasted" and "heavily intoxicated." The unidentified subcontractor says agents paid extra for access to a VIP section of the club where they were provided "a number of sexual favors in return for their cash," KIRO-TV reports. The subcontractor, according to KIRO-TV, says he told the agents that taking prostitutes back to their hotel rooms was a "really bad idea" but that several agents bragged that they "did this all the time" and "not to worry about it." The KIRO-TV reporter says the owner of the club confirmed that a large number of U.S. Secret Service agents, and some military escorts, had "descended on his club" a week before the Obama visit. KIRO-TV says it has the name of some of the agents allegedly involved and has viewed records which, the reporters says, add credibility to the subcontractor's eyewitness account. KIRO-TV promises a longer series of reports later today. The Secret Service announced this week that all 12 implicated officers or supervisors in the Colombia scandal had been dealt with: eight forced out, one stripped of his security clearance and three cleared of wrongdoing, all within two weeks of the night in question, the Associated Press reports. A dozen military personnel have also been implicated, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said they have had their security clearances suspended.