Thumbs down for Blaine's book

1.0 out of 5 stars Zero Credibility, June 9, 2012 By edelweiss (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviewsThis review is from: The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence (Hardcover) On page 203 of The Kennedy Detail, the author claims SA Don Lawton was joking that he could go get lunch now, and "grinning" as he was called off the President's car by Emory Roberts. Lucky for us there is tv footage of this very scene at Love Field. Watch the youtube video of it, "Secret Service stand down", and then see if the agent's actions and body language mesh with Blaine's description. The author thinks we're stupid, as do all the other conspirators in JFK's murder.

People are on to you, Mr Blaine

A Mixed Bag, June 1, 2012 By Ken C. "Ken C." (So. Cal) - See all my reviewsThis review is from: The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence (Hardcover) For the most part, this is an enjoyable tale of the Kennedy years in the White House, and an excellent recollection of the sad days of November, 1963. There is some repetition in the book that could have been cleaned up. But beyond that, this book is a vehicle for former Secret Service agents to defend themselves against dereliction of duty allegations in losing Kennedy. They turn the tables and blame the dead president himself for his own death, claiming that, in an insulting way, he ordered agents off of the back of his vehicle. The assumption seems to be, that had he not done that, he would have been saved on November 22, 1963. This allegation holds no water and is an abomination. Beyond that, the book is highly critical of Jacqueline Kennedy for determining to walk eight blocks in the Kennedy funeral to the Church. She only insisted that she walk, others were afraid not to walk if she did. They could have ridden in a car. I think Mrs. Kennedy showed the nation that even after an assassination attempt, leaders of men should not hide.

US Secret Service foiled attack on President Ronald Reagan during visit to Ireland

US Secret Service foiled attack on President Ronald Reagan during visit to Ireland Man holding a concealed broken glass attempted to shake hands with the president By KERRY O’SHEA, IrishCentral Staff Writer Published Friday, June 1, 2012, 7:17 AM President Reagan during his visit to Ireland in 1984 Photo by Swimtwobirds A new documentary about the late President Ronald Reagan’s visit to Ireland recounts how the Secret Service prevented an attack on the President during his visit in 1984. A man holding a concealed broken piece of glass tried to shake hands with the president after breaching a secure area where the president was standing in his ancestral town of Ballyporeen in Tipperary, ready to address an audience. MC for the event Derek Davis recounts in a new documentary about the visit that said Mr Reagan was still “somewhat fragile" when he arrived in Ballyporeen with his wife, Nancy after an 1981 assassination attempt left him injured. "They (secret service) were very nervous at the time. Charm was not one of their gifts and their relationship with people on the ground was very poor," he recalled. "Anecdotally, we were told there was a bit of a kerfuffle up the main street. Some nutter had attempted to shake hands with Reagan whilst holding a piece of broken glass. "At one point, Reagan was completely surrounded by secret servicemen all in identical raincoats -- identical to his. They were all of a certain height, all of a certain build and all dressed identically and they milled around him," Mr Davis revealed. "Interestingly Nancy was left on the outside of that ring." The member of the crowd pushed beyond security barriers and attempted to force his way into an area that was occupied by the president and his party. Reagan was the target of many protestors especially for his handling of Central American issues such as El Salvador and Nicaragua where he funded right-wing parties and militias. The attempted attack was, of course, thwarted by the Secret Service and has been kept under wraps since the incident. It has only since come to light in the new documentary which marks 28 years since the President’s visit to Tipperary. More famously, three years prior to his visit to Tipperary, President Reagan was the target of another assassination attempt. On March 30 1981, just 69 days into his presidency, Reagan and members of his team were shot at by John Hinckley, Jr outside of the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC. Though President Reagan did sustain a punctured lung and heavy internal bleeding as a result of the shooting, he recovered fully. Several members of his entourage, many of whom were Irish American, also sustained injuries. White House Press Secretary at the time, James Brady, was the first to be shot, receiving a bullet in his head, which ultimately left him paralyzed. Thomas Delahunty, a police officer for the District of Columbia, was the second to be shot and was hit in the back of his neck as he turned to protect President Reagan. The bullet in Delahunty’s neck had to be removed on the scene for fear that it would explode within his body Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy was the fourth to be shot as he spread his body over the President to protect him. John Hinckley, Jr was found not guilty of the assassination attempt by way of insanity and has since been confined to a mental institution. 'A Rainy Day in June' was broadcast on Tipp FM. Reagan attack bid kept secret AN attempted attack on US President Ronald Reagan during his Irish visit was successfully foiled by the Secret Service -- and kept secret for three decades. The revelation came in a new documentary to mark the 28th anniversary of the visit to his ancestral home in Ballyporeen, Co Tipperary. During the trip in 1984, a member of the crowd pushed beyond security barriers and attempted to force his way into an area to be occupied by the president and his party.

On duty, 24/7

On duty, 24/7 By Cory Franklin May 30, 2012 At a restaurant, you and your spouse notice the man at the next table has been drinking excessively and acting obnoxiously. You recognize him as the plumber scheduled to fix your kitchen sink tomorrow afternoon. In all likelihood, you dismiss the incident and welcome him the next day; after all, good plumbers are hard to find. But what if the man was the surgeon scheduled to operate on your child? You'd be more inclined to look for another surgeon. The point of that hypothetical is that when it comes to personal behavior and carriage, certain occupations are never "off the clock." People in some jobs must comport themselves in line with what they are paid to do — airline pilots, elementary school teachers, bank presidents, nurses. Implicit in their job descriptions is a modicum of "integrity" and "character." Which brings us to the Secret Service. In recent testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan denied that a culture of debauchery existed within the Secret Service. During President Barack Obama's diplomatic trip to Columbia last month, 12 agents allegedly visited strip clubs, drank to excess and brought women back to their hotel rooms. The agents did not appear to do much to conceal their behavior. Sullivan testified, "Between the alcohol — and I don't know, the environment, these individuals did some really dumb things. …The notion that this type of behavior is condoned or authorized is just absurd. … I just believe extremely — very strongly that this just is not part of our culture." Put simply, despite his contrition and his subsequent claim that no security breaches occurred during the incident, Sullivan should be fired. The misdeeds by themselves are sufficient. There is no excuse for off-duty Secret Service agents acting like frat boys. Questions about indiscretions and potentially reckless behavior by the Secret Service are nothing new. As far back as Nov. 22, 1963, Secret Service agents in Texas, including several in the presidential motorcade, were known to have been out drinking the night before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, although there is no suggestion that it played a part in the tragedy (imagine, though, the guilt some of those agents must have felt). During the Homeland Security Committee hearings last week, Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut and chairman of the committee, reported several other instances of untoward behavior by the Secret Service, including "partying with alcohol with underage females in their hotel rooms while on assignment at the 2002 Olympics." Lieberman was quick to point out, "We do not yet find evidence at all sufficient to justify a conclusion of a pattern of misconduct or a culture of misconduct." Such a qualified conclusion hardly exonerates the Secret Service director. The Secret Service is attempting to dismiss nine of the agents. According to The Washington Post, at least four are contesting the efforts to dismiss them, claiming they didn't break any rules. Some argue that as single men, they can behave as they please on personal time. Others insist their off-duty behavior falls under the category of "what happens on the road stays on the road." Legalities aside, if that is true, there is no excuse Sullivan can make for this dysfunctional environment. It may have existed before his tenure, but he has obviously not done enough to change it. Essentially, the agents' elite status has them operating in a protective bubble, giving them an unwarranted sense of entitlement and self-governance. When any profession operates in an atmosphere with no accountability, inappropriate behavior is a natural consequence. For certain privileged professions, comporting oneself with decorum should not be viewed as a sacrifice. It isn't. It is a trade-off. The Secret Service (and many other professionals) get special treatment in areas such as hotels, airline seating, restaurants, etc. This is reasonable, but it should be understood they receive those things because of their occupation, not who they are as individuals. So, if they enjoy the perks, they must be willing to adopt the responsibilities that come with their jobs. Entitlements carry a price. That price is behaving in a dignified manner in public. If this means updated "morals clauses" in Secret Service contracts, with new rules concerning off-hours alcohol consumption and fraternization, then the agency must act accordingly. Obama defended the Secret Service, saying it shouldn't be discredited by a few "knuckleheads." He is understandably bound to defend the agency sworn to protect him. However, like Sullivan, the president may not appreciate the full import of this situation. It is not simply a matter of appearances, but of substance also. One person who understood the gravity better was 24-year-old Dania Londono Suarez, the Colombian prostitute involved in the incident. She went on television and said the agents "left their duty behind." She explained that she had access to one agent's documents, suitcase and wallet. "I don't know how Obama had them (the agents involved) in his security force." The Secret Service, like Caesar's wife, must be above suspicion at all times. That's why Secret Service Director Sullivan should be relieved of command.

The Party Animals at the Secret Circus

The Party Animals at the Secret Circus By MAUREEN DOWD Published: May 26, 2012 291 Comments WASHINGTON Related News Secret Service Chief Sees No ‘Systemic’ Problems (May 24, 2012) Times Topic: U.S. Secret ServiceReaders’ Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. Read All Comments (291) » THE Secret Circus, as the traveling Secret Service extravaganza is known, had come to town. And the pack of macho Secret Service agents were hitting the clubs, drinking and hanging out with comely young women in alluring outfits. That was half a century ago in Fort Worth at the Press Club and a joint called the Cellar, where the waitresses wore only underwear. The carousing started after midnight on Nov. 22, 1963, the day the agents were charged with keeping President Kennedy and Jackie safe in Dallas. Boys will be boys. And no one doubts that being an agent is a tough job. John Malkovich, playing an aspiring presidential assassin in “In the Line of Fire,” muses to Clint Eastwood’s Secret Service agent: “Watching the president, I couldn’t help wondering why a man like you would risk his life to save a man like that. You have such a strange job. I can’t decide if it’s heroic or absurd.” The heroism is captured in Robert Caro’s latest book on Lyndon Johnson, “The Passage of Power,” which vividly retells the story of the day J.F.K. was assassinated. Rufus Youngblood, the Secret Service agent in the vice president’s car, grabbed “Johnson’s right shoulder, yanked him roughly down toward the floor in the center of the car, as he almost leaped over the front seat, and threw his body over the vice president, shouting again, ‘Get down! Get down,’ ” Caro writes, adding that L.B.J. said he would never forget Youngblood’s “knees in my back and his elbows in my back.” The absurd was captured on Wednesday in a Senate hearing into Secret Service shenanigans, focused on the drinking and prostitution scandal in Cartagena last month, but also touching on an incident in 2008 when an on-duty uniformed agent was arrested for soliciting a D.C. police officer posing as a hooker, and an episode in 2002 when three to five agents were ordered home from the Salt Lake City Olympics for misconduct involving alcohol and under-age girls in their hotel rooms. As The Washington Post reported, noting that some Secret Service employees call the road show “the Secret Circus,” one 29-year-old agent who was forced to resign after the Cartagena meshugas is protesting that he did not know the two women he brought to his room were prostitutes. Like Dudley Moore in “Arthur,” he just thought he was doing great with them. Mark Sullivan, the Secret Service director, came across like a credulous Boy Scout under rigorous questioning from Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican on the homeland security panel. He said he was sure, given that the Secret Service had 200 people in Colombia and only 12 bad apples, that someone on his team would have reported the misconduct — even if Arthur Huntington, the cheapskate cheating agent, hadn’t started a ruckus by handing his hooker $28 for a night worth $800. Collins reminded Sullivan that he had told the panel about a survey of personnel in the Secret Service — a muscular fraternity that indulges a wheels-up, rings-off swagger — showing that only about 58 percent would report ethical misconduct. “I came away with a sense of disbelief that Mr. Sullivan is still maintaining that this was an isolated event,” she told me. “I think he’s an extraordinarily honorable person who is so blindly devoted to the Secret Service that he just cannot conceive of agents’ acting in a way that he would personally never act. “It’s going to make it difficult for him to truly solve the problem if he can’t admit that there was a problem.” Collins professed a special fondness for law enforcement officers. “But most of the ones I know who have had 29 years of service have a less sanguine view of human nature,” she said. “That’s what Mark Sullivan totally lacks.” Dryly, she noted: “Thank goodness it was just prostitutes. They could have been spies planting equipment. They could have blackmailed or drugged agents. This is Colombia, for heaven’s sake.” Collins talked about the actions that led her to believe that the culture of the agency was warped. “The 12 agents didn’t go out on the town together in one group, where arguably some could have gotten swept away with what was going on,” she said. “They went in small groups but with the same end results. “And they made no effort whatsoever to conceal what they were doing. They were registered under their own names. The women registered under their own names. They didn’t go to an alternative place or to the women’s homes. They went back to the hotel where the other agents were staying, with no fear of ramifications if they were caught.” Pronouncing herself “astonished,” Collins said she would keep after Sullivan to treat the matter more seriously. “I hate to use the word naïve, but ...”

Clint Hill on C-SPAN 5/27/12 (recorded 5/3/12): mentions Vince Palamara (again)

see 47:03 I am honored that, for the second time on C-SPAN (2 for 2), CEO Brian Lamb and Clint Hill (last time, with Gerald Blaine included) talked about me. Clint Hill also mentions the JFK autopsy at some length, the burning of ALL of his notes in 2005 (the Summer I contacted him!), and, ironically, the 9 agents who partied on an Obama trip (Hill was one of 9 agents who partied the night before JFK was assassinated). So far, this was broadcast twice on 5/27/12 and once on 5/28/12 (Memorial Day) [JFK's birthday is 5/29/12] Vince Palamara

official C-SPAN video Clint Hill 5/27/12 (mentions Vince Palamara)