The Kennedy Detail

[William Kelly]

The Kennedy Detail by Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin

– By William Kelly

http://jfkcountercou...lys-review.html

The Kennedy Detail – JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence by Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin and a foreword by Clint Hill (Gallery/Simon & Schuster, 2010, 427 p.).

Gerald Blaine's The Kennedy Detail (TKD) is a significant and insightful account of some of the men who were entrusted with the sacred responsibility of protecting the life of the President and failed. They failed to protect the President, failed to determine the truth as to what happened in Dallas, and now they fail to exonerate themselves and their agency for their dereliction of duty and the perversion of the truth.

The Kennedy Detail is an important new book because it's an insider's account of the activities of the Kennedy administration, reveals some Secret Service protocols, provides evidence of conspiracy and details how and why those agents failed to protect Kennedy. It does so while at the same time "CTA," as former Agent Abraham Bolden puts it - covers their ass.

It is from a study of the Secret Service protocols and activities that we come to an understanding of how the assassination was allowed to occur, and from the personal interactions between the Kennedy family and the men who failed to protect his life, why it was allowed to happen.

Apparently the manuscript was not officially previewed and approved by the government censors since the book reveals Protective Research Section (PRS) protocols (See: PRS & DPD), previously unknown names behind the Secret Service codes for radio communications (1), rejects the official Warren Commission conclusion regarding the Single-Bullet-Theory (2), promotes convincing evidence of a shot from the front (3), and reveals that Agent Blaine kept copies of the advance reports that were supposed to have been intentionally destroyed and no longer exist. (4)

What I want to know is how come these issues don't get any headlines in the mainstream media?

Instead we get the spin on how the President ordered the agents off the bumper of the limo, thus blaming the victim for his own murder (5), and Agent Blaine's acknowledgement that he almost accidentally shot LBJ at his DC residence on the night of the assassination (6), both of which are non-issues, but the only ones that have thus far made news headlines. (7)

I would think that the agents bucking the official party line on the "Single-Bullet-Theory," saying there is evidence of a shot from the front ("fist sized hole in back of head"), and being in possession of official records thought to have been destroyed would make much better headlines.

Some of these issues are also dealt with in the Discovery Channel documentary based on this book (8), as well as an hour long discussion Gerald Blaine, Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin had with Gary Mack at the Sixth Floor museum in Dallas which was taped and aired on CSPAN, and where my suspicion that the manuscript was not previewed by the government was confirmed. (9)

But the Kennedy Detail isn't just about the assassination of the President, it also gives a good, overall, general impression of what it was like to protect, or at least try to protect a popular president who had also irritated the most radical right wing conservatives in the country –extremists who physically threatened him, and eventually killed him, so they didn't have an easy job.

This isn't the first time agents have "broken their silence" and talked, as many agents talked to Vince Palamara and a few talked to Seymour Hersh and revealed how some of his bodyguards deeply despised JFK.

This book however, in its pronounced fondness for the president and his family, is in stark contrast to the Dark Side of Camelot, in which Hersh convinced four members of the Secret Service Kennedy detail to "break their silence" and reveal some of the more trashy details of Kennedy's extra-marital dalliances, as well as their personal distain for him. (10)

So this book isn't the first insider's account, but it is a good addition to what is already on the public record. This book was written and published in response to three other conspiracy books that have been written about the Secret Service and the assassination, one by former SS agents Abraham Bolden's Dealey Plaza Echoes (11), Vince Palamara's Survivor's Guilt (12), and From A Window With A High Powered Rifle, by former FBI agent Don Adams.

While The Kennedy Detail still maintains the fantasy that the assassination was the work of one lone, deranged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald is hardly mentioned, and is simply dismissed as fitting "the classic profile of an assassin driven by a fanatical desire for recognition," which is clearly contradicted by the fact that Oswald denied having killed anyone. So much for the "fanatical desire for recognition." (13)

The whole idea that the institution of the Secret Service continues to officially proclaim that the President was murdered by a lone deranged gunman, yet fail to show how Lee Harvey Oswald was psychotic, cuts to the heart of the problem, and that political assassination will remain a serious national security threat until it is recognized that their assassin was the Patsy, and that the assassination was a political act to eliminate Kennedy by killing him. That those actually responsible for the crime got away with it and escaped justice is now a sidebar to the fact that it has yet to be determined exactly how the assassination actually transpired.

If elimination was the motive for the murder at Dealey Plaza, the murder can be understood, not in following the alleged assassin, but from a study and analysis of the victim. (14) In such elimination murders, crime scene investigators know that the killer is just a pawn who is removed from the actual sponsors of the killing by layers of "buffers," as Joe Valachi called them, or "cut-outs," as they are referred to by intelligence officers. Therefore, it is from a study of President Kennedy, and not Oswald the Patsy, that we discover who killed him.

Since the assassination must be viewed as part of an overall Big Picture that also includes the entire Kennedy administration, The Kennedy Detail is valuable because it encompasses it all, at least in part, and provides some colorful details of the presidential trips, including descriptions of visits to Berlin, Ireland, Italy, India and Mexico City.

Domestically, the Kennedy family spent much of its time, not only at the White House, but at Glenn Ora and Wexford, the rural weekend retreats in Middleburg, Virginia, in Palm Springs, where JFK went to play golf with the boys, Palm Beach, where the Kennedy family maintained a bayside home, and New York City, where Kennedy had a permanent residence at the Carlyle Hotel. Each destination had unique security considerations and each gave them different challenges, most successfully met, but it is the one failure for which they will be remembered.

DALLAS AND TAMPA ADVANCE REPORTS

As this book intimidates, the presidential trips planned for Chicago and Tampa earlier in November, 1963 were somehow connected to the assassination in Dallas. These were trips that were so significant and sensitive that the advance reports had to be officially destroyed by the Secret Service after the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) requested them. These are the same reports that Blaine now says he saved and still has in his possession. (15) The National Archives and Records Administration should recover them and make them available to the public as the JFK Act requires.

Since this book isn't written in the first person, quoting the agents as their own personal narrative, it is apparent that Blaine, Hill and fellow agents told their stories to Lisa McCubbin, and she wrote the book, lacing it with assassination records released under the JFK Act. And it is to McCubbin's credit that the book is easy to read, though it is filtered through her reporting.

Although most of what Abraham Bolden had said about the Chicago and Tampa plots to kill Kennedy has been independently confirmed (See: Jim Douglas, JFK & the Unspeakable), Blaine has a bug up his butt about Bolden, and in order to refute him, pulls out the missing and reputedly destroyed advance reports that no one else has seen.

As McCubbin puts it, "It had been a long time, but Blaine was compelled to pull out his files to make sure his memory was serving him correctly. Like any good investigator, he had kept all his personal reports for all these years. Every time they moved to a new house, with his various jobs, (his wife) Joyce had asked him why couldn't he throw all that stuff away, but he'd insisted the boxes of files were important. He found the box from 1963 and started going through it. It was all there. Pages and pages of information that refuted all the claims this guy (former Agent Abraham Bolden) was making. He was holding in his hands the Tampa advance report that had supposedly been destroyed." (16)

The National Archives and Records Administration and those responsible for the JFK Assassination Records Collection should be interested in knowing that Blaine has the advance reports for Chicago and Tampa that the Secret Service claims were intentionally destroyed after the ARRB requested them. And while Blaine claims these records refute the contentions of former agent Abraham Bolden that there were significant connections between the Chicago and Tampa trips and what happened in Dallas, those records should be released to the public so we can make up our own minds about what they say.

While the official records are important, it is from the personal recollections and anecdotes that make The Kennedy Detail fascinating. The book is chock full of such interesting stories about the personal interactions between the agents and the Kennedy family. For instance, there's the time JFK beaned Blaine on the head with a golf ball [p.89]. Then the day at Hyannis Port when Kennedy sent his escort agents out sailing, knowing they would flip over and get drenched. And totally fascinating is the home movie Jackie made of the president's assassination, complete with Secret Service agents jumping out of the car to chase the assassin, an eerie premonition of what was to come. (17)

But the two stories that seem to be getting the most attention concern whether Kennedy ordered the agents off the bumper and the time Blaine almost accidentally shot LBJ at the Elms - LBJ's DC residence, on the evening of the assassination. From these two incidents – the president's request for agents to stay off the bumper, and the security at the Elms, we can see the relationship between the orders given and how they were carried out.

IVY LEAGUE CHARLATINS

As related in William Manchester's book The Death of the President, Agent Blaine claims that he was told by the head of the White House Detail, Special Agent In Charge (SAIC) Jerry Behn, that while in Tampa four days before the assassination, the president told Behn "To keep Ivy League Charlatans off the bumper, back there." (18)

To Behn, this was taken as a request they didn't officially enter into any report, but orally passed along (over the radio) to other agents, such as Blaine and Hill, which resulted in the agents being ordered off the bumper of the presidential limo for the Dallas motorcade from Love Field to Dealey Plaza. The order given and the result being a dead president.

Then in the hours after the assassination we hear on the extant Air Force One radio transmissions, an order from Air Force One to the White House for a new secure telephone circuit to be put in LBJ's private residence, the Elms, where the new president will spend the night. And it is Blaine at the other end of the order who is assigned to go to the Elms and secure the premises while the WHCA puts in the secure telephone lines. (19)

One of the most useful aspects of The Kennedy Detail is the appendix, which includes the radio codes names for most of the major players (ie. JFK is Lancer and Behn is Duplex), as well as the scenes of the crimes – AF1 (Angel), Andrews AFB (Acrobat) , the White House (Crown) and the Elms (Valley), which helps us decode and make sense of the Air Force One radio conversations and transcripts that we have. [see: Transcript and link to audio at Mary Ferrell Achives.]

INCIDENT AT THE ELMS

Blaine also explains the levels of security that were set up at the Elms, with the DC Police setting the first line of defense on the street, then a military presences with a National Guard unit stationed around the perimeters of the property, while the Secret Service were responsible for the house itself. (20) According to Blaine they set four men at each corner of the residence and they rotated clockwise every half hour in order to keep sharp. This is in contrast to the White House Oval Office door guard duty, which Blaine recounts as very boring, instigating the responsible agents to spend their time counting the floor tiles.

So when the new President approaches Blaine from an unexpected direction, apparently walking around his spacious backyard, Blaine almost shoots him with his cocked and ready Thompson submachine gun. Although Blaine doesn't speculate, one wonders where the President was coming from? I'd like to know who his neighbors were and if he was visiting a confidential confidant, as he occasionally visited his former neighbor J.E. Hoover before he moved to the Elms.

THE MONDAY MORNING MEETING

Then it does seems odd, in the circumstances that Blaine puts it, that shortly after the President has been assassinated and he almost accidentally kills the new president for sneaking up on him in the dark, Blaine is called to the office of the director on Monday morning. It's the day of the funeral, and he expects the worse, a dressing down for the machine gun incident at the Elms. But when he gets there, he is surprised to find all of the top Secret Service officials there – except Kellerman, the agent responsible for Dallas. And the topic isn't about him almost shooting LBJ with the machine gun at the Elms. Instead, it's about the Tampa trip and JFK's "Ivy League Charlatans" remark for the Secret Service to back off the bumper.

One wonders whether or not there are official records, minutes or reports of this meeting, because it sure sounds fascinating. (21)

Although played out of proportion in the mainstream press, the subject of the agents on the bumper was a rather odd topic to be discussing on the day of the funeral, rather than the more substantive issues like how the President was killed, who did it and why.

It is highly unlikely the top brass of the Secret Service would hold such a meeting just to discuss the "Ivy League Charlatans" and the agents on the bumper issue. They must have made a lot of important, strategic decisions at that meeting, including whether or not they were to accept the guilt of the now dead chief suspect Lee Harvey Oswald, and whether or not he was to be considered as part of a Cuban Commie conspiracy or branded a Lone Nut Case.

The implications of JFK ordering them off the bumper may be a good excuse as to why they failed in their responsibility, and CTA - Cover Their Ass, but it doesn't answer the question of how and why JFK was not protected from being shot in the head by a sniper with a high powered rifle. Did JFK also tell them not to bother checking the open windows in the buildings on the parade route so he would be a sitting duck for such snipers?

You would think that they would be especially on guard for a sniper attack since the Walker shooter was still on the loose, the Chicago plot entailed a sniper and as detailed in Don Adams' book, an FBI informant had reported that a right wing extremist (Milteer) had said the president would be killed by a sniper from a high rise building. Then there were the two kids who had been found with a rifle in an office building overlooking where the President would speak in Fort Worth that morning, and JFK's acknowledgement to both his personal aides and Rowley, the head of the Secret Service, that if someone wanted to kill him with a rifle, nobody could stop them. (22) With so many hints of a possible sniper attack, certainly such a scenario had to be seriously considered.

KELLERMAN'S RELIEF – No Threat Suspects in Dallas?

Another significant aspect of The Kennedy Detail is the insight it gives into the Protective Research Section (PRS), the department of the Secret Service responsible for identifying threats to the president, and countering them.

When it came to Dallas, Gerry Behn - the Special Agent In Charge of the Kennedy Detail decided to take a vacation and in his place sent Special Agent Roy Kellerman (aka Digest) to lead the Texas trip.

As part of the routine, before leaving for Dallas SA Kellerman checked in with the PRS to get the files on potential threats in the area, but was told there were no identified potential threats in the Dallas area at all.

According to The Kennedy Detail, Kellerman "felt relieved" at this news. (23)

But I can assure you for certain that Kellerman most certainly didn't feel relieved. How could Kellermen possibly feel relieved? How could he feel relieved that the PRS found no possible threats in Dallas when the media had reported that US Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was physically attacked by an unruly Dallas crowd a week earlier? And if they weren't Secret Service, then who were those guys who were reviewing the television news reels of the incident in order to try to identify those suspects? (24)

And in response to the criticism of the FBI in the aftermath of the assassination, J. E. Hoover himself wrote a memo to the Chief Rowley of the Secret Service reminding him that the FBI did tip them off about a Dallas police informant who reported on a college student who had threatened the President. (25) This informant was run by the Dallas Police unit that was composed entirely of US Army Reserve officers led by Captain Ganaway and Lt. Revill. (26)

As the late Professor Philip H. Melanson concludes in his book The Secret Service – The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency, (27) the PRS depends on local police intelligence units to provide them with the basic information on potential threats and suspects, and in Dallas that would have been the responsibility of the Dallas Police Department's Criminal Intelligence Section of the Special Services Bureau, run by Gananway and Revill. (28) [see: The SS PRS and the DPD SSBCIS]

Blaine didn't enjoy the dry, daily grind of guarding the president and his family, but instead liked to do the advance work and run down the leads on potential threats provided by the PRS. He says he really liked working for the Secret Service, but after JFK was killed, Blaine says on his web site (but not in the book) that "LBJ was no JFK."

And indeed he wasn't, and he didn't treat the Secret Service with the same respect that JFK did, despite calling them "Ivy League Charlatans."

LBJ didn't trust the Secret Service one bit, and personally asked J. E. Hover to provide an FBI agent to be at his side whenever he traveled aboard AFI, and requested a specific agent – Orrin Bartlett, who was the FBI's liaison to the Secret Service at the time of the assassination. (29)

LBJ didn't like the Secret Service agents being around all the time, and seemed to enjoy pissing on the legs of an agent. When the agent told LBJ what he was doing, LBJ reportedly replied, "That's my prerogative." (30)

And so within a year Agent Blaine left the Secret Service and at the suggestion and recommendation of former LBJ congressional aide Jack Hight, took a job at IBM. Although Hight supposedly spoke highly of IBM, he didn't stick around there long himself, and moved on to another company - Modus Operandi. (31)

I had hoped that since he went from the Secret Service and the Kennedy Detail to IBM, Blaine might have had some answers to some outstanding questions related to IBM and the assassination. For instance, two IBM employees were with Johnny Brewer in the shoe store on Jefferson Blvd. when Tippit's alleged assassin ducked into the shoe store alcove to avoid a police cruiser. Who were those guys and why were they never identified or questioned? (32)

And then there's the report that there was a moving film or video of the assassination on a television in the Dallas IBM office on the afternoon of the assassination, an incident never confirmed or explained. (33)

But Blaine doesn't get into either of those incidents.

Instead he describes how he assisted IBM in developing their top line computers that have been used by the intelligence agencies, FBI and Secret Service, yet doesn't explain how all the information they compiled can't seem to keep them from keeping assassins from killing people. (34)

And as far as I can tell, they will never figure it out until they acknowledge that President Kennedy wasn't the victim of a deranged lone nut case, and was killed in the course of a covert intelligence operation, and the perpetrators remain unknown.

The Kennedy Detail is an important book that fills in many of the blank pieces to the Dealey Plaza puzzle, provides evidence of conspiracy and other crimes, present new leads that can be pursued, adds a few new, living witnesses to the proceedings, and identifies important records that were supposedly destroyed. But rather than put an end to the nagging doubts people have about the assassination, it presents more new questions than it answers.

For Notes: <A href="http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/01/kennedy-detail-kellys-review.html">http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/01/kennedy-detail-kellys-review.html

[bill Kelly can be reached at bkjfk3@yahoo.com]

Edited January 30, 2011 by William Kelly

[Walt Rollins]

Bill, great review. I've got a question for you before I consider reading this book. Are there parts of this book that make you want to throw it across the room out of frustration because you are aware of falsehoods, lies or deliberate manipulation of the facts? From your review, I take it does lean towards the theory of a conspiracy, but after reading the Doug Horne volumes, the Douglas book and the Armstrong tome, all three of which I consider some of the best I have read on the assassination, I don't have much tolerance for the bullxxxx, if you know what I mean? I found Bolden's book very believable and I have great sympathy for the situation he found himself in, and would have a hard time accepting whatever propaganda Blaine puts forth in this book. So can you provide me with a bullxxxx factor score on this book, for lack of a better phrase, dealing with my concerns. A one being complete bullxxxx and a ten representing a book along the lines of the three previously mentioned. Thanks, Walt.

[William Kelly]

Bill, great review. I've got a question for you before I consider reading this book. Are there parts of this book that make you want to throw it across the room out of frustration because you are aware of falsehoods, lies or deliberate manipulation of the facts? From your review, I take it does lean towards the theory of a conspiracy, but after reading the Doug Horne volumes, the Douglas book and the Armstrong tome, all three of which I consider some of the best I have read on the assassination, I don't have much tolerance for the bullxxxx, if you know what I mean? I found Bolden's book very believable and I have great sympathy for the situation he found himself in, and would have a hard time accepting whatever propaganda Blaine puts forth in this book. So can you provide me with a bullxxxx factor score on this book, for lack of a better phrase, dealing with my concerns. A one being complete bullxxxx and a ten representing a book along the lines of the three previously mentioned. Thanks, Walt.

Hi Walt,

No, they (Blaine, Hill, McCubbin) don't personally promote, or apparently believe there was a conspiracy, and Blaine has a grudge against Bolden, who is a hero in my book, but they do try to put forth what they know from personal experience, and that includes Hill twice seeing and reproting on the "fist sized hole in the back of the head," which is a clear indication of an exit wound, and they say the single bullet theory is wrong, which is also indicative of conspiracy, though they still maintain Oswald fired all the shots.

Of course I think the fact that Blaine has boxes of SS advance reports in his closet, including the Tampa and Chicago reports that were officially ordered destroyed by the SS, is a really big thing and those records should be handed over to the NARA and released to the public ASAP, but for some reason I don't think that is going to happen, at least right away, or until Congress holds oversight hearings on the JFK Act, or someone in the mainstream media makes a big stink about it.

As for the Bullxxxx Factor, that is prominent in Posner and Bugliosi, as they constantly badger conspiracy theories and facts that support conspiracy, but here, TKD isn't as bad, and it seems like they just want to tell their story from their perspective, so you know its got that angle.

They fail to note many of the SS Agents who believe there was a conspriacy, including the driver of the follow up car who they say is one of the witnesses who saw all three shots hit their mark, and therefore no Single Bullet Theory.

My approach to books like this is to try to find the nuggets that they preseent, even if they themselves don't recognize these facts as possibly significant, and this book is riddled with them, though you have to pick them out yourself as they don't recognize them.

BK

[Greg Burnham]

These were trips that were so significant and sensitive that the advance reports had to be officially destroyed by the Secret Service after the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) requested them. These are the same reports that Blaine now says he saved and still has in his possession. (15) The National Archives and Records Administration should recover them and make them available to the public as the JFK Act requires.

Bill,

I agree that as a matter of course the documents rightfully belong to the People of the United States and need to be in the National Archives. So, the law needs to be followed (the JFK Act) and the documents must be retrieved and archived. However, I wonder how reliable/authentic these reports might be? Can we verify their provenance or do we have to take Blaine's word for it?

Edited January 31, 2011 by Greg Burnham

[Walt Rollins]

Thanks, Bill, for your time and quick reply. I hate wasting my time or money on a Posner or Bugliosi type book. Keep up the good work...

[William Kelly]

These were trips that were so significant and sensitive that the advance reports had to be officially destroyed by the Secret Service after the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) requested them. These are the same reports that Blaine now says he saved and still has in his possession. (15) The National Archives and Records Administration should recover them and make them available to the public as the JFK Act requires.

Bill,

I agree that as a matter of course the documents rightfully belong to the People of the United States and need to be in the National Archives. So, the law needs to be followed (the JFK Act) and the documents must be retrieved and archived. However, I wonder how reliable/authentic these reports might be? Can we verify their providence or do we have to take Blaine's word for it?

Well, the Secret Service, after the ARRB requested the documents, claimed they were intentionally destroyed.

And now Blaine says that he kept all of his papers in boxes in closits and under his bed, including the advance reports for Tampa and Chicago that were requested and said to have been destroyed.

So if we ever get a chance to look at them, I think, after reading thousands of SS reports over the years, we can determine easily if they are for real, and I question if Blaine and those he is associated with have the capability to create fake docs that could fool us and the NARA, or would have the means, motive and opportunity to do so, especially several boxes of many hundreds of such documents.

Without having seen them, I would say that considering their source, they are bonifide and genuine.

And as with other information that Blaine has supplied, I don't think he even knows what is important and what isn't, especially about the Chicago and Tampa plots that would be of interest in the documents.

I asked Gary Mack about this, and I have a feeling that he will request Blaine to donate them to the Sixth Floor, as they also requested the Dallas DA document cache from Craig Watkins.

What I don't understand is why, when the ARRB was traveling around from city to city, holding public hearings and requesting people to come forward with records, no one called attention to these documents that are in the possession of individual agents?

BK

Edited January 31, 2011 by William Kelly

[Guest Tom Scully]

....What I don't understand is why, when the ARRB was traveling around from city to city, holding public hearings and requesting people to come forward with records, no one called attention to these documents that are in the possession of individual agents?

BK

They weren't writing parking tickets after hurricane Katrina hit NOLA, and no investigations have commenced at DOJ in reaction to illegal rendition and torture, sanctioned at the highest levels. Nothing similar to the Chilcot Inquiry, ongoing in the UK, is taking place here in the U.S., either, or even serious talk of the possibility.

Where do you think you're living now, Bill? This is now a country with a history of subjecting a young army soldier to inhumane confinement in a USMC brig, despite no charges filed against him more serious than unauthorized appropriation of information with secret classification (not even TOP secret), treatment harsher than any ever accorded Hermann Goring in detention at Nuremberg.

[Dawn Meredith]

Terrific review Bill. I also posted on your blog. So won't repeat myself here. I'd like to hear more abuout the agents who do beieve there was a conspiracy.

Thanks,

Dawn

[Greg Burnham]

Thanks, Bill. Great work on this stuff.

[Bernice Moore]

Terrific review Bill. I also posted on your blog. So won't repeat myself here. I'd like to hear more abuout the agents who do beieve there was a conspiracy.

Thanks,

Dawn

http://surftofind.com/palamara AGENTS WHO BELIEVED IN A CONSPIRACY..b

[David G. Healy]

Mr. Kelly,

You've been reading, thinking and walking the Jersey Shore once again -- Great work, Bill!

David

[Guest Robert Morrow]

I think it is highly signficanat that BOTH Abraham Bolden and Seymour Hersh say there were a lot of agents who did not like President Kennedy. You can read about this in The Echo from Dealey Plaza by Abraham Bolden: http://www.amazon.com/Echo-Dealey-Plaza-American-assassination/dp/0307382028/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296504293&sr=1-1

or you can read about it in The Dark Side of Camelot by Sy Hersh: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Side-Camelot-Seymour-Hersh/dp/0316360678/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296504381&sr=1-1

Some of the SS agents were disgusted by JFK's politics (thinking he was too soft on communism or were against his position for civil rights for blacks), and some were disgusted by his sexual antics.

The point is, despite what someone like Vincent Palamara might say, there were many, a significant number, of Secret Service agents who simply did not like John Kennedy.

Also, significant is that James Rowley was a close friend of Lyndon Johnson. That is like saying you are a close friend of Al Capone. Rowley was also former FBI and close friends with J. Edgar Hoover.

I don't think it is a stretch to say that James Rowley had to be deeply involved in the JFK assassination or at the very least its coverup.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6067

James Rowley: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKrowleyJ.htm

[William Kelly]

Terrific review Bill. I also posted on your blog. So won't repeat myself here. I'd like to hear more abuout the agents who do beieve there was a conspiracy.

Thanks,

Dawn

http://surftofind.com/palamara AGENTS WHO BELIEVED IN A CONSPIRACY..b

Paul Rigby, on another forum, said that the list is a short one and only one - Bolden.

This, of course, is not true, as there are many Secret Service agents who believe and have maintained there was a conspiracy.

Vince Palamara: Secret Servi e Agnets who believed there was a conspiracy:

The following agents believed that there was a conspiracy involved in JFK's death (I use past tense only because most of them are now deceased):

1) Samuel A. Kinney- Sam told me this three times (he also stated that he found the notion of conspiracy "plausible" to the HSCA, based off the recently-released contact reports available thru the ARRB/ Archives). He thought Oswald was the lone shooter, although he stated emphatically that there were no missed shots (!)- he spoke to Connally about this and THE GOVERNOR AGREED WITH SAM! Sam also told me that the "right rear" of JFK's head was missing[he later recovered THE piece of the president's head on the C-130], and that his windshield (of the follow-up car) and left arm were splattered with blood and brain matter. Finally, whether hyperbole or not, Sam said "He had no brains left". Sam passed away 7/21/97 while vacationing in Iowa. His wife Hazel told me she regretted that Sam is now forever unable to tell more...;

2) Roy H. Kellerman- According to his widow June, Roy "accepted that there was a conspiracy"- this was based on June overhearing Roy's telephone conversation with someone from the HSCA in approx. 1977 or 1978. As we all know, Roy stated to the WC that "there has to be more than three shots, gentleman" and that a "flurry of shells" came into the car. Like Bill Greer, Roy is often added to the list of those witnesses who reported that the right rear of JFK's head was blasted. The above information was reported to author Anthony Summers for the Dec. 1994 "VANITY FAIR", p. 88 [uncredited]; you'll also find it in my book. Finally, Kellerman's daughter told Harold Weisberg in the 1970's that "I hope the day will come when these men [Kellerman and Greer*]will be able to say what they've told their families";

3) Abraham W. Bolden, Sr,- Abe is a firm believer in a conspiracy AND in Secret Service negligence. Also, Abe is adamant that there was a plot to kill JFK in Chicago in early November, 1963. I spoke to Bolden twice and corresponded at length with him between 1993 and the present. Bolden is currently working on his own book with his wife:);

4) Maurice G. Martineau- Abe's boss in the Chicago office, Martineau was equally adamant to me that a conspiracy took the life of President Kennedy. He also told me he finds the work of the HSCA much more valid than that of the WC. However, when it comes to info. on the Chicago plot, Martineau is afraid to give me details to this day...;

5) John Norris- a member of the uniformed division of the Secret Service, Norris is a fervent believer in a conspiracy, although one gets the impression this is more based on his beliefs than actual knowledge, but I could be mistaken. Still, his views and beliefs are important for obvious reasons;

6) *Bill Greer- despite many suspicions I have about Greer's conduct on 11/22-11/23/63, he is a "default" addition to this list. In addition to Kellerman's daughter's comments mentioned above, he is also among those witnesses who, at least indirectly, gave testimony that the right rear of JFK's head was missing. Also, to the HSCA, he had much misgivings about the "Single Bullet Theory". Still, this could just be guilty conscience- he expressed much guilt to Jackie Kennedy concerning his awful performance on Elm Street (which he would later deny to the FBI and the WC; even Greer's son Richard was adamant to me that his father had absolutely no survivor's guilt, despite these documented, very early guilt feelings. Even Dave Powers and Ken O'Donnell document Greer's early remorse ["Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye'; see also Powers interview by Charles Kuralt, 11/22/88 on video];

Also, Paul E. Landis, Jr., an agent in the follow-up car who, like agent Hill, was assigned to Jackie, stated twice that shots came from the front [18H755; 18H759];

In addition, agent Thomas "Lem" Johns, who rode in the V.P. follow-up car, told the HSCA that "the first two [shots] sounded like they were on the side of me towards the grassy knoll" [RIF 180-10074-10079]; Finally, SAIC of the Dallas office, Forrest V. Sorrels, riding in the lead car, believed the shots came from the front

Then there's Gerry O'Rourke, who lives near Gerald Blaine in Colorado:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15757

Ex-agent refuses to toe party line on JFK slaying

By Ellen Miller, Special To The News

November 20, 2003

GRAND JUNCTION - Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone when he killed

President John F. Kennedy, a retired agent said Wednesday, and the

president died because Secret Service agents failed at their jobs.

"Officially, the answer to Oswald when somebody asks - because we

were ordered to say it - is that the Warren Commission found that he

acted alone," retired agent Jerry O'Rourke said. "But was there more

than one gunman? Yes, personally I believe so. And my personal

opinion about Jack Ruby is that he was paid to kill Oswald."

O'Rourke grew up in Telluride and attended Western State and Regis

colleges, then spent 22 years in the Secret Service. Now retired and

back home, he spoke Wednesday to the downtown Grand Junction Rotary

Club.

O'Rourke said his group of agents, about 10 of them, had protected

Kennedy the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, at a breakfast speech in Fort

Worth. Then the group left by air for Austin, the next stop planned

for the president's Texas tour.

"We got the word (of the assassination) in the air, and we didn't

believe it at first," he said. "We were joking. But later, most of

the agents had tears in their eyes. Agents believed in Kennedy, and

we knew we failed our job in Dallas."

After his White House tour ended during Johnson's presidency,

O'Rourke spent a year in the Secret Service intelligence division,

which offered him glimpses into the investigation of Kennedy's death.

Those glimpses, and the accounts of other agents, have convinced

O'Rourke that Oswald didn't act alone. He cited several reasons:

Kennedy had a number of enemies, any of whom could have plotted

against him. They included Southerners angered by his insistence on

civil rights; organized crime; labor unions unhappy with

investigations of them by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy; Cuban

dissidents angry over the failed Bay of Pigs invasion; and FBI

Director J. Edgar Hoover.

The shots were impossible to make. O'Rourke learned to shoot as a

boy and trained as a marksman in the military. He said his visits to

Oswald's perch at the Texas Book Depository convince him that no one

could have fired a rifle three times so quickly, hitting the

president and Texas Gov. John Connolly.

The trajectory of one of the shots could not have been made from a

gunman on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository. The shot

entered Kennedy's body at his lower back and traveled up, to exit

near his throat.

The circumstances of the autopsy were irregular. Texas law requires

autopsies to be done in state, but agents, acting on the orders of

White House, took Kennedy's body back to Washington, D.C. The autopsy

was performed at Bethesda Naval Medical Center under secrecy that

prevails to this day.

Evidence was destroyed. O'Rourke said that on the day of the

assassination, one agent was ordered to clean out the cars used in

the motorcade, getting rid of blood and other evidence. The agent

told O'Rourke that he found a piece of skull, asked the White House

doctor what to do with it, and was told to destroy it.

Instructions were given to lie. The agent in charge of motorcade

protection told O'Rourke that he was told by the Warren Commission

during his testimony that he did not hear a fourth shot and he did

not see someone running across the grassy knoll. But the agent

insisted that his account was accurate.

Evidence about the shots is in conflict. An open microphone on a

motorcycle in the motorcade picked up four shots, not three.

"In my opinion, Hoover wanted the commission to find that Oswald

acted alone," O'Rourke said. "The complete file won't be released

until 2027, and the reason for that is most of us will be dead by

then."

[William Kelly]

I recently received copies of the Secret Service records that Gerald Blaine refers to in his book "The Kennedy Detail" and turned over to the NARA.

I've posted some of them at my blog and will post the rest when I can.

More to come - Bill Kelly

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/12/xsecret-service-records-thought.html

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/12/gerald-blaines-handwritten-notes.html

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-tampa-survey-report.html

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/12/implimenting-arrb-recommendations.html

Also see: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com

/

[Paul Brancato]

Bill - thank you so much for all your diligent and thoughtful work.