President Kennedy: the bubble top and all security issues dissected 1961-1963

[Steve Thomas]

42 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Steve:

That is interesting.  I just wonder did the FBI have ways of interfacing with military intel to get leads for the Security Index?

Jim,

 

See the Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice beginning on p. 20 of that document:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11249#relPageId=23&tab=page

 

I would be willing to bet the FBI had a similar, if not identical MOU on their end.

 

Steve Thomas

[Vince Palamara]

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 7:05 PM, Don Jeffries said:

Vince Palamara is one of the few in our fractured JFK assassination community doing real, worthwhile research. 

Thanks, Vince- know that a lot of us out here appreciate your hard work. 

  

Thanks a lot- you will love my upcoming 4th book (9/1/18). Much appreciated :)

[Vince Palamara]

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 1:59 PM, Steve Thomas said:

Vince,

 

You know, knowing that jFK was coming for a visit, it seems like the Dallas SS office would reach out and touch base with the 112th, and the FBI and the Dallas CID, but I've never read of that happening. The closest I've ever seen is the meeting Hosty had the morning of the 22nd with Coyle and I don't know who else; but they were meeting about something else. The arms thefts involving Masen and Darnell and Whitter, I think.

 

It's strange.

There's probably a whole avenue of research there, but I don't know how you would go about it. The SS field reports were probably among the batch of stuff the SS destroyed rather than turning them over to the ARRB.

 

Steve Thomas

Yes---the ARRB duly noted this terrible destruction of records.

What did survive is damning, though. Regarding the 11/21/63 San Antonio trip (based on the Secret Service Final Survey Report I obtained in 1998):

FORTY members of the military police from Ft. Sam Houston, Texas were used:
traffic control, motorcade route security, and intersection control;

police helicopter utilized along route;

many flanking motorcycles;

PRS subjects: 0 (like Dallas)...and yet, the Secret Service took extra precautions.

 

Vince

[Paz Marverde]

4 minutes ago, Vince Palamara said:

9/1/18

Now I know when 

[Vince Palamara]

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 7:21 PM, James DiEugenio said:

I agree with Don.

VInce is really going all out with these photographs.

I really appreciate this work and the fact he is making it public for everyone. 

Thanks so much, Jim! In the (recent) past, my posts were always "handicapped" by the fact that I couldn't figure out how to add images LOL...now that I have, I have been going crazy making up for lost time with these huge posts. No amount of TEXT and footnotes/ documentation can truly convey what a PHOTO can (in these instances)

 

Vince

[Vince Palamara]

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 8:39 PM, Pamela Brown said:

Great work, Vince.  Thanks for sharing.  

My pleasure I love your work on the limousine, Pamela! 

[Vince Palamara]

22 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

What I get from this, among other things, is that the bubble top was used quite often, and there are all kinds of versions of it, partial, two thirds, full.

And the partial one would not really have separated Kennedy from the crowds, which is the excuse the SS used for not putting it on that day, that was when they were in their "Blame Kennedy for his death mode."  Which they are still doing, right?

Its amazing looking at those pics just how much of a collapse Dallas was.  In every way.

As I have often said, in the JFK case, you really needed a prosecutor that was going to go head to head with these guys like Lawson, Sorrells, and Rowley.  At the very least, they all should have been fired. 

Exactly, Jim! Agents still alive- Blaine, Hill, LAWSON, Landis, Sulliman, Coughlin, Pontius, Burke, O'Rourke, Olsson, McIntyre and Woody Taylor (from the Texas trip and/or Dallas trip and/or motorcade). Frank Yeager and Blaine- still alive and they were the advance agents for Tampa. Also: Abe Bolden (of course).

 

[Vince Palamara]

8 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

Vince P. said: 

Duluth, MN 9/25/63 (this one doesn't "count" because it was raining at night):

HOWEVER- regarding the same Duluth, MN trip: Researcher Chad Carlson wrote to me regarding this very same trip: “I am friends with a man here who was in charge of JFK’s trip to Duluth, MN here in September of 1963. I ask him a lot about JFK. He got to talk oneon-one with the President for 30 minutes before he made his rounds and speeches. His name is Larry Yetka, former Minnesota Supreme Court justice. Larry said that he wondered what [Mafia boss] Sam Giancana of Chicago was up to on 11-22-63. I told him that I had been watching the motorcade in Dallas on 11-22-63 and told him it looked very “lax.” He said, “Yes it was.” So I asked him how was security in Duluth in Sept.1963? He said, “Tight as hell-men were on the rooftops even.”

So, Vince, are you seeing any sort of consistency in the motorcades one or two months prior to Dallas as to when there was extreme security and when it was lax?  

Also, do you have any reason for such tight security in an out-of-the way place such as Duluth, MN?  

Thanks...

I made the notation "doesn't count" about the bubbletop in this instance because one could argue "hey, it was raining that night!" That said, Larry Yetka (and, interestingly enough, a right-wing Kennedy hating little newspaper quoted in my first book) confirm that the security was tight and building rooftops were guarded.

As I note in a detailed chapter in my third book (and the main post), as well as (perhaps too briefly) my first book, THIS is how the Secret Service "got around" manpower issues and/or not looking like a police state: GUARDING MULTI-STORY building rooftops! This is why the "gotcha" game a couple people have done in the past doesn't fly. A perfect example: JFK's trip to Nashville, TN 5/18/63-

 

"Wow- Kennedy looks like a sitting duck! yikes!" NOT---[QUOTING MY MAIN POST ABOVE] SAIC of the Nashville office (and former JFK WHD agent) Paul Doster told the Nashville Banner on 5/18/63 that “a complete check of the entire motorcade route” was done for JFK’s trip to Nashville. In addition, Doster stated, “Other [police] officers were assigned atop the municipal terminal and other buildings along the route. These men took their posts at 8 a.m. and remained at their rooftop stations until the president and his party passed.” A helicopter was used on the route, as well.

This is what they did in San Antonio, Tampa, Paris, Berlin, Milwaukee, etc. etc. etc. I spoke to and corresponded with Chief Inspector Michael Torina WHO WROTE THE SECRET SERVICE MANUAL: he confirmed the veracity of a 1962 out-of-print book (again, see above) wherein it nonchalantly states that whenever the President is in a parade, agents and police guard buildings along the route! There is more than "just" that, but do you think his statement trumps any would-be debunkers?

Seriously, though- as I always have added during presentations: this is why a single still photo can be super misleading- the SPEED of the limousine cannot be gauged; rooftop security almost always is out of frame; police and detectives intermingling in the crowds themselves very rarely show in photos; etc.

Agents did NOT always ride on or near the rear of the limo...but they did a lot more than some people may think (and JFK had 0.0 to do with them not being there on 11/22/63);

motorcycles usually (not always, but quite often) surrounded the limo in good quantity and quality of formation;

BEHN or Boring, not JUST Kellerman on his own (the #3 man), were chiefly in charge of the trips;

The bubbletop was used in approximately ONE THIRD of all of President Kennedy's motorcades (in partial or full form and, as you can see above, only a few times in bad weather). Agent Sam Kinney was adamant to me on three occasions that he (Sam) was solely responsible for the top's removal on 11/22/63;

good protective intelligence mattered...and, allegedly, NO THREATS were found in Dallas...yet we know they found threats after the fact, in San Antonio, Fort WORTH (see main post, above), Tampa, Miami, etc. etc. etc. Finding no threats in Dallas is tantamount to going to the Bible Belt and finding no one who wished ill of Obama--yeah, right...even Kellerman told the WC it was unusual not to have found threats. Ya think?!

The short answer is: going back to the FDR days, multi-story buildings (including rooftops) were manned by agents and/or police. One story structures (as Tampa police motorcycle officer Russell Groover took great pains to explain to me [see my third book]) were adequately guarded AT STREET LEVEL via police and/or military and/or agents lining the streets and facing the crowds and ranch-style buildings AND by detectives circulating in the crowds themselves! The Tampa motorcade was TWENTY EIGHT MILES LONG: far longer than Dallas; the longest domestic motorcade JFK ever undertook (second only to another model of brilliant security, Berlin, overall)- agents on the limo, military aide in limo, buildings guarded, etc.

The blaming of JFK for no agents on the limo, the lack of motorcycles, etc, only adds to the suspicion, along with the agent recall video (of which I have more on the matter from Lawton in my fourth book).

Vince

[Vince Palamara]

ADDENDUM TO MAIN POST (ADDED THERE, AS WELL...but just in case you missed it);

Philadelphia, PA trip 10/30/63

Washington, D.C. 10/15/63---MILITARY AIDE, ASAIC BORING, military lining street:

Washington, D.C. 3/27/63--MILITARY AIDE, SAIC BEHN, military lining street, essentially THREE follow-up cars:

[Pamela Brown]

26 minutes ago, Vince Palamara said:

I made the notation "doesn't count" about the bubbletop in this instance because one could argue "hey, it was raining that night!" That said, Larry Yetka (and, interestingly enough, a right-wing Kennedy hating little newspaper quoted in my first book) confirm that the security was tight and building rooftops were guarded.

As I note in a detailed chapter in my third book (and the main post), as well as (perhaps too briefly) my first book, THIS is how the Secret Service "got around" manpower issues and/or not looking like a police state: GUARDING MULTI-STORY building rooftops! This is why the "gotcha" game a couple people have done in the past doesn't fly. A perfect example: JFK's trip to Nashville, TN 5/18/63-

 

"Wow- Kennedy looks like a sitting duck! yikes!" NOT---[QUOTING MY MAIN POST ABOVE] SAIC of the Nashville office (and former JFK WHD agent) Paul Doster told the Nashville Banner on 5/18/63 that “a complete check of the entire motorcade route” was done for JFK’s trip to Nashville. In addition, Doster stated, “Other [police] officers were assigned atop the municipal terminal and other buildings along the route. These men took their posts at 8 a.m. and remained at their rooftop stations until the president and his party passed.” A helicopter was used on the route, as well.

This is what they did in San Antonio, Tampa, Paris, Berlin, Milwaukee, etc. etc. etc. I spoke to and corresponded with Chief Inspector Michael Torina WHO WROTE THE SECRET SERVICE MANUAL: he confirmed the veracity of a 1962 out-of-print book (again, see above) wherein it nonchalantly states that whenever the President is in a parade, agents and police guard buildings along the route! There is more than "just" that, but do you think his statement trumps any would-be debunkers?

Seriously, though- as I always have added during presentations: this is why a single still photo can be super misleading- the SPEED of the limousine cannot be gauged; rooftop security almost always is out of frame; police and detectives intermingling in the crowds themselves very rarely show in photos; etc.

Agents did NOT always ride on or near the rear of the limo...but they did a lot more than some people may think (and JFK had 0.0 to do with them not being there on 11/22/63);

motorcycles usually (not always, but quite often) surrounded the limo in good quantity and quality of formation;

BEHN or Boring, not JUST Kellerman on his own (the #3 man), were chiefly in charge of the trips;

The bubbletop was used in approximately ONE THIRD of all of President Kennedy's motorcades (in partial or full form and, as you can see above, only a few times in bad weather). Agent Sam Kinney was adamant to me on three occasions that he (Sam) was solely responsible for the top's removal on 11/22/63;

good protective intelligence mattered...and, allegedly, NO THREATS were found in Dallas...yet we know they found threats after the fact, in San Antonio, Fort WORTH (see main post, above), Tampa, Miami, etc. etc. etc. Finding no threats in Dallas is tantamount to going to the Bible Belt and finding no one who wished ill of Obama--yeah, right...even Kellerman told the WC it was unusual not to have found threats. Ya think?!

The short answer is: going back to the FDR days, multi-story buildings (including rooftops) were manned by agents and/or police. One story structures (as Tampa police motorcycle officer Russell Groover took great pains to explain to me [see my third book]) were adequately guarded AT STREET LEVEL via police and/or military and/or agents lining the streets and facing the crowds and ranch-style buildings AND by detectives circulating in the crowds themselves! The Tampa motorcade was TWENTY EIGHT MILES LONG: far longer than Dallas; the longest domestic motorcade JFK ever undertook (second only to another model of brilliant security, Berlin, overall)- agents on the limo, military aide in limo, buildings guarded, etc.

The blaming of JFK for no agents on the limo, the lack of motorcycles, etc, only adds to the suspicion, along with the agent recall video (of which I have more on the matter from Lawton in my fourth book).

Vince

Thanks, Vince.  Fascinating.  I intend to follow up on the points you are making.

Have you thought about making a chart of the motorcade/parade date, whether security was tight or lax, and whether the bubbletop was up or not?  Could be helpful...

BTW, in the early 90's I got to watch the SS and their security first-hand in a visit of Gorbychev and Yeltsin to the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul.  There were men on all the buildings, which I found interesting because the 1K people or so in attendance were a really friendly bunch.  But there they were, peeking out from everywhere.  (But of course, there had been none of that in Dallas, where JFK had been repeatedly threatened.)

Pamela

[Pamela Brown]

1 hour ago, Vince Palamara said:

My pleasure I love your work on the limousine, Pamela! 

You're welcome.  I have a lot of work to keep up with you!  Keep those photos coming...:-)

[Pamela Brown]

For Vince P. (again),

Another question -- according to what you have heard from SS agents, was the bubbletop ever used for protection in a possibly hostile motorcade?  Did any of them ever talk about what they thought would happen if a bullet had hit the bubbletop?  Just wondering...

[Vince Palamara]

56 minutes ago, Pamela Brown said:

For Vince P. (again),

Another question -- according to what you have heard from SS agents, was the bubbletop ever used for protection in a possibly hostile motorcade?  Did any of them ever talk about what they thought would happen if a bullet had hit the bubbletop?  Just wondering...

Yes---several admitted it was a protective device and one--Larry Newman--specifically mentioned the Caracas trip. They said it would deflect a bullet, shield an assassin's view via the sun's glare, the metal strips would help and MANY PEOPLE--ALMOST EVERYONE---ASSUMED IT WAS BULLETPROOF...would an assassin or assassins have even tried with it on??!?! As I always say, if someone draws a gun on you, are you really going to reply "How do I know there's not just blanks in that thing." (see my bubbletop chapter in first book)

Edited June 12, 2018 by Vince Palamara

[Pamela Brown]

22 hours ago, Vince Palamara said:

Yes---several admitted it was a protective device and one--Larry Newman--specifically mentioned the Caracas trip. They said it would deflect a bullet, shield an assassin's view via the sun's glare, the metal strips would help and MANY PEOPLE--ALMOST EVERYONE---ASSUMED IT WAS BULLETPROOF...would an assassin or assassins have even tried with it on??!?! As I always say, if someone draws a gun on you, are you really going to reply "How do I know there's not just blanks in that thing." (see my bubbletop chapter in first book)

Thank you. I am relieved to hear this.