Vince Palamara
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Posts posted by Vince Palamara
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On 5/27/2018 at 5:10 AM, Paz Marverde said:
Thank you all for your help. We are on something BIG, about Dealey Plaza. That's why I'm asking
Hello, Paz!
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9 hours ago, David Lifton said:
Hi Vince:
A few hours ago, I completed a very careful reading of your entire write-up of Floyd Boring. I don't know how you manage to keep track of all these different details. Quite an accomplishment. And I really liked the video where you countered Clint Hill's statement(s) that he never received, or didn't bother to read, your letter, with you holding up a copy of the "return receipt" (which he signed).
Hill deserves credit for racing to the limo on 11/22/63, but a lot of his behavior since then has not been particularly admirable. Also, and as I'm sure you remember, Clint Hill apparently made a series of notes about 11/22/63; and during the period when he was seeing a psychiatrist, he was apparently advised that for sake of his mental health, he should destroy those notes; and so, he said (to Brian Lamb's considerable astonishment, as I recall) that he destroyed his notes! (Shades of Dr. Humes!)
Wouldn't it have been great had there been a serious Grand Jury investigation of all these issues and not the shallow and superficial questioning done by the Warren Commission? And had there been such an event, you would ave been ideal as an informal "advisor." What I found most interesting--and truly shocking--was your reporting about the Manchester materials at Wesleyan. And their statement that some of these key interviews won't be released until "2067". FYI: Around 1985, I attended the "Hofstra Conference" on the JFK Presidency. Dave Powers and others were there, and so was William Manchester. I vividly recall a scene in one of the reception areas, where William Manchester stood, surrounded by a circle of eager listeners (mostly students) and stating, quite forcefully, words to the effect that "I had so much information "against" Lyndon Johnson that, had it been released at the time, it could have prevented him from being re-nominated for the presidency in Atlantic City (referring to the August 1964 Democratic National Convention held in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Manchester never spelled out the specific of what his "information" was--just that it would ave prevented LBJ from being re-nominated.
DSL
6/3/2018 - 5:25 AM PDT
South Orange County, California
Thanks a lot, David; much appreciated.
I am baffled by Manchester's materials being tied up all that time; crazy. That is very interesting indeed about Manchester.
Vince
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5 hours ago, David Lifton said:
Sorry, Rich Pope, but its you who is wrong.
You write: “We have the newspaper clippings showing the parade route kept changing many different times in the Dallas Times Herald and the Dallas Morning News.”
Really. . . you do? (Or rather. . “we do”. . as you wrote). All very well, Rich, then lets see your clippings. (Really, I do look forward to see a story perhaps bearing a headline: “The Parade Route Has Changed. . . once again!”)
And by the way, in San Antonio, there was such a kerfuffle. There was such a public relations mess—in that city—and whether the motorcade woud go this way or that way through the area called “Alamo Plaza” (sound familiar?); that the headline in one of the major San Antonio papers actually read:
“The JFK Parade. . a route, or a rout?” (from memory)
But that was San Antonio; now back to Dallas where, as i recall, there was no such level of confusion.
As far as I know, and contrary to your asertion, the Dallas parade route did not “ [keep] changing” ; and your statement that it did (that it “kept changing many different times in the Dallas Times Herald and Dallas Morning News") is flat out incorrect.
SOME DEFINITIONS. . .
Let’s start with the basics, your ue of the word “many.” The dictionary defines many as “numerous, a great good deal of, a lot of, countless, innumerable, scores of, crowds of, droves of, an army of, multitude…” etc etc.
Rich, let’s set asid the word “many”. Can you produce “any”??
Can you produce a single news dispatch from the Dallas Times-Herald or Dallas Morning News that supports your claim?
Back around 1969 —plus or minus—I spent months in front of a Bell and Howell microfilm reader at the UCLA Research Library and created complete newspaper files from each of the two newspapers in each of the five cities JFK was schedule to visit, so I know what the underlying record looks like. Perhaps you can produce one story that says —for example—that the motorcade would (or “might”) proceed down Main Street en route to the Trade Mart. Something vague or imprecise like that. But the only authoritative stories were the ones produced starting on Tuesday, November 19, 1963, when—in Washington, D.C.—the White House press office (i.e., Pierre Salinger) released detailed information about the parade routes for all five cities that JFK was to visit on his upcoming two-day five-city Texas trip. This information was released simultaneously for all five cities, and in each case, the routes were published in the relevant cities to be visited—i.e., San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas and Austin.
If you believe you’ve found evidence that contradicts what I’ve just said, I invite you to produce it right here, on this forum. Conceivably, I missed a particular news clipping, and should that be the case, I’d like to know it.
SOME RULES FOR DEBATING THIS ISSUE. . . .
You know, Rich, legitimate debate about a historial issue is not some kind of poker game where you can make assertions about what you believe to be some truth, but then say, “This is what I believe, but I’m just not going to waste the time to show you the cards that I’m holding.”
Yet you write as if it was. Rather than provide evidence to support your assertions, you write: “I'm not going to waste time re-typing what has already been published.” Well, I have news for you: if you wish to be believed, then you’re going to have to take the time and show us your evidence.
ABOUT “PRESUMED GUILTY”
One other matter. You cite Howard Roffman’s book 1976 book “Presumed Guilty.” FYI: Roffman used to correspond with me when he was a high school student, was absolutely transfixed by the assassination, and went on to write “Presumed Guilty.” All very well, but Roffman’s highly analytic book, as I recall, was largely devoted to establishing (his view that) LHO couldn’t have been at the sixth floor window and then downstairs at the coke machine, some 90 seconds (or less) later. Now that’s a debatable proposition, but here’s my point; if you are so enamoured of his book, please do retrieve it from your book shelf, and either type into a post those passages in which you believe he argues that the parade route changed “many” times (and, presumably, presents evidence for that assertion); or just use your iphone and take a picture of the page. Frankly, I don’t recall Roffman arguing that point, but perhaps I’m incorrect. So again, show us your evidence.
THE REAL FOCUS OF ROFFMAN’S BOOK
For those reading this post and interested in the subject: what Roffman does do is present evidence from the Warren Commission’s internal “office files” (which I examined in great detail at NARA around 1970), that within a month or two of the creation of the WC, the staff was working off a series of official “outlines” (just like a student who writes a term paper starts by creating an outline). Roffman shows that their starting point, as established by these outlines, reeked with the presumption that the assassin was LHO, firing from the 6th floor SE corner window.
From whence comes the title of his book. . .
The listing at Amazon for this book, has some half-dozen very interesting reviews. Most of them positive.
Back in 1970, when I was in Washington studying these WC “office files,” It was sobering to see outlines written by David Belin dated January 1964, which outlined the work to be done, and which assumed that Oswald was “the assassin.”
So the title of the book was certainly justified, but that doesn’t mean that the parade route was changed multiple times prior to the official announcement(s) that were released in all five cities of the Texas tour on November 19, 1963, and I doubt very much that there are newspaper clippings that would prove that to be so.
DSL
6/2/2018 - 5 PM PDT
South Orange County, California
Hi, David!
Please see my latest post
Secret Service Agent Floyd Boring…is very interesting, indeed.
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On 5/27/2018 at 2:10 AM, Joseph McBride said:
I write about this crucial decision at length in INTO THE NIGHTMARE. The decision to choose the Trade Mart as the luncheon location was made in Eugene Locke's law office in Dallas on Nov. 14. Kenneth O'Donnell made the final decision, with the complicity of the Secret Service (Lawson and Sorrels) and Governor Connally and perhaps also Locke. Jack Puterbaugh was representing O'Donnell at that meeting in Dallas. Yes, they could have gone through Dealey Plaza to the Trade Mart while bypassing Elm Street and putting a wooden ramp from Main leading to the freeway entrance ramp, but the choice of the Trade Mart made the dogleg onto Elm Street appear all but inevitable. Eugene Locke isn't talked about much, but he was one of those "Mr. Everywhere" guys -- a crony of LBJ, an old friend of Henry Wade, and the chairman of the State Democratic Executive Committee in Texas. LBJ rewarded him with the Medal of Freedom, the ambassadorship to Pakistan, and the post of deputy ambassador to South Vietnam (at various times, Mary Ferrell worked in his law firm, as did, after Locke's death, George W. Bush's personal lawyer and failed Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers); Locke even served as Marie Tippit's attorney after the killing of her husband.
One of the surprises of my research was finding that O'Donnell evidently was the inside man on the plot at the White House. He and the Secret Service also stole Kennedy's coffin from the hallway at Parkland Hospital at gunpoint to avoid having an autopsy done by Dr. Earl Rose in Dallas, as was legally required (I think the coffin may have been empty at that point, and from the plotters' point of view, it would have been worth a gunfight to conceal that, which would have exposed the plot). O'Donnell lied to the Warren Commission about the direction of the shots; he later told Tip O'Neill that he heard two shots from behind the fence but "testified the way [the FBi] wanted me to. I just didn't want to stir up any more pain and trouble for the family . . . everybody wanted this thing behind them." What was O'Donnell's motive for his various acts of disloyalty? According to Seymour Hersh's DARK SIDE OF CAMELOT, O'Donnell had been disparaging the president and was going to be fired on Monday, Nov. 25, by JFK at the White House for corruption (skimming of campaign contributions by O'Donnelll and two others). This part of Hersh's book (which in some sections admittedly has serious problems) seems to be based on strong evidence from Kennedy presidential campaign and Democratic National Committee operative Paul Corbin and journalist Charles Bartlett, a close friend of JFK's, who called O'Donnell "the bagman" for the corruption and said Corbin had signed statements he took to RFK and JFK. O'Donnell began a long slide into alcoholism after the assassination, and that led to his premature death in 1977. His daughter's book reports that he was always "haunted" by Dallas and blamed himself for choosing the motorcade route through Dealey Plaza: "His decision would haunt Kenny for the remainder of his life." O'Donnell would tell his wife, "I let him down. I failed. I let him down." As Mort Sahl put it, President Kennedy "had a strange group of friends. Remarkably absent when he fell."
Hi, Joseph! There is a very interesting tidbit about O'Donnell in my latest post
Secret Service Agent Floyd Boring…is very interesting, indeed.
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On 5/26/2018 at 3:31 PM, James DiEugenio said:
Paz:
In my opinion, the best answer to this is in Vince Palamara's book. From my cheesy web site, this is part of my review of Survivor's Guilt which addresses the issue.
Chapter 4 is devoted to the setting of the motorcade route. This is a key point. Because as anyone who has been to the Dealey Plaza, triple underpass site will know, the two turns made by the motorcade into the plaza, onto Houston and then Elm, created an almost ideal situation for what military assassins call an L shaped ambush. That is a slow moving target, vulnerable to snipers from concealed places at three points surrounding the target. In addition, the location allowed for easy exits since there were parking lots adjoining at least two sniper locations: the Depository and the grassy knoll. Palamara does some good and interesting work in regard to the mystery of how this bizarre, indefensible route was chosen. He states that considering the fact that agent Gerald Behn, White House assistant Ken O'Donnell and Kennedy advance man Jerry Bruno were all opposed to the Trade Mart as the dinner destination, its seems odd that it was ultimately chosen. (pgs. 98-101) As late as November 14th, there was no dogleg on the motorcade route. The route came straight down Main Street. (ibid, p. 102)
The author makes the case that the two men who added the dogleg onto Houston and Elm Streets were Secret Service agents Forrest Sorrels and Winston Lawson. There were other routes possible, and the motorcade route was not automatically determined by the selection of the Trade Mart. (ibid, p. 103) Palamara later adds that the final route was not actually decided upon until November 20th. He feels that this change, which included the dogleg, was kept secret after being authorized in Washington by agent Floyd Boring. In a suppressed Commission document the author found, the assistant police chief, Charles Batchelor, revealed that the secrecy about this change in the route made it hard for the local authorities to furnish any help to the Secret Service. (p. 105) Another witness, Sgt. Sam Bellah told the author that the police did not know about the route change until the evening of November 21st. Bellah said the original plan did not have the motorcade pass in front of the Texas School Book Depository. Bellah said that his commander, Captain Lawrence, came to his home late on the evening of the 21st. He took him to the triple underpass to show Bellah the new route for the motorcycle advance escort, of which Bellah was a part. (ibid) Bellah said that there was never any explanation as to why the route was changed at the last moment.
Another local policeman, Captain Orville Jones told author Larry Sneed the same thing. That the motorcade route was changed just prior to the 22nd. Jones told the author that many people he knew in the Secret Service did not approve of going through Dealey Plaza at all. There were other routes discussed which avoided the triple underpass. (ibid)
Another witness to this strange alteration was motorcycle officer Bobby Joe Dale. Dale said that there was more than one route discussed and reviewed by the police. In fact, three had been bandied about. Dale said it was not until Kennedy's arrival at Love Field that morning that he was alerted to what the actual route was going to be. (ibid, p. 106)
Winston Lawson told the Warren Commission that the dogleg was necessary, "Because it is my understanding there isn't any entrance to the freeway on Main Street." (ibid, p. 108) But as the HSCA correctly noted, " ... the Trade Mart was accessible from beyond the triple underpass in such a way that it was not necessary to enter the Elm Street ramp to the expressway. The motorcade could have proceeded westward through Dealey Plaza on Main Street, passed under the underpass and then proceeded on Industrial Boulevard to the Trade Mart." (ibid) In fact, this is the route that Jones thought Kennedy would take that day. As the HSCA attorney in charge of the motorcade route inquiry wrote, "Any map of Dallas in 1963 shows that it was easy to reach the Trade Mart on streets that join Main on the West side of the overpass."
Compounding this shockingly poor choice of a route was the fact that Secret Service protocol was then broken while it was being navigated. Two years before Kennedy's murder, Mike Torina, Chief Inspector, stated that whenever a motorcade must slow down for a turn, the entire intersection must be checked in advance.(p. 109) That did not occur here.
James Rowley wrote to the Commission that he had no knowledge of who actually released the motorcade route to the press. This seems another deception by Rowley. Palamara says it was Betty Forsling Harris a Dallas socialite on the local committee, who did so. She was working closely with representatives of John Connally, the Secret Service, and LBJ aide Bill Moyers. Palamara concludes that this false information was given out for purposes of plausible deniability. That is, the Secret Service could later say that the route was purposely advertised in more than one configuration to show that there was more than one option in hand. When, in reality, the Secret Service knew between November 18th and 20th what the actual route was, including the dogleg.
This is a quite disturbing issue. In and of itself it seems simply bizarre that Lawson and Sorrels would choose this incredibly dangerous route. But then to not protect the president as he was going through this dangerous path is even more bizarre.
Once this route was chosen, then the only way it could be made secure was by the Secret Service being supplemented by local law enforcement agents i.e. the police, the sheriff's office, military intelligence. Again, none of this happened. According to the author, Sheriff Decker told his men not to participate in any security operations. Palamara then writes that the local Dallas police force was called off the night before by the Secret Service. (p. 118) Captain Will Fritz was supposed to commander a detail riding behind the Vice-President with rapid-fire machine guns. According to two sources, this was changed the night before. Instead, this detail was sent to the Trade Mart to protect the speaker's stand.
Palamara now brings in witnesses like former Eisenhower press secretary Jim Haggerty, and former agent Darwin Horn who state that supplementing the Secret Service with local police was a common practice. He then quotes Winston Lawson as denying this before the Warren Commission under oath. His specific words were, "This was not usual procedure." (ibid)
Palamara now makes a penultimate point about the arrangement of the motorcade. Military aide Godfrey McHugh almost always rode in the president's car on these occasions. Yet, in Dallas, another anomaly took place. In Dallas, he was asked by the Secret Service "for the first time" to "ride in the back, instead, as normally I would do, between the driver and the Secret Service agent in charge of the trip." (p. 119) The reason given was this would allow the president fuller exposure to the crowd. As Air Force aide, one of McHugh's duties was to supervise Air Force One.
Finally, the author notes that Batchelor told the Commission that he did not think any local authorities were in place below Houston Street. He then quotes William Manchester as writing, "Possibly [Police Chief] Curry's department met its responsibilities by deciding to end supervision of Friday's crowd at Houston and Main, a block short of the ambush ... " Manchester then added, perhaps for ironic effect, "The weakest link in downtown Dallas was Dealey Plaza." (p. 120)
As Palamara points out with detailed accuracy, everything about this route, from its unnecessary choice, to the lack of supporting personnel, to the violation of protocol, to the secrecy about which route was actually to be used, to the almost incredible lack of protection at its most exposed point, cried out for a thorough investigation. To put it mildly, that did not happen.
Hi, Jim! Please see my latest post
Secret Service Agent Floyd Boring…is very interesting, indeed.
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Secret Service Agent Floyd Boring...is very interesting, indeed.
(click on images to enlarge)
The Secret Service agent I am most suspicious of is Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAIC) of the White House Detail Floyd M. Boring, the #2 man on the detail, behind SAIC Gerald Behn and ahead of #3 man Roy Kellerman.
Boring joined the Secret Service during the FDR era (right after Joe Kennedy Sr. was let go as Ambassador to the UK) and famously protected President Harry Truman from an assassination attempt on another November day 13 years before Dallas (11/1/50). Interestingly, Boring also guarded a young Congressman Kennedy in 1952 when President Truman was riding with JFK in the back seat of his limo! There were only about 200 agents in the Secret Service then and only about three dozen of them were White House Detail (and Boring was famous from all the press and honors he received for thwarting the assassination CONSPIRACY by two gunmen), while JFK was already famous: they knew about each other already for sure:
Boring (falsely) adamantly denied that JFK was a womanizer in his JFK Library oral history (a pattern of lies and strange statements that is common to the man):
(From the 1976 JFK Library Oral History interview only released in 1999 thanks to my efforts in conjunction with Bill Adams)
Yet, Boring knew; he had to have known. In fact, here he is IN FRONT OF Marilyn Monroe the night she sang "Happy Birthday" to the President! (the large photo shows the president's brothers-in-law, Stephen Smith and Peter Lawford, along with aides Larry O'Brien and Ken O'Donnell. The agent on the staircase is Bob Lilley)
Ole LBJ knew who Boring was, but we are (perhaps?) getting ahead of ourselves a little (this photo hung in Boring's home office):
I popularized/discovered the fact that, unbeknownst to many, Floyd Boring just happened to be IN CHARGE OF PLANNING THE TEXAS TRIP!
Before you can catch your breath on that one, I also popularized/discovered the fact that, again unbeknownst to many, Floyd Boring also just happened to be IN CHARGE OF ALL THE ADVANCE WORK, ADMINISTRATION, AND PLANNING OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S TRIPS!
(From the 1976 JFK Library Oral History interview only released in 1999 thanks to my efforts in conjunction with Bill Adams)
(From Boring's 1988 Truman Library Oral History that I received via snail mail in 1998 (unknown to millions beforehand) and now available online since around 2008)
Lead advance agent Winston Lawson admitted having many conversations with Boring (and Kellerman) during his HSCA interview that was only released in the late 1990's:
An overlooked comment made by Winston Lawson during his Warren Commission testimony- he didn't know if he actually gave his recommendations about the speech site selection in Dallas (crucial to the eventual route chosen and security) to SAIC Behn (who adamantly opposed the Trade Mart): he gave the information to his office- one of the two assistants, Boring and Kellerman (both unnamed here):
Boring gave Lawson the Dallas assignment on 11/4/63:
For his part Boring was on the 3/23/63 Chicago trip (were threats were found for JFK), the cancelled Chicago trip (cancelled due to threats), AND the 11/18/63 Florida trip (also rife with threats):
As posted elsewhere, the 11/18/63 Florida trip was also the one where both agents Tim McIntyre and Glen Bennett denied being a part of, despite the photo, film and written record (although much of it was not known or released until many years later):
In fact, Boring was a veteran of many of JFK's trips in person, as well (such as when he rode on the follow-up car in Berlin in June 1963 and saw the agents on the rear of the limo, proper motorcycle formations, press photographers riding in a flatbed truck in front, SAC Behn in the limo with the military aide, police and military lining the street, and building rooftops guarded):
Yet, strangely, when I suggested that the ARRB get in touch with Boring, the former agent, who first told me "I didn't have any involvement in that [the Texas trip] at all", started the interview with Doug Horne off on a similar strange note, sounding almost like a guilty suspect! He also flat out lies and says that he escorted LBJ on his helicopter back to the White House, but this was RUFUS YOUNGBLOOD, the unofficial new SAIC of Johnson's detail, NOT Boring! He then adds/ admits that he gave Lawson the Dallas assignment:
Boring was at Andrews Air Force Base when the casket allegedly containing JFK's body was placed into the grey Navy Ambulance and, by his own admission, he-along with former OSS man Paul Paterni, Deputy Chief- went to the White House garage to inspect the bloody presidential limousine (Paterni worked with Ray Rocca, later CIA liaison to the Warren Commission):
The JFK Library (and, more than likely, Clint Hill himself) came to Boring's "rescue" by recently (2016) posting two photos of LBJ's arrival and claiming that Boring is in the two photos. However, the gentleman they have coming off the helicopter is definitely NOT Boring (the same man appears in the second photo) and the gentleman with his back to the camera who is NOT in the first photo-presumably the other candidate for Boring- is definitely NOT Boring, either: the hair on the back of the man's head (conveniently hidden face) and the color of his suit do not match (the real Boring, from the above AAFB photo, is inset for comparison):
Incredibly, as I posted a few years back, this is not the first time the JFK Library (and Clint Hill) mistakenly identified Boring...the other time was at LOVE FIELD, yet the agent was actually---get this---DON LAWTON, the agent infamously recalled at Love Field by Emory Roberts!! Please see:
To my knowledge, after years of accessing the JFK Library's thousands of pages, no other agent was wrongly identified (and, trust me, I checked and rechecked)...only Mr. Boring: twice!
One can sometimes not realize the ramifications of something written years ago and literally under their own nose until the right context comes about. Well, the context came last night in the form of a very predictable one-star review from former Secret Service agent (and dear Gerald Blaine friend and colleague) Chuck Zboril. I harken back to a famous line (one of many) in the Oliver Stone movie “JFK”, wherein Kevin Costner , after making a vital point buried in the 26 volumes of the Warren Commission, says (paraphrased) “but the idea gets shuffled around and the point gets lost.”
TURN TO PAGE 121 OF MY OWN BOOK “SURVIVOR’S GUILT”:
“Blaine even erroneously thought [SAIC Gerald] Behn was on the Florida trip, a testament to the frequency of his [Behn’s] trips with the president.” [author’s interview with Blaine 2/7/04]
TURN TO PAGE 294 OF MY OWN BOOK “SURVIVOR’S GUILT”:
“Zboril was sure that Kellerman, who wasn’t even on the Florida trip, was present in Tampa: “I thought it was Roy Kellerman, not Boring, in the car on the Tampa trip…that’s my recollection.” [author’s interview with Chuck Zboril 11/15/95]
Beyond just the general credibility gap issues, by this specific “recollection” of a supervisory agent OTHER THAN FLOYD M. BORING having been on the Florida trip and having rode in the presidential limousine, these two fine gentlemen have, independent of one another, totally impeached ole Blaine’s book “The Kennedy Detail” even further: how can Blaine write so authoritatively that he heard BORING over the radio relaying JFK’s alleged instruction to remove Zboril and Lawton from the rear of the limousine WHEN HE CAN’T EVEN GET THE NAME OF THE ACTUAL AGENT IN CHARGE OF THE TRIP AND RIDING IN THE PRESIDENTIAL LIMOUSINE CORRECT?
Likewise, how in the world can Zboril vouch for Blaine and his book when he, perhaps in an even worse case of “faulty memory”, ALSO CANNOT GET THE NAME OF THE ACTUAL AGENT IN CHARGE OF THE TRIP AND RIDING IN THE PRESIDENTIAL LIMOUSINE CORRECT…AND BORING WAS THE AGENT WHO ALLEGEDLY RELAYED THIS ORDER/ KIND ANECDOTE/ PRESIDENTIAL WISH (TAKE YOUR PICK) *TO* ZBORIL!
As an important aside (if it even is, considering all the above):
CHUCK ZBORIL AND THE WARREN REPORT:
Chuck Zboril recently stated on Amazon.Com that Agent David Grant was NOT an advance agent on JFK’s trip to Florida. THE WARREN REPORT even states that Agent David Grant was indeed an advance man on JFK’s trip to Tampa (WR page 445). Zboril thought ASAIC Kellerman, not ASAIC Boring, was on the Florida trip (Palamara, page 294) . Gerald Blaine thought SAIC Gerald Behn, not ASAIC Floyd Boring, was on the Florida trip (Palamara, page 121)….it was ASAIC Floyd Boring alone.
But back to the limousine inspection Boring and Paterni chose to do: Kellerman told the HSCA the following (again, in an interview not released until years later)
Boring told the ARRB about the inspection:
"Skull bone in the rear of the follow-up car"? Yes---and Boring is corroborated on this matter by JFK White House Physician Dr. James Young, who even reached to former Warren Commission member Gerald Ford about this!
Miami SAIC (and former White House Detail agent) John Marshall was a very interesting character, indeed. He had worked with Boring before their Secret Service days when the two of them were Pennsylvania State Troopers, worked with Floyd on many occasions while in the Service, took the time to call out Boring in the first place-more than once- in his interview, noted a stick of dynamite found on JFK's motorcade route to the Orange Bowl in December 1962 the day before he was to attend (and that Ken O'Donnell knew about it, yet the motorcade and event still went on-calling Joseph McBride!), and stated, stunningly, that the Secret Service might have been involved in the assassination! Also included is Boring's reaction to this when confronted by the ARRB.
Boring was also stunned (perhaps even more) by these statements from Inspector Thomas Kelley:
Along with Boring being in charge of planning the Texas trip (and all prior trips, in general), he is also infamous (as I popularized) for conveying the false notion that JFK ordered the agents off the limo in Tampa...therefore, they shouldn't ride there in Texas, we are to assume, as there is nothing from the record that ever alleges that he said anything during the Texas trip 11/21-11/22/63. As there is 0.0 evidence that this occurred on any other trip or was documented in any written or audio/visual record, we are supposed to believe these April 1964 reports when the dead president could no longer defend himself (and many other agents and aides weren't contacted about this):
As I wrote in tremendous detail in chapter one of my first book (and expanded even further in my third book), of the five Secret Service reports, four have as their primary source for JFK’s alleged request agent Boring, including one by Boring himself, while the remaining report, written by Mr. Behn, mentions the same 11/18/63 trip with Mr. Boring as the others do. Boring’s report was the first one written, then came one each from Roberts, Ready, Behn, and Hill, respectively (Hill, Ready and Behn weren't even on the Tampa trip, while Roberts merely conveys the fact that Boring was his source). Both Behn and Boring totally contradicted the contents of their reports at different times, independent of each other, to the author. In addition, agents did ride on the rear of the limousine on 7/2/63 and 11/18/63 anyway, despite these alleged Presidential requests, as the film and photo record proves. Both the Secret Service Final Survey Report for the 11/18/63 Tampa trip, written by Gerald Blaine and dated 12/4/63, after the fact, as well as the corresponding Secret Service shift reports, make no mention of any presidential orders to have the agents stay off the limousine: “no unusual incidents occurred”, wrote Blaine. With Boring joining Behn in refuting the substance of their reports, the official Secret Service ‘explanation’ falls like a house of cards. Behn’s, Boring’s, and Hill’s reports are not even on any Secret Service or Treasury Dept. stationery, just blank sheets of paper. In fact, as noted above, Hill’s report is undated, a bizarre error to make in an official government report written by request of the head of the Secret Service. All are supposedly evidence of JFK expressing his desire to keep Secret Service agents off the limousine, particularly in Tampa, Florida on 11/18/63. Importantly, no mention is made of any alleged orders via President Kennedy’s staff, or of JFK requesting anything on the critical day, November 22. What’s more, Secret Service agents and/or police officers always guarded the rooftops of buildings during motorcades before the assassination (not just as a result of the tragedy), effectively augmenting or, in the absence of agents by the limousine itself, replacing them, depending on manpower issues and so forth. Chief Inspector Michael Torina, whom the author contacted, wrote the Secret Service manual and confirmed this security procedure as a fact.
Speaking of Hill...
Clint Hill's strangely undated report (on a blank sheet of paper instead of Treasury stationary, to boot) TWICE states that he did not know who from the office of the White House Detail conveyed this "order" [note: report slightly cut off in original]:
As I noted in my first book, what makes this doubly strange is the fact that his (obviously pre-rehearsed) Warren Commission testimony with Arlen Specter was done the previous MONTH when this report, undated or not, was submitted...and he reveals the name here: FLOYD BORING-
In a possible one-two punch, acclaimed author William Manchester coveys as much in his massive best-seller The Death of a President:
However, Floyd Boring, on two occasions, adamantly denied that he ever spoke to Manchester (which is backed up by his name NOT being mentioned in the interview section of the book) AND, shockingly, that JFK did not order the agents off his limo! He was forceful in conveying to me that President Kennedy was a very nice man and never interfered with their actions at all:
[Boring can be heard right after Kinney's denials and right before SAIC Behn's denials, among several others:]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgVYcyixXgA&t=872s
Uh oh---guess who Manchester DID speak to? GERALD BLAINE, the obscure author of THE KENNEDY DETAIL (well, he was very obscure until this totally unknown agent scored a Simon & Schuster book deal which became a best-seller, along with an Emmy-nominated documentary of the same name and a since-scrapped movie deal):
Blaine is credited here, yet his name does not appear in the actual text anywhere; very strange, indeed. Blaine confirmed to me in 2005 that he did indeed speak to Manchester and, furthermore, out of the many agents Manchester spoke to (not as many as I, but still pretty good), Blaine is singled out AGAIN as one of the FEW agents thanked in Manchester's OTHER JFK book!
So, what's the problem (other than--ahem--Blaine appearing to be THE SOURCE FOR THE PHONY "JFK-ORDERED-US-OFF-THE-LIMO" crap)? Well, Blaine is now DENYING that he spoke to Manchester. While he confirms that Boring was not interviewed by Manchester (thanks, Jerry), his denial of being interviewed is a lie and he knows it...and I know it, too. For what it's worth, I contacted Wesleyan University, which houses the William Manchester collection (I spoke to Manchester in 1993 and he told me that all his records are sealed and won't be released in my lifetime. He has since passed away and quite a few, but not all, of his records are now available). The Blaine transcript is MISSING and they confirmed that there is NO TRANSCRIPT OF A FLOYD BORING INTERVIEW! Furthermore, some other agent and White House aide interview transcripts AND JACKIE KENNEDY'S won't be released until---get this---2067!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxZVgPIt05o
The man sitting next to Blaine in the above interview is, of course, Clint Hill. 2010 was a banner year for these men in more ways than one: Hill came clean and basically admitted that JFK didn't order them off the limo! During Clint Hill’s 11/19/10 Sixth Floor Museum oral history, the former agent revealed the full, unvarnished truth about JFK: he did not order the agents to do anything; they did what they wished to do, security-wise: “He can tell you what he wants done and he can tell you certain things but that doesn’t mean you have to do it. What we used to do was always agree with the President and then we’d do what we felt was best anyway. Here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs7yNVI9sOM&t=18s
If that weren't enough, on 9/18/96, by request of the author, the ARRB’s Doug Horne interviewed Mr. Boring regarding this matter. Horne wrote:
The author finds this admission startling, especially because the one agent who decided to ride on the rear of the limousine in Dallas anyway, on at least 4 different occasions, was none other than Clint Hill himself. This also does not address what the agents were to do when the crowds were heavier, or even what constituted a “crowd,” as agents did ride on the rear steps of the limousine in Tampa on November 18, 1963 (agents Donald J. Lawton, Glen A. Bennett & Charles T. Zboril, to be exact!) Furthermore, as noted above, both Clint Hill’s written report and his testimony surely convey a more strict approach than one stemming from an alleged kind anecdote. In fact, as mentioned above, Hill twice stated in his report that he did not recall who the agent was who told him, and the other agents, not to ride on the rear of the limousine, yet named him under oath to Counsel Specter: Floyd Boring.
The deathblow to the Tampa tale
The author wrote to former Florida Congressman Samuel Melville Gibbons1 on 1/7/04 and asked him if he had heard President Kennedy order the agents off the rear of the limousine. Gibbons rode in the rear seat with JFK and Senator George Smathers on the Tampa trip of 11/18/63.117 Here is Gibbons’ response in full, dated 1/15/04: “I rode with Kennedy every time he rode. I heard no such order. As I remember it the agents rode on the rear bumper all the way. Kennedy was very happy during his visit to Tampa: Sam Gibbons.”
An amazing document was released in the 1990’s concerning, among many other related topics, the issue of the agents’ presence (or lack thereof) on the limousine. This is a 28-page “Sensitive” memorandum from Belford Lawson, the attorney in charge of the Secret Service area for the HSCA, addressed to Gary Cornwell & Ken Klein dated 5/31/77 and revised 8/15/77. Apparently, Attorney Lawson was suspicious of Mr. Boring, for he wrote on the final page of this lengthy memorandum, “Subject: Florida Motorcades in November 1963 … Was Floyd Boring, the Senior SS Agent on the White House detail, lying to SS Agent Hill when he told Hill that JFK had said in Tampa … that he wanted no agents riding upright on the rear bumper step of the JFK limousine? Did JFK actually say this? Did Boring know when he told this to Hill that Hill would be riding outboard on the JFK follow-up car in Dallas on November 22, 1963? Did Boring say this to Ready or Roberts?” On page 27 of the same memo, Belford Lawson wrote, “Why did only one Agent, Hill, run forward to the JFK limousine?” [note: document slightly cut off in original]
From the 1976 JFK Library Oral History interview only released in 1999 thanks to my efforts in conjunction with Bill Adams:
Boring, who makes no mention of any alleged desires by President Kennedy to restrict security during his two presidential library oral histories, told the JFK Library on 2/25/76: “ … of all the administrations I worked with [FDR-LBJ], the president and the people surrounding the president were very gracious and were very cooperative. As a matter of fact, you can’t do this type of security work without cooperation of the people surrounding the president.” In addition, included are Chief Rowley and SAIC Gerald Behn's comments to the JFK Library also debunking the "staff" notion of interfering with the agency [the Behn oral history has been available for years, while Chief Rowley's only became available around 2005!]:
In addition to what Boring conveyed above to both myself and the JFK Library, he also wrote me a letter and stated that President Kennedy was "very cooperative with the Secret Service":
Yet, before we can catch our collective breath on all of this, Boring may have been influenced by Blaine and company late in life (he passed away in early 2008)- he told author Dan Robertson the following in 2006:
“He [JFK] was responsible for his own death.”--?!
For what it's worth, he did end his ARRB interview with the following predictable tidbit:
So, how DID ole Secret Service headquarters think about President Kennedy behind closed doors, so to speak? Part of the answer may lie in an obscure, out-of-print book from 1962 by Wayne Hyde (with, ironically, Boring on the cover) titled What Does A Secret Service Agent Do?
On page 14, Secret Service headquarters is depicted with a photo of President Eisenhower, not the then-current office holder, JFK, on the wall. An older photo, perhaps? No: for there is a disturbing sticker at the bottom left corner!
"I Miss Ike", huh? Imagine if today's Secret Service Headquarters had an "I Miss Obama" sticker: heads would roll...but, alas, no one on Earth noticed this but I, decades later.
Whether one believes Seymour Hersh or not (or the allegations in his book), one thing is certain: four Secret Service agents sat down for ABC Television cameras from the book and expressed their anger and disgust over President Kennedy's private life, including follow-up car agent Tim McIntyre:
Here he is again SPEAKING FOR EMORY ROBERTS (who passed away in 1973; Roberts is actually NAMED in Hersh's book in this anecdote McIntyre reveals here):
These agents--and many more---told me that President Kennedy did not order the agents off the limo, nor did he interfere with their actions at all (yes, that IS Gerald Blaine---he said this to me back in 2004-2005, several years before his book came out saying other things):
Oh, yes: Yeager was assistant advance agent in Tampa with GERALD BLAINE, the same trip FLOYD BORING was on!
I told you Boring was interesting!
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1 minute ago, Ron Ecker said:
Okay, I can see how that would work. At the meeting the police tell Lawson the motorcycle arrangement. Lawson says "Excuse me a minute," goes to the bathroom and gets on his radio to Boring. He comes back and says, "I was just thinking in there, that's too many motorcycles." Or something like that.
Yes----or the telephone (and perhaps orders/ wishes were relayed beforehand or shortly afterward).
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14 hours ago, Michael Clark said:
Vince, I have been trying to sort a tid-bit of JFK scheduling out. Perhaps you can help.
Regarding JFK's Hawaii trip, his schedule is of interest to me.
I have JFK arriving in Hawaii at 9PM Hawaii time on June 8, 1963; and departing at 5PM, on the next day, June 9th. That would be 11PM, Washington D.C. time.
He gave his American University speech on June 10.
Any idea as to what time he gave the AU speech?
Hi, Michael! I honestly do not know (which is humbling for me). There is an Australian researcher on my Facebook page (who is also a JFK fanatic and regularly posts at the WE LOVE OUR JFK ALWAYS forum) named MARK HENDERSON who is a savant on dates and times AND on every photo ever taken of JFK...he is amazing beyond words.
If anyone would know, HE WOULD. Either add him as a friend or go thru me on Facebook and I will pass it on. He is a genius on photos/dates.
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28 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:
Vince,
Would Lawson have been only following orders (from Boring?) in reducing the number of motorcycles and moving them back? How would Boring or whoever gave the order even have known what the local plan was regarding the motorcycle escort, as presented to Lawson at the meeting in Dallas on the night of the 21st? I would think it was Lawson acting on his own initiative (unless he was simply given a general order to see that motorcade security was reduced, which most agents would find rather odd).
.
Ron,
Keep in mind: telephones were within reach
I know we live in an iPhone/social media world today, but telephones, teletypes, two-way radios and wire services helped spread the news (especially in confidential ways) back then (re: Boring to Lawson). Boring gave Lawson the Dallas assignment and Lawson admitted he was in contact with him.
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On 5/27/2018 at 4:27 PM, Joseph McBride said:
The Industrial Boulevard route supposedly was considered too grungy for a presidential
motorcade, but they would have seen more voters than by whizzing along the freeway
to the Trade Mart. Still, by the time they reached Dealey Plaza, they had
been seen by many thousands of people downtown and on the way from the airport. There was also a time consideration. As it was, the motorcade
was running five minutes late as it entered Dealey Plaza. But the excuses don't
explain the decision to violate Secret Service protocol, which required the limousine
to not to go below 25mph. It was going about 11mph after the dogleg turn onto Elm Street..
Hi, Joseph! Big fan of your book! As I stated elsewhere, JFK motorcaded thru the slums of Caracas and thru Harlem...so Industrial Blvd was a piece of cake in comparison.
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On 5/27/2018 at 2:38 PM, James DiEugenio said:
Now, what I find intriguing about it all are the roles of Sorrels and Lawson before and after the assassination.
As Doug Horne titles a section of his book, IARRB, Volume five:
"The motorcycle escort for the Presidential Limousine in Dallas is Cut in Half, and Directed to Stay behind the Rear Wheels of the Limousine, by Winston Lawson, the Secret Service Agent for Dallas" (p. 1401)
Now, according to Horne's evidence, the original design of the cycle escort was four on each side of the limo. Grand total of eight. On November 21st, Lawson cut the total to four, and advised that the last two be aligned with the rear fender. (ibid, p. 1402) As Horne notes, this juxtaposed dramatically with what had happened in Houston the day before. There, the cops had 18 cycles, nine on each side. Motorcycle cop B. J. Martin affirmed that he had been so instructed at the airport to align himself in what he considered a weird formation. (ibid, p. 1404)
Now, Sorrels assisted Lawson as the advance man, and along with him approved the motorcade route. Well, as everyone knows, there is a big debate as to how Oswald got from the TSBD to his rooming house that day. One of the most questionable aspects is whether he was on a bus. Sylvia Meagher raised the most serious questions about this bus ride. Mary Bledsoe was the prime witness for that ride and recall she said Oswald looked like a maniac and his face was distorted.
Bledsoe appeared with an attorney before the WC. Her name was Melody Douhit. She had prepared a series of notes for Bledsoe to keep on the straight and narrow.. Those notes were prepared at the request of Sorrels. (https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/deeper-into-dave-perry)
I won't go into the whole Roberts/Rybka call off, or Rowley and the Perry cover up etc. The WC did an absolutely horrid job in their inquiry into the Secret Service. And to allow them to serve as the second most used investigative arm for their investigation was ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as letting the FBI serve as number one.
Jim, not to get off on a tangent, but DALLAS researcher Matt Douthit (a friend of mine on Facebook----and we actually communicate quite often haha) was stunned by this bit of news- when I alerted him to this, he posted "Whoa!!!!!Surely there has to be!!! I’ll look into it! Thanks!!" [Matt is coming out with a massive medical evidence/ pro-conspiracy book very soon; he is only 21 or so]:
Testimony Of Mary E. Bledsoe The testimony of Mary E. Bledsoe was taken at 9:30 a.m., on April 2, 1964, in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 Post Office Building, Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Messrs. Joseph A. Ball, David W. Belin, and Albert E. Jenner, Jr., assistant counsel of the President's Commission. Mrs. Mary E. Bledsoe was accompanied by her attorney, Miss Melody June Douthit.
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On 5/27/2018 at 10:58 AM, Mark Knight said:
Ron, that sounds quite reasonable. You don't route the President of the United States through the "rougher" parts of a city if there is an alternative route, IMHO. Every city wants the President to see their best side, not their worst. Basic human vanity at play here more than anything sinister, IMHO.
YES, I fully understand that this point of view like the legs out from under the point of view that "the plotters" put Oswald "in place" at the TSBD specifically to kill Kennedy. So be it.
Hi, Mark! Kennedy motorcaded thru the streets of Harlem and the slums of Caracas, Venezuela. Wherever the president goes, so do the people. Industrial Blvd was infinitely better than both Harlem and the slums of Caracas.
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On 5/31/2018 at 2:51 PM, Greg Wagner said:
I think it’s pretty hard to argue that Kennedy’s protection in Dallas was not compromised. In my opinion, the striking differences between Tampa on the 18th and Dallas on the 22nd are simply not explainable in any other way that makes sense.
We can go back and forth all day about the absurd route down Elm Street, the motorcycles being reduced, agents on and off the car, the bubbletop, Rybka, rooftops, windows, overpasses, brake lights, Thomas Shipman, partying the night before, the dearth of local law enforcement and MI personnel supplementing the Secret Service, the complete and total lack of security at the exact point in the route where Kennedy is most exposed and all the rest. Probably not all of these glaring deficiencies are nefarious, but if anyone thinks they were ALL just a bunch of crazy coincidences, then we will have to agree to disagree.
In my view, Vince and others have moved the ball far enough down the field that we are beyond endlessly debating all this.
The real questions we should be asking about the Secret Service at this point are:
1. Were any members of the Secret Service witting participants in the assassination? If so, who? Boring, Roberts and Lawson are intriguing candidates, but who would have approached them? That would have been awfully dangerous. And why would they go along with it?
2. If there was no witting participation by members of the Secret Service and Kennedy's security was compromised by a more subtle and sophisticated effort, then who was handled by whom? Where was the connection between the plotters and the Dallas trip planners / Secret Service? This would have been at a high level, with orders rolling down hill from there.
My opinion is that the perpetrators had one goal in Dallas and that was to kill Kennedy. Everything else was on the “not essential but nice to have” list. Getting the motorcade to come down Elm Street, chipping away at JFK’s protection any way they could think of and even executing the Oswald patsy angle were certainly elements of the operation. But none of them were show stoppers.
I have three suspects: Bill Greer, Floyd Boring, and Emory Roberts. Everyone else falls under the "following orders" category.
The CIA and Hoover's FBI were more powerful agencies. We cannot overlook their influence upon the Secret Service. 11/2 and 11/18 were missed opportunities; 11/22/63 was on target, literally and figuratively. Just chew on this: follow-up car agent Tim McIntyre's then-34 year old disgust with JFK's private life-part of a motive or rationalization to do nothing at the critical moment?:
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On 5/31/2018 at 11:01 PM, B. A. Copeland said:
Thanks for all you do Vince. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to your audios with Len lol. I hate to go there somewhat but you know that kind of character assassination reminds me of JFK Jr. after his plane crash. It seemed quite common, after his death, was how much of a risk taker he was, etc. Its just sad. Anyways, back on topic (apologies but really felt it was relevant with this seeming trend to Kennedy-bash postmortem....)
thanks a lot!
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On 5/31/2018 at 11:00 PM, Cory Santos said:
Vince, a good friend of mine is retired SS.
We debate JFK all the time.
I have found your site useful, he however will not look at it.
Just a thanks for the good work you have done.
THANKS!
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12 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:
There were a couple of guys further down the chain of command with intelligence links.
Deputy Chief of the SS Paterni was OSS in World War II, serving with Angleton and Rocca in Milan Italy maintaining his Secret Service position at the time in the War. He'd been in the SS since the late 30's.
Lawson, the advance agent, coordinating things on site eight days before the parade was in the Army Counter Intelligence Corps before joining the SS.
SG, pgs. 324 & 313.
Correct re: Paterni. I have more about him in my third book and upcoming fourth book:
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7 hours ago, Linda Giovanna Zambanini said:
It was SA David Grant. He did advance work in Dallas - is the oft forgotten partner of Lawson - and some reports say he was in on one of the Oswald interrogations, though i don't think he ever wrote a report about it. I think Vince said he was Clint Hill's brother-in-law. He died a few years ago. Here are some links to photos of him, an obit and a video. I queued up the video to begin at the point where he's helping load the casket onto AF-1.
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washingtonpost/obituary.aspx?fhid=4443&n=david-b-grant&pid=168833469
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1nIqthuIUY&feature=youtu.be&t=32Thanks, Linda! That is "my" video LOL (well, from my channel)
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5 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:
Linda,
Thanks. As I stated above, my memory was confused about which agent altered the motorcycle arrangement on the night of the 21st. It was Lawson, not Grant. That's according to deputy police chief Batchelor. I still seem to recall, though, Stevenson saying something about Grant in his report on the same meeting. May have been unimportant, but I can't find his report online and don't know where I read it.
It appears to have been Lawson. However, as the co-lead advance agent (Lawson's assistant), both working with planner-of-Texas-trip ASAIC Floyd Boring, I wouldn't rule Grant out as far as influence goes.
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31 minutes ago, David Lifton said:
Jim:
Where have you been?
If you followed Palamara's blog. or read his book, you would know that he established these facts years ago.
There was no "misconception" about the case.
All of this was laid out quite clearly years ago. (Maybe you were under a misconception?)
You should watch his video of what happened when Clint Hill was on C-Span, with Brian Lamb, and Lamb forced Hill to comment on Palamara's work.
DSL
Thanks a lot, David! I am really looking forward to your new book.
Vince
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45 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:
That is really good Vince.
You really corrected a misconception about the case.
Dallas was not the rule at all. It was an exception. And the fact that it was a hostile environment and they knew it beforehand, makes it all the worse.
Thanks a lot, Jim!
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6 years before Dallas, Ike and Queen Elizabeth received this outstanding protection in both New York and Washington, D.C.
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Please see my latest post SECRET SERVICE security and press coverage for JFK pre-11/22/63
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FDR ERA:
TRUMAN ERA
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20 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
Why were they lying Vince?
Please see my latest post
Secret Service security and press coverage for JFK pre-11/22/63
Who changed the motorcade route?
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Thank you for starting this excellent thread!