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At some point in the past few months, I recall reading an account of "odd" (or suspicious, to say the least) Secret Service behavior immediately following the shooting, as the limousine arrives at Parkland.

To my recollection, it involved an agent (I believe it was Emory Roberts) gruffly demanding that Jackie "get off" Kennedy, as she was shielding him from view and was obviously in great distress.

Also, either Roberts or another agent said something to the effect of "You can stay with him [JFK], we're going over to Johnson", despite the fact that Kennedy hadn't been officially declared dead yet.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? If so, please provide a link to the corresponding document/eyewitness account.

**As a sidebar, I've recently finished watching Vincent Palamara's video conference (and lectures) in which he effectively debunks all of these myths about the Secret Service on November 22nd, from their lack of protection to the bs about JFK "ordering" agents off the back of his limousine.

**For the sake of argument, if we assume that the Secret Service's actions had sinister implications (and not merely evidence of gross negligence), who precisely would be guilty? Roberts since he was in charge? Is there any other evidence to support this, besides the video of him waving off the other agents who were to stand on the back of the limousine as it rode through Dallas?

Much appreciated...

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At some point in the past few months, I recall reading an account of "odd" (or suspicious, to say the least) Secret Service behavior immediately following the shooting, as the limousine arrives at Parkland.

To my recollection, it involved an agent (I believe it was Emory Roberts) gruffly demanding that Jackie "get off" Kennedy, as she was shielding him from view and was obviously in great distress.

Also, either Roberts or another agent said something to the effect of "You can stay with him [JFK], we're going over to Johnson", despite the fact that Kennedy hadn't been officially declared dead yet.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? If so, please provide a link to the corresponding document/eyewitness account.

**As a sidebar, I've recently finished watching Vincent Palamara's video conference (and lectures) in which he effectively debunks all of these myths about the Secret Service on November 22nd, from their lack of protection to the bs about JFK "ordering" agents off the back of his limousine.

**For the sake of argument, if we assume that the Secret Service's actions had sinister implications (and not merely evidence of gross negligence), who precisely would be guilty? Roberts since he was in charge? Is there any other evidence to support this, besides the video of him waving off the other agents who were to stand on the back of the limousine as it rode through Dallas?

Much appreciated...

If you are serious about zeroing in on who within the Secret Service were invovled in the conspiracy I suggest that you discover who ordered the destruction of Secret Service Advance reports on Texas trip AFTER the JFK Act was approved by Congress and signed by President Bush I.

Bill Kelly

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Good point Bill. Otherwise we are stuck with endless speculation as to why Agents , as you can see in this picture who are obviously aware of the shots, did not move to protect the President.

1altgens.jpg

Or why Kellerman in the front passenger seat, as seen in this photo, or Clint Hill, who is also in this picture running immediately behind the president , didn't move until after the fatal shot. Hill can also been seen at times crouched on the rear of the presidential limousine.

CLINTHILL.jpg

In this picture , it looks to my like the Queen Mary is right on top of the presidential limousine.

1chrlim.jpg

Edited by Peter McGuire
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No one from the SS was involves in the assassination.

There was no security stripping in Dallas. That is demonstrable. Go to the Sixth Floor Museum and view its color movie of JFK's procession down Duval Street in Key West (where I live). The Secret Service protection in Key West was no more rigorous than it was in Dallas. Photographic evidence indicates the same thing re his other trips. Even in Tampa on Monday November the 18th where there was knowledge of a threat, JFK rode through the street STANDING up in an open convertible, past buildings as tall as the TSBD. He might have well have been wearing a "SHOOT ME" sign on his back.

Re the destruction of records, the logical explamation of that is simply a CYA manuever. One would have to be pretty gullible to assume that had there been SS involvement in the plot it was set out in SS documents and no one bothered to destroy them until the mid-nineties. Obviously, there would have been no documentation of plot participation in the first place but even assuming to the contrary it obviously would have been "sanitized" after the dead was done.

Just a reminder, folks: when you enter the realm of assassination research it is NOT necessary to first turn off that part of your brain that deals with logic and common sense.

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Welcome Michael.

Just in case you don't know, Vince Palamara has very kindly made both his first two books available online now.

http://www.assassinationresearch.com/contents.html

(Volume 4)

I think I read about that same incident you mentioned with Roberts & Jackie not too long ago, if memory serves it came from one of the nurses who rushed out to help get the president into the ER, although I doubt she would of known him by name so it may have been just "an agent"(I could have the source wrong though maybe Vince touched on it?).

I know for sure that Vince mentions the "switch to Johnson" incident.

As for "who's guilty?".

Roberts was only following orders, he may of been in charge on-site but not overall.

If he told individual agents to stay off the limo or, stay in the car as the shooting started, he was told to do that, most likely by Boring or someone even higher up the food chain.

At some point in the past few months, I recall reading an account of "odd" (or suspicious, to say the least) Secret Service behavior immediately following the shooting, as the limousine arrives at Parkland.

To my recollection, it involved an agent (I believe it was Emory Roberts) gruffly demanding that Jackie "get off" Kennedy, as she was shielding him from view and was obviously in great distress.

Also, either Roberts or another agent said something to the effect of "You can stay with him [JFK], we're going over to Johnson", despite the fact that Kennedy hadn't been officially declared dead yet.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? If so, please provide a link to the corresponding document/eyewitness account.

**As a sidebar, I've recently finished watching Vincent Palamara's video conference (and lectures) in which he effectively debunks all of these myths about the Secret Service on November 22nd, from their lack of protection to the bs about JFK "ordering" agents off the back of his limousine.

**For the sake of argument, if we assume that the Secret Service's actions had sinister implications (and not merely evidence of gross negligence), who precisely would be guilty? Roberts since he was in charge? Is there any other evidence to support this, besides the video of him waving off the other agents who were to stand on the back of the limousine as it rode through Dallas?

Much appreciated...

Edited by Alan Healy
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"Roberts was only following orders, he may of been in charge on-site but not overall.

If he told individual agents to stay off the limo or, stay in the car as the shooting started, he was told to do that, most likely by Boring or someone even higher up the food chain."

Alan, was Roberts the commanding field officer? I always thought it was Winston Lawson, I may be wrong. Denis.

Edited by Denis Pointing
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IMO the issue of Secret Service agents switching their allegiance to LBJ is one of the more blatantly ridiculous statements I have seen.

Unlike cats, presidents have only one life to give. It is the charge of the Secret Service to protect the President, not the body of the slain president. Had there been a plot to decimate the entire US government, the more protection LBJ had the better.

The Secret Service was not involved in the plot but one can certainly make an argument that some agents were negligent. But one cannot indict any Secrety Service agents for deciding that guarding the life of a man already dead made no sense.

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IMO the issue of Secret Service agents switching their allegiance to LBJ is one of the more blatantly ridiculous statements I have seen.

Unlike cats, presidents have only one life to give. It is the charge of the Secret Service to protect the President, not the body of the slain president. Had there been a plot to decimate the entire US government, the more protection LBJ had the better.

The Secret Service was not involved in the plot but one can certainly make an argument that some agents were negligent. But one cannot indict any Secrety Service agents for deciding that guarding the life of a man already dead made no sense.

Tim - have you read Palamara's work, 'Survivor's Guilt?' You can read it online, as per Healy's post, or I can send you a copy.

On your first point - what you have stated is quite logical.

I would of course like to elucidate a further response from you with respect to the opening of this second point:

The Secret Service was not involved in the plot

On what basis do you make this firm observation?

Clearly there would be no argument on the closing of that point, aside from it's being an understatement:

but one can certainly make an argument that some agents were negligent.

..and finally...

But one cannot indict any Secrety Service agents for deciding that guarding the life of a man already dead made no sense.

This would of course explain their behavior in guarding the corpse all the way to Parkland.

This probably has already been covered elsewhere...

Following the report of an SS man on the knoll, all of the SS were issued new ID and were put through some form of ID check - as per Palamara. There appears to have been an unsubstantiated possibility that one of the SS had their ID lifted while drinking their 'I only had one officer' grain alcohol at the Cellar. And then there is the possibility that Forrest Sorrels had someone deputized working security on the knoll, in addition to the possibility that Lem Johns was the man encountered in the area.

http://hnn.us/readcomment.php?id=86542&bheaders=1

Re: Two questions for Lone-nutters (#86457)

by Mel Ayton on April 13, 2006 at 4:42 AM

Grassy Knoll witness Malcolm

Summers stated: "As soon as the motorcade passed I waited for

about a minute then I came on across to the knoll.When I got there I was stopped by a person in a suit with a coat over his arm.I also believe he had a gun under his arm.It looked like a little machine gun to me."

Summers was one of a number of witnesses, including 3

Dallas policemen, who ran into a number of men claiming to be

Federal Officials.Chief Counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), Robert Blakey, said that the movements and whereabouts of every member of the Secret Service and F.B.I.were all accounted for and none were in the

Grassy Knoll area.This was one of the most credible, yet puzzling, aspects of the assassination. Attempts to

account for this bizarre event were difficult given the credence

of the Dallas police officers involved, Officer Joe Smith, Deputy

Constable Seymour Weitzman and Sergeant D.V. Harkness.

In the 1990's assassination researcher Chris Mills provided an interesting solution to the mystery of the Grassy Knoll agents.According to Mills it appeared that the denials by the head of the Secret Service that no agent was ever in the

vicinity of the 'Grassy Knoll' was wrong. Mills reported that David Weigman Jnr., an NBC cameraman, told author Richard B. Trask he had ran to the knoll and saw a police officer run up the incline. Weigman told Trask: "I figured he knows somethings up there, so I ran up there. I found myself there with (Secret Service Agent) Lem (Johns) close by, a few feet away.Then I saw people lying on the side, and I saw nothing up there. Lem, sort of, looking around. Couldn't see anything. I knew now I'd better get something. I've got to get some footage. I saw these people

lying on the ground and I took them. I saw a body being pulled to

the ground...."

Weigman then realises he must go after the presidential limousine and returns to the 'camera car'.Other cameramen have stated that Lem Johns rode in this car to the Trade Mart and rejoined his Secret Service unit.

In his testimony to the Warren

Commission Johns stated: "....before I reached the Vice-

President's car (after he left the Secret Service follow up car

responding to the shots) a third shot had sounded and the entire motorcade then picked up speed and I was left on the street at this point. I obtained a ride with White House movie men and joined the Vice-President and .....Youngblood at the Parkland hospital."

Chris Mills maintains that Lem Johns did not testify to his presence in the area of the picket fence because he knew his actions, although creditable under the circumstances, (he was, after all trying to find 'shooters') was against Secret Service procedures thus leaving himself open to any disciplinary

action.In his report, 7 days after the assassination, he fails to

mention these events and he was not to know that, 8 months later, Smith would testify to an agent on the knoll.

Author Gerald Posner attempted to explain these bizarre events and speculated as to what occurred.Posner implied that Policemen Smith, Weitzman and Harkness mistook the credentials of other government workers. There were people from various government agencies in the Dealey Plaza area and it is possible the police officers mistook these government workers for Secret Service agents. Posner speculates that the I.D. was misunderstood. Knowledge of Secret Service, F.B.I. or other government agency identification cards was not as widespread as it is today through the medium of

television and Hollywood movies. The HSCA recognised that Army Intelligence personel were in the area of Dealey Plaza at

the time of the assassination. It was normal practice for military units to be present in an American city when the president visited, and this may account for the intriguing

encounters.

Gerald Posner came closer than anyone in solving an occurrence which lent credence to the claims by Conspiracy

Theorists that the government had a hand in the assassination.The

mystery, however, finally solved by Gus Russo who interviewed Secret Service Agent Mike Howard who had been in charge of security for the Fort Worth leg of the president's

Texas trip.Howard had been told by Forrest Sorrells that Sorrels had

placed security people in all the areas in Dealey Plaza that were

clear security risks, including the area of the Grassy Knoll.Like

Howard, Sorrells would have deputised every government agent he could find including agents from the ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms), customs, border patrol, reserve police, deputy sheriffs etc.The motorcade route in Dallas was 'crawling' with these people according to Howard.Howard told Russo that technically these people would not have appeared on any 'official' listing of posted officers and that many of them held the standard ATF identification card which were virtually identical to the Secret Service cards, both issued by the

Treasury Department. Russo also spoke to Robert Gemberling, one of

the FBI agents who investigated Oswald after his arrest.Gemberling said he remembered being told that two customs agents had spent their lunch breaks helping with security in the Grassy Knoll area.The two agents were identified.

Yeah - so who were they?

Why would Lem Johns have violated SS protocol by taking action?

Why didn't the Queen Mary stop?

Why didn't Greer accelerate after the first shot?

Who selected the dogleg?

Why the change-up in the arrangement of the vehicles on the motorcade?

Who would have put the President's vehicle SECOND in the line-up? Where's the precedent for that?

Why was Rybka forced out at Love Field?

What was the PRS agent doing there at all?

Who called the shot to allow the Pres and Veep to be present in the same motorcade?

Who leaked the route details [Palamara got it as far as LBJ aid Bill Moyers who put it back on the SS]?

Why were the normal SS agents not present for this motorcade?

Why was Ready called back?

Why did Kellerman brake the vehicle?

Who provided the instructions for the DPD to stand down?

Who had control of the evidence?

Who lied - Yarborough or Johnson, with respect to Youngblood's 'heroic' actions? [i'll take Johnson].

Why weren't the press allowed the flatbed truck? Why weren't the press relegated to a position so far away from the President?

Why was the President's physician located so far away from the President?

What kind of moron does one have to be to select a hairpin turn / dogleg when this is assassination 101 training [ref, precedent: SOE training, 1941, Heydrich Assassination].

Why was Behn on his first vacation in three years during this significant event - Dallas?

Why was Behn's HSCA testimony with respect to alternate routes supressed?

Why were the SS made to take an oath after-the-fact not to talk?

Why was Ready even there at all - you put a man who is a relative rookie on the President in DALLAS?

Why didn't Ready ever step up to protect JFK's side of the Lincoln?

Who authorized Roberts to call the shots at Parkland, when Kellerman was his superior?

Why weren't the SS ever punished for the Cellar event?

Why clean up the crime scene?

Who violated the law with the removal of the body, at gunpoint?

What about Gochenaur's claims about Malcolm Perry being 'talked' out of his original call of the throat wound as a point of entry?

What about Moore's tirade?

http://www.kenrahn.com/Marsh/Jfk-conspiracy/park2.html

According to Gochenaur, in May 1970, <27> while residing in the Seattle, Washington area, he had a long conversation with a Secret Service Agent who was stationed at their Seattle office. <28> In the conversation, the Agent, Elmer W. Moore, revealed that ". . . [h]e was in charge of the interrogation of the Doctors [sic] . . . and he was liaison between the staff of the Warren Commission and the Secret Service."<29> Among the many interesting points that Gochenaur claimed Moore relayed to him was that ". . . we [the Secret Service] had to do what we were told . . . or we'd get our heads cut off." Mr. Gochenaur added that Agent Moore did not tell him who issued these orders, <30> nonetheless, he was able to provide testimony about one task Moore had purportedly been forced to undertake: ". . . he [Moore] said that he had badgered Doctor Perry into changing his testimony, [and] he [Moore] did not feel good about that." This, however, was just the tip of the iceberg James Gochenaur was about to expose. He claimed that Moore was pressuring Dr. Perry ". . . to making a flat statement that there was no entry wound in the neck, or that [he knew] where the position of the wound in the back [was] . . ." Gochenaur also professed this was done because " . . . there was no conclusive evidence where any of the shots had come from, at that point."

http://www.ctka.net/pr997-jfk.html

As revealed in Probe (Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 20-21), Moore told one Jim Gochenaur how he was in charge of the Dallas doctors testimony in the JFK case. One of his assignments as liaison for the Warren Commission seems to have been talking Dr. Malcolm Perry out of his original statement that the throat wound was one of entry, which would have indicated an assassin in front of Kennedy. But another thing Gochenaur related in his Church Committee interview was the tirade that Moore went into the longer he talked to him: how Kennedy was a pinko who was selling us out to the communists. This went on for hours. Gochenaur was actually frightened by the time Moore drove him home.

Anyone have that Church committee document?

and on and on and on...

"The Secret Service was not involved in the plot" - please qualify...

Edited by Lee Forman
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"Roberts was only following orders, he may of been in charge on-site but not overall.

If he told individual agents to stay off the limo or, stay in the car as the shooting started, he was told to do that, most likely by Boring or someone even higher up the food chain."

Alan, was Roberts the commanding field officer? I always thought it was Winston Lawson, I may be wrong. Denis.

Sorry Denis,

I didn't mean it to sound like Roberts was in charge of everyone on the ground, his official title was "shift leader"(basically the foreman). He officially only had control of a group of men but those men where the most important when it came to protecting the limo & it's occupants(not that day obviously), the ones riding in & on the follow-up vehicle.

I could be wrong but I don't think Clint Hill, paid too much attention to Roberts(probably for more than one reason).

Lawson was advance man for the Dallas trip & rode in the lead car, what exact power he had I really don't know but I'm pretty sure Sorrels at least was his superior(as the advance man, wouldn't Lawson be studying a map or notes to make sure they went the right way? I'll know all this stuff one day I hope.

***

Thanks Lee for finding that exact paragraph, re: the Johnson switch.

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Lee, you are correct of course that I cannot say with CERTITUDE that no member of the Secret Service was involved in the plot, any more than I can say with certitude that Jackie Kennedy was not involved in the plot (hey, she had had a romantic relationship witb Gen. McHugh and also knew DeMohrenschildt very well).

I mean it is probably impossible to exclude a possibility that anyone was involved, bearing in mind the old adage about procving a negative. Even an alibi is not completely exculpatory becausev one could of course have assisted or encouraged the plot without being in Dallas.

I can, however, state with certuitude that there is no evidence that the Secret Service was involved, that Jackie Kennedy was involved, that John J. McCloy was involved, and on and on ad nauseum.

Your point that someone had swiped SS credentials during the drinking session is interesting but I think it can logically be rebutted as follows: (a) If the conspirators were going to use fake SS men to divert attention and assist the escape of a shooter, they would not have counted on getting actual SS credentials the night before; they would have manufactured credentials sufficient to convince someone in the confusion; (B) if a SS agent's credentials had been stolen he certainly would have been duty bound to report it and such report might very well have alerted the authorities that a plot was afoot--another reason the conspirators would not have swiped actual SS credentials. At least IMO.

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Of all the agencies and departments of the US federal government, the US Secret Service was most responsible for the murder of John F. Kennedy because they were responsible for his protection and failed in their mission.

If it can be shown that the assassination was also a coup, as well as a conspiracy, and inside job in which elemination was the motive, then the Secret Service must have been been compromised.

Their failure to secure the open windows along the parade route was a breech of security and routine tradecraft, and purposely done, giving any assassin a window of opportunity that only those on the inside would know about.

The distruction of Secret Service records concerning their advance preparations for the Texas trip, AFTER the passage of the JFK Assassination Records Act of 1992, was criminal and those responsible should be questioned by the Congressional Oversight Committee if not prosecuted.

To those interested in the history of the Secret Service, I recommend the book by the late Phil Melanson, the strongest supporter of the JFK Grand Jury project.

Bill Kelly

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Bill wrote:

Their [the Secret Service agents] failure to secure the open windows along the parade route was a breech of security and routine tradecraft, and purposely done, giving any assassin a window of opportunity that only those on the inside would know about.

Absolute horsefeathers.

Bill, where is your authority that it was routine tradecraft to secure the windows along the parade route? If this is in a wriiten manual, please make the reference. If you claim it is an unwritten protocol, then cite any other cities that JFK visited where the SS secured the windows.

I can find photos of many JFK motorcades where the windows were not sealed.

When you write something as ridiculous as that it makes me question everything you post.

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Bill wrote:

Their [the Secret Service agents] failure to secure the open windows along the parade route was a breech of security and routine tradecraft, and purposely done, giving any assassin a window of opportunity that only those on the inside would know about.

Absolute horsefeathers.

Bill, where is your authority that it was routine tradecraft to secure the windows along the parade route? If this is in a wriiten manual, please make the reference. If you claim it is an unwritten protocol, then cite any other cities that JFK visited where the SS secured the windows.

I can find photos of many JFK motorcades where the windows were not sealed.

When you write something as ridiculous as that it makes me question everything you post.

My source is the Secret Service agents who successfully covered every open window in Fort Worth for the President's visit there, and uncovered two teenage boys with a high powered rifle in an open window - playing with their father's gun, as published in Prologue, the monthly magazine of the National Archives.

In addition, a SS agent assigned to that Fort Worth unit, recently gave a talk in Glennwood Springs, Colorado - within the past few years - acknowleging the SS doing their duty in Fort Worth but failing to do so in Dallas.

Securing open windows on the parade route is routine, now as then.

You want to argue that the Secret Service did their job on 11/22/63?

I think not.

BK

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From Bernice in another topic :

"Before I (Bolden : ED) left the White House Detail (June 1961(??? - ED)). I sought an audience with the then Chief of the Secret Service (U.E.Baughman). I told him in no uncertain terms that (1) the Secret Service Detail was not protecting President Kennedy properly by agents reporting for work in a drunken condition and (2) when the President was assassinated it would be a direct result of laxity by agents around the President..The reply to my assertions.......was that the Secret Service had not "lost" a President in over 20 years and that to a new agent (me) it might appear that security was lax, but everything was covered."..In a follow up letter, Bolden wrote : "In November 1963,I was in Washington , D.C. on a super secret mission involving an Internal Revenue Investigation of the members of the House of Representatives. My contact when I arrived was Mr.Joiner, Chief of Intelligence then for the I.R.S. I arrived in Washington on Nov.8,1963, and left Nov.11,1963, eleven days before Kennedy was assassinated .It was during this time that I discussed the breakdown in security with Chief Rowley in person and it was also at this time that I found out that Chief Rowley had written an article for Reader's Digest (s) Nov.(63) issue stating and outlining how easy it would be to assassinate a President using a high powered rifle.

Some of the copies of the Reader's Digest had already been distributed when Kennedy was assassinated. After the assassination, all copies of that issue were withdrawn and new November issues were printed deleting the "essay" by Chief Rowley .. In the essay, Chief Rowley contended that the weakness within the security of the President was " an assassin perched in the window firing a high powered rifle."

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