Secret Service Behavior

[Lee Forman]

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; ( 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.

Hi Tim - the Lem Johns story could cover part of the SS credentials, in addition to the Forrest Sorrels deputization bit, which I have read about elsewhere - however, so far as I know, the latter is hearsay - as is the story about someone lifting the ID. I agree with your take on it, save for the addition of the boozing - one agent reportedly left the Cellar at 5:00am, but then reported for duty in the morning. I don't believe it is known which agent this was...

[Lee Forman]

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."

Awesome. Thanks for that John - new info which I hadn't seen before. I may still have er--hang on...no, don't have it any longer. It may have been Detective Magazine. A great article on the history of assassination attempts and successes. All making the SS to be the toughest men ever, provided with routine and rigorous training, adept at shooting, reflexes like a cat, heroic men, blah blah blah. The article went on to sympathize with them and completely let them off the hook, since there is just no protection against the lone nut sniper. Wonder if any of it was taken from that Reader's Digest article. Darn, wish I could pull that one out I had - it got your blood boiling in under 30 seconds with the hypocrisy.

To Tim's point - I'm inclined to agree. Prouty spouted off a bunch of stuff and I'm sure a lot of it is valid - but if you watch the Kennedy funeral procession, just as an example, there was ample opportunity to wipe out the entire Kennedy family, since they paraded past an office building or something under construction - every floor was totally open and packed with bystanders. Talk about a security nightmare - I guess you could assume that they checked everyone for a weapon beforehand, but there would have been a lot of foreign dignitaries that could have been targets as well, like DeGaulle and the Lion of Judah.

Clearly the job done in Dallas was the absolute worst ever - especially with the selection of the route and the confusion about how the hairpin turn came to be selected, etc. I just don't know that it was really protocol to try to do something about every open window - I think the jury is still out on that one for me.

- lee

[Tim Gratz]

Bill wrote:

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.

Sorry Bill I will not believe you unless you publish the portion of the article to which you refer. The fact that SS agents discovered two boys with a rifle in a window in Ft Worth does not mean that they "covered every open window in Ft Worth" for his visit there, nor does it mean that it was a rotine thing to do.

You have published nothing that says it was routine for the SS to cover every window along a motorcade route and from the photos I have seen it most emphatically was NOT!

[Tim Gratz]

I am not sure how to post it here.

http://pro.corbis.com/search/searchFrame.aspx

Look at the last picture (on right) in second row, awaiting the presidential motorcade on Juy 2, 1963 in Naples, Italy.

Several open windows. There is even a man standing in one on the third floor.

I'll find a few more like this.

If you go to Corbis and search "JFK motorcades" you will find clear evidence of open windows (some with people in them) from the following:

In Paris with DeGaulle May 1961.

In Mexico City in June of 1962.

In Costa Rica March of 1963.

Bill's assertion is simply WRONG.

He has offered not a single source staing that securing all windows was a routine procedure. And he must not have done any research at all. In seven minutes I found examples of JFK motorcades with open windows in four different cities, in 1961, 1962 and 1963. Dallas was nothing out of the ordinary even though he would like to think it so to fit his theory. But sometimes the facts get in the way of our theories.

Edited December 7, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

I found this interesting.

If you do a Corbis search of "Presidential motorcades" you will find a photo of Pres Nixon and Anwar Sadat riding in an open car through Alexandria, Egypt with plenty of open windows, in the summer of 1974.

[Tim Gratz]

Bill wrote:

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.

There is of course not one single scintilla of evidence that anyone in the SS was involved in the conspiracy but then again when has an utter lack of evidence ever deferred BK from making his pronouncements?

By the way, he is wrong about the above. The records which were destroyed related to the potential threats against JFK before the aborted Chicago trip and the Tampa trip that did occur.

[William Kelly]

Bill wrote:

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.

There is of course not one single scintilla of evidence that anyone in the SS was involved in the conspiracy but then again when has an utter lack of evidence ever deferred BK from making his pronouncements?

By the way, he is wrong about the above. The records which were destroyed related to the potential threats against JFK before the aborted Chicago trip and the Tampa trip that did occur.

The one single scintilla of evidence that anyone in the SS was involved in the conspiarcy is the failure of the SS to protect the president in Dallas.

By the way, I am not wrong about the above, as the records which were destroyed were related to the advance preperations for the Texas trip, as well as the aborted Chicago trip and Tampa trip.

BK

From the Final Report of the Assassinations Records Review Board:

3. Secret Service

The Secret Service transferred its official case file on the Kennedy assassination to NARA in 1979.

In December 1992, after the JFK Act was passed, the Assistant Director for the Secret Service Office of Administration directed the Secret Service to inventory its records in an attempt to locate records relating to the assassination. In response, the Chief of the Policy Analysis & Records Systems Branch within the Office of Administration reviewed the inventories of Secret Service records in storage. Secret Service made these inventories, as well as archive records, available to the Review Board staff for inspection. In 1995, the Assistant Director for the Office of Administration instructed each Assistant Director and the Chief Counsel to search for assassination-related records. In December 1996, the same Assistant Director issued another search directive to each employee.

In addition to the Secret Service's search of its archival records, the Review Board submitted to the Secret Service more than twenty separate requests for records. The Secret Service was generally cooperative in making the requested records available to the Review Board. As a result of the Service's own searches, as well as Review Board requests for records, the Secret Service identified, as assassination records under the JFK Act, additional materials beyond those contained in the official case file for the Kennedy assassination.

Congress passed the JFK Act of 1992. One month later, the Secret Service began its compliance efforts. However, in January 1995, the Secret Service destroyed presidential protection survey reports for some of President Kennedy's trips in the fall of 1963. The Review Board learned of the destruction approximately one week after the Secret Service destroyed them, when the Board was drafting its request for additional information. The Board believed that the Secret Service files on the President's travel in the weeks preceding his murder would be relevant.

The Review Board requested the Secret Service to explain the circumstances surrounding the destruction, after passage of the JFK Act. The Secret Service formally explained the circumstances of this destruction in correspondence and an oral briefing to the Review Board.

The Review Board also sought to account for certain additional record categories that might relate to the Kennedy assassination. For example, the Review Board sought information regarding a protective intelligence file on the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) and regarding protective intelligence files relating to threats to President Kennedy in the Dallas area (the Dallas-related files were disclosed to the Warren Commission). The FPCC and Dallas-related files apparently were destroyed, and the Review Board sought any information regarding the destruction. As of this writing, the Service was unable to provide any specific information regarding the disposition of these files.

The Secret Service submitted its Final Declaration of Compliance dated September 18, 1998, but did not execute it under oath. The Review Board asked the Service to re-submit its Final Declaration.

[Tim Gratz]

To BK:

You wrote:

The one single scintilla of evidence that anyone in the SS was involved in the conspiarcy is the failure of the SS to protect the president in Dallas.

Absolutely ridiculous. There was a LOT of blame to go wrong. That someone failed in their job in no manner proves they did it deliberately.

Moreover, there was plenty of blame to go around.

From "Breach of Trust":

National syndicated columnist Drew Pearson [who was on Hoover's "son-of-a-bXXXX" list"] wrote a column blaming both the Secret Service and the FBI for "squabbling over jurisdiction and headlines" and letting the protection of the president to fall between the cracks. [Hoover's top assistant] DeLoach's immediate instinct was to unleash the FBI's "newsmedia friends" to "take Pearson apart." Uncharacteristically, Hoover restrained [DeLoach], confessing "Unfortunately we are not in a position to completely contradict Pearson."

McKnight writes that Hoover's concern was that his Dallas office had failed to provide the Secret Service with its preassassination file on Oswald.

Now there is no way to argue that because someone fell down on the job that the failure was deliberate to facilitate a murder. You must be old enough to realize that!

Edited December 7, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[John Dolva]

Lee - "...that Reader's Digest article. Darn, wish I could pull that one out I had - it got your blood boiling in under 30 seconds with the hypocrisy.

Indeed, new to me too, I've 'instituted a search' in local sources to see if one slipped by to here. Those in Canada and Europe could do the same. It'd be interesting to see if a copy exists.

[Peter McGuire]

Bill wrote:

The one single scintilla of evidence that anyone in the SS was involved in the conspiarcy is the failure of the SS to protect the president in Dallas.

Well put, Bill. The inaction of the Secret Service during the shooting is there for us to see. The lack of preparation is well documented.

What I would like to have answered is what DID the Secret Service do for Kennedy that day?

What they did on other occasions is irrelevant.

[Tim Gratz]

There is no way to convert negligence in to criminal culpability. It is an argument that is prerposterous on its face.

What should the Secret Service have done that it did not do?

Unfortunately, the FBI did not give the SS any information on LHO. Even if he was just a patsy, surveillance of him might have been sufficient to stop the plot.

It is probably impossible to secure all windows but we have amply demonstrated that was NOT the protocol.

And of course the fact that the security in Dallas followed what was done in other cities is relevant. It proves security was not somehow relaxed in Dallas to permit the assassination.

[John Dolva]

Tim : "What should the Secret Service have done that it did not do?"

Go to bed early and sober, and wake up fresh and alert. After all they were in 'nut' city. The 'City of Hate'.

[Tim Gratz]

John, agreed certainly that the SS agents need to be alert and awake. But my point of course is that they were not carousing because they were witting agents of a sinister conspiracy.

And of course it is debateable that even if a SS agent on the running boards of the follow up car had rushed into action it might not have been in time to save JFK's life. Particularly if there was a back up plan such as a car bomb that would take out the entire presidential limousine.

[John Dolva]

John, agreed certainly that the SS agents need to be alert and awake. But my point of course is that they were not carousing because they were witting agents of a sinister conspiracy.

And of course it is debateable that even if a SS agent on the running boards of the follow up car had rushed into action it might not have been in time to save JFK's life. Particularly if there was a back up plan such as a car bomb that would take out the entire presidential limousine.

"...that they were not carousing because they were witting agents..." - perhaps. So they were 'carousing' because...?

"Particularly if there was a back up plan such as a car bomb that would take out the entire presidential limousine" - SPEEDING limo - clever back up plan.

They would know Kennedy was not already 'taken out',

how?

[Tim Gratz]

Why do men carouse in bars? It's a thing to do. Nothing unusual about that except it obviously ought not be done at least late at night by agents responsible for the protection of the president the next day.

As Gerry Hemming has explained what he understands was the back up plan, if the assassins were not certain that JFK had suffered a fatal wound, they would cause the bomb in the car to go off as SS100 passed it. A rather simple but effective plan.

Edited December 8, 2007 by Tim Gratz