Gerald Blaine The Kennedy Detail Clint Hill book- JFK Requested Bodyguards to Back Off

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Ray, put it to bed will you.

Yes and Rockaby old sweet baby Jim, and all you Garrison Groupies!

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Your proposal was rejected because you argued Oswald was innocent?

Really.

Please explain what your representation entailed and why you should have bumped any of these people. Or myself.

I attended the Duquesne conference along with my good friend Vince Palamara. No speaker argued that Lee Oswald was innocent, only Oswald accusers like yourself were allowed to speak. If you were not allowed to speak, that only means that they had enough Oswald accusers, and your false accusations against Lee Oswald offered NOTHING NEW!

Edited November 16, 2010 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Bernice Moore]

What a pile of baloney Davey Boy.

You completely ignored all the points I gave previously about all the warnings why Dallas was so dangerous--was there an ad in the Hawaii newspaper also? Was Stevenson spat upon there? I mean its a resort area right?

And then you also ignore all the video VInce has shown which depicts the point that Dallas was not the rule, but the exception. WHich is why you cannot be trusted Davey.

FInally, in Hawaii was there a motorcade route like in Dallas Davey Boy?

BTW, having been there over the weekend, I never fail to be amazed when I stand on the trestle and look down at that sniper's nest dream of a layout. Absolutely mind boggling to think the SS ever Ok'd that assassins' fantasy. Consider:

1. The dogleg takes down the speed of the limo to 12 MPH.

2. You have high buildings behind with numerous open windows. On both sides of Main: TSBD, Dal Tex, even the Records Bldg. These are all good places to hide a sniper and at all you can get off a good shot or multiple shots.

3. The ease of escape is plentiful since parking lots abound.

4. But there are also at least three places in front of the limo that offer prime spots for assassins: midway down the picket fence, at the end of the picket fence, and and the far side of the RR bridge on the south knoll.

And let me add something here in bold type. Sherry Fiester pointed out something that his show ITTC even more a propaganda piece. If you recall, when he walked his marksman Yardley around the plaza, they stood on the south knoll. Yardley said he probably could not get a shot over the windshield from there. Which is probably true. But if you recall, there was a rise behind them which they did not ascend. For good reason. When you walk up that rise, you will see an almost perfect little cubbyhole right below the end of the trestle which an assassin could slide into and be hidden from sight. From here you likely could get over the windshield. But what makes it even better is that right next to the end of the trestle is a parking lot! Are we really to believe that Gary Mack was not aware of this? Yeah, just like he forgot that in the Z film, Jackie's head was in front of JFK's not behind it! God what a sell out this guy is.

5.So in other words, the place could hardly be designed better if you were planning an assassination. It offers at least six places to hide snipers. Each of them having ways to conceal the shooter and ease of escape. You have a slowed down target making it easier to hit. You have a great layout for a crossfire, offering certainty the job will be done. Then because of the layout, if you use directionally silenced rifles--which Mitch Werbell had at the time-- you can have confusion over direction.

6. Now, the only way one could prevent this assassin's fantasy from happening was for the Secret Service detail to have really done their homework and been in tip top shape on the 22nd. Neither of which happened. In the advance scouting, the necessity of additional men to cover the area would have to have been obvious. Somehow it was not. To truly discourage an attempt you would have had to have had at least forty men on the ground. Which, of course, should have been easy to do, what with the nearby military, the DPD and the sheriffs' office. This did not happen. And in fact, the reports say the opposite occurred.

All the above screams of, at least, negligence. Everyone involved in finalizing the route, OKing it, not supplementing it with more men, and then allowing the drinking binge at the Cellar, they all should have been fired. But that is too mild. There should have been an administrative hearing as to how the heck this happened. People should have been compelled to testify under penalty of perjury. Careers should have been terminated, and recommendations for further inquiry should have been made. That is how bad the SS performance was.

And that is why they violated the law and destroyed records in order to keep them from the ARRB.

Right on jim; dave ;It is not what is seen in any other photograph of JFK'S Presidential Motorcades in any other city in the USA or the world for that matter. What is most obvious is What is Not seen in Dallas, Texas on November 22,1963.. There had recently been an assault on Adlai Stevenson the month before on Oct.24.1963 the incident had shaken Dallas leaders as well as the President's supporters. On ''United Nations Day''Stevenson had been in the city to make a speech, as the U.S Ambassador to the U.N.at the Memorial Theatre .

When Dallas right-wingers heard of Stevenson's visit, they planned their own rally for the night before. Their rally included the speaker Major General Edwin Walker, a right-winger that had been fired by the Kennedy Administration for using his position to foist his political views onto the troops under his command. Walker's speech that night was largely a lambasting of the United Nations, and its 'goal' of taking the American freedoms, power and wealth and sharing it with other countries.see http://www.dealey.org/dallash16.htm . then on NOV.9/63 The threat from Florida revealed by Joseph Milteer had been uncovered. all these occurrences and threats were known before the trip to Dallas. Yet as we see below in just a few of the photos taken on Nov.22/63 of the motorcade within that city, the dereliction of their duties of the Secret Service Agents is seen in the laxity of any protection provided for him, by the hungover agents and is very obvious, amidst the huge crowds in particular on Main Street. dates and information see http://www.acorn.net...3/VP/02-VP.html not to mention any details of the spitting occurrence on one of their own that had previously occurred,who at the time was running for V.P .. LBJ and lady bird in Dallas in Nov./60..All of these were high red alerts to the secret service which they obviously chose to ignore..the only man that is seen on occasion is that of clint hill on the back of the limo shielding jackie, but none ever doing the same for JFK...THE CENTURIONS LET THEIR GUARD DOWN IMO DELIBERATLEY..

Edited November 16, 2010 by Kathy Beckett
removed"liar" from quoted part of the post

[Bernice Moore]

Bernice:

Oh and I forgot about Walker and Milteer.

Nice going.

thanks Jim i really enjoyed that post of yours in particular the info on the south knoll,mentioning the neglectful Gary.. . i have a photo of that area, of a slope going down towards the parking lot, which i have always wondered about, i will find and see that you get it, let me know if it is of the same spot or similar...carry on... take care ..b

[David Andrews]

I watched Doug Weldon's Minnesota conference presentation on YouTube, and it is odd, as Doug points out in one of the later installments, that Clint Hill seems to be the only agent on the Queen Mary running boards wearing a bulletproof vest.

From the discussion earlier in this thread, Hill seems also to have been the only agent who rode the limo's rear step on Main Street.

Emory Roberts is recorded as preventing another agent from approaching the limo "during the shooting."*

Why only Hill in these events?

For that matter - why only Hill not looking around in Altgens 6? (Ignore red arrow.) Who's looking at Kennedy in this photo, and why?

*See posts #75 and #76 for errata.

Edited November 17, 2010 by David Andrews

[Duke Lane]

... Breaking news: Author Helen O'Donnell, the daughter of the late Ken O'Donnell, told me in October 2010, based on her memory AND her father's many audio tapes, that JFK did not order the agents off the car and neither did her father!

The official mythology maintained?

Author Ken Gormley, writing about the decision by Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr to compel the testimony of agents assigned to the Presidential Protection Detail in the Monica Lewinsky/Whitewater matter and the Secret Service's opposition to it, describes meetings initiated by the then-new director of the USSS, Lew Marletti, concerned in part that presidents might exclude USSS agents from their proximity if they felt that their private discussions might be subpoenaed. In this context, the author had no axes to grind or points to prove about the Kennedy assassination, and may be considered to be presenting facts as presented to him, and not toward advancing an agenda vis-a-vis JFK, and should be forgiven himself for any errors in fact presented:

Merletti gave a highly classified PowerPoint presentation about the dangers presented if Secret Service agents were pushed away from a president for any reason - including lack of trust. ... The most powerful aspect of Merletti's presentation was rarely seen footage regarding the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, and Kennedy's trip the previous week to Tampa. In photos of the Florida trip, dated November 18, 1963, one could observe sharp images of Secret Service agents kneeling on the rear bumper of the president's limousine, scanning the crowd and buildings, maintaining a location within an arm's length of President Kennedy's position in the back seat.

In the haunting film clips that Merletti now showed of President Kennedy being shot in Dallas, the Secret Service agents were missing from the car's bumper. Only Agent Clint Hill knew all of the tragic details, and he since had gone into seclusion and did not speak publicly about that day.

Yet the story was well known within the Secret Service. Lew Merletti took a chance and reached out to Hill, who had settled in Northern Virginia, seeking Hill's guidance on the Starr matter. Agent Hill, a handsome man with deep furrows of mental stress on his face, had retired early from the service as a result of neurological and psychological problems. The former agent did not hesitate to share his views with the director; he still remembered those events of November 1963 too vividly.

Hill technically had been assigned to protect First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who was riding in thhe left rear seat of the presidential limousine. The crowds were so large that spectators were "swarming up on top of the car." To deal with the cluster around the motorcade, the driver "ran the [limo] closer to the left-hand side of the street ... to keep the people away from the president." Agent Hill's sixth sense was telegraphing that something was wrong. Yet just after the Tampa trip, President Kennedy had directed all Secret Service agents to stay off the running board on the rear bumper, complaining that it created the appearance to the public that there was "somebody or something between them and him."

Disobeying the president's orders, Agent Hill had climbed onto the left side of the bumper, scanning the crowds and buildings, and then jumped off, returning to the follow-up car. The motorcade turned left. In an instant that would forever haunt him, Hill heard a shot ring out from behind, followed by the echo of two more gunshots.

By the time Agent Hill could scramble onto the back of the limousine, Mrs. Kennedy was crawling onto the trunk in her pink suit. Even as she hoisted Hill up [!], the agent knew it was too late. "It was a bloody mess," he recalled decades later, his voice cracking. "I mean - the president's head, the third shot hit him in the head just above the right ear, kind of. Took out a piece of his skull about the size of my palm and scooped out a whole mass of brain matter. Now, that stuff was all over the car, inside the car. Blood, white brain matter, portions of bone and skull. And everybody was covered with it." The former agent, becoming unglued as he recounted the story even forty years later, took a deep breath and continued: "What I meant by telling Lew [Merletti] about the scene ... Here was the president of the United States, who we were sworn to protect. And we failed. At least those of us who were assigned that day to that mission were not able to fulfill our responsibility."

What continued to torment Agent Hill as he replayed these images in his head, decades later, was the fact that he'd been pushed away. "if we had been inproximity, where we should have been," he explained, "... the event would not have happened as it did." Had hill been allowed to do his job, a human shield would have been formed between the unseen shooter and President Kennedy, creating a near-impossible shot. ....

With the lights in the converence room still dimmed, Merletti cut to a rarely seen television interview with Clint Hill by Mike Wallace, filmed in the 1970s, after Hill's premature retirement from the Secret Service. The forty-three-year-old Hill chain-smoked cigarettes and choked up with emotion as he spoke of failing to protect the president that day in Dallas and of allowing himself to be pushed away by the president. "It was my fault," said Hill, crying as he stared into the camera. "I'll live with that till my grave."

Describing another meeting on the same subject, attended by all former USSS directors and AICs of the PPD at Merletti's behest, Gormley wrote:

... When the next hand rose, the room fell silent; all eyes were focused on former special agent Clint Hill. A rugged, tough-looking man with a deep look of sadness and concern in his eyes, Hill had experienced many personal difficulties after that fateful day in Dallas, when he had been instructed to protect the First Family and watched President Kennedy murdered in cold blood just feet away from him. "He was only recently coming back into the family of the Secret Service, coming back into the fold," Merletti recalled, "because he had felt for years that he failed." Merletti quickly added: "He didn't realize that we held him as a hero. But we did. He did everything right that day in Dallas. He was prevented from doing his job by the president."

So the question would seem to be: is JFK's "order" fact or myth? Here we have a director of the Service, 40 years after the fact, describing something that one would presume that he, as director, would have cause to know and be fully aware of. Gormley's book is not about Kennedy, but about Clinton; the excerpts above are but a very small part of this 700-plus page book, related to a relatively small portion of its subject.

While the events described were probably gleaned from Merletti by the author, rather than either from personal experience having been at these briefings or directly from Hill, in the context of Clinton's impeachment, what purpose would Merletti have in forwarding an agenda, a mythology, that had no basis in fact, if he knew that to be the case? Is the mythology - the self-exoneration, if you will - so ingrained that one director fed it to another and so on down the line until everyone believes it as Gospel Truth? One man's ass-covering made good, as it were?

In truth, would Hill have been directly privy to a president's directive - that is, how unlikely is it that there was a shift meeting at which JFK outlined his preferences to the men as they "suited up" for the job on a particular day, a la police departments - as opposed to his having heard of such new directives indirectly, though the AIC/PPD or an assistant, whether or not it was based on JFK's factual directive or some other source or consideration?

[William Kelly]

Duke, How is it possible that the head of the Secret Service "has no axe to grind?" Expecially when his agency is under fire?

The Official Mythology is that JFK is responsible for his own death.

And it wasn't the fact that the SS agents were not on the bumper that allowed the President to be killed, it was the failure to secure the open windows of the buildings on the parade route, a responsiblity that was previously given to the US Army Reserves in Tampa and since there were two USAR officers in the lead car with Curry, I assume that they were supposed to be on the job in Dallas, but weren't.

Did JFK also order them not to bother to check open windows along the parade route so he could get closer to the snipers?

The idea that JFK was responsible for his own assassination by ordering the agents off the back of the bumper - (is this the "Ivy League Charlaitains" order?) Is as absurd as the idea that since the CIA had been trying to kill Castro, it was okay for somebody claiming to represent Castro to kill JFK because he deserved it.

This is the Valkyrie plan that they used to convince Hitler to sign off on the emergency preparedness plan that they utilized when they tried to kill him.

It is also a black propaganda operation like Northwoods in that it creates the false idea that the assassination was the responsiblity of the opposition - in this case JFK.

Bill Kelly

... Breaking news: Author Helen O'Donnell, the daughter of the late Ken O'Donnell, told me in October 2010, based on her memory AND her father's many audio tapes, that JFK did not order the agents off the car and neither did her father!

The official mythology maintained?

Author Ken Gormley, writing about the decision by Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr to compel the testimony of agents assigned to the Presidential Protection Detail in the Monica Lewinsky/Whitewater matter and the Secret Service's opposition to it, describes meetings initiated by the then-new director of the USSS, Lew Marletti, concerned in part that presidents might exclude USSS agents from their proximity if they felt that their private discussions might be subpoenaed. In this context, the author had no axes to grind or points to prove about the Kennedy assassination, and may be considered to be presenting facts as presented to him, and not toward advancing an agenda vis-a-vis JFK, and should be forgiven himself for any errors in fact presented:

Merletti gave a highly classified PowerPoint presentation about the dangers presented if Secret Service agents were pushed away from a president for any reason - including lack of trust. ... The most powerful aspect of Merletti's presentation was rarely seen footage regarding the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, and Kennedy's trip the previous week to Tampa. In photos of the Florida trip, dated November 18, 1963, one could observe sharp images of Secret Service agents kneeling on the rear bumper of the president's limousine, scanning the crowd and buildings, maintaining a location within an arm's length of President Kennedy's position in the back seat.

In the haunting film clips that Merletti now showed of President Kennedy being shot in Dallas, the Secret Service agents were missing from the car's bumper. Only Agent Clint Hill knew all of the tragic details, and he since had gone into seclusion and did not speak publicly about that day.

Yet the story was well known within the Secret Service. Lew Merletti took a chance and reached out to Hill, who had settled in Northern Virginia, seeking Hill's guidance on the Starr matter. Agent Hill, a handsome man with deep furrows of mental stress on his face, had retired early from the service as a result of neurological and psychological problems. The former agent did not hesitate to share his views with the director; he still remembered those events of November 1963 too vividly.

Hill technically had been assigned to protect First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who was riding in thhe left rear seat of the presidential limousine. The crowds were so large that spectators were "swarming up on top of the car." To deal with the cluster around the motorcade, the driver "ran the [limo] closer to the left-hand side of the street ... to keep the people away from the president." Agent Hill's sixth sense was telegraphing that something was wrong. Yet just after the Tampa trip, President Kennedy had directed all Secret Service agents to stay off the running board on the rear bumper, complaining that it created the appearance to the public that there was "somebody or something between them and him."

Disobeying the president's orders, Agent Hill had climbed onto the left side of the bumper, scanning the crowds and buildings, and then jumped off, returning to the follow-up car. The motorcade turned left. In an instant that would forever haunt him, Hill heard a shot ring out from behind, followed by the echo of two more gunshots.

By the time Agent Hill could scramble onto the back of the limousine, Mrs. Kennedy was crawling onto the trunk in her pink suit. Even as she hoisted Hill up [!], the agent knew it was too late. "It was a bloody mess," he recalled decades later, his voice cracking. "I mean - the president's head, the third shot hit him in the head just above the right ear, kind of. Took out a piece of his skull about the size of my palm and scooped out a whole mass of brain matter. Now, that stuff was all over the car, inside the car. Blood, white brain matter, portions of bone and skull. And everybody was covered with it." The former agent, becoming unglued as he recounted the story even forty years later, took a deep breath and continued: "What I meant by telling Lew [Merletti] about the scene ... Here was the president of the United States, who we were sworn to protect. And we failed. At least those of us who were assigned that day to that mission were not able to fulfill our responsibility."

What continued to torment Agent Hill as he replayed these images in his head, decades later, was the fact that he'd been pushed away. "if we had been inproximity, where we should have been," he explained, "... the event would not have happened as it did." Had hill been allowed to do his job, a human shield would have been formed between the unseen shooter and President Kennedy, creating a near-impossible shot. ....

With the lights in the converence room still dimmed, Merletti cut to a rarely seen television interview with Clint Hill by Mike Wallace, filmed in the 1970s, after Hill's premature retirement from the Secret Service. The forty-three-year-old Hill chain-smoked cigarettes and choked up with emotion as he spoke of failing to protect the president that day in Dallas and of allowing himself to be pushed away by the president. "It was my fault," said Hill, crying as he stared into the camera. "I'll live with that till my grave."

Describing another meeting on the same subject, attended by all former USSS directors and AICs of the PPD at Merletti's behest, Gormley wrote:

... When the next hand rose, the room fell silent; all eyes were focused on former special agent Clint Hill. A rugged, tough-looking man with a deep look of sadness and concern in his eyes, Hill had experienced many personal difficulties after that fateful day in Dallas, when he had been instructed to protect the First Family and watched President Kennedy murdered in cold blood just feet away from him. "He was only recently coming back into the family of the Secret Service, coming back into the fold," Merletti recalled, "because he had felt for years that he failed." Merletti quickly added: "He didn't realize that we held him as a hero. But we did. He did everything right that day in Dallas. He was prevented from doing his job by the president."

So the question would seem to be: is JFK's "order" fact or myth? Here we have a director of the Service, 40 years after the fact, describing something that one would presume that he, as director, would have cause to know and be fully aware of. Gormley's book is not about Kennedy, but about Clinton; the excerpts above are but a very small part of this 700-plus page book, related to a relatively small portion of its subject.

While the events described were probably gleaned from Merletti by the author, rather than either from personal experience having been at these briefings or directly from Hill, in the context of Clinton's impeachment, what purpose would Merletti have in forwarding an agenda, a mythology, that had no basis in fact, if he knew that to be the case? Is the mythology - the self-exoneration, if you will - so ingrained that one director fed it to another and so on down the line until everyone believes it as Gospel Truth? One man's ass-covering made good, as it were?

In truth, would Hill have been directly privy to a president's directive - that is, how unlikely is it that there was a shift meeting at which JFK outlined his preferences to the men as they "suited up" for the job on a particular day, a la police departments - as opposed to his having heard of such new directives indirectly, though the AIC/PPD or an assistant, whether or not it was based on JFK's factual directive or some other source or consideration?

Edited November 16, 2010 by William Kelly

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I argued that Oswald never ordered or picked up the MC rifle. What could make him more innocent?

And how did you forget that?

Did you not write an entire book in praise of Jim Garrison, whose claim to fame was accusing Lee Oswald of conspiring to kill JFK?

Garrison also claimed that Oz carried a rifle to the TSBD, or have you forgotten that also?

BTW, Jim, although the tone of our debates here has often been acrimonious, I am actually a big fan of your work on the case (except for the Garrison stuff) and I wish you nothing but the best.

P.S. I am not Dennis Ford, and never have been.

[David Von Pein]

Subject: Secret Service Confusion

Date: 11/15/2010 11:05:51 PM Eastern Standard Time

From: David Von Pein

To: Gary Mack

-------------------------------

[Gary,]

So, you're saying that BOTH [Don] Lawton and [Henry] Rybka must have peeled off just after the motorcade started rolling, correct?

Rybka said he was at "the rear" of JFK's car when he was moving with it:

"I [proceeded] to the follow-up car 679-X and stationed myself at the right front fender of 679-X and the rear of 100-X. There I stopped everyone from going in between the cars. Once the motorcade began to move, I moved along with it, until the motorcade picked up speed." -- Henry Rybka [CE2554]

I'm now wondering who the agent is on the LEFT side of the cars in this still image from the WFAA tape (arrow points to him). I'm wondering if this could be Rybka on the LEFT side of the cars. Perhaps he switched from the RIGHT FENDER of 679X to the LEFT side when the cars began to move. I suppose that's possible:

DVP

================================================

Subject: RE: Secret Service Confusion

Date: 11/16/2010 3:46:54 PM Eastern Standard Time

From: Gary Mack

To: David Von Pein

-------------------------------

Dave,

A Dillard photo a few seconds before departure shows an agent behind the right front fender of 679-X, another agent, apparently Rybka, at the bumper on the back end of 100-X, and a third agent wearing a darker suit standing even with JFK. All three men have their left hand on the car they are next to but, unfortunately, their faces cannot be seen.

Since the source isn’t in the book, I asked writer Lisa McCubbin how the Lawton identification was confirmed and here is what she wrote: Confirmed by Clint Hill, Paul Landis, and Don Lawton.

The logical explanation is that Rybka was farther behind 100-X and just barely out of camera range before and shortly after the motorcade departed. Rybka’s report stating he “moved along with” the motorcade makes sense if he had dropped behind 679-X when that car appeared on camera, thus putting himself impossible to see at that moment.

Gary Mack

================================================

Thank you, Gary, as always.

Gary Mack has now convinced me that "Shrugging Man" is, indeed, SS agent Donald Lawton and not Henry Rybka.

I was convinced when Gary mentioned the existence of a Tom Dillard photograph which depicts THREE Secret Service men in just about the same location on the right side of the cars (probably Lawton standing right next to JFK on the right side of SS-100-X, and probably Rybka BEHIND Lawton, and then yet another unknown agent behind the person who is probably Rybka).

Gary Mack's explanation now makes perfect sense (thanks to his mentioning that Dillard picture).

Once again--thank you, Mr. Mack, for your valuable input (even regarding such an extremely unimportant matter such as this one concerning the exact identity of a Secret Service agent who was merely doing his job at Love Field as JFK's motorcade departed for downtown Dallas).

However, the information about the "shrugging" SS agent being Lawton instead of Rybka is important in one way:

It should forever silence the conspiracists who like to talk about how the security for JFK's motorcade was being "stripped away" at Love Field.

Why should it silence them with respect to the shrugging agent?

Because, as far as I am aware (via Emory Roberts' assignment sheets), Donald Lawton was never assigned to be a part of the team of agents in the follow-up car (SS-679-X).

Lawton's assignment was "to remain at the airport to effect security for the President's departure" (a direct quote from Lawton's 11/30/63 report, CE2554.

The conspiracy theorists have always been able to argue that Emory Roberts had initially penciled in Henry Rybka's name to be one of the SS agents assigned to sit in the follow-up car during the Dallas parade. But no such argument can be made regarding Don Lawton, because Lawton knew what his assignment that day was going to be--to stay at Love Field and help out with security at the airport.

Therefore, we can know with 100% certainty that if Lawton is the "shrugging" agent who looks confused and bewildered just as JFK's motorcade is departing Love Field (and I now think that Lawton definitely is that Secret Service agent), then his actions cannot possibly have anything to do with any kind of "security stripping" at the airport.

The conspiracy believers can, of course, continue to use their previous "stripping" argument when it comes to Rybka specifically, but not with Lawton.

Chalk it up as just one more conspiracy myth knocked down--and it took almost 47 years to do it.

Edited April 17, 2014 by David Von Pein

[David Andrews]

Do we read too much into the "shrugging agent" footage? Is it possible that he just didn't "dig" that the limo momentarily would be leaving crowds behind, speeding up, and entering highway traffic?

Edited November 16, 2010 by David Andrews

[Michael Hogan]

BTW, Jim, although the tone of our debates here has often been acrimonious, I am actually a big fan of your work on the case (except for the Garrison stuff) and I wish you nothing but the best.

Gee Jim, you must feel quite honored.

Carroll to David Von Pein, 12 Aug 2010:

"Hello David. You may feel like an outlaw here, but IMO you are closer to the truth than most of the members. You are correct in thinking that Lee Oswald acted alone"

.

[David Von Pein]

Do we read too much into the "shrugging agent" footage?

Almost all conspiracy theorists do, yes. Of course they do. It's in their CT blood.

Edited November 16, 2010 by David Von Pein

[Vince Palamara]

I am working now a very detailed review as I write this of "The Kennedy Detail", written because I sent Blaine's very good friend, Clint Hill, a 22-page letter that angered Hill and Blaine so much that a book was born (some would applaude me, some would castigate me [Blaine also sent me a threatening letter from his attorney last year, as well--didn't work: I have amped things up and I will haunt him for decades to come]). Please see my online blog and my many preliminary thoughts on the book:

http://vincepalamara.blogspot.com/

and my You Tube channel for my many videos commenting on/ about the book:

http://www.youtube.com/user/VincePalamara

The Rybka/ Lawton "error" is dealt with on my channel, and in my review, as well.

http://www.youtube.com/user/VincePalamara#p/c/C7800503C9BD9EA8/159/5gB8WmbvmTw

http://www.youtube.com/user/VincePalamara#p/c/C7800503C9BD9EA8/166/tDhvGHrM_dQ

Blaine and many of his colleagues AND SEVERAL NON SECRET SERVICE AGENTS (what "code" would they be following or breaking, Blaine?) told me that JFK did NOT order the agents off his car and did NOT interfere with the actions of the Secret Service; it is what it is. This book was written to CYA and try to "explain away" what they all told me...and there was NO morning-of-JFK's-funeral-meeting to discuss and cover-up JFK's alleged orders; pure bull! Blaine is the only one living from this meeting, there is no documentation, and the agents who allegedly attended this phony meeting contradicted what he is espousing. Please see, for now:

http://vincepalamara.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-preliminary-thoughts-on-blaines.html

(and you can have Oswald all alone and no conspiracy---as a stipulation of this discussion, let's "throw out" the conspiracy vs non-conspiracy/ Vince, you changed your mind once stuff, ok LOL?)

Just a mere sampler that kills Blaine's book:

Winston G. Lawson, WHD (lead) advance agent for the Dallas trip (rode in the lead car on November 22, 1963): In a stunning letter to the author dated January 12, 2004, Lawson wrote: “I do not know of any standing orders for the agents to stay off the back of the car. After all, foot holds and handholds were built into that particular vehicle. I am sure it would have been on a ‘case by case’ basis depending on event, intelligence, threats, etc. Jerry Behn as Special Agent in Charge of the White House Detail … would have been privy to that type of info more than I [see above]. However, it never came to my attention as such. I am certain agents were on the back on certain occasions.” [Emphasis added.] The agent should be certain of that last understatement—he rode on the back of the limousine on the July 2, 1963 Italy trip. Coming from one of the chief architects of security planning in Dallas, this is very important, to say the least.

The deathblow to the Tampa taleThe author wrote to former Florida Congressman Samuel Melville Gibbons78 on January 7, 2004 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 November 18, 1963.79 Gibbons’ response in full, dated January 15, 2004: “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.”

Furthermore, an amazing document was released in the 1990s 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 Bel-ford Lawson, the attorney in charge of the Secret Service area for the HSCA, ad-dressed to Gary Cornwell and Ken Klein dated May 31, 1977 and revised August 15, 1977.80 Apparently, Attorney Lawson was suspicious of Mr. Boring, for he wrote on the final page of this lengthy memorandum: “Subject: Florida Motor-cades 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? [Lawson’s emphasis.]” On page 27 of the same memo, Lawson wrote: “Why did only one Agent, Hill, run forward to the JFK limousine?”

Aide David F. Powers (rode in the follow-up car on November 22, 1963) : In a personal letter to the author dated September 10, 1993, Mr. Powers wrote: “Unless they were ‘running’ along beside the limo, the Secret Service rode in a car be-hind the President, so, no, they never had to be told to ‘get off’ the limousine.” [Emphasis added.] This comment rivals Behn’s shocking statements to the au-thor due to the source: President Kennedy’s longtime friend and aide and a man who was on countless trips with the President. For the record, Agent Bob Lilley endorsed Mr. Powers’ view: “Dave would give you factual answers.” In addition, the ARRB’s Tom Samoluk told the author that, during the course of an inter-view he conducted with Powers in 1996, the former JFK aide and friend agreed with the author’s take on the Secret Service!

Oops---guess Powers and Gibbons, who sat one foot away from JFK in Tampa throughout the motorcade, didn't attend the "meeting"...and I guess Win Lawson didn't get the "word", either...ahem

Vince Palamara

ANOTHER THING--EVER NOTICE HOW IT IS REALLY ALWAYS THE "LONE NUTTERS" LIKE MANCHESTER, BISHOP, POSNER, BUGLIOSI, AND BLAINE WHO MAKE ALL THE MONEY IN THIS ALLEGED "COTTAGE INDUSTRY", WHILE 95-99 PERCENT OF US WORK FOR FREE (LIKE ME---NO PROFIT WHATSOEVER)??? BLAINE AND COMPANY FAILED TO PROTECT THE PRESIDENT AND ARE NOW PROFITING VERY HANDSOMELY (HALF A MILLION DOLLARS SO FAR) FROM JFK's death...AND GARY MACK: YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF FOR FALLING FOR THESE "HEROES" AND THEIR LIES! Please see yet ANOTHER topic Blaine avoids (and notice who is included in the video---good ole Tim Mcintyre, NOT interviewed by Blaine [i interviewed many more agents than Blaine did---they were long dead before he began his bullcrap book]:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMTNdVwvOy8

(AND, YES: I AM VERY HAPPY TO HAVE DOCUMENTED WHAT THEY ALL SAID AND WROTE AND TO HAVE FIGURATIVELY "STABBED THEM IN THE BACK": THEY DESERVE IT)

Blaine is 78 and I am 44--God willing, I will be around for years to come to tell the truth...of what they said to me. The truth hurts...Blaine and Hill, that is.

[Vince Palamara]

P.S. I challenge Blaine to take a lie detector test regarding the morning-of-JFK's-funeral "meeting" that never occured (and, no: former agent Joe Paolella, now a lie-detector test administrator, can NOT perform the test LOL!). Blaine, nor any of his collegues, mentioned nothing of the kind...and Blaine wants you to think they are all liars---they were all LYING to me, telling FALSE tales to pacify me (I was the ONLY one calling and writing, as many have UNLISTED NUMBERS and I obtained the info. from a friendly former agent I became friendly with [yes, to get the info I wanted--oh, well: truth hurts; damn proud of it, too]). LIARS have no credibility...so they were all lying to me, Blaine?

WHAT ABOUT ALL THE NON AGENTS? AND I TRICKED YOU BECAUSE I KNEW (IN 2007) YOU WERE WORKING ON A BOOK: I PURPOSELY OMITED THE FACT THAT FRANK YEAGER, **YOUR PARTNER ON THE TAMPA ADVANCE***, NOT ONLY TOLD ME THAT HE KNEW OF NO ORDER DIRECTLY FROM JFK, BUT THAT KENNY O'DONNELL MIGHT HAVE BEEN TO BLAME [which, by the way, Powers contradicted and Helen O'Donnell, Kenny's surviving daughter who has access to his many, many audio tapes and diaries confirms, told me is FALSE!]...uh oh!!! Yikes---caught ya! You may have to do a rewrite on that half-a-million-dollar-and-counting profitable book when it comes out in paperback: "err, uhh, Kenny O'Donnell was also at the meeting" LOL

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Carroll to David Von Pein, 12 Aug 2010:

"Hello David. You may feel like an outlaw here, but IMO you are closer to the truth than most of the members. You are correct in thinking that Lee Oswald acted alone"

.

I sincerely hope that not everyone here is as intellectually challenged as Mr. Hogan. I do hope that everyone understands my position: Lee Oswald had no hand act or part in the conspiracy to murder JFK. Like myself, he acted alone.

David Von Pein is smart enough to understand this, and I hope Jim Di Eugenio is too. I am proud to say that I do not know Mr. Hogan, and have no wish to make his acquaintance. Mr. Hogan smokes BAD WEED!