Building rooftops: imagine Dealey Plaza...

[Greg Wagner]

Good work, Vince. Thank you!

 

[Vince Palamara]

Roy Kellerman makes one of the stupidest comments known to mankind to the FBI the night of the assassination:

NOT REPEAT IMAGES- different dates...press photographers in front of the limo. As Clint Hill admitted in his 2012 book, this was normal for a presidential trip...uh oh...except Dallas:

 

 

YOU THINK?!?!?

Hey, it's Clint Hill, JFK, Jackie...and the bubbletop in nice weather!

THE DEATH BLOW TO THE PHONY JFK-ORDERED-THE-AGENTS-OFF-THE-LIMO-IN-TAMPA TALE: Not only did many agents tell me this wasn't true (including Floyd Boring--!), Tampa motorcycle officer Russell Groover also debunked this, as did Congressman Sam Gibbons WHO RODE IN THE LIMO A FOOT A WAY FROM JFK!!! "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."

11/18/63 Tampa, FL:

YET NO CONCERN FOR JFK'S LIFE JUST A FEW SHORT MONTHS LATER??

[James DiEugenio]

That is just excellent stuff Vince.

This is what I always thought:  Dallas was a hostile city.  You had Dealey mouthing off to Kennedy right in front of him in 1961, right?

Then you had the Stevenson incident in 1963.

As noted above, they did not want him to go to Alabama.

But somehow, in comparison to Houston and Tampa, the protection is absolutely anemic in Dallas.  And you have  ten agents getting bombed the night before!  As I have always maintained, because that route was a perfect set up for an L shaped ambush, you needed to supplement the coverage with local law enforcement, as you have shown happened before. And by the way, a Navy special forces officer informed me of how their sniper teams rehearsed the L shaped ambush.  It was a sure fire effective way to allow no escape for the target if you had three teams: one at the end of the L, one at the top of the L, and one at the intersection of the two lines.  And that is what you had in Dealey Plaza.

Rowley's cover up, which extended well after the assassination, saved about a dozen people from being fired.

 

Edited June 1, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Vince Palamara]

Thanks a lot, Jim! Your excellent new book (and the newfound ability to post images LOL) have inspired me! Very interesting, indeed.

PLEASE see my new post PRS Agents Glen Bennett & Howard Norton: covert monitors of threats to JFK

 

 

[Vince Palamara]

1 hour ago, Greg Wagner said:

Good work, Vince. Thank you!

 

thanks! I used to post similar items in the past but, without the images showing, I think the effect is largely neutered. Having the images makes a world of difference.

[Cory Santos]

9 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Too bad this Holmes wasn't named Sherlock.

More like Larry

[Cory Santos]

18 minutes ago, Vince Palamara said:

thanks! I used to post similar items in the past but, without the images showing, I think the effect is largely neutered. Having the images makes a world of difference.

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.

[B. A. Copeland]

2 hours ago, Vince Palamara said:

My pleasure! It is bad enough that JFK was assassinated, then subjected to character assassination...what I truly despise are those who further assassinate him by attempting to blame him for his own death.

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....)

Edited June 1, 2018 by B. A. Copeland

[Linda Giovanna Zambanini]

12 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Thanks Greg.

Yes, I meant Powell.  That has always seemed kind of weird to me, and yes I knew about the Stuart Reed incident also. And Powell then gets caught in the Dal-Tex building after?  I mean, again, it just seems odd that there would be no military support, but those two guys would be there taking pictures.

The Reed incident is not talked enough about IMO.  But combined with Powell it seems to raise some interesting questions.  Like: Was military intelligence there taking pictures as they did in the King case five years later?   Maybe it was just some kind of coincidence.  But, in a real investigation, that issue would have been addressed.

That point you bring up about blaming the security stripping on Kennedy is a key one.  Borrowing from Vince P, Doug Horne concentrates on it in the latter part of IARRB.  In my view, the way the Secret Service (falsely) used that excuse was not just a matter of blaming the victim.  It was a way to deflect away from their own culpability.  

 I also agree that with the dubious motorcade route and its probable alteration, which allowed the L shaped ambush that is quite literally taught in sniper classes, the Lawton/Rybka call off, Lawson reducing the cycle escort, the lack of local law enforcement support, etc.  It eventually just gets to be a bit much.  Thanks to Vince for raising this angel of inquiry.

 

Hi Jim!

I'm sure you just misspoke about Powell, he was stuck inside the TSBD, not the Daltex.... 
I did genealogical research on Powell and tracked him and his yearbook photos down in Feb. 2016 in this thread begun by Wesley Riddle on Dennis Morissette's FB group, "Photo and Film Analysis in the JFK Assassination". I used Powell's HSCA identification/bio card which Wesley dug up and posted, to research him. Read through this thread - i've posted many photos of Powell. Wesley Riddle may have brilliantly found Powell in an Allen Photo (posted in the thread), in which there is an unknown man in a white dress shirt standing rt behind the west TSBD glass door. I agree, he looks like he might be Powell - correct age, hair color etc...  Btw...this is a great JFK FB group to follow!  Here's the link to the Powell thread: 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/780923448613656/permalink/995944797111519/

[Ron Bulman]

9 hours ago, 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 18^th and Dallas on the 22^nd 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've thought # 1 most likely since first reading Vince's book years ago.  He didn't come right out and say it then but talked of it being presented as a security test.  Agent Ready on the right front running board, right next to Roberts riding shotgun in the follow up car started to respond like Clint Hill.  Roberts called him back.  Just one example.

Regarding who would have approached them, obviously superiors, but as you mention why would they go along.  Abraham Bolden spoke of some agents not caring about JFK's safety for various reasons.  If any of them were persuaded he was a treasonous Communist appeaser... 

About the superiors part, if you go all the way to the top of the Secret Service, as in the Secretary of the Treasury, one might think he had brought loyal trusted aides of may years experience on Wall Street with him to fill key lower posts.  JFK appointed a few Republicans to key posts trying to placate his opponents.  But he ignored their advice.  Secretary of the Treasury C Douglass Dillon was tight with Allen Dulles through Wall Street, , the Council on Foreign Relations, and the East Coast Establishment Power Elite overall.  As Marie Fonzi once noted and David Talbot so eloquently demonstrated in The Devil's Chessboard, Dulles did not loose all of his power at the CIA when JFK fired him.  If, as some suspect, a few people within the CIA were involved in the assassination, well, there is potentially, possibly, (speculation on my part) a pipeline there from the CIA to key Secret Service personnel to stand down in Dallas.  

[Greg Wagner]

7 hours ago, Linda Giovanna Zambanini said:

I did genealogical research on Powell and tracked him and his yearbook photos down in Feb. 2016 in this thread begun by Wesley Riddle on Dennis Morissette's FB group, "Photo and Film Analysis in the JFK Assassination". I used Powell's HSCA identification/bio card which Wesley dug up and posted, to research him. Read through this thread - i've posted many photos of Powell. Wesley Riddle may have brilliantly found Powell in an Allen Photo (posted in the thread), in which there is an unknown man in a white dress shirt standing rt behind the west TSBD glass door. I agree, he looks like he might be Powell - correct age, hair color etc...  Btw...this is a great JFK FB group to follow!  Here's the link to the Powell thread: 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/780923448613656/permalink/995944797111519/

Hi Linda. I am a member of that FB group, but I must have missed your Powell info. Thanks for sharing. As I've researched various individuals connected to this case over many years, you keep popping up. You've done great work on some of these guys. Nice job.

[Linda Giovanna Zambanini]

Thank you, Greg!   Yes, it was a over 2 years ago and i don't think a lot of people saw the thread because it didn't get that many likes...which sort of dumbfounded me. I thought it was a great thread. 

[Ty Carpenter]

17 hours ago, Michael Walton said:

 

 

You didn't "need" limos that weighed 20,000 pounds, choppers flying around, 10,000 guards pushing all manner of crowds 200 feet away and other extreme measures circa 2018.

 

Apparently, you did.

[Ron Ecker]

Vince,

I remember reading somewhere a statement by deputy police chief M.W. Stevenson (I'm almost sure it was him, but it's not in his WC testimony) that it was a Secret Service agent named Grant who showed up and reduced the number and changed the location of the motorcycles. (All that Stevenson says about Grant in his testimony is that it was Grant who told him that JFK had been shot.) Can you comment on this? Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Andrew Prutsok]

19 hours ago, Michael Walton said:

Here are two of my favorite photos of the motorcade:

It sure seems the cyclists are doing their job here and Greer has his door open to push the crowd back. But what about the folks on the bus? 

I think all of this discussion about, "Oh, the SS backed off opening the way to the murder" is pure speculation. As Kennedy himself said - it'd be easy to get him from a tall building with a rifle.

What no one seems to want to say here is that times were very, very different back then. Unlike today, with nuts running around shooting into crowds and running people over, it was a more innocent time then. You didn't "need" limos that weighed 20,000 pounds, choppers flying around, 10,000 guards pushing all manner of crowds 200 feet away and other extreme measures circa 2018.

Obviously, maybe you did.