BUILDING ROOFTOPS WERE REGULARLY GUARDED DURING THE JFK ERA!

[Vince Palamara]

BUILDING ROOFTOPS WERE REGULARLY GUARDED DURING THE JFK ERA! 

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE (See also my first book Survivor's Guilt and especially the entire chapter devoted to this subject in THE NOT-SO-SECRET SERVICE)

 

First, some precedent- FDR era:

 

 

Truman era:

 

 

Ike era:

 

 

 

 

Syndicated news story Summer 1963. Interestingly, many articles did not carry the highlighted information:

 

Milwaukee May 1962:

New York trip 1963:

Paris trip 1961

Caracas Dec 1961:

Chief Inspector Michael Torina, WHO WROTE THE SECRET SERVICE MANUAL, and Chief James Rowley (pictured) contributed to this 1962 book:

 

 

TAMPA, FL 11/18/63. Motorcycle officer Russell Groover confirmed to me that all multi-story buildings on the 28-MILE LONG MOTORCADE, the LONGEST DOMESTIC MOTORCADE JFK EVER UNDERTOOK (second only to the foreign trip to Berlin), were guarded by heavily armed officers. This Secret Service survey report was written by Frank Yeager and GERALD BLAINE OF KENNEDY DETAIL infamy! Author Larry Sabato, based on my tip (he acknowledges me in his book), contacted Blaine and called him out on this. Baine lamely stated that they didn't have the manpower in Dallas----a far shorter motorcade (only 10 miles)---to do what they did four days earlier in Tampa:

11/21/63 SAN ANTONIO- VIEW FROM POLICE HELICOPTER!

11/22/63 Fort Worth (JFK Historian Mark Henderson from Australia):

 

 

 

Former Secret Service Chief U.E. Baughman, author of the 1962 book SECRET SERVICE CHIEF, came clean in early December 1963...I guess this is why he wasn't called before the Warren Commission:

 

Chicago 3/23/63:

 

 

Pittsburgh, PA October 1962:

 

Official Getty Images caption: McKeesport High School marching band lining up preparing to march, with sharpshooters on roof tops and billboard for Union Clothing Co., during President Kennedy campaign stop, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, October 13, 1962. (Photo by Charles 'Teenie' Harris/Teenie Harris Archive/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images)

 

 

 

Another New York trip:

Nashville Agent Paul Doster, a former JFK White House Detail agent, told the "Nashville Banner" back on 5/18/63:

"a complete check of the entire motorcade route" was done.  Also, Doster noted that "Other [police] officers were assigned atop the municipal terminal and other buildings along the route. These men took their posts at 8 a.m. and

remained at their rooftop stations until the president and his party

passed."

UPDATE: The 2013 book from the Nashville Tennessean JFK IN NASHVILLE provides the corroboration/ text in question and more:

Pueblo, CO 1962:

 

Washington, D.C. May 1961---police guard rooftops, line the streets and face the crowds with their military counterparts. Flatbed truck also visible.

Billings, MT September 1963:

Duluth, MN 9/25/63:

Ireland June 1963:

Miami, FL 11/18/63:

Germany June 1963:

Seattle, WA November 1961:

 

 

 

Alabama 1963:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Washington, D.C. 1962---JFK uses the old Ike bubble top limousine as police are on rooftops and lining the street.

Inaugural:

 

 

After the fact excuses (that still demonstrate that guarding buildings and rooftops was performed):

 

 

 

 

[John Kozlowski]

9 hours ago, Vince Palamara said:

Official Getty Images caption: McKeesport High School marching band lining up preparing to march, with sharpshooters on roof tops and billboard for Union Clothing Co., during President Kennedy campaign stop, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, October 13, 1962. (Photo by Charles 'Teenie' Harris/Teenie Harris Archive/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images)

I can’t even begin to imagine a president taking a ride through McKeesport today. 

[Vince Palamara]

haha! Truer words have never been written :)

[Vince Palamara]

9 hours ago, John Kozlowski said:

I can’t even begin to imagine a president taking a ride through McKeesport today. 

So true!

[John Kozlowski]

10 minutes ago, Vince Palamara said:

So true!

What part of Pittsburgh are you from?

[Vince Palamara]

South Hills

[Dan Rice]

North Braddock from '74 to '75 here.

[John Kozlowski]

1 hour ago, Daniel Rice said:

North Braddock from '74 to '75 here.

I’m just a few minutes from there. I live in Swissvale. 

[Steve Thomas]

Just as an aside, there's a picture of JFK's limo flying down the Stemmons Freeway with a person's foot hanging out the side. Across the Freeway is a man on a roof with a rifle.

I believe that he is one of Mr. Cooper's men. (Cooper was the Head of Security for the Trade Mart).

DPD Archives Box 14, Folder# 4, Item# 10, page 5

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box14.htm

This is the after-action report of Batchelor, Lumpkin and Stevenson:

Steve Thomas

 

[Vince Palamara]

5 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Just as an aside, there's a picture of JFK's limo flying down the Stemmons Freeway with a person's foot hanging out the side. Across the Freeway is a man on a roof with a rifle.

I believe that he is one of Mr. Cooper's men. (Cooper was the Head of Security for the Trade Mart).

DPD Archives Box 14, Folder# 4, Item# 10, page 5

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box14.htm

This is the after-action report of Batchelor, Lumpkin and Stevenson:

Steve Thomas

 

Interesting, indeed.

[Gary Severson]

In Grand Forks, N.Dak on Sept. 25 there were sharpshooters on the roof of the arena on the Univ. of N. Dak campus. On Sept. 20 Richard Case Nagell got himself arrested in El Paso on his way to assassinate LHO in Mexico City. Nagell believed JFK was to be assassinated in the last days of Sept 63 & by getting arrested believed he would avoid being associated with the coming assassination. I was there & saw the guns on the roof as I & another 16 old buddy walked right under those guns & proceeded through 4 sets of unguarded doors.. We proceeded to make our way to 2 empty seats in front of JFK's podium. The point being there was roof security but so what when there were entrances totally unguarded.

[Vince Palamara]

31 minutes ago, Gary Severson said:

In Grand Forks, N.Dak on Sept. 25 there were sharpshooters on the roof of the arena on the Univ. of N. Dak campus. On Sept. 20 Richard Case Nagell got himself arrested in El Paso on his way to assassinate LHO in Mexico City. Nagell believed JFK was to be assassinated in the last days of Sept 63 & by getting arrested believed he would avoid being associated with the coming assassination. I was there & saw the guns on the roof as I & another 16 old buddy walked right under those guns & proceeded through 4 sets of unguarded doors.. We proceeded to make our way to 2 empty seats in front of JFK's podium. The point being there was roof security but so what when there were entrances totally unguarded.

Thanks for the info, Gary! Well, giving them their due, the agents and local authorities (and, sometimes, the military) would have had the ground-level covered, even if it may have seemed like no one was there. In fact, I would wager that the rooftop security made the lack of overt security on the ground somewhat unnecessary (at least as far as a show of force or police state mentality). Keep in mind this was decades before terrorism was an issue----they worried more about pistols and rifles back then.

[Vince Palamara]

 

[Gary Severson]

11 hours ago, Vince Palamara said:

Thanks for the info, Gary! Well, giving them their due, the agents and local authorities (and, sometimes, the military) would have had the ground-level covered, even if it may have seemed like no one was there. In fact, I would wager that the rooftop security made the lack of overt security on the ground somewhat unnecessary (at least as far as a show of force or police state mentality). Keep in mind this was decades before terrorism was an issue----they worried more about pistols and rifles back then.

Good point Vince. I will add that having researched this event since it happened there is more to the story. When in 2008 I interviewed Dr. John Penn, security liaison between the White House & UND, he told me the doors I went through at 10:30 am on 9/25/63 should have been locked because he gave the keys to the SS that morning at 7:30. Now of course the SS may have chosen to leave them open to provide sharpshooter access to the roof. In fact my route through the 4 doors did lead to the catwalk above the arena floor & thus to the roof. I made a mental note of it that day & was familiar with the roof access from my years of hanging out in the arena that I grew up across the street from. Upon further interviews with Dr. Penn he eventually divulged there was a plot afoot that day & did I think he was a part of it. I told him no I didn't at which point he refused to ever discuss it again. His limited hangout was that he forgot to give the UND President (Dr. George Starcher) his security credentials that morning. He said this meant that when he was notified that Starcher was waiting at the entrance to the arena with JFK & wasn't being allowed to escort JFK in from his limo he had to race from one end of arena to the other to get Starcher his credentials. JFK had been driven 2 blocks from his chopper in the OPEN limo with Greer driving. JFK became a stationary target while waiting for the UND President to get his creds. The towers of the adjacent football stadium were 100 yards away with windows to allow a shooter a clear view of a stationary JFK below the stadium windows. None of this would be that relevant unless Nagell hadn't derailed the plot 5 days earlier. If Dr. Penn's part of the plot was to forget to give UND President Starcher his security creds in order to make JFK a stationary target he wouldn't have been told Nagell's actions had in effect cancelled the plot. There's more but I will leave at that for now. The above scenario has been vetted by Dick Russell more than once.

Edited January 29, 2020 by Gary Severson
just an additional comment

[Gary Severson]

2 hours ago, Gary Severson said:

Good point Vince. I will add that having researched this event since it happened there is more to the story. When in 2008 I interviewed Dr. John Penn, security liaison between the White House & UND, he told me the doors I went through at 10:30 am on 9/25/63 should have been locked because he gave the keys to the SS that morning at 7:30. Now of course the SS may have chosen to leave them open to provide sharpshooter access to the roof. In fact my route through the 4 doors did lead to the catwalk above the arena floor & thus to the roof. I made a mental note of it that day & was familiar with the roof access from my years of hanging out in the arena that I grew up across the street from. Upon further interviews with Dr. Penn he eventually divulged there was a plot afoot that day & did I think he was a part of it. I told him no I didn't at which point he refused to ever discuss it again. His limited hangout was that he forgot to give the UND President (Dr. George Starcher) his security credentials that morning. He said this meant that when he was notified that Starcher was waiting at the entrance to the arena with JFK & wasn't being allowed to escort JFK in from his limo he had to race from one end of arena to the other to get Starcher his credentials. JFK had been driven 2 blocks from his chopper in the open limo with Greer driving. JFK became a stationary target while waiting for the UND President to get his creds. The towers of the adjacent football stadium were 100 yards away with windows to allow a shooter a clear view of a stationary JFK below the stadium windows. None of this would be that relevant unless Nagell hadn't derailed the plot 5 days earlier. If Dr. Penn's part of the plot was to forget to give UND President Starcher his security creds in order to make JFK a stationary target he wouldn't have been told Nagell's actions had in effect cancelled the plot. There's more but I will leave at that for now.

I will add that the night before JFK was in Grand Forks he was in Duluth overnight. I interviewed security in Duluth. I was told by them that JFK had a corner room overlooking the coast of Lake Superior on the 10th floor of the Duluth Hotel. Security cleared out the 9th & 11th floors for fear of a bomb being planted above & below JFK's room. Your contention that 63 was a pre-terrorist time needs to be qualified I think. I was also told that the Duluth Hotel kitchen was manned with food tasters in case of an attempt to poison JFK.

Edited January 29, 2020 by Gary Severson