BUILDING ROOFTOPS WERE REGULARLY GUARDED DURING THE JFK ERA!

[Gary Severson]

16 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.

In your recent 2019 JFK Conference video you emphasize again & again that visible military/police ground security was the order of the day wherever JFK went to be in a motorcade. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you do this to show that Dealey Plaza was an exception to this MO. IOW, if as you say, ground security was invisible in Grand Forks because rooftops were manned with snipers then why wouldn't the same go for Dallas especially if there was no visible rooftop security coverage?

Edited January 29, 2020 by Gary Severson

[Vince Palamara]

On 1/29/2020 at 10:16 AM, Gary Severson said:

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.

I mean the conventional view of terrorism in the post-9/11 world. Security was great in Duluth.

[Vince Palamara]

On 1/29/2020 at 2:34 PM, Gary Severson said:

In your recent 2019 JFK Conference video you emphasize again & again that visible military/police ground security was the order of the day wherever JFK went to be in a motorcade. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you do this to show that Dealey Plaza was an exception to this MO. IOW, if as you say, ground security was invisible in Grand Forks because rooftops were manned with snipers then why wouldn't the same go for Dallas especially if there was no visible rooftop security coverage?

Security is both overt and covert. Agents didn't always ride on the rear of the car, the top wasn't always used, etc. Hundreds/thousands of plainclothes police and detectives in the crowds and building rooftops being guarded compensated for this back in the FDR-JFK era (I would even go up to LBJ, perhaps Nixon eras, as well).

Dallas was awful: building rooftops were not guarded (this was only an 11-mile motorcade. JFK's longest domestic motorcade-Tampa, 11/18/63- was 28 miles long and multi-story rooftops were guarded). Other than Hill intermittently on Main Street, security was not overt and there wasn't much of an covert force, either. JFK's longest foreign motorcade, Berlin, was even longer than Tampa, yet they made sure to pull out all the overt and covert security they could.

I wouldn't say for sure that security was truly "invisible" in Grand Forks and "only" rooftops were guarded- as per normal protocol, a strong overt plainclothes force was more than likely in play. It could have APPEARED that those doorways were unsecured, but they probably were. If a young boy or girl (or priest/nun) decided to be a killer back then, they probably would have succeeded: they didn't seem to guard them too closely. IN MODERN TIMES, one thing greatly concerns me: everyone is allowed to use their iPhones and snap close-up pics and selfies with the president. An assassin could fashion something to maim or kill the president disguised AS a harmless iPhone. Just as the agents of old treated younger people/kids and priests/nuns as totally harmless, the modern agents treat these iPhones as harmless, as well...which just goes to show you that no protection is absolute or perfect. The point in Dallas was how awful it was, how much was stripped away, and how much was falsely blamed on President Kennedy.

In the interest of time (as I said, I could have been up there for hours), I didn't literally read or include every single article, document, etc. That said, I did note about Germany and the thousands of plainclothes guards. There was often both a visible line of security (agents and/or police and/or military) and a covert force in the crowds, blending in and covering windows and weak spots the men lining the streets could miss. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Vince Palamara

[Vince Palamara]

On 1/29/2020 at 8:24 AM, 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. The above scenario has been vetted by Dick Russell more than once.

BTW, fascinating info!!

[Joe Bauer]

Vince you mention JFK's motorcade through Dallas being only 11 miles from Love Field.

To the Trade Mart?

Didn't the drive from Love Field to downtown take up most of that 11 miles?

If so, from what I have seen of footage of that drive, there were no high rise buildings until downtown. Kind of residential with homes?

And if the 11 miles was from Love Field to the Trade Mart, deduct another couple miles or more from Dealey Plaza to the Trade Mart. Again, no tall buildings on that stretch as well.

My point being...that the stretch of actual multi-floor buildings in downtown Dallas was what ... 3 to 5 miles? Less maybe?

And how many high rises on that stretch? 50? 75? 100?

Manpower to place men on the building rooftops even at that number should never have been a problem.

Agent Hill says they couldn't do this because of manpower shortages?

Heck, you could easily find an extra 100 men from the local police and sheriff departments and even other agencies.

Same with men on the ground scanning all the open higher building windows with binoculars starting a few minutes before and up until JFK passed under these?

Imagine even one security person scanning the Texas Schoolbook Depository and the three other high story building windows in Dealey Plaza in that kind of time frame?

If several innocent, untrained and unequipped ( no binoculars) sidewalk bystanders could easily see one or two men with rifles in the Book Depository higher floor windows just before JFK's car drove underneath, how could a trained and alert and equipped security person miss what they saw?

Innocent people on the street in Dealey Plaza on 11,22,1963 did more common sense security than the so-called huge security team Jessie Curry bragged about regards JFK's motorcade.

And why not use Sheriff Decker's personnel to do these other duties.  They were told "in no way to participate in the motorcade security" ?

How about telling FBI agent James Hosty...hey, maybe you could hold off going to a local diner for lunch while JFK is riding through one of the most violently radical, extreme right wing, JFK hating cities in the country at that time?

When JFK gets to the Trade Mart, maybe then you could get yourself a burger and fries?

Now there's a red flag if you ever saw one. As big as a sports stadium.

 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Vince Palamara]

2 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Vince you mention JFK's motorcade through Dallas being only 11 miles from Love Field.

To the Trade Mart?

Didn't the drive from Love Field to downtown take up most of that 11 miles?

If so, from what I have seen of footage of that drive, there were no high rise buildings until downtown. Kind of residential with homes?

And if the 11 miles was from Love Field to the Trade Mart, deduct another couple miles or more from Dealey Plaza to the Trade Mart. Again, no tall buildings on that stretch as well.

My point being...that the stretch of actual multi-floor buildings in downtown Dallas was  what 3 to 5 miles? Less maybe?

And how many high rises?

Manpower to place men on the building rooftops should never have been a problem.

Agent Hill says they couldn't do this because of manpower shortages?

Heck, you could easily find an extra 100 men from the local police and sheriff departments and even other agencies.

Same with men on the ground scanning all the open higher building windows with binoculars starting a few minutes before and up until JFK passed under these?

Imagine even one security person scanning the Texas Schoolbook Depository and the three other high story building windows in Dealey Plaza in that kind of time frame?

If several innocent, untrained and unequipped ( no binoculars) sidewalk bystanders could easily see one or two men with rifles in the Book Depository higher floor windows just before JFK's car drove underneath, how could a trained and alert and equipped security person miss what they saw?

Innocent people on the street in Dealey Plaza on 11,22,1963 did more common sense security than the so-called huge security team Jessie Curry bragged about regards JFK's motorcade.

And why not use Sheriff Decker's personnel to do these other duties.  They were told "in no way participate in the motorcade security.?

Now there's a red flag if you ever saw one. As big as a sports stadium.

 

Points well taken, Joe! Yes: it makes zero sense that they allegedly "didn't have the manpower" (according to Blaine), yet they had the manpower for a much longer motorcade. Please see my presentation video posted earlier and elsewhere.

[Larry Hancock]

In regard to manpower shortages, and Vince is well aware of it, this was not just a trip to Dallas, it was a trip to multiple cities in Dallas all in sequence as well as several major events and appearances that required security.  Plus the route through downtown Dallas did involve a considerable number of high rise buildings, certainly down Main Street. I know that Vince has commented on the huge manpower pull involved from what was a relatively small protective division - which had just been through the Miami and Tampa trips as well.

Probably also worth noting that if  you read the actual security reports from Dallas, the DPD was much more concerned about potential ground level protests and incidents (based on recent experiences even including Johnson being chased though downtown Dallas) and especially at perimeter and entry security at the Trade Center.

[Steve Thomas]

14 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Manpower to place men on the building rooftops even at that number should never have been a problem.

Agent Hill says they couldn't do this because of manpower shortages?

Heck, you could easily find an extra 100 men from the local police and sheriff departments and even other agencies.

Same with men on the ground scanning all the open higher building windows with binoculars starting a few minutes before and up until JFK passed under these?

 

Joe,

I, myself, am quite fond of this one:

Lt. Erich Kaminsky of the DPD's Special Service Bureau assigned 14 Detectives from that Bureau as security along Main St.

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth190029/m1/1/

(One for each block mind you, where crowds were 7 - 10 deep in some places).

Bob Carroll (he who escorted Oswald back downtown from the Texas Theater) was one of them.

What was Carroll doing while JFK was being shot?

He was sitting in a bar.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/carroll.htm

Mr. CARROLL. I had walked around to a tavern around the corner. I was walking down the street and I passed this person I know and I stepped in this tavern to speak to him and I heard it - they turned on the TV just as I walked in the door and I heard it on the TV set.

Gotta love it.

Steve Thomas

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, Steve Thomas said:

Joe,

I, myself, am quite fond of this one:

Lt. Erich Kaminsky of the DPD's Special Service Bureau assigned 14 Detectives from that Bureau as security along Main St.

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth190029/m1/1/

(One for each block mind you, where crowds were 7 - 10 deep in some places).

Bob Carroll (he who escorted Oswald back downtown from the Texas Theater) was one of them.

What was Carroll doing while JFK was being shot?

He was sitting in a bar.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/carroll.htm

Mr. CARROLL. I had walked around to a tavern around the corner. I was walking down the street and I passed this person I know and I stepped in this tavern to speak to him and I heard it - they turned on the TV just as I walked in the door and I heard it on the TV set.

Gotta love it.

Steve Thomas

One detective for each block on massive crowd Main street?

Both sides of the street? Tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands on Main street. One detective for thousands of people?

Bob Carroll steps into a bar to shoot the breeze with an old buddy while on high priority security detail in the middle of JFK's one hour drive through town?

And "Assignment Oswald" FBI Agent Hosty is ordering a meal in a downtown diner at the same time JFK is driving by?

Didn't Hosty attend highest priority JFK security protocol meetings just that morning with his superiors? Did they tell him what his duties may have been until JFK was safely at the Trade Mart or later upon his departure?

Did they include him getting a bite to eat at a diner right in the middle of JFK's ride through town? 

Hosty gave more effort and security priority in hunting down Marina Oswald for interviews before 11,22,1963.

And talking about expected but failed highest priority security.

The most threatened criminal suspect in American history was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Tens of thousands of serious death threats pouring into the Dallas PD department from everywhere, world wide.

I wonder what agent Hosty said and thought when he viewed the news footage of Oswald being walked into DPD basement and the blinding bright lights of press flashbulbs and a crushing frantic shoving crowd of reporters and escorted by just two handlers with Oswald at times slightly in front of them ???

And the general time of this event announced to the world ahead of time and in broad daylight instead of anything more secure and late at night to keep the crowds away?

I wonder if Hosty may have said what I said as a 12 year old watching it happen on live TV.

"NO WAY" I shouted over and over. I was shocked at how open Oswald was as soon as I first saw him come into the basement seconds before his wide open arrival behind the police car.

From that second I sensed with every fiber of my mind and body that Ruby's whacking of Oswald was a set up. Oswald's whacking was the most telling event of a conspiracy imo and still is to this day.

Even in my innocent 12 year old mind, I easily figured the most basic security plan for a person as important and threatened as Oswald should have been no public announcements of his movements and a complete circle cordon of physical security surrounding him 5 men thick at every turn when he was out of his cell.

I wonder if James Hosty ever commented on the Oswald security situation where armed strip joint owner Jack Ruby had such easy and close access to him despite the presence of 70 armed security in the DPD building at that time?

Great legacy for our government personal security agencies in Dallas that weekend.

The "ultimate failure" with our President's security. And the ultimate failure with the lead suspect in the murder case in the hands of the DPD just two days later.

Heads should have rolled within the DPD for the complete breakdown and failure to protect the most threatened and important criminal suspect in America's history.

 

[Steve Thomas]

2 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

One detective for each block on massive crowd Main street?

Joe,

On December 11, 1963, Lieutenant Erich Kaminsky wrote a memo to Captain Gannaway of the Special Service Bureau.

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth190029/m1/1/

In that memo he wrote,

“Sir: On November 22, 1963, the following Special Service men where(sic) assigned to work the Presidential motorcade. All the men had assignments on Main St. The following is a list of the men and the locations they worked:

B.K. Carroll 1100 block Main

K.E. Lyon 1700 block Main (who also wound up  in that car carrying Oswald back from the Theater).

H.R. Arnold was supposed to have been in the 700 block per Kaminsky's memo. No report of his duties on the 22^nd are in the DPD Archives, and he did not testify to the WC.

When Bob Carroll testified to the WC on April 3, 1964, he told them:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/carroll.htm

Mr. BALL. What job was assigned to you that day?
Mr. CARROLL. I was assigned to the 700 block of Main Street.
Mr. BALL. Along the curb - did you stand along the sidewalk?
Mr. CARROLL. Yes, sir; to be there, and, of course, there were uniform officers also assigned in that block, but I think they had one detective for each block.

The 700 block in Carroll's WC testimony is not a mistake, because he told WC Counsel Joseph Ball that this was three to four blocks from the intersection of Main and Houston.

Whatever happened to H.R. Armold, and who took over the 1100 block when Carroll moved over to the 700's?

Or, did Carroll abandon his post?

Steve Thomas

[Gary Severson]

On 1/30/2020 at 6:25 PM, Vince Palamara said:

Security is both overt and covert. Agents didn't always ride on the rear of the car, the top wasn't always used, etc. Hundreds/thousands of plainclothes police and detectives in the crowds and building rooftops being guarded compensated for this back in the FDR-JFK era (I would even go up to LBJ, perhaps Nixon eras, as well).

Dallas was awful: building rooftops were not guarded (this was only an 11-mile motorcade. JFK's longest domestic motorcade-Tampa, 11/18/63- was 28 miles long and multi-story rooftops were guarded). Other than Hill intermittently on Main Street, security was not overt and there wasn't much of an covert force, either. JFK's longest foreign motorcade, Berlin, was even longer than Tampa, yet they made sure to pull out all the overt and covert security they could.

I wouldn't say for sure that security was truly "invisible" in Grand Forks and "only" rooftops were guarded- as per normal protocol, a strong overt plainclothes force was more than likely in play. It could have APPEARED that those doorways were unsecured, but they probably were. If a young boy or girl (or priest/nun) decided to be a killer back then, they probably would have succeeded: they didn't seem to guard them too closely. IN MODERN TIMES, one thing greatly concerns me: everyone is allowed to use their iPhones and snap close-up pics and selfies with the president. An assassin could fashion something to maim or kill the president disguised AS a harmless iPhone. Just as the agents of old treated younger people/kids and priests/nuns as totally harmless, the modern agents treat these iPhones as harmless, as well...which just goes to show you that no protection is absolute or perfect. The point in Dallas was how awful it was, how much was stripped away, and how much was falsely blamed on President Kennedy.

In the interest of time (as I said, I could have been up there for hours), I didn't literally read or include every single article, document, etc. That said, I did note about Germany and the thousands of plainclothes guards. There was often both a visible line of security (agents and/or police and/or military) and a covert force in the crowds, blending in and covering windows and weak spots the men lining the streets could miss. 

If, as you say, the doors "were probably secured" then it went against Dr. Penn's understanding that "the doors should have been locked because I gave the keys to the SS that morning at 7:30 so they should have been locked when you went through them at 10:30". The night before in Duluth security people told me there was no weak link in security in the campus arena where JFK spoke. 15 hours later in Grand Forks the security was full of holes. 45 years later, when I find Dr. Penn, he asks me after many hours of discussion about the assassination, "do you think i was involved in the plot on 9/25/63". He never expected to be discovered 45 years later. It is true that if the plotters knew the plot was called off by Nagell on 9/20/63 it didn't matter  if doors were left open. However one feels about the veracity of the book "Farewell America", it does indicate the the plotters were on site that day in Grand Forks. 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Gary Severson
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