Intruder @ Palm Beach Kennedy compound December '63

[Pete Mellor]

My current read is 'The Kennedy Case' by Rita Dallas.  (Unfortunate surname.)  Published 1973.  She was a private nurse to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. after his stroke in 1961 until his death in 1969.

She relates an incident that occurred just weeks after JFK's assassination when she confronted an intruder at Palm Beach entering the property posing as a tv repairman.  Nurse Dallas sussed the guy immediately, managed to summon guards who arrested the intruder, who was found tampering with the house fuse box.  RFK was notified and he got the Palm Beach Secret Service to the property who took the man away.  Later, "I asked one of the high-ranking guards about the intruder.  I received a brief answer.  He has connections in Dallas." 

"Later that same week I asked one of the local guards if he knew what had happened to the intruder.  The incident had not been reported by the press, nor had any correspondents tried to contact the staff.  He answered me in a strange way.  I don't know Mrs. Dallas.  One day they've got him in jail.  The next day he's gone, just like that.  Nobody's talking.  That was the last I heard about the man.  Someone had clamped on a lid and no one would ever be able to pry it off."

I've heard of plots and possible assassination attempts against JFK in '63, like the mystery man in Knoxville etc.  Anyone know anything about this mystery man?

Maybe one for Vince Palamara.

 

[Stephanie Goldberg]

Ohhh, a book I haven't read yet!  I had not heard that story before now, but it is interesting...

[Ron Ecker]

 

Reminds me of Lee Harvey and Osvaldo, the two men arrested in L.A. in an assassination plot against Jimmy Carter. They were released and disappeared. Probably resuming life using their real names.

 

 

[David Andrews]

On 9/1/2020 at 5:25 PM, Pete Mellor said:

like the mystery man in Knoxville etc.

 

Can you remind us about that Knoxville man?

[Guest]

Attempted phone tap trying to see what RFK / family were saying/doing about Dallas?

[Pete Mellor]

On 9/14/2020 at 4:14 PM, David Andrews said:

Can you remind us about that Knoxville man?

David, apologies for the delay in replying....been away on a holiday.

Knoxville.  It was 17th May '63 to be exact, a potential assassination attempt caused JFK to cancel a pre-arranged trip to Knoxville, Tennessee.  Instead, JFK made an impromptu visit on the 18th of May to Nashville, where he rode in a motorcade to Vanderbilt University to deliver a speech.

After that he visited Gov. Frank Clement at the governors mansion.  Details are sketchy, but somewhere between the mansion and the helicopter landing site at Overton High School, a man approached Kennedy with a hand gun hidden under a sack.  It's not known if JFK was in his limousine at the time.

The Governor witnessed the incident and the capture of the perp by the Secret Service.  Again, nothing more is known of this man.  The Secret Service requested that the Governor keep the incident out of the press for fear it would lead to more assassination attempts!

(Vince P. also knows nothing more of this incident or of the man involved.  I believe the story comes from Gov. Clements son.)

[David Andrews]

Thanks, Pete.

[Pete Mellor]

On 9/14/2020 at 8:56 PM, Chris Barnard said:

Attempted phone tap trying to see what RFK / family were saying/doing about Dallas?

Yeah, who knows?   Not sure how you tap a phone through a mains fuse box but maybe it is possible in U.S.

Nurse Dallas was privy to family discussions of various topics in Palm Beach and Hyannis, but she writes nothing that relates to any family revelations concerning JFK's assassination.

I think RFK was too wide to reveal assassination theories over the phone, and if the family ever discussed the topic it was in private.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Pete Mellor said:

Yeah, who knows?   Not sure how you tap a phone through a mains fuse box but maybe it is possible in U.S.

Nurse Dallas was privy to family discussions of various topics in Palm Beach and Hyannis, but she writes nothing that relates to any family revelations concerning JFK's assassination.

I think RFK was too wide to reveal assassination theories over the phone, and if the family ever discussed the topic it was in private.

All I read was that back then, the tapping of phones was a very manual process, someone had to go in there. Could have been just trying to straight bug the property. Whatever we say will be a theory. Yeh he was too long in the tooth and he suspected the CIA, so why wouldn't they use he tools on him that he had access to as AG. 
So much shady stuff, I knew nothing about that Knoxville thing either. Makes you wonder how much of JFK's mindset was fatalist, I mean adoring Lincoln, his favourite poem etc Rendezvous with Death. Maybe he was just that guy who thought illness will take him and knowing history he was ambivalent about a brutal end which would give him legacy, I mean we are all here trying to give him justice so long after the event. If this was Trump he'd not be doing rallies or a publicity tour, he'd be in the White House with a thousands troops defending it and he wouldn't come out. On some levels you just wish you could talk to the guy and say, go public, call out the CIA and military hierarchy as plotting a coup (which I believe he fired one general for earlier). Politics is so dirty...