Blaine & McCubin
The Kennedy Detail –
JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence by Gerald Blaine, with Lisa
McCubbin (Gallery Books, Simon & Schuster 2010)
Since Agent Blaine was the chief advance man for the Tampa
trip, there is a lot of information about it in his book, with special emphasis
on the threats and the need for agents on the back of the president’s car.
Blaine worked
closely with Tampa police chief
Mullens, who is quoted in the news report about the third threat against the
president that Blaine doesn’t
mention.
From “The Kennedy
Detail”:
p.xiii – “My initial goal in writing the story of the
Kennedy Detail was to set history straight, to leave a book for my
grandchildren that they could read and know was the truth beyond any measure of
doubt…”
p. xv “Clint Hill (Foreward) It has been nearly fifty years
since President Kennedy was assassinated before my eyes but the memories of
that dreadful day in Dallas are as
clear and painful as if it happened only yesterday.”
“Atoka” – “the Kennedys’ quiet retreat in Middleburg,
Virginia
p. 16 Jerry Behn, the Special Agent in Charge of the White
House Detail
p. 17. “…Even though President Kennedy spent most winter
weekends at the “southern White House” in Palm Beach, he hadn’t made a public
appearance in the state of Florida since he and Mrs. Kennedy greeted the
returning “Bay of Pigs” prisoners the previous December. The Secret Service had
identified numerous threats from Cuban sources, mostly in Florida,
as a result of Kennedy’s botched invasion of Cuba
almost three years earlier. Surely Jerry Behn had briefed the president on the
risks of a public appearance in Florida.”
p. 23 Carlyle Hotel – New York City (p.28) “The burgers at
the Carlyle’s Bemelmans Bar were as famous as the fanciful meals murals that
decorated the walls of the renowned New York landmark, and at this point Blaine
was so hungry, he could taste one.” (p. 366) “There was a small café off the
lobby of the (Carlyle) hotel and Clint would sometimes stop in there before he
headed to his room, to sit at the bar with a scotch. He’d try to focus on the
plans for the days ahead, but as he stared into the glass, sitting all alone,
the visions would inevitably creep into his thoughts. When Tommy Rowles, the Irish
bartender, first started noticing Hill come into the bar, he tried to make
conversation. He recognized the man – had seen him on occasion with Mrs.
Kennedy. But it quickly became clear that the man who came in alone, and left
alone, wasn’t interested in conversation. The empty look in the man’s eyes
(after the assassination) nearly broke Tommy’s heart.”
p. 24 “Suddenly a loud screech sounded from the
walkie-talkie in the pocket of his trench coat. He pulled it out and held it up
to his ear. The handheld radio was tied directly to the Air Force One
frequency. Roy Kellerman’s voice came through the receiver.‘Dangle, do you read me?’ Code name were
always used over the radio. The senior Secret Service agents all had code names
that began with the letter D, and Godfrey’s was Dangle.”
p. 25 “Sandy Garelick was a senior police officer who headed
up the New York City Bureau of Special Services and Investigations (BOSSI)
squad and was the point man for setting up additional security for the
president’s visits to that city. He had handpicked his squad and the team was
great to work with. Professionally they were among the best in the country.
Garelick, however, had a strong personality that could present a real challenge
for the Secret Service advance agents. Garelick didn’t seem to realize that the
borders of the Untied States extended beyond New York City,
and he wanted to know what the president would be doing every minute he was in
BOSSI territory. Garelick thrived on attention the publicized presidential
visits brought to his unit and proudly utilized the thirty thousand New York
Police Department officers to ensure the president’s security. The conflicts
came during the off-the-record visits like this one when President Kennedy
wanted to slip into the city as quietly as possible, with no fanfare. There had
been enough clashes in the past three years that you could almost see President
Kennedy cringe the minute he saw Sandy Garelick.”
p. 44 “Arrangements had been made for the agents’ extended
stay in West Palm Beach at a motel called Woody’s, not far from Ambassador
Joseph Kennedy’s estate. Woody’s Motel looked like it had been around for
decades and was in need of some updating, but it advertised air-conditioned
rooms and fit the Secret Service per diem allowance for lodging.
p. 45 “The house ws located on North
Ocean Boulevard the main road that paralleled the
beach. Monterey Road intersected with North Ocean Boulevard directly in front
of the Kennedy’s walled-in property…The biggest problem was that the back of
the house was completely exposed to the ocean…(attended) St. Edward Chruch,…a
short distance from the family’s oceanfront home.”
p. 52 “Meanwhile, the name of a seventy-three-year-old man
from New Hampshire had reappeared
as a threat in the Secret Service Protective Research Section (PRR). He’d been
in the files for years for writing threatening notes to previous presidents. A
nationwide Teletype alert was sent out with details of the man’s description
and his ramshackle Buick sedan. Four days later,…Pavlick was arrested when the
Palm Beach police spotted his car, not far from the Kennedy compound…he decided
he’d kill the president-elect when he came out of church…Richard Pavlick fit
the typical threat profile case.”
p.54 “….Paul Young’s Restaurant, on Connecticut Avenue,
where Jack Kennedy’s father, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, was hosting a black-tie
private party for the entertainers and celebrities who had attended or
performed at the pre-inauguration gala that night…Jackie Kennedy left the party
around two, but President-elect Kennedy stayed until four in the morning.”
p. 57 “The president was taken by helicopter directly from
Andrews to the family’s new retreat in Atoka, Virginia,
near Middleburg, where Mrs. Kennedy and the children were spending the weekend.
Mrs. Kennedy had designed the house, which sat on a large piece of property on
Rattlesnake Mountain overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it had only been
completed in October (1963). Mrs. Kennedy had dubbed the place “Wexford” after
the county in Ireland
where the Kennedys were from, but the Secret Service just called it ‘Atoka.’”
p.58 “…Before he left for Tampa on Monday, he had to check
for updated threat suspects at the Protective Research Section…Agent Blaine
loved doing advances. To him it was the most exciting and challenging part of
being on the White House Detail. He’d much rather be coordinating security in a
new city or foreign country than standing post on a dark night in Hyannis Port
or Palm Beach, looking out at the ocean.”
“In reality, the advance work was 95 percent of the effort
in guaranteeing the president’s safety on a trip. The political team put
together the president’s itinerary and it was the Secret Service’s job to
figure out how to move the president safely from one place to the next, how to
secure every venue and every route. You had to think like an assassin.”
“The first stop before any advance was always the PRS.
Located in the Executive Office
Building, next door to the White
House, the PRS offices were the nerve center
for tracking threat cases. Any time there was a threat made against the
president’s life – whether it was a written letter, a phone call, details
gathered from an informant, field investigation, or an unstable person trying
to get inside the Northwest Gate of the White House – an investigative report
was initiated and a case file number issued. A PRS
agent would type the report on carbon paper so there would be multiple copies,
noting the threat maker’s name, last known address, a synopsis of the threats
made, a description of the person, and their medical history, if known.”
“Categories were analyzed and categorized according to the seriousness of the
threat. They ranged from ‘extremely dangerous’ to the innocuous ‘gate crasher.”
There were always people who would show up at the Northwest Gate demanding to
see the president about one thing or another…”
“Whenever someone made a threat against the President , they
would be categorized as a permanent risk. There’d be an evaluation, the
individual would be monitored, and the case file would remain in the Protective
Research file for as long as the person was still alive….”
“The records room of the PRS
office contained rows and rows of gray metal four-drawer file cabinets that
held thousands of threat suspect files, organized by case number. There were
smaller file cabinets where index cards of each suspect were organized both
geographically and alphabetically. The cards were cross-referenced to the case
file. Thus if you knew either the name of a suspect or their last known
location, you could go to the small index drawers, locate the card, which would
have the case number on it, then go to the large filing cabinets to get the
master file.”
“The most serious threat suspects were the ones on the flash
cards every agent carried with them at all times. It was the nature of threat
makers to wander as vagabonds or itinerants, moving from town to town or state
to state. You never knew when or where one of them might show up”
“Agent Blaine
had called the PRS from New
York City earlier that morning and requested any Florida
files be pulled. When Blaine
entered the records room, Cecil Taylor, the Special Agent on duty, had some
index cares and manila file folders laid out on the table for him.”
[There were two active cases]
“Blaine picked
up one of the files. The subject was a man named Wayne Gainey. The picture
showed a nice-looking, clean-shaven young man with a crew cut. He could have
been a bagger worker at the supermarket, or an elementary school teacher.
Threat suspects could be men or women, young or old, peaceful or sinister. They
could be your neighbor next door and you’d never know it. Blaine
flipped the card over read the profile…”
“Subject made a statement of a plan to assassinate the
President in October 1963. Subject stated he will use a gun, and if he can’t
get close he will find another way. White Male – Age 20 – 5’9”- 155 Lbs., -
Hazel Eyes – Brown Hair Light complexion – slender build.”
“Blaine sat down
in the chair and began reading the file. The investigating field agent in Tampa,
Arnie Peppers, had been conducting regular follow-up visits with the young
man’s parents and the attending psychiatrist. Blaine
knew Arnie Peppers well; his investigations were always thorough.”
“…The second file was much thicker. John William Warrington.
White male, age fifty-three, five feet, nine and half inches, medium build;
blue eyes, thin, graying hair; slightly stooped. The man had a long history of
letter writing and making verbal threats. The most recent entry in the file
showed that Warrington had written a number of threatening letters addressed to
President Kennedy postmarked October 15, 16 and 17 in Tampa. He’d also sent an
extortion letter to a local bank president, which had gotten him arrested on
October 18 in Tampa. He was
currently being held in the Tampa
city jail.”
They also considered (p. 61) a threat from Chicago, Thomas
Arthur Valle.
(p. 63) “There weren’t ANY active threats in Texas.”
Top Ten Threats:
1) Stanley
Berman – professional gate crasher.
2) Carl
Brookman – on record with FBI subversive activities with Nazi Party and
possible association with the Communist Party. Possesses firearms.
3) William
Robert Bennett – disabled veteran
4) John
Francis Donovan – letter and telegram writer. Considered a nuisance.
5) Johnnie
Mae Hackworth – letter writer, religious fanatic who made threats against the
president, arrested in 1955 and 1960.
6) Josef
Molt Mroz – picketer and “Polish Freedom Fighter”
7) Barney
Grant Powell – threatened Truman, extreme temper, violent man with assault
background, carries firearms.
8) Peppie
Duran Flores – threatened Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Says he is a communist
and pro-Castro.
9) Wayne
L. Gainey – claimed the KKK authorized him to kill the president in 1963.
Teenager.
10) John
William Warrington – mental; wrote five letters threatening JFK for his
association with Martin Luther King, Jr.; says he will be lying in ambush in Florida.
(p.73-74) “…Bert DeFreese was the agent conducting the
advance for the Miami stop….”
DeFreese notifies Blaine of the
Joseph Milteer report.
(p. 80) “SS100X cost the Ford Motor Company two hundred
thousand dollars to build, but the Secret Service didn’t have that kind of
money in the budget. So Ford leased the car to the Secret Service for five
hundred dollars a year…”
(p. 83) Re: Trip to Naples, Italy.
“….but finally he leaned over to President Kennedy and said, ‘Shall we tell
them to get off the back of the car?’”
“President Kenendy said simply, ‘No, I want them there.”
(p. 85) “After checking into the Sheraton Dallas the night
before, Win Lawson had taken a walk around the downtown area. There had been
some disturbing incidents in Dallas
recently, and Lawson wanted to get a feel for the city’s attitude. Just three
weeks earlier, United Nations ambassador Adlai Stevenson was heckled as he gave
a speech at the Adolphus Hotel on UN Day, and then was assaulted and spat on as
he walked from the Dallas Memorial Auditorium to his waiting limousine….”
(p.100) “Win knew the scenario was unlikely in Dallas, but
even still, as he looked up again at all the open windows, he was concerned
about the exposure. Fortunately they’d have SSI00X in Dallas,
which had the rear steps and handholds so agents could be perched directly
behind the president and could react quickly. He’s be sure to tell Roy
Kellerman, the Special Agent in Charge for the Texas
trip, that when the motorcade was driving through downtown, agents would need
to be on the back of the car.”
(p.110) “Gordon Parks from the White House Communications
Agency accompanied the agents on the trip, and his first task was to set up a
radio connection to the White House in one of the hotel rooms. The agents tried
to use the radio to call home, but the connection was so bad and so little was
interpreted during the conversations that is seemed a worthless exercise…”
(p.123) Andy Berger connects with Sinatra.
(129) “…Jackie decided she wanted to be at Hammersmith Farm,
the forty-eight-acre estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that belonged to her
stepfather, Hugh Auchincloss. Jackie had spent childhood summers at the
twenty-eight-room Victorian mansion that overlooked Narragansett Bay,
which had also been the site of her and Jack’s wedding reception…The weekend of
September 21, 1963, the
president, Mrs. Kennedy, and their children were joined at Hammersmith by some
of their closest friends, Paul “Red” Fay and his wife Anita…”
(p. 130-131) “One of the White House photographers, Robert
Knudsen,...” makes film about the president’s murder.
(p. 139) “The Secret
Service in Florida spent much of
their time following up on plenty of similar leads that turned out to be
unfounded. There had been a myriad of alleged Cuban plots to assassinate the
president, but thus far not one case had turned out to be a real threat. In one
instance, the Secret Service intercepted an interesting letter, postmarked Havana,
that was sent to a Cuban immigrant named Bernardo Morlaes in Miami.
The letter refereed to a plan to kill President Kennedy, but the investigation
found that Morales – the recipient – was again an anti-Castro supporter who was
being framed by the other side, in an effort to get Morales thrown in jail.
Nine times out of ten, the leads turned out to be hoaxes, but the Secret
Service couldn’t take any chances. They investigated everything that came to
their attention.”
“…The whole idea of
having the Secret Service agents close to the president was for them to be able
to shield him with their own bodies. The further away they were from him, the
longer it took to react.”
(p. 162) “….Bert just told me about the order not to have
the agents on the back of the bubble top…’That’s right. The order came from the
Boss himself. He wanted the agents off the back of the car in order for the
people to get an unobstructed view. He doesn’t want to appear like he’s not
accessible.”
(p.164) – Hotel Texas, Fort Worth
– won’t accept black SS agent (Bob Faison)
(p.174) “Aboard the press plane, cocktails were being consumed
at a fast and furious rate. There was no food aboard, but drinks were
plentiful, and the atmosphere turned into a party. The Secret Service agents
still had responsibilities once they landed in Fort Worth, so for them, Cokes
and coffee were the drinks of choice. They weren’t allowed to drink while on
duty and none of them would ever risk losing their jobs for the small pleasure
of a beer, even after such a grueling day. Winding down for them would have to
wait.”
(p. 176) “…While standing in the lobby with some of the
other agents, a couple of reporters reminded them of the invitation to the
press club….But for the other eight agents who’d been on duty all day without a
meal, the idea of a free buffet was something they couldn’t pass up
Unfortunately, by the time Dave Grant, Clint Hill, Andy Berger, Dick Johnsen,
Paul Landis, Ernie Olson, Don Lawson, Jack Ready, and PDS
agent Glen Bennett got to the club, all the food was gone. Nothing else was
open at this time of night. ‘Sorry about that,’ Merriman Smith said…It was
better than nothing. A beer or a scotch and soda would at least wash down the
peanuts and hopefully help them relax enough so that sleep would come easily.
Every Kennedy Detail agent knew there was absolutely no drinking while on duty,
but there were no off-duty alcohol policies that were emphasized by management.
The agents’ characters and ability to perform were constantly being monitored
and none of them would take the risk of overindulging in alcohol. Like anybody
with a stressful job, a beer or two at the end of a long day was simply a way
to unwind. On the White House Detail the reality was that there was no start or
stop time for the agents. The agents stuck to themselves and shared a few
laughs about the days hectic events while Dave filled them in on what to expect
the next day in Dallas. Everybody
had a beer or two, or a mixed drink, but with no food around, they decided to
leave. A few of the White House press corps had heard about an after-hours
place a few blocks away called the Cellar, which was a beatnik type of coffee
shop where scantily clad waitresses doubled as singers. The Cellar didn’t serve
alcohol, but perhaps they could get a sandwich….Unfortunately, the Cellar
didn’t have much in the way of food either, so after a couple glasses of fruit
juice, the group returned to the hotel. Paul Landis had struck up a
conversation with an attractive female reporter and a Fort
Worth police officer, and wound up not leaving until
about 5:00 AM. By the time the warm
feeling he’d had from the scotch and soda several hours earlier had worn off,
when he got to his room, he fell dead asleep.”
(p.185) “Here in downtown Fort Worth, office buildings from
six to ten stories high surrounded the open parking lot….But behind any one of
the open windows across the street a demented individual could be sighting a
rifle as he wrestled with the demons inside his head: Should he or shouldn’t
he? Was it the right time? What if he missed? And what if he hit him dead-on?
Think of the fame he’d achieve by shooting that goddamned Negro-loving commie
president. It was no secret there were plenty of people in Texas
who hated everything President Kennedy stood for.”
(p.195) “Lawson made one final call to the Protective
Research Section to make sure no new threats had come in overnight. PRS
hadn’t received any new names; there were just the regulars, the ones the
agents all carried on index cards in their jacket pockets…”
(p.212) “The triangular canyon of buildings created an echo
chamber that masqueraded the sound such that even many of the Secret Service
agents, all of whom were expert marksmen with high powered rifles, didn’t
recognize it as gunfire…”
(p.217) “Clint lunged,…A pool of blood covered the floor.
And slumped across the seat, President Kennedy lay unmoving, a bloody, gaping,
fist-sized hole clearly visible in the back of his head…”
(p.230) “ken O’Donnell agreed with Secret Service agents’
recommendations that Johnson should return to Washington as soon as possible
and yes, he should leave Dallas on Air Force One. Woody Taylor was told to call
the Dallas White House switchboard and have them notify Colonel Swindal, the
commander of the aircraft, to be prepared to take the president back to
Washington, D.C. as soon as possible…”
(p. 231) (Secret Service Chief James “Jim”) “…Rowley was
attending a graduation luncheon for Secret Service school attendees at
O’Donnell’s Sea Grill restaurant…”
(p. 233) Parkland Hospital 12:39 “…A representative from the
CIA appeared a while later….” (Andy Berger)
(p. 254) “Art Godfrey’s midnight shift agents in Austin were
headed back to Washington, D.C., on a Strategic Air Command KC135 that had
departed Bergstrom Air Force Base at 3:00 PM….The military had all their units on radio silence because of a Strategic Air Command order….”
(p. 255) “Agents Win Lawson and Dave Grant had watched Air
Force One take off from Love Field….They’d been instructed to report directly
to the Dallas police headquarters to observe the questioning of a suspect who
had already been captured. Although seeing Lee Harvey Oswald’s arrogant
behavior and hearing his snide remarks to Dallas
investigators’ questions triggered their anger, Win and Dave refused to let it
influence their judgment about whether Dallas
police had the right man. Lee Harvey Oswald certainly did fit the classic
profile of an assassin driven by a fanatical desire for recognition, but the
seasoned agents knew physical evidence was also needed to prove Oswald’s
guilt.”
(p. 257) “Paul Rundle,…was put in charge of securing
Johnson’s residence. There would be three perimeters of security. The first,
outer layer would be manned by the D.C. metropolitan police, the next perimeter
would be manned by the National Guard, and the third and final layer of
protection would be the Secret Service agents from the presidential and vice
presidential details, supplemented by agents from nearby field offices…Agent
Toby Chandler,….was one of the agents assigned to help field incoming phone
calls…”
(p. 262) “At 9:25PM the afternoon shift traveled with
President Johnson to the Elms at 4040 Fifty-second Street, just five minutes
from the White House, where Agent Paul Rundle was waiting to brief them on the
new security. ‘Listen,’ Rundle said, ‘There are rumors flying all over the
place but the truth is, nobody knows who might have been behind the
assassination. They’ve got this guy Oswald in custody in Dallas,
and while he could easily be a deranged sociopath, there’s still the chance he
was part of a bigger conspiracy. Could be Cuban, Mafia, or some Soviet-backed
plan to overthrow the government. It’s just too early to know but the orders
we’ve been given are to be excessive in our protective measures.’”
(p. 215) Washington D.C.
Nov. 23, 1963 2:15 AM “Standing outside in the pitch-black darkness, Agent
Jerry Blaine….was on post at the rear corner of President Johnson’s large
two-story French chateau-style house close to the back door,….when he heard the
sound of someone approaching from the clockwise direction…Instinctively Blaine
picked up the Thompson submachine gun and activated the bolt on top…The next
instant there was a face to go with the footsteps. The new President of the United
States, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had just
rounded the corner, and Blaine had
the gun pointed directly at the man’s chest. In the blackness of the night,
Johnson’s face went completely white. A split second later, Blaine
would have pulled the trigger.”
(p. 274) “In Dallas, Lee Harvey Oswald had been charged with
the murder of President Kennedy……..There would be a trial of course, but
everybody who’d questioned Oswald had no doubts that he was the assassin. The
bigger law enforcement concern now was that with so much public hatred and rage
directed towards Oswald, somebody might try to take the law into his own hands
and kill him before he could stand trail.”
(p. 282) “The Diplomatic Reception Room, where the function
for the visiting dignitaries would be held, was located on the top floor of the
State Department, overlooking the Lincoln Memorial and Memorial
Bridge. On any other day it was
perhaps one of the best views in Washington,
but today the only place Jerry Blaine wanted to be was with the procession
going from the White House to the Capitol. He couldn’t see it from here. Blaine
went through the security details with the State Department security staff and
after a few hours had a plan in place. Fifty world leaders in one room. It was
perhaps the most important advance Blaine
had ever been assigned and while he’d gone through the entire checklist, he
realized now that no matter how much planning went into an event you could
never plan for the unexpected. He still had to type up the Preliminary Survey
Report, so he drove straight to the White House…Blaine
typed up the report and dropped it off at SAIC Behn’s office,….”
(p. 285) 8 AM - “Jerry Blaine had written down everything he
could remember about the Saturday morning incident with President Johnson at
the Elms and had arrived early for the meeting with Secret Service chief James
Rowley…Blaine was getting nervous. He was here with every supervising agent,
with the exception of Roy Kellerman. What was going on?”
“Chief Rowley had arrived at his office…while Rowley was
normally confident in the abilities of his men, the assassination was so fresh,
so raw, that he was overseeing every detail himself….’Good morning, gentlemen,’
Rowley said as he sat down at the head of the conference table. ‘We have an
extraordinary day ahead, so let’s get right down to it.’ He flipped open a file
folder and turned to Floyd. ‘Floyd, do you want to give me a brief recap of
President Kennedy requesting the agents drop back to the follow-up car in Tampa?’”
“Blain had relaxed a bit. So this wasn’t regarding the
Johnson near incident after all. It was about Tampa.
But why was he concerned about Tampa
now?”
“Everything was going along fine, but I noticed the
president continually glancing back at the agents standing behind him,…and he
made an unusual request. He was standing up and he leaned toward me…I of
course, was sitting in the front passenger seat, while Bill Greer was
driving…So, he leaned toward me and said, ‘Floyd, have the Ivy League
charlatans drop back to the follow-up car.’”
“To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by ‘Ivy
League charlatans,’ but I sure as hell knew what he meant when he said to have
them drop back to the follow-up car. I knew he felt they were hovering a bit
too close. And this being a political trip and all, I think he was very
conscious of the appearance.”
(p. 312) Dec. 10,
1963. “Eighteen days after the assassination, Dallas SAIC Forrest
Sorrels and Secret Service inspector Gerald McCann submitted their report on
the agents’ drinking investigation to Chief Jim Rowley…”
(p. 316) “Every agent….was suffering…they all felt an
overwhelming sense of failure. Rationally, they could tell themselves that they
had no intelligence of Lee Harvey Oswald and his presence in Dallas,
and that they had limited control when it came to the president riding in an
open-top car, but none of these excuses was acceptable to the former Kennedy
Detail agents…”
(p. 317) “President Johnson’s personality and demeanor were
totally opposite to John F. Kennedy’s/ His vocabulary was littered with
obscenities and his temper was quick and sudden. You never knew what kind of mood he would be in
what might suddenly set him off in a tirade….It didn’t take long for stories
about Johnson’s unconventional behavior to circulate among the agents. The day
shift reported the president was a fairly good marksman at shooting deer by
sighting his telescopic rifle over the hood of the leased tan Lincoln
convertible, which caused some of the agents to question his sportsmanship…And
then there were the eyebrow raising things they witnessed Johnson doing that
Kennedy never would have done, things such as President Johnson relieving
himself whenever and wherever he pleased, sometimes even in the presence of
female press members…..”
(p. 321) “…the FBI was receiving far more flack than the
Secret Service for the assassination, due to the Bureau’s handling of Lee
Harvey Oswald. It had come out shortly after the assassination that Oswald had
been on the FBI’s watch list because of his defection to Russia,
and there was speculation about whether the information they had on him
constituted a threat that should have been reported to the Secret Service. In
reality, Oswald had never threatened the
president, so there was no legitimate reason for the FBI to pass information to
the Secret Service…In the aftermath of the assassination, the FBI had conducted
an investigation and had determined that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole
assassin. The problem facing Johnson now was related to the facts that had come
out of the investigation: not only had
Oswald defected to Russia,
but upon returning to the United States
he had been involved with groups favorable to Cuba
and Fidel Castro. Journalists were taking on the task of investigation and,
like Drew Pearson, were igniting firestorms from all different directions. The
case of who had killed the President was nowhere near closed.”
(p.334) “On May 7, 1964, Jerry Blaine was conducting an
advance in Athens, Ohio for President Johnson’s appearance at Ohio University
when he met a man named Jack Hight, who had worked in President Johnson’s
senatorial office at one time and was now working in government relations for
International Business Machines Corporation. (IBM).
Hight and Blaine had dinner one night and Hight’s enthusiasm about the future
of IBM and the opportunities it presented
was contagious. The company was best known for its typewriters but had become a
leader in the growing mainframe computer industry…Jack Hight had got him
thinking. Maybe it was time to consider leaving the Secret Service and pursuing
a career in the private sector.”
(p.334-5) “…An agent in the Chicago office by the name of
Abraham Bolden, who had just been indicted on charges of soliciting a bribe
from a defendant for documents related to a counterfeit case, held a press
conference to announce that he was being framed. The reason for his indictment,
he claimed, was that he had approached the Warren Commission to provide
testimony about derelict behavior of Kennedy Detail agents – which included
elaborate sex parties and on-duty drinking at Hyannis Port – that he had
witnessed while serving a thirty-day temporary assignment on the White House
Detail in the summer of 1961. The insinuation was that the Kennedy Detail
agents may have been responsible for the president’s death due to laxness in
their duties, and Bolden’s arrest was an attempt to shut him up.”
“The claims were absurd. Certainly, it was strange being
charged with conspiracy to sell government documents – a crime for which the
Secret Service had a pile of convincing evidence against him – that he was
suddenly coming forth with these preposterous accusations. On top of everything
else, Bolden, an African-American, was claiming he’d been the subject of
racism. He said he had logged a complaint with Chief Jim Rowley following his
brief stint in Hyannis Port,
which was never followed up on.”
“Most of the White House agents had never heard of Bolden,
and those who had worked with him when he served the temporary duty nearly
three years earlier remembered him only as an agent whose attitude interfered
with group cohesiveness. He was no doubt a good investigative field agent who
may just have decided to remain in the field. In any event, he was not
transferred permanently to the White House Detail.”
“Bob Faison, who was transferred to the Kennedy Detail in
September of 1963 and was the first African-American to be a permanent White
House Detail Secret Service agent, found Bolden’s claims to be so ridiculous,
he simply ignored them…Bob Faison had never met Bolden, but he couldn’t imagine
any of his colleagues conducting themselves in the manner Bolden described.”
“In the end, the Warren Commission rejected Bolden’s
accusations against the White House Detail agents. What did seem clear was that
Bolden was trying to divert attention from the crimes for which he’d been
indicted. For the majority of White House Detail agents, the Bolden issue was
but another baseless accusation for which they’d have to bite the bullet and
remain silent. It was Secret Service policy for agents not to speak publicly
about the inner workings of the agency, and in reality Bolden’s allegations
were so ludicrous that none of the Johnson Detail agents gave the issue another
thought….”
(p. 356) “In 2005, a book was published that claimed ‘JFK
was the target of an assassination plot during his long motorcade in Tampa,
Florida, on November 18, 1963 four days before Dallas.’”
“Oh really? Jerry thought. He bought the book to see what
this author apparently knew that he hadn’t known as the Secret Service agent
who conducted the advance for that very trip. Once again he could not believe
that stuff like this was being published. No wonder people believed in
conspiracy theories. There was so much crap being put out with absolutely no
validity to it, but his one was really doozy. The convoluted theory the author
had come up with was beyond the realm of reason. The author claimed that the
Secret Service’s Tampa advance
reports had been destroyed and that the Tampa
plot was somehow connected to another plot by the mafia to assassinate
President Kennedy in Chicago during
his November 2, 1963,
visit. The author claimed that JFK had canceled the Chicago
trip at the last minute because the Secret Service had knowledge of a four-man
hit team that was planning his assassination in Chicago,
Tampa or Dallas.”
“Blaine wondered
where this theory cropped up, since he had been on all those trips; he had
knowledge of every threat, everything that was known at the time. Blaine
was incredulous. Where did this guy come up with this crazy idea? And then he
read that one of the author’s sources was ‘a Secret Service agent named Abraham
Bolden.”
“Abraham Bolden? The name Bolden was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place
it. And then he remembered: Bolden was the Secret Service agent from the
Chicago Field Office who, after being charged with a felony several months after Kennedy’s
assassination, had made all those claims about the Secret Service agents being
lax in their duties at Hyannis Port. Blaine
had to write a sworn statement and he remembered thinking at the time how
absurd Bolden’s claims were. Bolden’s case was appealed all the way to the
Supreme Court, but in the end he was convicted and sent to prison for offering to
sell documents in a counterfeit case. Bolden – a convicted criminal – was the
author’s source of the plot in Tampa,
which was based on a case allegedly reported to the Secret Service by the FBI
involving an alleged four-man hit team that the Secret Service had allegedly
covered up. Bolden continued to claim that he was sent to prison to shut him
up. Once again it appeared to Blaine
that Bolden was grasping at straws – and using JFK’s assassination to try to
get his record cleared.”
“Despite earlier rejection of his allegations, Abraham
Bolden was allowed to speak with HSCA investigators when the JFK assassination was
reopened. Bolden told them that sometime before November 2, 1963, the FBI sent
a Teletype message to the Chicago Secret Service office stating that there
would be an attempt on Kennedy’s life in Chicago on November 2 by a four-man
hit team using high-powered rifles. The HSCA interviewed Ed Tucker and other
agents who were working in the Chicago
office at that time, and none of them could recall any such thing. The HSCA
could not document that such a case existed and found that Bolden’s story was
of ‘questionable authenticity.’”
“It had been a long time, but Blaine
was compelled to pull out his files to make sure his memory was serving him
correctly. Like any good investigator, he had kept all of his personal reports
for all these years. Every time they moved to a new house, with his various
jobs, Joyce had asked him why couldn’t he throw all that stuff away, but he’d
insisted the boxes of files were important. He found the box from 1963 and
started going through it. It was all there. Pages and pages of information that
refuted all the claims this guy was making. He was holding in his hands the Tampa
advance report that had supposedly been destroyed.”
“Jerry remembered that the only possible threat
investigation that occurred in Chicago before President Kennedy’s assassination
involved a man called Thomas Arthur Vallee….Jerry remembered when Cecil Taylor
in PRS had first told him about Vallee, when
he was preparing for the Tampa advance…”
(p. 366) “At the end of August, the Democratic National
Convention was held in Atlantic City, New
Jersey. Attorney General Robert Kennedy had lobbied
to be Lyndon Johnson’s vice presidential running mate, but President Johnson
was worried that having a Kennedy on the ticket would cost him votes in the
South. So instead Johnson chose Hubert Humphrey, a U.S. Senator from Minnesota.
Robert Kennedy was slated to speak at the convention, and there was a great
deal of concern that he would cause a disruption. When Jackie Kennedy decided
that she too would like to make an appearance to thank the party for all the
support they’d given her husband, Clint Hill worked with Nancy Tuckerman and
Pamela Turnure, who had been Jackie’s press secretary, on the security advance
to Atlantic City.”
“As it turned out, former attorney general Kennedy did not
upset the proceedings. When he appeared onstage, he received an uninterrupted
standing ovation that lasted for nearly twenty-two minutes, and his heartfelt
speech about how much his brother President John F. Kenney had depended on and
appreciated the support of the Democratic Party was the highlight of the
convention. At the end of the speech he urged the party to offer just as much
support to the 1964 candidates, President Lyndon B. Johnson and Hubert
Humphrey.”
“During the moving speech, the eyes of the audience were
often turned away from the stage and to an upper balcony where Jackie Kennedy
sat, gracious as usual….”
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