Bill Kelly's reviews of The Kennedy Detail by Gerald Blaine

[Magda Hassan]

Gerald Blaine's The Kennedy Detail (TKD) is a significant and insightful account of some of the men who were entrusted with the sacred responsibility of protecting the life of the President and failed. They failed to protect the President, failed to determine the truth as to what happened in Dallas, and now they fail to exonerate themselves and their agency for their dereliction of duty and the perversion of the truth.

The Kennedy Detail is an important new book because it's an insider's account of the activities of the Kennedy administration, reveals some Secret Service protocols, provides evidence of conspiracy and details how and why those agents failed to protect Kennedy. It does so while at the same time "CTA," as former Agent Abraham Bolden puts it - covers their ass.

It is from a study of the Secret Service protocols and activities that we come to an understanding of how the assassination was allowed to occur, and from the personal interactions between the Kennedy family and the men who failed to protect his life, why it was allowed to happen.

More here

[Dawn Meredith]

Good review. I want to hear more re. the SS agents who spoke the truth.
This is not an area that I have studied in depth.

Dawn

[Paul Rigby]

Good review. I want to hear more re. the SS agents who spoke the truth.

It's a very short list; an assassination haiku, in fact:

There's Bolden, perhaps
And then
That's it

[Paul Rigby]

The idea that JFK confused the assorted proletarians of the imperial bodyguard with the Ivy Leaguers of the CIA is, er, odd.

If there were any doubts as to the utter falsity of this attribution, this preposterous "confusion" should end them.

[Jim DiEugenio]

No, as Vince P has pointed out, there were several SS guys who thought it was a conspiracy, like Kinney for example.

[Bill Kelly]

Good review. I want to hear more re. the SS agents who spoke the truth.

It's a very short list; an assassination haiku, in fact:

There's Bolden, perhaps
And then
That's it

This is not true.

As Jim has already corrected you, there were a number of Secret Service Agents who believed the assassination was a conspiracy, or a plot, as they originally determined.

http://surftofind.com/palamara

AGENTS WHO BELIEVED IN A CONSPIRACY

Vince Palamara: Secret Service Agnets who believed there was a conspiracy:

The following agents believed that there was a conspiracy involved in JFK's death (I use past tense only because most of them are now deceased):

1) Samuel A. Kinney- Sam told me this three times (he also stated that he found the notion of conspiracy "plausible" to the HSCA, based off the recently-released contact reports available thru the ARRB/ Archives). He thought Oswald was the lone shooter, although he stated emphatically that there were no missed shots (!)- he spoke to Connally about this and THE GOVERNOR AGREED WITH SAM! Sam also told me that the "right rear" of JFK's head was missing[he later recovered THE piece of the president's head on the C-130], and that his windshield (of the follow-up car) and left arm were splattered with blood and brain matter. Finally, whether hyperbole or not, Sam said "He had no brains left". Sam passed away 7/21/97 while vacationing in Iowa. His wife Hazel told me she regretted that Sam is now forever unable to tell more...;

2) Roy H. Kellerman- According to his widow June, Roy "accepted that there was a conspiracy"- this was based on June overhearing Roy's telephone conversation with someone from the HSCA in approx. 1977 or 1978. As we all know, Roy stated to the WC that "there has to be more than three shots, gentleman" and that a "flurry of shells" came into the car. Like Bill Greer, Roy is often added to the list of those witnesses who reported that the right rear of JFK's head was blasted. The above information was reported to author Anthony Summers for the Dec. 1994 "VANITY FAIR", p. 88 [uncredited]; you'll also find it in my book. Finally, Kellerman's daughter told Harold Weisberg in the 1970's that "I hope the day will come when these men [Kellerman and Greer*]will be able to say what they've told their families";

3) Abraham W. Bolden, Sr,- Abe is a firm believer in a conspiracy AND in Secret Service negligence. Also, Abe is adamant that there was a plot to kill JFK in Chicago in early November, 1963. I spoke to Bolden twice and corresponded at length with him between 1993 and the present. Bolden is currently working on his own book with his wife;

4) Maurice G. Martineau- Abe's boss in the Chicago office, Martineau was equally adamant to me that a conspiracy took the life of President Kennedy. He also told me he finds the work of the HSCA much more valid than that of the WC. However, when it comes to info. on the Chicago plot, Martineau is afraid to give me details to this day...;

5) John Norris- a member of the uniformed division of the Secret Service, Norris is a fervent believer in a conspiracy, although one gets the impression this is more based on his beliefs than actual knowledge, but I could be mistaken. Still, his views and beliefs are important for obvious reasons;

6) *Bill Greer- despite many suspicions I have about Greer's conduct on 11/22-11/23/63, he is a "default" addition to this list. In addition to Kellerman's daughter's comments mentioned above, he is also among those witnesses who, at least indirectly, gave testimony that the right rear of JFK's head was missing. Also, to the HSCA, he had much misgivings about the "Single Bullet Theory". Still, this could just be guilty conscience- he expressed much guilt to Jackie Kennedy concerning his awful performance on Elm Street (which he would later deny to the FBI and the WC; even Greer's son Richard was adamant to me that his father had absolutely no survivor's guilt, despite these documented, very early guilt feelings. Even Dave Powers and Ken O'Donnell document Greer's early remorse ["Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye'; see also Powers interview by Charles Kuralt, 11/22/88 on video];

Also, Paul E. Landis, Jr., an agent in the follow-up car who, like agent Hill, was assigned to Jackie, stated twice that shots came from the front [18H755; 18H759];

In addition, agent Thomas "Lem" Johns, who rode in the V.P. follow-up car, told the HSCA that "the first two [shots] sounded like they were on the side of me towards the grassy knoll" [RIF 180-10074-10079]; Finally, SAIC of the Dallas office, Forrest V. Sorrels, riding in the lead car, believed the shots came from the front


Then there's Gerry O'Rourke, who lives near Gerald Blaine in Colorado:

http://educationforu...showtopic=15757

Ex-agent refuses to toe party line on JFK slaying

By Ellen Miller, Special To The News
November 20, 2003

GRAND JUNCTION - Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone when he killed
President John F. Kennedy, a retired agent said Wednesday, and the
president died because Secret Service agents failed at their jobs.
"Officially, the answer to Oswald when somebody asks - because we
were ordered to say it - is that the Warren Commission found that he
acted alone," retired agent Jerry O'Rourke said. "But was there more
than one gunman? Yes, personally I believe so. And my personal
opinion about Jack Ruby is that he was paid to kill Oswald."

O'Rourke grew up in Telluride and attended Western State and Regis
colleges, then spent 22 years in the Secret Service. Now retired and
back home, he spoke Wednesday to the downtown Grand Junction Rotary
Club.

O'Rourke said his group of agents, about 10 of them, had protected
Kennedy the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, at a breakfast speech in Fort
Worth. Then the group left by air for Austin, the next stop planned
for the president's Texas tour.

"We got the word (of the assassination) in the air, and we didn't
believe it at first," he said. "We were joking. But later, most of
the agents had tears in their eyes. Agents believed in Kennedy, and
we knew we failed our job in Dallas."

After his White House tour ended during Johnson's presidency,
O'Rourke spent a year in the Secret Service intelligence division,
which offered him glimpses into the investigation of Kennedy's death.

Those glimpses, and the accounts of other agents, have convinced
O'Rourke that Oswald didn't act alone. He cited several reasons:

Kennedy had a number of enemies, any of whom could have plotted
against him. They included Southerners angered by his insistence on
civil rights; organized crime; labor unions unhappy with
investigations of them by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy; Cuban
dissidents angry over the failed Bay of Pigs invasion; and FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover.

The shots were impossible to make. O'Rourke learned to shoot as a
boy and trained as a marksman in the military. He said his visits to
Oswald's perch at the Texas Book Depository convince him that no one
could have fired a rifle three times so quickly, hitting the
president and Texas Gov. John Connolly.

The trajectory of one of the shots could not have been made from a
gunman on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository. The shot
entered Kennedy's body at his lower back and traveled up, to exit
near his throat.

The circumstances of the autopsy were irregular. Texas law requires
autopsies to be done in state, but agents, acting on the orders of
White House, took Kennedy's body back to Washington, D.C. The autopsy
was performed at Bethesda Naval Medical Center under secrecy that
prevails to this day.

Evidence was destroyed. O'Rourke said that on the day of the
assassination, one agent was ordered to clean out the cars used in
the motorcade, getting rid of blood and other evidence. The agent
told O'Rourke that he found a piece of skull, asked the White House
doctor what to do with it, and was told to destroy it.

Instructions were given to lie. The agent in charge of motorcade
protection told O'Rourke that he was told by the Warren Commission
during his testimony that he did not hear a fourth shot and he did
not see someone running across the grassy knoll. But the agent
insisted that his account was accurate.

Evidence about the shots is in conflict. An open microphone on a
motorcycle in the motorcade picked up four shots, not three.

"In my opinion, Hoover wanted the commission to find that Oswald
acted alone," O'Rourke said. "The complete file won't be released
until 2027, and the reason for that is most of us will be dead by
then."