Gordon Gray Wrote:A question I've always had is whether the order to stand down to the army intelligence unit, covered the entire Texas trip or just Dallas. Also do we know if standard protocols for motorcades where ignored in the other cities JFK visited during his Texas trip. I recall seeing an agent running along side his limosine in a film clip from Ft. Worth, that morning. The main thing that boggles my mind about the SS lack of protection, was their almost complete inaction for 6 seconds after the President was obviously hit, and why there has never been to my knowledge, a serious demand for an explanation for that inaction.
Okay. There are some people here with a far greater working knowledge of Prouty than myself. I invite them to jump in at any moment. As we know Prouty made the call that Army Intel was made to stand down that day. This source was from Bill McKinney (
http://www.prouty.org/comment9.html).
Colonel Jones of the 112th and the 1st person of rank to come across the cross reference 'Hidell/Oswald' link in the MI Files he was quoted as saying to HSCA
"We provided a small force I do not recall how many but I would estimate between 8 and 12 - during the Presidential trip to San Antonio Texas and then the following day, on his visit to Dallas. The Regions also pro- vided additional people to assist."
Some of the 112th Agents we know of are Coyle and Powell. Yet they were not their to provide security for the President. Apparently they were there because there had been a meeting in the morning apparently to do with some gun and drug running operations. And they just happened to be in Dealey Plaza that afternoon snapping pictures and what have you.
Now, its all a bit complex. The 112th was going through a transition at the time and it's dodgey whether all of this fell on Colonel Reich, whom later threatened to sue Prouty too the HSCA (which he never did). The ARRB did a bit of an ambush on Colonel Prouty when they interviewed him. They took the Jip out of him for not having his sources in order, but they oddly acknowledged that Reich himself had a long history of being considered a rather hot headed and unbalanced character. So who knows whats up there. I think Prouty was onto something but what precisely hmmm.
Ultimately regardless of the Stand Down issue. McKinley was correct. The SS didn't give word to anybody. Okay its not the stand down, but its damn well near enough. Prouty was correct the SS protection of Kennedy was totally and utterly crap. He was also correct in that he did once mention that there were Military Intelligence people in the crowd in Dealey but they were not their to protect the President. I think Prouty's last comments were generally pretty good. He could get some details wrong from time to time but he was generally okay. A good study of what went down with Prouty and Reich and so on has yet to be done! Believe it or not. Larry Hancock touched on it in an interesting article but it concerned itself with Coyle and Powell. It was decidedly a little tough on Prouty (trust me Larry and I have had some goodback and forths on it).
"In the Kennedy assassination we must be careful of running off into the ether of our own imaginations." Carl Ogelsby circa 1992