Worst Scandal In Secret Service History? O Ye Of Little Knowledge

When I heard the report on NBC's nightly news the other night, I glanced at my wife. She rolled her eyes, and I just shook my head. Just another example of a so-called journalist who is completely oblivious to historical fact. "They're calling it the worst scandal in the history of the Secret Service," claimed the NBC correspondent.

Who are "they" I wondered.

The correspondent was referring to Secret Service agents who were apparently devoting more time to hookers and coke than they were to protecting President Obama. I didn't catch the correspondent's name; his lack of awareness of history made him eminently forgettable. Still, how could I blame him? If he wasn't taught in school that the Secret Service was complicit in the murder of President Kennedy in 1963, how would he know any better. If the media he serves has ignored the truth for half of a century, how could I expect this poor sap to challenge his masters?

The fact is, though, indulging in hookers and coke pales in comparison to aiding and abetting in the murder of the commander-in-chief.

In Dallas on Novemeber 22, 1963, Emory Roberts, Secret Service agent in charge of the presidential detail, ordered agents off the presidential limousine as the motorcade began, ordered his agents to stand down in Dealey Plaza as shots rang out, and cruelly ordered Jackie Kennedy to remove her arms from around the mortally wounded President's head at Parkland Hospital so that he, Roberts, could see for himself that the President was dead.

William Greer, the Secret Service agent who drove the presidential limousine in the Dallas motorcade, actually brought the car to a complete stop so that the kill shot could be delivered. At the same time he raised his left hand and pointed it at the President as if he were aiming something at him. The Zapruder film shows no gun in Greer's hand, but several witnesses in Dealey Plaza saw a gun in his hand. Standing near the limousine at the time of the shooting, eyewitness Hugh Betzner said he "...observed what appeared to be a nickel-plated revolver in someone's hand in the President's car."

Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman, riding shotgun in the presidential limo, did nothing as the shooting occurred. His sworn duty was to give up his life for the President's, but he did not fling himself over the seat to cover the President. In fact, he did not budge. Films show him looking in the rear view mirror to see whether or not the President had been fatally wounded.

This incidents are suspicious, but you might ask: "What was the motive?" Well, let me give you a few quotes from a book written by a Secret Service agent assigned to President Kennedy in the early 1960s. His name is Abraham Bolden, and he knew all the suspect agents. "Time and again, I overheard [many of the agents with whom I worked] making chilling racist remarks, referring to Kennedy as 'that nigger-lover' whose efforts were screwing up the country," writes Bolden. The following passage is from page 52 of his book The Echo From Dealy Plaza, "Before Dallas, I had voiced my opinion of the President's protection detail to colleagues and superiors...I told anyone who would listen that I didn't believe the agents on the White House detail would act swiftly or appropriately to stop an attempt on the President's life...The senior agents struck me as arrogant...and saw to it that nobody acknowledged the apprehension of any less experienced agents regarding the President's safety...The senior agents' cocksure attitudes governed right up to the moment of Kennedy's death. One of the younger agents riding on the car behind the presidential limousine heard what sounded to him like a rifle shot. He started to jump from the running board to assist the President...but the young agent was called back to the follow-up car by a more senior agent, just as the third and fatal shot tore into the President's skull. The same inspector, Kelley, to whom I had previously complained about the laxity of the Secret Service agents surrounding the President, oversaw the Dallas investigation of Kennedy's assassination. After the assassination, I saw one suspicious action after another on the part of the Secret Service personnel, all of which left me convinced that the Secret Service wanted to present its own carefully orchestrated version of its performance to the Warren Commission...just after the assassination, orders started coming down from my supervisors that hinted at an effort to withhold, or at least to color, the truth." In support of Bolden's claims, Rebecca Lopez recently wrote this on WFAA.com: "On the night before President John F. Kennedy was killed, 10 members of his Secret Service detail were partying at a Fort Worth club called The Cellar...these agents that were out until five in the morning, that were supposed to be guarding the president's suite, bragged to the owner of The Cellar, Pat Kirkwood, that they were out having a few cocktails while they got the Fort Worth Fire Department guarding the presidential suite...the agents left their post at the Texas Hotel to party with waitresses at The Cellar, who served drinks wearing only their underwear."

And finally this from Bolden: "Agents often joked that if someone fired at the President they would jump out of the way and let him be killed." Another Secret Service agent charged with guarding President Kennedy years later admitted that he thought Kennedy was a communist appeaser and a traitor, and that his death was a good thing for the country.

Yes, that coke and hooker ring the Secret Service has going on now is just deplorable. But it's hardly the worst thing this incompetent, corrupt, venal organization has ever done.