In a recent talk about the assassination of President Kennedy to West Virginia high school students, former Secret Service Agent Gerald Blaine said: “This story needs to be told and the only answers [about that day] that are reliable are from the agents who were there.”
Blaine is co-author of “The Kennedy Detail,” a New York Times bestseller about the JFK’s personal security team in 1963, which is being made into a major motion picture.
“We wrote the book,” he said, “to make sure the conspiracy theorists didn’t kidnap history.”
Yet Blaine’s book provides persuasive evidence of conspiracy — he just doesn’t know it.
In “The Kennedy Detail,” Blaine quotes a number Secret Service agents who witnessed JFK’s assassination from the follow-up car. All said that the president and Texas Governor John Connally were hit in the back by two different gun shots. This testimony buttresses the recollections of Connally and his wife who said the same thing.
Their eyewitness testimony was discounted by the Warren Commission, which concluded that the two men had been wounded by the same shot, as explained by the famous “single bullet theory.”
The Warren Commission recognized the problem that Blaine seems unaware of. If Kennedy and Connally were hit by two different bullets, then there had to have been two gunmen firing at the presidential motorcade. The two shots occurred so close in time (less than a second apart) that a single gunman could not have fired both.
If the movie version of “The Kennedy Detail” adheres to the book, it will lend credence to the conspiracy theorists whom Blaine hopes to refute.
Blaine says part of his message is that he wants young people will be more trusting of the government.
“There were a number of things that happened that just added divisiveness in the country,” he said. “I like to talk to young people who don’t know, who may have heard it from their parents, so that they might trust the government.”
That’s a worthy goal, but trust, by its nature, has to be earned. The public’s confidence in the federal government, as measured in polls, has been decreasing steadily since the Warren Report of 1964 proclaimed Oswald the lone assassin. Today the same percentage of people distrust the government — 80 percent — as disbelieve the Warren Report.
Is there a connection?
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Excerpts from “The Kennedy Detail”:
(p. 213) “… Clint Hill heard a sudden explosion sound from the right of him to the rear … he saw President Kennedy lurch forward, grab at his neck in a sudden strange motion, and then slump to his left …. He leapt off the running board of Halfback …. As his feet propelled him toward the moving car, Clint Hill was so focused on reaching his target that he didn’t even hear the second shot.”
(p. 213) “Follow-up car driver Sam Kinney’s responsibility was to maintain his focus on the president’s car. He saw Kennedy’s reaction to the first shot and then saw Clint leap onto the pavement a split second later …. His eyes were still focused on President Kennedy when he heard the second shot and saw Governor Connally slump toward his wife.”
“When the first shot was fired, Connally immediately recognized it as a rifle shot; the sound came from behind. He looked back in a reflexive motion over his right shoulder to where the sound had originated but saw only a few men, women, and children standing on the grassy knoll alongside the street. There was nobody holding a gun, and the sound seemed to have come from further away. He turned forward again and was just about to look over his left shoulder to make eye contact with President Kennedy when he felt a crippling blow to his back. Like Clint, the adrenaline coursing through his veins threw his system into such shock that he never heard the second shot, the very shot that hit him.”
“The instant Nellie Connally heard the first shot, she turned her head to look over her right shoulder — the sound had come from the right rear of the car — and she saw President Kennedy draw his hand to his throat. She turned to her husband just as the sound of the second shot permeated the car. Immediately the governor doubled over, blood spilling from his chest. ‘Oh no, no, no, no!’ he yelled as he slumped toward Nellie. ‘They’re going to kill us all!’”
“ASAIC Roy Kellerman was sitting in the front passenger seat of the presidential limo, directly in front of Governor Connally. He heard the first loud pop over his right shoulder and as he turned his gaze back and to the right, he thought he heard the president say, ‘My God, I’m hit.’ He swung around to his left to look into the back of the car and saw President Kennedy grasping at his neck.”
“Kellerman grabbed the radio, turned to Bill Greer, and said, ‘Let’s get out of here! We’re hit!” He pushed the transmission button and there was no mistaking the urgency in his voice. ‘Lawson, this is Kellerman. We’re hit. Get us to the nearest hospital. Quick!’”
“As he was relaying the message, he heard one bang, and then another, and as Greer tramped down on the accelerator, Kellerman felt the car burst forward with such thrust he felt like it was jumping off the goddamned road.”
It is now officially dead. The word I received was the director read my book SURVIVOR’S GUILT: THE SECRET SERVICE AND THE FAILURE TO PROTECT PRESIDENT KENNEDY and could not, in good conscience, proceed with this farce of a movie.
Thank you Mr. Palamara, for all your work. In and of itself it is exemplary. The prevention of potential further disinformation is proof of it’s value.
Great job,Vince.
will you please write me a US 35 president AOL.com
I need to ask you a question about one statement you made in that remark.
please write to me Nick
You’ll notice that the agents car and actor stand-ins/sit-ins are missing when the surviving agents are looking at JFK’s parade car replica from the TSBD ‘sniper’s nest’ window. This is a slap in the face to the agents that were exposed to the gunfire and came close to being victims themselves. It is also a subtle way to distort and re-write history by pretending the agents and their car tailgating JFK’s car were not present during the attack. This dishonest & distorted formula has been used on the global public since the very 1st SS reenactment film in Dec 1964 and has continued through all the TV documentaries to the most recent (‘Lost Bullet’).
Demonstrating to the public if a blockage existed by their human and automobile presence directly behind JFK during the attack is where the case SHOULD have began. Also ignored is just how close the agents came to being victims of the attack.
JFK was NOT a lone, solo target on Elm Street 22 Nov 1963. The Presidential parade car & it’s SS follow-up car were like a locomotive & caboose. Omitting the SS guards & their car from any rear trajectory analysis is both dishonest & fraudulent, not to mention being an insult to the Presidential guards who were a part of the history that occurred when President Kennedy was attacked & killed.
The challenge is on for the media to re-enact the attack with all historical elements truthfully represented. Until that happens, it’s garbage in, garbage out (BS in, BS out).
Clint Hill also think’s that the second bullet hit Connelly and does belive in the majic bullet.
My book “Survivor’s Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect the President”, due out 9/1/13 (and massively expanded/updated/ corrected from any prior self-published/ deleted version, all of which saw a very limited audience), will totally debunk “The Kennedy Detail”- there was NO morning-of-JFK’s-funeral meeting, as described by Blaine in a figment of his imagination, etc etc etc. Blaine is so concerned about it he had an intermediary, a semi-famous television producer, contact me and try to talk me OUT of publishing it haha! Blaine is rightfully worried: he thought I was a mere fly in the ointment, someone to mock anonymously on pages 359-360 of his book [those concerns are thoroughly addressed in my book], but not someone to be concerned in the mainstream aka the publishing world…WRONG ANSWER. When my book comes out it will expose Blaine for the liar that he is.
Somewhat related: Cartha D. DeLoach, No. 3 in FBI is Dead at 92.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/us/cartha-d-deloach-no-3-in-fbi-is-dead-at-92.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
@George, it’s partly due to a lack of critical thinking in this country. This requires people to do some intellectual work. Read widely. Consider multiple points of view. Consult all available evidence. Avoid theorizing without a substantial documentary basis.
We don’t learn to do these kinds of thinking skills in school instead focusing on looking for the “right” answer quickly from received opinion.
Another similar error to the one you highlight with Connally is the fact that the official reports of FBI and Secret Service disagree with the single bullet theory. One shot hit the president, one shot his Connally, and the third shot killed the president. Note that both agencies ignored the Tague shot!
In a media publicity system that was organized around holding the government accountable this fundamental disagreement between these two government agencies and the Warren Report theory would have been addressed and those involved would have been questioned with much reporting about the conflict.
However, that is not one of the functions of the mainstream media.
It’s a simple matter, as Malcolm Kilduff said. If the SBT fails, so does the Warren Report conclusion that Oswald acting alone killed Kennedy.
One thing I have never understood.
Governor Connolly and his wife always maintained that the bullett which hit Governor Connolly was NOT the bullett which hit the president.
BUT they also stated that they believed in the Warren Report with LHO being the lone assassin.
Did they not realise that one disproved the other??
The Warren Report dissed the Gov.
He was unimportant.
He and Nellie knew the truth about his injuries.