Boring's Interesting ARRB Interview
By Vince Palamara
With a few notable, albeit largely
overlooked exceptions1, Floyd Boring
was a relatively new name to the research community when
this author wrote a
detailed article about this former #2 Assistant-Special-Agent-In-Charge
(ASAIC) of the White House
Detail (WHD) entitled "Boring Is Interesting" in
the May 1995 "Fourth Decade (based off the author's
9/22/93 & 3/4/94
interviews)."2
In October 1995, this author gave a
presentation at the 2nd annual
Coalition on Political
Assassinations conference and wrote a follow-up article
entitled "More Boring Details" which appeared in
the Nov. 1995 "Fourth
Decade". However, it was from the author's COPA appearance
that the name of
Floyd Boring perked the
attention of Tom Samoluk of the Assassination Records
Review Board (ARRB)---Samoluk contacted the author,
I donated all of my audio
tapes and correspondence from all of my Secret Service/
related interviews,
and the rest is history.3
Nevertheless, there is a twist:
unbeknownst to me until the publication
of a recent book4, I had no idea that the ARRB actually
followed through with
one of my suggestions (although they had followed up on
two others5) and
interviewed Mr. Boring...but they did. On September 18, 1996, a
mere 2 days
after I received the Deed of Gift from the National
Archives regarding my
donations, Dr. Joan Zimmerman and Doug Horne of the ARRB
interviewed Mr.
Boring at
his home in
Boring's
consent. The ARRB interview of
Floyd Boring is in the ARRB's medical
documents and deposiions box
released in July of 1998. It is MD
259. Actually, it’s a
summary of the
interview not a transcript.
"Who? Me? Why?"
The interview begins with Boring exclaiming "I didn't have anything to do
with it, and I don't know anything." Let's replay
that again: "I didn't have
anything to do with it"---what, the assassination or the
"I don't know anything"---he
sure knew enough about the
tell Chief James Rowley via a written report 6 months
after the assassination6
AND in his 1976 JFK Library
Oral History, as well as his two talks with me!
Boring also claimed that
"he had never spoken with anyone at all in the Secret
Service about any aspect of
the Kennedy assassination", another statement that
is very hard to swallow, especially seeing that Boring
founded the Retired
Secret Service Agent's
Association in 1969.7
Pulling
the strings in D.C.
In any event, Horne writes "Contrary
to his disclaimer, the interview
proved to be worthwhile and interesting in a number of
respects." Boring
confirmed that he had never been interviewed by the WC, the
HSCA, or any other
government body in regard to the JFK assassination.8 Boring
claimed that he
was enjoying a day off at his home on 11/22/63 when he
heard the news of the
assassination on the radio.9
This ARRB interview provides startling new
information, and that is that
Floyd Boring confirms that
he was in charge of planning the
also sheds light on the totality of Boring’s relationship
with
planning, especially questionable security matters.
First, author Jim Bishop
revealed this fact in the 1960's in his book "The Day
Kennedy Was Shot":
p. 558 [1992 edition] "...(LBJ) called Secret Service Chief James Rowley.
‘Rufe
did a brave thing today,’ he said. ‘He jumped on me and kept me down. I
want you to do whatever you can, the best that can be done,
for that boy." He
hung up (this was 11/22/63). It had not occurred to him
that Rowley, too, was
lonely. If there was any blame, any official laxness, it
didn't matter that
THE PLANNING OF THE
BORING."
(Emphasis added)
And, to the JFK Library in
the 1970's:
"Part of my job at the White House
during the entire President Kennedy
administration was to be in charge of the advance work."
To the Truman Library in the
1980's:
"I was on all the advance work out of
there. I was assigned all the
advance work, sort of an administrator... I was second in
charge [behind
Special
Agent in Charge Jerry Behn]."
Finally, fellow former agent
Sam Kinney (the driver of the follow-up car on
11/22/63):
In regard to SAIC Gerald A.
"Jerry" Behn's absence from the
leaving ASAIC (#2) Floyd M. Boring to be the agent in charge
of the
trip, Kinney said: "I'll tell you how that happened.
We got, as agents,
federal employees, 30 days a year annual leave, but they
couldn't let us
off...there was only " x " amount of agents
back then in the whole country.
Jerry Behn
probably worked three years without annual leave so he decided to
take some time off...Roy Kellerman
was third in charge-he's qualified. Floyd
Boring stayed home- he could still handle what ever
came about from his
house; there [was] very little correspondence between the
agents in
because Win Lawson had the advance."
Back to the ARRB interview: "Boring
independently recalled that he was
the person who assigned Winston Lawson as the S.S.
advance agent for the
was given that assignment." So much for Boring's
'disclaimer' "I didn't have
anything to do with it, and I don't know anything."
A curious limousine
inspection
Boring initially claimed that his
activities on 11/22/63 "were limited to
going directly from his home to Andrews AFB to meet the
(new)
President11---and that he
escorted President Johnson on his helicopter from
Andrews to the White House,
after which he went directly home"; the latter
part of this statement, that Boring went directly home,
is NOT backed up by
the documentary record, nor by Boring's own admitted
actions.
Horne wrote: "When asked who directed
him to go to Andrews AFB, Mr.
Boring said that nobody
asked him to go there---that he just did it on his
own...
In about the middle of the interview, Mr.
Boring remembered that he and
Mr. [Paul J.] Paterni had inspected the President's limousine and the
Secret
Service follow-up car, but
was unsure whether they had inspected them the
night President Johnson returned to
(11/23/63)." Actually,
Boring and Paterni inspected the limo from 10:10 p.m.
the night of 11/22/63 until 12:01 a.m., one minute into
11/23/63 (the FBI
inspected the limo afterwards, starting at 1:00 a.m.).12
Furthermore, "When asked who directed
he and Paterni to search the
automobiles, he said that no one had; he said he thought it
might be a good
idea and had suggested it himself to Paterni,
and that they undertook this
search as independent action on their own initiative."
Interestingly, they
also beat Chief Rowley and ASAIC Kellerman
to the punch, as the record
indicates that they had also thought of the idea while at
AAFB.13 (Just to be
clear, Rowley and Kellerman did
not inspect the limousine at all.)
Continuing on: "After independently recalling
that they had searched the
cars, Mr. Boring said that he had discovered a piece of
skull bone with brain
attached14 in the rear of the follow-up car (the black Cadillac
convertible
called the "Queen Mary"), in the footwell just in front of the back seat
bench. He said during follow-up questioning that the
dimensions of this skull
bone-brain fragment were approximately 1" X 2". He
said that he never picked
it up or touched it himself, but that he simply pointed
it out to Mr. Paterni
(Mr. Paterni
was Deputy Chief of the Secret Service)15 He said he
did not
write a report about this, and he did not know whether Mr.
Paterni had written
a report or not."16
What makes Boring's recollections of the
limo inspection particularly
troublesome is the fact that he "made very clear during the
[ARRB] interview
that this fragment was in the rear of the follow-up car,
not in the rear seat
of the presidential limousine.
This would be the only known instance of
anyone claiming to have found
JFK bone fragments in the
Secret Service follow-up car.
Initially, ARRB staff members Zimmerman
and Horne had misunderstood Mr.
Boring to mean that the
bone-brain fragment was in the rear seat of the
President's limousine, and
Mr. Boring took specific pains to correct their
misunderstanding during follow-on discussion of this matter.
However, Boring called Horne the next day
to place a correction (and,
thus, a retraction) on the record: he now felt that the
skull bone-and-brain
fragment he saw "must have been in the back seat of the
President's limousine,
and not the follow-up car. He said that his stroke may
perhaps have had
something to do with his error." (Boring had a stroke in
the early 90's,
1991-1992ish).
During his inspection of the limousine
with Paterni Boring found bullet
fragments as well.
These bullet fragments were turned over to Orrin Bartlett,
the FBI's liaison officer with the Secret Service (3H p.
435). Bartlet
turned
them over to Robert Frazier in person in the FBI
lab. These bullet fragments
became CE 567 and CE 569. (See - CD 80;
(Kellerman);
5 H p. 67(Frazier); 7 HSCA p. 389;)
Boring’s stroke may also explain why
Boring now has NO recollection of
finding any bullet fragments at all in the limousine (only
the skull
fragment), and also may explain why he could not remember,
one way or the
other, the condition of the limousine's windshield and
chrome strip.17
op-ed about his colleagues
The ARRB interview states, "When
shown the HSCA summary of its interview
with
that there may have been a Secret Service conspiracy18,
Mr. Boring expressed
surprise at those sentiments and said he had never heard that
opinion
expressed by SAIC
association as Pennsylvania State Troopers.
“When shown the HSCA interview summary
with
19, he said he would not
agree with that statement, and expressed the opinion
that SA Aragon may not have known what he was talking
about.
“Mr. Boring was asked to read and comment
on several pages of the HSCA
6/1/77 interview
transcript20 with former graduate student James Gouchenaur,
in which Gochenaur recounted
a very long conversation he reportedly had with
SA Elmer
Moore in 1970. Mr. Boring examined the portions of the
transcript in
which Gouchenaur quoted
things away to the Russians; that it was a shame people had
to die, but maybe
it was a good thing; that the Secret Service personnel
had to go along with
the way the assassination was being investigated
("I did everything I was
told, we all did everything we were told, or we'd get our
heads cut off"); and
that he felt remorse for the way he (Moore) had badgered
Dr. Perry into
changing his testimony to the effect that there was not, after
all, an
entrance wound in the front of the president's neck. Mr. Boring said that it
would be just like SA Moore to give such a lengthy
interview, but that he
doubted very much whether agent Moore had really said those
things."
In addition, "Mr. Boring was shown
the HSCA interview of SA [George]
Hickey, and was asked to
read the portion wherein Mr. Hickey stated that Mr.
Boring came down to the
garage and told him statements were being collected in
the White House, and directed (or suggested) that he go
and write down his
statement.21 His response to this was that he did not remember
even seeing SA
Hickey in the White House
garage, nor did he remember seeing SA Kinney, or any
other Secret Service agents, or FBI agents, during the
automobile searches
[plural].
He did have some vague recollection of White House police being
there."22
Security Striping measure #1
Agents off the limo: a JFK
order or an anecdote?
Evidence against Mr. Boring
“not have anything to do with it”, meaning
his involvement in
indirectly through subordinates personally selected by him of
what can only be
called security stripping measures. The first of which
involves removing
agents from the rear of the limousine.
"Mr. Boring was asked to read pages
136-137 of Clint Hill's
Commission testimony [Vol.
2], in which Clint Hill recounted that Floyd Boring
had told him just days prior to the assassination that
during the President's
rear steps of the limousine, and that Boring had also so
informed other agents
of the White House detail, and that as a result, agents
in
Clint Hill, on brief occasions)
did not ride on the rear steps of the
limousine.
MR BORING AFFIRMED THAT HE DID MAKE THESE
STATEMENTS TO CLINT HILL, BUT
STATED THAT HE WAS NOT
RELAYING A POLICY CHANGE, BUT RATHER SIMPLY TELLING
AN
ANECDOTE ABOUT THE
PRESIDENT'S KINDNESS AND CONSIDERATION IN
WANTING AGENTS TO HAVE TO
RIDE ON THE REAR OF THE
WAS NOT
NECESSARY TO DO SO BECAUSE OF A LACK OF CROWDS ALONG THE STREET."
(Emphasis added).
I find this admission startling, especially
because the one agent who
decided to ride on the rear of the limousine in
least 4 different occasions--- was none other than CLINT
HILL himself!
This also does not address what the agents
were to do when the crowds
were heavier, or even what exactly constituted a
"crowd", as AGENTS DID RIDE
ON THE REAR STEPS OF THE
LIMOUSINE IN
(agents
Donald J. Lawton, Andrew E. Berger,
& Charles T. Zboril, to be
exact)23!
Furthermore, Clint Hill's written report
(as well as his testimony) sure
conveys a more strict approach than one stemming from an
alleged, kind
anecdote; in fact, Hill twice stated he DID NOT RECALL who
the agent was who
told him, and the other agents, not to ride on the rear
of the limousine:
"I, Special Agent Clinton J. Hill,
never personally was requested by
President John F. Kennedy
not to ride on the rear of the Presidential
automobile. I DID RECEIVE INFORMATION PASSED VERBALLY FROM THE
ADMINISTRATIVE
OFFICES OF THE WHITE HOUSE
DETAIL OF THE SECRET SERVICE TO AGENTS ASSIGNED
TO
THAT DETAIL THAT PRESIDENT
KENNEDY HAD MADE SUCH REQUESTS. I DO NOT KNOW
FROM
WHOM I RECEIVED THIS
INFORMATION. It was general knowledge on the White House
Detail, however, that
President Kennedy has asked Special Agent in Charge
Gerald A. Behn, not to have Special Agents ride on the rear of the
Presidential Automobile [Behn denied to me that President Kennedy made such a
request. Films and
photos from 1963 appear to confirm Behn’s story that
JFK
never made such a request]. NO WRITTEN INSTRUCTIONS
REGARDING THIS WERE EVER
DISTRIBUTED.
Hill continues, "I was informed that
on November 18, 1963, in
Charge Floyd M. Boring that
Special Agents remove themselves from the rear of
the Presidential automobile. I WAS NOT ON THIS SPECIFIC
TRIP WITH THE WHITE
HOUSE DETAIL AND RECEIVED
THIS INFORMATION AFTER THE PRESIDENT'S RETURN TO
NOVEMBER
21, 1963
[NOTE TIME FRAME!]. I DO NOT KNOW
SPECIFICALLY WHO ADVISED ME OF THIS
REQUEST BY THE PRESIDENT.
So, what do we have exactly? Something allegedly happens on the
trip, or is attributed to the
one on the trip actually left the bumper or recalls
being told to leave and
stay off the bumper per a presidential request. The Secret Service agents to
whom this order would apply to deny this happened. This story does exist
though, and spreads through word of mouth, by Boring to
agents who were not
involved in the
policy to be implemented on the next trip, which would be
Look at what Hill writes “I DID RECEIVE
INFORMATION PASSED VERBALLY FROM
THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES
OF THE WHITE HOUSE DETAIL OF THE SECRET SERVICE
TO
AGENTS ASSIGNED TO THAT
DETAIL THAT PRESIDENT KENNEDY HAD MADE SUCH
REQUESTS.
Well, who’s in this administrative office
of the Secret Service’s White
House
Detail? Boring. The “general
knowledge” Hill speaks of would more
appropriately be coming from Boring, not Behn. Behn denied it
outright.
Boring was on the
from.
Boring’s non-denial denial, that it was
only an anecdote denoting the
kindness of JFK is refuted by Boring himself when
Floyd Boring categorically denied what William
Manchester reports on pp.
37-38 of his book [1988
edition]: "Kennedy grew weary of seeing bodyguards
roosting behind him every time he turned around, and in
[1963], just four days
before his death, he dryly asked Agent Floyd Boring to
'keep
those Ivy League charlatans off the back of the car.' Boring wasn't
offended. There had been no animosity in the remark."
Boring told me "I never told him
that".
As far as the merit of the quote, Boring
told me: "No, no, no-that's not
true." When asked, point blank, if JFK had ever
ordered the agents off the
rear of the limousine, including in
that's not true. That's not true. He was a very nice man; he never interfered
with us at all."
In regard to
tell them anything...He just- I looked at the back of the
car and I seen these
fellahs (ZBoril and
return to the (follow-up) car. He (JFK) was a very
easy-going guy; he didn't
interfere with our actions at all".
Boring confirmed what he had previously
told me on 9/22/93 and 3/4/94
when he wrote that "President Kennedy was a very
congenial man knowing most
agents by their first name. He was very cooperative with
the Secret Service,
and well liked and admired by all of us.[letter received
11/22/97]"
So, Boring would have you believe it was
just routine, as agents would
sometimes hop back and forth from the rear of the limousine to
the Secret
Service follow
up car. However, again Boring does not
really deny the story
as much as he puts a spin on it. All Boring said was he did not speak with
cannot check if Boring did speak with
withheld from the public.
So, while it is indeed being spread, as
policy, Boring can say afterwards
it was only a harmless retelling of an anecdote. And he can deny it by saying
he never spoke with
any truth to the story, and the only one not to totally
deny it. Remember,
Boring is admitting it came
from him, and not JFK. Everyone else totally
denies it, it never came from JFK, not even as an anecdotal
story.
Boring’s story, whether actual or not,
whether anecdotal or not
somehow grows after the
policy, though never written down, for the preparation for
the
something which had never occurred before.
Oddly, if this is new policy, it goes into
practice only in
Clint Hill does recall
hearing it, as policy, though he can’t recall from whom
he heard it according to his written report. However,
he named none other than Floyd Boring
as THE source during his Warren Commission testimony
mentioned above" or words to
that effect. [It's important to note that Hill was twice
coy about naming his source in his WRITTEN
statement, yet named the source---Boring---under oath to Arlen
Specter
of the WC]. Hill does disobey it 4 times but that does
not necessarily mean
the policy did not exist. He may have felt he should be obeying it as
he does
not stay on the rear bumper for any appreciable lenght of time. And the other
agents do stay on the follow up car.
Interestingly, in viewing slow motion
video footage of the Love Field
departure [WFAA/ABC TV video], one can see agent Henry J. Rybka [25H787]
attempt to get on the back of the limousine only to be
recalled by none other
than Emory P. Roberts, who rises in his seat in the
follow-up car and hand-
gestures Rybka to cease and desist.
Giving Roberts the benefit of the doubt,
it a ppears that Borings' orders
to not have any agents ride on the back of
the limousine were well taken.
After the assassination there are reports
that JFK had previously made
such requests prior to the
these statements to be false, as well as the lack of any
record or document to
that effect.
The truth - JFK never
ordered Secret Service agents off the limo
Gerald A. Behn,
SAIC of WHD "I don't remember Kennedy ever saying that he
didn't want anybody on the back of his car. I think if you
watch the newsreel
pictures and whatnot [sic] you'll find agents on there from
time to time". As
just one of many examples, Behn
cited the June 1963 trip to
many others.)24;
Arthur L. Godfrey, ATSAIC of WHD:
"That's a bunch of baloney; that's not
true. He never ordered us to do anything. He was a very
nice
man...cooperative". Asked if whether Aide Ken
O'Donnell did any similar
ordering, Godfrey said emphatically "he did not order
anyone around". As just
one example, Godfrey was on the
rear of the limousine- one of the agents was none other
than Winston G. Lawson
25. In a letter dated
11/24/97, Godfrey stated the following: "All I can speak
for is myself. When I was working [with] President
Kennedy he never ask[ed] me
to have my shift leave the limo when we [were] working
it," thus confirming
what he had also told me telephonically on two prior
occasions;
David F. Powers: "
Unless they [the Secret Service] were 'running' along
beside the limo, the Secret Service rode in a car behind
the President, so,
no, they never had to be told to 'get off' the
limo."26
Samuel A. Kinney, WHD: "That is
absolutely, positively false...no, no,
no, he had nothing to do with that (ordering agents off
the rear of the
limo)...No, never-the agents say, 'O.K., men, fall back
on your
posts'...President Kennedy was one of the easiest
presidents to ever protect;
Harry S. Truman was a jewel
just like John F. Kennedy was...99% of the agents
would agree...(JFK) was one of the best presidents ever to
control-he trusted
every one of us".
In regard to the infamous quote from
William Manchester, Kinney said,
"That is false. I
talked to William Manchester; he called me on the book
[sic]...for
the record of history that is false - Kennedy never ordered us to
do anything. I am aware of what is being said but that
is false".
Finally, just to nail down this issue, I
asked Kinney if an exception was
made on 11/22/63: "Not this particular time, no. Not
in this case". Kinney
also told me that JFK had nothing to do with the limiting
of motorcycles
during motorcades, and that Ken O'Donnell did not interfere
with the agents,
"Nobody ordered anyone
around"27;
Robert E. Lilley, WHD: "Oh, I'm sure
he didn't. He was very cooperative
with us once he became President. He was extremely cooperative. Basically,
'whatever
you guys want is the way it will be'."
Lilley also refuted the
JFK in
limousine all the way to the Presidential palace" at
speeds reaching "50 miles
per hour" (with the bubble-top on [which Lilley
believed "might deflect a
bullet."])28;
Donald J. Lawton: When I told
that JFK never ordered the agents off the rear of the
limousine, he said "It's
the way Sam said, yes". (Meaning he agress with Kinney, it happened the way
Kinney said.)
Asked to explain how he dismounted the
rear of the limousine in
said, " I didn't hear the President say it, no. The
word was relayed to us-
you know, 'come back to the follow-up car'".
According to
Asked about the tragedy in
was our job to protect the President. You still have
regrets, remorse. Who
knows, IF THEY HAD LEFT GUYS ON THE BACK OF THE CAR...you
can hindsight
yourself to death" (emphasis added).
And, from his letter to the author dated
11/22/97: "Since I am currently
employed by the Secret Service I do not believe it
appropriate that I comment
on former or current protectees
of the Service. If you spoke with Bob Lilley
as you stated then you can take whatever information he
passed on to you as
gospel.29;
Robert I. Bouck,
SAIC of PRS: confirmed that having agents on the back of
the limousine depended on factors independent of any alleged
presidential
"requests"30;
Rufus W. Youngblood, ASAIC of LBJ Detail:
Youngblood confirmed that
"there
was not a standing order" from JFK to restrict agents from the back of
the limousine - the agents had "assigned posts and
positions" on the back of
the President's car.
On 2/8/94, Youngblood added: "President Kennedy wasn't a
hard ass...he never said anything like that. As a
historian, he (
flunked the course---don't read
Abraham W. Bolden, Sr., WHD/ Chicago
office: In reference to Kennedy's
alleged "requests", Mr. Bolden told the author
that he "didn't hear anything
about that...I never believed that Kennedy said
that"32;
John Norris, Uniformed Division of the
Secret Service: Norris also joined
his colleagues in refuting the notion that JFK ordered
the agents off the rear
of the limo33;
Maurice G. Martineau,
SAIC of
colleagues in refuting the
the rear of the car.34 Martineau
said this to me in two telephonic interviews.
Cecil Stoughton, WH photographer: "I
did see a lot of the activity
surrounding the various trips of the President, and in many
cases I did see
the agents in question riding on the rear of the
President's car. In fact, I
have ridden there a number of times myself during
trips...I would jump on the
step on the rear of the [
photos while hanging on with one hand...in
for the [alleged] edict of not riding there by order of
the President- I can't
give you any proof of first hand knowledge."
matters"(!).
In a later letter,
statements: "I would just jump on and off [the limo]
quickly- no routine, and
Jackie had no further
remarks to me."35;
It should be explained that according to
35], Jackie had told him to
stay close to the limo in July 1963, and he did up
to and including the
11/21/63 (there are photos
that
day, as well). Then, for some unknown reason,
position further away from JFK.
Martin E. Underwood, DNC advance man: The
advance man confirmed to this
author that JFK did not restrict agents from riding on the
Presidential
limousine (He could not believe that Mr. Behn
wrote his report with JFK's
alleged "desires", citing Clint Hill's actions on
11/22/63 as just one of
"many
times" that agents were posted on the back of the JFK limousine)36;
Press Secretary Pierre Salinger: JFK had a
good relationship with the
Secret Service and, more
importantly, did NOT argue with their security
measures.37
Jerry D. Kivett,
WHD: "[JFK] was beloved by those agents on the detail
and I never heard anyone say that he was difficult to protect."38;
June Kellerman,
the widow of Roy H. Kellerman, ASAIC WHD: "
say that JFK was difficult to protect."39;
Jean Brownell Behn,
widow of the late Gerald A. Behn, SAIC WHD (see
above): Jerry did not like William Manchester's book
"The Death of a
President" and
confirmed that she also did not believe that JFK had ever
conveyed to Jerry the idea of having the agents not ride on
the rear of the
limousine. In a follow-up letter she stated that "The
only thing I can tell
you is that Jerry always said 'Don't believe anything
you hear and only half
of what you read'40;
Chief James J. Rowley: "No President
will tell the Secret Service what
they can or cannot do."41
Charles T. Zboril,
WHD,
answer, one way or
the other, : "Well, Don Lawton and I are just sub-notes
[sic]
because somebody else testified in behalf of us about what happened in
not on the rear of the car during the assassination.
When I asked him if it was true that JFK
had really ordered the agents
off the limousine four days before
true, Zboril got emotional:
"WHERE DID YOU READ THAT? I...If-if you read it in
the Warren Report, that's what happened...DO YOU WANT ME
COMMENTING
OFFICIALLY? I'm speaking to someone I don't know... I gave you
more than I
would give someone else". Zboril
then gave me his address and requested that I
send him anything on this matter and he promised to
respond to me...he never
did.
Jim Bishop sums up the situation best:
"no one wanted to weigh the
possibilities that, IF A SECRET SERVICE MAN HAD BEEN ON THE LEFT [OR RIGHT]
REAR BUMPER GOING DOWN ELM
STREET, it would have been difficult to hit
President Kennedy (emphasis
added)42"
FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover to President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1:40 p.m.,
11/29/63: "You see, there was no Secret Service man standing on the back of
the car. Usually the presidential car in the past has
had steps on the back,
next to the bumpers, and there's usually been one [agent]
on either side
standing on these steps...[ellipsis in text]...Whether the
President asked
that that not be done, we don't know."43
In a letter dated 4/3/64, WC general
counsel J. Lee Rankin had written to
Secret Service Chief James
J. Rowley "requesting further information
concerning expressions by President Kennedy regarding the
placement of Secret
Service agents on or near
the car during the motorcade", obviously meaning THE
motorcade of 11/22/63.44 Since JFK was conveniently dead and
there was nothing
in the record to indicate that Kennedy had said
anything that morning, Rowley
mailed back five reports on 4/22/64 to try to
"satisfy" the WC, who obviously
were not satisfied by the testimonies of Greer, Kellerman, Hill, or Youngblood
on March 9, 1964.45
These five reports- by agents Boring[dated 4/8/64]46, Roberts [dated
4/10/64]47, Ready [dated
4/11/64]48, Behn [dated 4/16/64]49 and Hill
[undated]50-
make much of JFK's alleged comments to agent Boring
on 11/18/63
about getting the agents who were riding on the rear of
the limo the hell off
of there, as well as "general common
knowledge" that this had happened before,
even before the
However, as I uncovered during the
interviews for my manuscript, and
which has been demonstrated so far, this was totally
fabricated.51 Each and
every one of these reports is a lie, or used for a lie.
Boring already dodgey on
The ARRB's
Doug Horne writes: "Mr. Boring remembered preparing his written
statement, and verified that the copy shown to him was indeed
his statement.
"Although primarily
about the 11/18/63
another time---the July 1963
request to not have the agents ride on the rear of the
limousine.”
However, as with the
limousine, as recently discovered film from the JFK Library,
obtained through
my efforts, reveals ("JFK's
Trip to
JFK
Library. This footage was shown
at COPA 1996).
Also, compare Boring’s statement here with
Arthur L. Godfrey, ATSAIC of
WHD statements on the
Roberts' report is merely a confirmation
of hearing BORING over the radio
in the
limousine-it says nothing of JFK's
alleged "desires".
Now deceased, Roberts was the commander of
the 7 other agents who rode in
the follow-up car with him in
the follow-up car, Samuel A. Kinney, ORDERED THE AGENTS
NOT TO MOVE AFTER THE
FIRST SHOT SOUNDED (author's
interviews with Sam Kinney, 3/5/94 and 4/15/94)!
Roberts had recognized the
first shot as a RIFLE blast (18H p.734-735), yet
recalled agent John D. "Jack" Ready who had begun
to move in JFK's direction.
Ready was the agent who was
ASSIGNED to JFK's side of the limousine (as Clint
Hill was assigned to
Jackie's side[18H749-750]).
Roberts came to Ready's
rescue in another report: "SA Ready would have
done the same thing (as Agent Hill did) if motorcycle was
not at President's
corner of car"(!) [18 H 738]---- Strange, but this
posed no problem at all for
Agent Don Lawton on November
18, 1963, in
Rybka,
This begs the question, were Rybka and
supposed to have rode the rear of the limousine?
Ready mentions the 11/18/63
THERE! “Although I was not
in
was known to me that President Kennedy requested,
through Assistant Special
Agent in Charge Floyd M.
Boring, that two agents be removed from the rear
steps of the presidential vehicle during a motorcade in
that city.” (emphasis
added)
There is reason to believe Behn did not even write his report as it has a
STAMPED (stamp pad)
signature (similar to other reports contained in the WC
volumes and elsewhere; not hand-written). When one considers
the fact that a
subordinate agent from the
Secret Service document as
if he were the SAIC (in this case,John
Marshall),
the possibility that someone else merely stamped this
type-written report with
Behn's stamp pad signature is certainly not above the realm
of possibility.
(Behn's
office was shared with ASAIC's Kellerman
and Boring).
And Hill’s report is undated.
Behn’s, Boring’s,
and Hill’s are not even on any Secret Service or
Treasury Dept. stationary,
just blank sheets of paper.
All are supposedly evidence of JFK
expressing his desire to keep Secret
Service
agents off the limousine in
And, again, THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT WHAT
JFK SAID OR "REQUESTED" ON
NOVEMBER 22, 1963, THE
CRITICAL DAY IN QUESTION!
Security Stripping Measure
#2
Noisy motorcycles reduced
and placed rearward for conversational purposes?
The ARRB interview of Boring goes on to
say, "When asked whether the
Secret Service had any
standard procedures regarding size and placement of
motorcycle escort for the President's limousine in motorcades,
Boring said to
the ARRB that there was no standard protocol for this,
since local resources
were different from site to site. He then stated that the
Secret Service would
place motorcycles wherever the local authorities would
want them, and that the
Secret Service would not try
to tell local law enforcement authorities where
to place motorcycles around the limousine---he said
that if the Secret Service
had tried to do such a thing, that the local authorities
would not have
listened anyway. He said that in regard to matters like this,
local
authorities wouldn't take orders from the Secret Service, but
instead had to
be coaxed. He also stated that placing motorcycles
alongside the limousine
would not have been a good idea, since they were so noisy
that the President
would not have been able to have a conversation with the
car's occupants."
Now, for the real story:
On November 20th, with no secret service
men present, it was agreed that
eighteen motorcycles would be used, some positioned along
side the limousine
(similar
to the plan used in the prior
and
There was another meeting on November 21,
1963 in which those plans were
changed.51
Captain Perdue Lawrence of the Dallas
Police testified to the
Commission that 2 days before
the assassination he met with Chief Lunday and
Chief Batchelor and
discussed the motorcycple plans for the
motorcade. “I was
told that there would be these lead motorcycle officers,
and that we would
also have these other officers alongside the President's
car and the Vice
President's car, and some of
the others that would be in the motorcade, and
approximately how many officers would be needed for the escort,
and at that
time I had prepared a list of 18 solo motorcycle
officers, this included three
solo sergeants.
“I was also instructed that about this
motorcade--that when it reached
Stemmons Expressway, Chief Batchelor told me that he wanted a
solo motorcycle
officer in each traffic lane, each of the five traffic lanes
waiting for the
motorcade, so that no vehicles, on Stemmons
Expressway would pass the
motorcade at all and he wanted these solo motorcycle officers
to pull away
from the escort and get up there on Stemmons
Freeway and block the traffic,
and some of these officers, he stated, would pull past
the Presidential car.”
Then on November 21, 1963, a change
occurs. “This was the first time
that I had attended any security meeting at all in
regards to this motorcade.
At approximately 5 p.m. I
was told to report to the conference room on the
third floor, and when I arrived at the conference room the
deputy chiefs were
in there, there were members of the Secret Service--Mr.
Sorrels, Captain
Gannaway, Captain Souter of radio
patrol, and Capt. Glen King, deputy chiefs,
assistant chiefs, and Chief Curry, and one gentleman, who I
assume was in
charge of the security for the Secret Service. This was the
first time I had
attended any conferences in regard to the security of this
escort, and I
listened in on most of the discussion and I heard one of the
Secret Service
men say that President Kennedy did not desire any
motorcycle officer directly
on each side of him, between him and the crowd, but he
would want the officers
to the rear. This conversation I overheard as Chief Batchelor
was using a
blackboard showing how he planned to handle this--how plans had
been made to
cover the escort.”52
Remember, according to Boring, “the Secret Service would not try to tell
local law enforcement authorities where to place motorcycles
around the
limousine-”
Secret Service Agent David Grant, who
would have known of Kennedy's
alleged "desires" via Boring (Grant was an advance
man for the