From news.primenet.com!jmcadams Sun Jun 1 23:50:39 1997 Path: news.primenet.com!jmcadams From: John McAdams Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk.moderated Subject: Secret Service Agent on Knoll? Date: 30 May 1997 19:16:00 -0700 Organization: PrimeNet Lines: 126 Approved: jmcadams@primenet.com Message-ID: <5mo1l0$s6p@nntp02.primenet.com> References: <338DAD10.769A@prcn.org> <338EA7A3.298E@idt.net> X-Posted-By: jmcadams@206.165.5.107 (jmcadams) J. Stevens wrote: : Bilbo Baggins wrote: : > : > No one has ever been able to prove there were fake Secret Serice agents on : > the knoll. The sole contemporary basis for this is the account of : > Patrolman Joe Marshall Smith, who said he encountered a SS man on the : > knoll after the shooting. But Smith never said that the man identified : > himself as a SS agent but had only *shown* him who he was by flashing some : > kind of ID that in the haste of the moment, Smith mistook for SS ID. In : > all likelihood, the man Smith saw was either a plainclothes police : > officer, a federal agent from another bureau, or a member of the White : > House Press Corps such as NBC's Robert MacNeil, who was in the area at the : > time. : > : I am afraid you are totally incorrect. Officer Smith's testimony is in : Volume 7, page 535 and : is as exactly as follows: : "I got to make this statement, too. I felt awfully silly, but after : the shot and this woman, I pulled my pistol from my holster, and I : thought, this is silly, I don't know who I am looking for, and I put it : back. Just as I did, he showed me that he was a Secret Service agent. : Mr. LIEBELER. Did you accost this man? : Mr. SMITH. Well, he saw me coming with my pistol and right away he : showed me who he was. : Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember who it was? : Mr. SMITH. No, sir; I don't--because then we started checking the : cars." Jan, what you posted is perfectly consistent with that Eric said. The person "showed" Smith that he "was a secret service agent." But the testimony you posted is very helpful, in that it shows that Smith was overwrought -- he had his gun out of his holster in an action that he himself thought was "silly." And he was harried. He paid essentially no attention to the "Secret Service agent" because he was intent on checking the cars. Note also that Smith said "he saw me coming with my pistol and right away he showed me who he was." Did Smith manage to sneak up on the agent, and get within a yard ot two of him before the agent saw him coming? If not, the agent was some distance away. This would seem to contradict the idea that the "agent" was close to Smith, such that Smith could carefully examine his credentials. The person apparently just flashed some credentials from a distance. The most likely hypothesis is that *some* agent -- not a Secret Service agent and not a conspirator -- flashed some sort of credentials at Smith. The rest he assumed, like all sorts of other people in Dealey Plaza assumed. I'm sure you've read Sitzman's testimony, and it's likely that Oswald himself assumed that Robin MacNeil (or perhaps Pierce Allman) was a Secret Service agent. The House Select Committee tended toward this view: --------------------------------------------------------- Significantly, most of the witnesses who made identifications of Secret Service personnel stated that they had surmised that any plain- clothed individual in the company of uniformed police officers must have been a Secret Service agent. (25) Because the Dallas Police Department had numerous plainclothes detectives on duty in the Dealey Plaza area,(26) the committee considered it possible that they were mistaken for Secret Service agents. One witness who did not base his Secret Service agent identification merely upon observing a plainclothesman in the presence of uniformed police officers was Dallas police officer Joseph M. Smith. Smith, who had been riding as a motorcycle escort in the motorcade, ran up the grassy knoll immediately after the shooting occurred. He testified to the Warren Commission that at that time he encountered a man who stated that he was a Secret Service agent and offered supporting credentials. Smith indicated that he did not examine these credentials closely, and he then proceeded to search the area unsuccessfully for suspicious individuals. (27) The committee made an effort to identify the person who talked to Patrolman Smith. FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty stated that Frank Ellsworth, then an agent for the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau of the Treasury Department, had indicated that he had been in the grassy knoll area and for some reason had identified himself to someone as a Secret Service agent. (28) The committee deposed Ellsworth, who denied Hosty's allegation. (29) The committee did obtain evidence that military intelligence personnel may have identified themselves as Secret Service agents or that they might have been misidentified as such. Robert E. Jones, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who in 1963 was commanding officer of the military intelligence region that encompassed Texas, told the committee that from 8 to 12 military intelligence personnel in plain-clothes were assigned to Dallas to provide supplemental security for the President's visit. He indicated that these agents had identification credentials and, if questioned, would most likely have stated that they were on detail to the Secret Service. (30) The committee sought to identify these agents so that they could be questioned. The Department of Defense, however, reported that a search of its files showed "no records * * * indicating any Department of Defense Protective Services in Dallas."(31) The committee was unable to resolve the contradiction. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Posner pretty much follows the HSCA: --------------------------------------------------------------------- While Oswald made good his escape, law enforcement swarmed into Dealey Plaza. Outside the Depository, some witnesses later claimed they ran into Secret Service agents. . . . Most of the witnesses later admitted they were mistaken. And immediately after the assassination, different groups of law enforcement officials (most of them having been there to watch the motorcade from nearby government buildings) spread out in Dealey--they included Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agents, postal inspectors, officers from the Special Service Bureau of the Dallas Police, county sheriffs, IRS agents, and even an Army Intelligence agent. [footnote] The author has reviewed the 1963 badges for the above organizations, and found that several look alike. Any of these law enforcement officials could have been confused with Secret Service agents. CASE CLOSED (paperback), pp. 267-268. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Given the implausibility of any conspiracy leaving a "Secret Service agent" on the Knoll -- was this guy supposed to turn everybody who swarmed back there away? -- the simplest explanation is that somebody flashed *some* sort of identification at Smith, and he assumed it was Secret Service. So if this fellow was assigned to stay behind the Stockade Fence and turn people away, he was late for work! .John