POSNER'S ALLEGED SS "INTERVIEWS" 
by Vince Palamara 

On page 503 of his book Case Closed, Gerald Posner writes: "David Whipple,
president of the association of retired
intelligence agents, HAMILTON BROWN, WHO HOLDS THE SAME POSITION FOR RETIRED
SECRET SERVICE
AGENTS, and Les Stanford, for Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, were DILIGENT
IN FINDING THOSE LONG
RETIRED FROM THEIR RESPECTIVE AGENCIES" (emphasis addled). 
So what's the problem? Well, as someone who has interviewed and corresponded
with many retired Secret Service agents (and
documented each and every contact), I was amazed to find not ONE specific
agent cited in the entire text or endnotes of "Case
Closed" as being interviewed/ contacted by Mr. Posner. And, knowing full
well how Hamilton Brown does not like dealing with
the press on controversial topics (my attempt to interview him at length,
Washington Post reporter 
Ann Eisele's unsuccessful attempt to do the same, and Brown's anger at the
agents who spoke to myself, Seymour Hersh, and
Kenneth Starr), my skepticism rose to a high level. You see, even though I
knew Posner DID contact, on his own, ONE former
agent, Floyd M. Boring, a major planner of the Texas trip [see author's
article in the May 1995 Fourth Decade journal], Boring
told me, in no uncertain terms, that he told Posner nothing at all---he
merely forwarded him on to Hamilton Brown. In addition,
no other agent I contacted spoke to Posner (inc. Sam Kinney, Jerry Behn,
Rufus Youngblood, Jerry Kivett, John Joe Howlett,
Robert Steuart, Forrest Sorrels, James Rowley, Arthur Godfrey, and Win
Lawson, pretty important Secret Service contacts to
the events of 11/22/63, don't you think?). 
OK, so what if maybe Mr. Posner chose, for whatever reason, NOT to reveal
his interviews with the former agents in his book
(in sharp contrast to his documentation of every other ALLEGED interview),
you say? This IS a possibility, right? Well, this is
where the matter 
rested...until I e-mailed Gerald Posner on 3/4/98 and asked him directly the
following two questions: 

1) How many former Secret Service agents did you speak to and 

2) Specifically, what were their names? 

THIS is the alarming response I received (printed below exactly as he wrote
it): 

"Dear Mr. Palamara, 
Without checking my files (you're asking about research six and seven years
ago), I don't remember interviewing any SS agents for the record,
and I don't remember off hand even talking to any for background. I am
almost certain I merely relied on orig. docs, or the agents' original
interviews and/ or testimony. 

Hope it helps, 
Gerald Posner" 




"Hope it helps", indeed! This helps demonstrate, once again, some of the
tactics used by Gerald Posner for his book. He
"contacted" Boring, who told him nothing other than Hamilton Brown's phone
number, and then he (presumably) "contacted"
Brown, who apparently told him to get lost, if Posner's recent e-mail to me
is accurate, which I strongly believe it is. Still, he can
technically hold on to the claim that he did indeed "speak", "locate", and
"contact" former Secret Service agents (plural:
two).Although the fine print is: they told him NOTHING THAT MADE IT INTO HIS
BOOK, despite the obvious attempt to
demonstrate the opposite as shown above (Case Closed, p. 503). 
I just can't wait to see who Posner "interviewed" for his new book on the
Dr. King assassination, Killing The Dream (perhaps
even Raoul, as has been speculated) ---how about you?