Write Vince at vmplac@telerama.com As of June - 2003, write Vince Palamara at vincebethel@yahoo.com Baughman's Book From SS Chief U.E. Baughman's Book "Secret Service Chief" NOTES FROM FORMER SECRET SERVICE CHIEF U.E. BAUGHMAN'S BOOK "SECRET SERVICE CHIEF" A WORK WRITTEN BEFORE THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION ( written w/ Leonard Wallace Robinson [January 1963]) a.k.a 'The prophecies and anecdotes of Mr. Baughman" p.17- In the SS since 1927: " I had been in the SS for five years by that time[1932] and had just passed my twenty-seventh birthday" p. 27- "I worked on over two thousand counterfeiting cases before I became Chief. I have had to play every kind of criminal role from a HOBO to a smooth international operator..." Chapter 3- The Reluctant Chief p. 30- "I remember with absolute clarity the details of that call which was to change my life, give it its final shape. The date was NOVEMBER 22, 1948..." p.32- offered position of Chief of the SS, replacing James Maloney, via Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder:" He looked at me and smiled at my wordlessness.'I think I know how you feel', he said. 'I felt the same way when Mr. Truman offered me this job. And so did Mr. Truman when he got his job[after FDR died]' "; prophetic. p. 33- " Only a very few people know a fact that every SS man learns at once. It is that the life of the president of the United States is in very real and constant danger. This danger has grown in recent years and will grow even more in the future"[his emphasis, not mine]; Secret Service mindset? pp. 33-34: " You know that three of our Presidents have already been assassinated- and that the assassins were insane...Who makes these attempts, the succesful ones, the near successful ones and the complete failures? They are all made by mentally disturbed people. You have already seen one of these mentally disturbed people in action, the insane Pavlick and his attempt on the life of President Kennedy. As individuals they are sometimes capable of the most cunning kind of planning. Sometimes they are intellectuals. Sometimes their mental condition is cloaked in the disguise of a political philosophy. But whatever mask he uses, the assassin, underneath, is insane. In the Secret Service we have found that to be unfailingly true..."[his emphasis, not mine...gee, does he sound like he's referring to Lee Harvey Oswald? And he's wrong- not all assassins are insane( unless a cover story is needed...)] p. 36- "It is my second day on my new job and I have just been introduced to Mr. Truman by Jim Rowley, who heads up the branch of the SS known as the White House Detail, a group of some 40 hand-picked agents who are always with the President and who are chiefly responsible for his safety." p. 37- "...the local branch of the SS is often called upon to help out whenever a President visits its district..." p. 38- "In practice such protection is not only a complex matter- it's almost infinitely ramified, it is eternal vigilance squared. the fact is that we give our Presidents the most complete, detailed, and expert protection of any country in the world. We leave out nothing that science or art or know-how can supply to the task."[ except in places like Dallas, Texas!] pp. 39-40- "Here are a few of the security measures called for: Every manhole and sewer along the route... had to be sealed... every single building and all of its occupants along the parade route had to be checked. We had to have a dossier on each occupant sufficient to guarantee that he was "safe". Only then could we grant him the privilege of viewing the parade from his window or his rooftop...As the...people roared and waved and applauded, both of them[the President and the First Lady] would have been sitting ducks for a determ- ined lunatic in a window EVEN IF HE WERE A RELATIVELY POOR SHOT..." [hmmm, maybe like good ol' Lee Oswald?] Here we go again with that Secret Service mindset of Baughman's: p. 41- "We are mainly concerned with the mental balance of the individual, for even an extreme radical, in our experience, will not assassinate a man he hates politically unless he has a major disorder in his thinking, a mental disturbance..."[hmmm...] p. 45- The Protective Research Section(PRS) "is headed by Robert Bouck, a great SS agent" p.62- The White House Detail- "It is responsible for guarding the President around the clock every day of the year. --The men in it are completely unique. For one thing, they all make an excellent appearance.They are also, on the whole, young, even if some are now getting to be veterans in harness. They are college graduates or better and come from various fields, though I usually like them to have a background in some form of investigative work...there is nothing about firearms which they don't know... --Every one of them must be ready to place his own body between the President and any danger to him. They must be[p.63] prepared, as part of their duty, to intercept a bullet, the cold steel of a knife or any other weopon with their own flesh. The individual bodies of the White House Detail are, in the last analysis, the final defense the SS has against an attack on the person of the President. They are human shields. --The men of the White House Detail have never failed to perform their duty when called upon to do so. And they have been called upon often."; Affection for Truman: pp. 67-68- " In addition to his enormous energy Harry truman had, more than any other President I've known, the common touch. The men in the Presidential guard who were with him day and night, year in and year out, loved him. There is no other word for it...Many of my men on the White House Detail still speak of President Truman with real emotion, of his unfailing kindness and gener- osity. They identify with him, feel as if he were one of them..."- pp. 68-69- "Floyd Boring, one of my top men on the White House Detail, tells of his react- ion to Harry Truman when he first met him. It is so typical of the way most men responded that I am putting this in Floyd's own words. "I'll never forget the first time I was introduced to him by my chief on the Detail", Floyd said." Truman could have been your uncle or your own father. I was to chauffeur him temporarily. He shook hands with me and said he was glad to meet me and I recall wondering whether he could possibly be a little shy. He seemed that way. Well, we were alone in the car and I drove him for several minutes. Then he said, as if he'd been saving the question up: 'What's your first name?' 'Floyd, sir', I answered. "Five minutes more went by. Then he cleared his throat and spoke heartily, as if he'd just got his courage up, 'I wonder if you'd mind if I call you Floyd', he said. "It tore your heart out. You couldn't do enough for a man like that. Imagine, President of the United States and that humble and ordinary with his temp- orary chauffeur. That's greatness to me." [Boring protected Truman from 2 would-be assassins on 11/1/50 while Truman slept at Blair House- Boring was temporarily in charge of the White House Detail for that day and fired upon the assassins, wounding one, Oscar Collazo, while the other was killed. This is the only time in the history of the United States Secret Service when an agent fired his own weopon in the course of protecting a President! Interestingly, the President who would later grant clemency to Collazo, Jimmy Carter, shared the same secret code name as Floyd Boring had used: "Deacon"!]; p. 69- "It is a cardinal principle of Presidential protection never to allow the president to stop his car in a crowd if it can possibly be avoided.."; p. 70- "Now the Chief of the SS is legally empowered to countermand a decision made by Anybody in this country if it might endanger the life or limb of the Chief Executive. This means I could veto a decision of the President himself if I decided it would be dangerous not to. The President of course knew this fact. "[his emphasis, not mine; Chief Rowley did one better- he testified to the Warren Commission that "No President will tell the Secret Service what they can or cannot do".] p. 73- "Harry Truman gradually became very attached to the SS. He liked us as an organization and he became very fond of particular individuals in it." Assassination attempt on Truman 11/1/50: p. 87- "When the attack came on that afternoon I was, unfortunately, not present..."[ in one of the true ironies/coincidences (?) of history, the head of the White House Detail, the Chief of the Secret Service, and the Secretary of the Treasury were also absent from the Texas trip of 11/22/63. Rowley was also strangely absent from the 11/1/50 attempt, and Agent Stu Stout assumed the same position in both attempts-safely out of harm's way inside a building( Blair House and the Trade Mart, respectively)! As for Floyd Boring, the agent who was TEMPORARILY in charge on 11/1/50, he was also in charge of planning the Texas trip of 11/22/63, as SAIC Jerry Behn was finally able to take a vacation, as Agent Sam Kinney told me...]; p. 88- Floyd Boring: " one of my best men..."; p. 89- Stewart Stout; p. 129- "When Mr. Eisenhower came into the White House, I retained Jim Rowley to head this group[WHD].He had been with the White House Detail since FDR's time and is an experienced man in this kind of work. HE OR HIS IMMEDIATE ASSISTANT[ASAIC BORING] IS A LWAYS WITH THE PRESIDENT WHEN HE LEAVES THE WHITE HOUSE..."[ ASAIC Boring was also SAIC Behn's immediate assistant- why was a third-stringer, ASAIC Roy H. Kellerman, sent to Dallas; there appears, from both the written and the filmed record, to be NO othe r time in which only Kellerman, by himself, manned a Presidential trip. The majority of times, SAIC Behn went,and there were many times when Behn and Boring or Behn, Boring, and Kellerman all went along on a trip; there were some times when just ASAIC Boring went (in his position as the assistant chief, the number two man, on the WHD), perhaps with or without Kellerman along. Nevertheless, this author could not find another trip only manned by Kellerman as the acting agent-in-charge.]; p. 136- SAIC of PRS Robert Inman Bouck: " He is one of the cleverest men I have ever known on the scientific side of police work, a true genius."; p. 140- Chief Baughman to his agents: " You should be able," I told them, " to go anywhere, mix with any kind of group and quickly be accepted as one of them."[ how about in Dealey Plaza, near the grassy knoll?]; p. 163- "The SS throughout the years had developed many techniques for protecting the President while he traveled. But it was during this vast flurry of comings and goings [Ike's travels] that, in my opinion, we brought all of our know-how to its full per fection and introduced some radical new methods."; pp. 172-173- "... the Secret Service knows from experience that a car directly behind the President may save his life in certain emergencies..."[except assassination attempts Dallas, Texas!] p. 174- "..Dick Flohr, the President's [Ike's] driver and one of our really devoted SS agents..." p. 176- " I only know that far too many men around our Presidents are quite willing, if it will benefit them, to let the Chief Executive put his life on the line."[ gee, I hope he wasn't referring to any of his own agents!] The sound judgment and political prophecies of Baughman: p. 177- "I think he [RICHARD NIXON] was, and is, an extraordinarily fine man in all ways...Mr. Kennedy has settled in, however, nicely and allows the Secret Service really to protect him now that he's President." - p. 182- "PERHAPS MR. NIXON WILL YET HAVE A CHANCE TO SHOW HIS METTLE AND HIS QUALITIES IN THE PRESIDENCY ITSELF"[ this was written AFTER Nixon had lost his bid to be California's Governor to Pat Brown and AFTER Nixon retired from politics; was there something U.E. knew that we didn't at the time? Nevertheless, several months after this book appeared in bookstores around the country, U.E. saw his "prophecy" begin to take shape: 15 years to the date of the call that will 'live in infamy' for him, the one that made him Secret Service Chief, his former boss, the one who let him go, w as assas- sinated, and Mr. Nixon's political future looked promising, after all...] p. 183- Chapter 19: " My Last President [Kennedy]"; p. 191- "It is enough to know that I made my contribution to the plans for protecting this little girl[Caroline Kennedy] and her wonderful family[Jackie, John Jr....JFK?] before I retired as Chief of the SS"; p. 192- Baughman served "... thirteen years [since 11/22/48] as the thirteenth Chief of the SS" END Washington Post 7/25/61- "U.E. Baughman, 55, Chief of the United States Secret Service, is resigning, it was learned [Monday] night. After 34 years in the SS, 13 as Chief...He has no plans for private employment at the moment."[Baughman was "retired" by JFK at the same time CIA Director Allen Dulles was "retired"!]; Washington Post 9/2/61- " 'Oh, My!' gasped Mrs. Rowley as the ad libbing bystander sidled over to greet them with easy effusion. It was obvious that President Kennedy's presence at the ceremony was as unexpected as it had been unannounced...Kennedy quipped,' He (Rowley) hasn't l ost a President in all[his time with the Secret Service].On a record like that, he deserves a promotion." Washington Post 7/26/61- Interview with Baughman: " I WILL SAY EMPHATICALLY THAT THERE IS NO MAFIA IN THIS COUNTRY AND NO NATIONAL CRIME SYNDICATE. WHY DON'T THOSE WHO TALK ABOUT THE MAFIA NAME ITS LEADER OR LEADERS? THERE HAS BEEN NO MAFIA IN THIS COUNTRY FOR AT LEAST FORTY YEARS. NOW ABOUT A NATIONAL CRIME SYNDICATE: I SAY THERE IS NO SUCH THING, AND I SAY IT NOT SIMPLY AS A PERSONAL JUDGMENT BUT ON THE BASIS OF TALKS WITH OTHER ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS"-! No wonder JFK got rid of Baughman- I'm sure the Attorney General (RFK) appreciated the Chief's "wisdom", no doubt originating from Hoover. Who knows- maybe Carlos Marcello was a mere tomato salesman as FBI agent Regis Kennedy declared(!)... 11/23/94 by VMP