REVIEWS: 1) "Fair Play" (John Kelin): The Third Alternative, by Vincent Palamara 1993. This unique book examines the role of the Secret Service in the JFK assassination. Virtually alone among assassination researchers, Palamara has studied this agency carefully and reaches some startling conclusions. Much of the book is based on the author's personal interviews with surviving agents and their families. 2) "Fair Play" (Richard Bartholemew), in the middle of review of "Assassination Science": I would be remiss if I did not mention another oversight by Fetzer: his complete omission of the digital photographic photometry experiments of former U.S. Steel scientist Tom Wilson. Those experiments, completed and presented years earlier, but never published, reached many of the same conclusions as Fetzer's contributors (Harrison E. Livingstone, High Treason 2, [New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992], pp. 338-39). I saw both of Wilson's initial public presentations. The first was at the Assassination Symposium on John F. Kennedy (ASK) in Dallas in 1991. It was a presentation involving charts of mathematical calculations and color slides of computer-processed images. That debut of Wilson's work was videotaped by South by Southwest, the conference organizers, but the quality of the presentation and the video was compromised by a loud party in the next-door ballroom. The two ballrooms were separated by a non-soundproof, movable partition. In what is at best an amazing coincidence, that party was part of a reunion of U.S. Secret Service agents, some of whom had served on Kennedy's Dallas trip. That was learned about three years later by Vince Palamara while interviewing some of those former agents. 3) "Fair Play" (John Kelin), review of my 11/22/97 Lancer presentation: The next speaker was Vince Palamara. Palamara was recently named an Associate Editor to JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, the excellent Jan Stevens/Walt Brown journal. He is also author of the newly updated The Third Alternative: Survivor's Guilt, a study of the Secret Service and the Kennedy assassination. His Lancer presentation was much the same as his article in the Sept. 1997 Fourth Decade, and Chapter XX of his book. But there was one significant difference: this day, Palamara identified by name the three Secret Service agents he suspects of having played a direct role in the assassination. "What it boils down to," Palamara began, "is that if the Secret Service would have done their usual, thorough job, we wouldn't be here today, 34 years later." He said that while it is a relatively easy task to point out the Secret Service deficiencies on November 22, 1963, it's been more difficult to discern the specific things that were involved regarding Presidential security. Much of his research has consisted of interviews with primary sources --- documents --- and people: former Secret Service agents, White House aides, and surviving family members. "However, one very important and significant element has been missing up until now, due in no small part to the constant evolution of my own thinking on the subject. Who in the agency benefited? Who did not? And just how were these lapses in security allowed to happen? "After discarding the options of just mere innocence, guilt, negligence, and more recently, the notion of a benign security-stripping test that backfired into the assassination," Palamara said, "I have now come to the firm conclusion, based on seven-plus years of heavy, primary research and numerous interviews --- twenty-one plus and counting --- that the Secret Service actions and inactions in Dallas were due largely to a significant breakdown in both the chain of command, and respect of superior authority. In addition, I believe a malignant test of the President's security was involved on or around November 22, 1963, with the actual intent to harm or embarrass President Kennedy, rather than merely shaking him into seeing that the Service needed more funds, equipment, and personnel --- these are benefits which would've arose from any kind of attempt on JFK, successful or otherwise. "Furthermore, it is now my strong believe, after shaking of years of equivocation, that several agents had to have been involved in the actual conspiracy --- repeat that again, had to have been involved --- by getting wind of the impending threat and letting it happen, not by an unruly mob out to treat Kennedy like Adlai Stevenson, which was the byproduct of a malignant test, which was going on at the same time --- but by a 'flurry of shells,' to quote Agent Kellerman in a much different kind of context." Having stated his belief that several agents had to have been involved, Palamara revealed his prime suspects. "I'm going to name them here for the first time. I believe that Floyd Boring, Emory Roberts, and Bill Greer are the three Secret Service agents who were sinisterly involved in Kennedy's murder. Bill Greer was the driver of the Presidential limousine ... Floyd Boring was the number two man, Special Agent in Charge of the White House detail --- in charge of planning the Texas trip. I spoke to him twice. And Emory Roberts ... was the commander of the followup car in Dallas." Palamara had indicated he would include "never-before-seen films and photos from the author's massive private collection," and in this, the audience was not disappointed. "This is different angles of [the Kennedy motorcade] leaving Love Field," Palamara said, as the video rolled. Using a red "laser light" pointer, he identified various agents, and supplied narration: "This is John Ready ... Paul Landis ... here they are, leaving Love Field ... Henry Rybka --- thinking that he's going to be doing what he just did the last few stops --- this is when Emory Roberts rises in his seat in the followup car ... and we see some hand gestures ... basically tells [Rybka] to cease and desist from his actions. Paul Landis is even making room for him on the followup car! And this is when you'll see Henry Rybka ... I think a picture says a thousand words, well this is about as close as you can get here ---" And as the next image flickered on the screen in slow motion, the Lancer audience rumbled in astonishment --- the words "Wow!" and "Jesus!" leap out from my tape recorder. For as Henry Rybka is seen being summoned from his usual position back to the followup car, he issues a confused palms-up gesture that seems to say, "What gives?" Rybka was left behind at Love Field. "And the most amazing thing of all," Palamara continued, "is the fact that there is not one report, not two reports, but three reports after the fact, placing Rybka in the followup car! But he wasn't there! Again --- either they assumed he did hop into the car, or there was a coverup. Take your pick..." The clip of Rybka's confusion rolled again; I think everyone needed to see it at least twice. "When you see this clip normally, it's normally real time, it goes by real quick..." More clips were shown, and there was more analysis of the Dallas motorcade and the role of the Secret Service. "The situation now," Palamara said as he began to wrap things up, "we've been looking at our suspects, and I think there's a lot to be said for the work of other authors and researchers ... in my interviews, I've totally debunked any notion of President Kennedy had anything to do with the security insufficiencies, and it boils down to the Secret Service being responsible for them... "Anonymous no longer, the Secret Service will never again be taken for granted in any view of what happened on November 22, 1963..." * * * 4) "Fair Play" (John Kelin), re: The Truth Commission: George Michael Evica suggested that surviving Secret Service agents were one potentially excellent source for the sort of material witnesses that were being discussed. Charles Drago said to bear in mind the distinction between individuals and institutions. "Our greatest opposition to any amnesty program might not come from hestitant individuals, but might come from the institutionalized powers, entities, that caused this thing to happen." "I think that they [Kennedy-era Secret Service agents] would really respond to and respect the Federal authority of a Federal agency like the ARRB," said Vince Palamara, the Secret Service expert. "Even if privately they didn't like [having to come forward]..." 5) "Fair Play" (Martin Shackelford), re: COPA 1996: During the Medical Evidence Working Panel, Vince Palamara noted that Secret Service followup car driver Sam Kinney mentioned that brain matter splattered on the windshield in front of him; en route back to Washington, in the C-130 with the limousine, Kinney said he found a large skull piece from the back of JFK's head. Kinney thought very highly of his good friend Dr. Burkley.; Vince Palamara noted that during WFAA's coverage of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce breakfast, the reporter began to talk about the McKinley assassination. 6) "Probable Cause" Australia (Walt Brown), Issue 10, June 1995: Newcomer Vince Palamara has self-published The Third Alternative- Survivor's Guilt; The Secret Service and the JFK Murder, and in so doing has provided us with a wealth of material gained from extensive interviews with Secret Service "survivors." On that basis alone, I would highly recommend this seminal work. Its downside is its lack of focus. It is not stated that the SS killed JFK; rather, one gets the impression that they were in the midst of some kind of "security stripping," an experiment in protection, which backfired in Dallas, and, as a result, the SS had some covering up of their own to do--ie., their "Survivor's Guilt." Unfortunately, Palamara's thesis does not jump off his pages, and the reader often wonders where a particular point is going, and sometimes you never really find out. Part of this "problem" is that this is the author's first time out, and part of it is because his depth of research is so great that it sometimes overwhelms the question being raised. I have no doubt that Vince Palamara will have many worthwhile contributions in the future if this first work is any indication, and it is "must reading" regarding both the Secret Service and how to do excellent research. [Rating: * * * ] (of the other six books rated, only Trask's "Pictures of the Pain" received a better review: by half a star!) 7) "The Puzzle Palace" (Tony Marsh) re: Mantik's article/ chapter in "Assassination Science" which refers to my Jan/ March 1992 Third Decade article: Another problem in this research area is when an author misuses other researchers' work. The way that Mantik characterizes Vince Palamara's article from The Third Decade (page 51) leaves the impression that Palamara claimed (and that Mantik concurs) there were at least 48 witnesses who said that the limousine stopped on Elm Street. This is incorrect. When you actually read Vince's article for yourself, you can see that Vince clearly admits at the beginning of the article that he is lumping together ALL witnesses, including some who said that the limo had come to a complete stop, some who said that the limo had slowed down, and those who said that the limo did not accelerate until after the head shot. Mantik did not dare to quote Vince's article so that you could find this out for yourself. I will: ". . . the vast number of witnesses who testified that the Presidential limousine, driven by veteran Secret Service driver William R. Greer, slowed, stopped or, at the very least, failed to accelerate until only after the fatal head shot had found its mark." So, out of 47 witnesses listed in Vince's article, how many actually stated that the limousine made a complete stop? I went through his article and noted how many actually stated that the limousine made a complete stop. I had to throw out a few witnesses because it was not clear that they meant the limousine when they talked about the 'party' or the 'cavalcade' stopping. We know that some witnesses were referring only to the rest of the motorcade, and the photographic evidence shows that several cars further back in the motorcade did stop in the middle of Elm Street. Out of the remaining 41 witnesses, only 14 actually stated that the limousine stopped. 19 of the 41 only stated that the limousine had slowed down, and 8 of the 41 only stated that the limousine had waited until after the head shot to accelerate. I have drawn up a chart (see below) which places the witnesses in the various categories. The chart has no statistical significance, but it seems evident that more witnesses only stated that the limousine slowed down than those who were sure that it stopped. The Zapruder film itself, as well as other films, corroborates that the limousine was going very slowly when it rounded the corner onto Elm Street. And the Zapruder film itself, as shown by the Alvarez study, corroborates that the limousine had suddenly slowed down at about Z-300 from about 12 MPH to about 8 MPH. Mantik's obvious errors are another reason why a book like Assassination Science suffers from the lack of proofreading and fact checking (just like Posner's Case Closed). The innocent reader would not have the means to spot such obvious errors and thus would be impressed by the false conclusions based on faulty data. 41 witnesses | limo stopped (14) | limo slowed down (19) |limo waited (8) _____________________________________________________ After the |Chaney, Mrs. Cabell, |Brown, Harkness,Moorman, | first shot |Woodward, Truly |Hawkins,Brehm, Yarborough| (13) | (4) |Jean Hill, Ready, Similas| | | (9) | _____________________________________________________ At the time of|Hargis, Foster, Smith|Campbell, Holmes, Clark, |Kinney, Hill, the head shot |Broeder, Mrs. Willis |Clay, Powers |Bennett, Nellie, (18) | (5) | (5) |Altgens, Chism, | | |O'Donnell, | | |Connally (8) _____________________________________________________ At underpass | Betzner, Newman (2) | | ______________________________________________________ Unspecified | Martin, Burney, Orr |Jackson, Johns, Lawson, | (8) | (3) |Holland, Simmon (5) | ______________________________________________________