Vincent Palamara Archive - Write to Vince at vmplac@telerama.com Clinton Hill Tried to Help President Clinton, Too... from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/service061698.htm The former Secret Service agents in charge of protecting every president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George Bush have asked an appeals court to block independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr from questioning current officers, warning flatly that it would lead to the death of a president, lawyers said yesterday. The dire prediction, included in a friend-of-the-court brief filed under seal on Friday, echoed the views of Secret Service Director Lewis C. Merletti, who is appealing a decision by Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson ordering two officers and a Secret Service lawyer to testify in the Monica S. Lewinsky investigation... The arguments were much the same as made in the Justice Department brief also filed under seal on Friday on behalf of the Secret Service, but the agents hope they carry extra power because they were the ones charged with taking a bullet to protect the nation's leaders. Signing the brief were all nine living former special agents in charge of the presidential protection division, including CLINT HILL, the agent who leaped onto President John F. Kennedy's car moments after the first shot rang out in Dallas in 1963, and Jerry Parr, who shoved President Ronald Reagan into a car to escape John W. Hinckley Jr. in 1981. ------------------------------------------------- From http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1997/12/31/us/us.1.html another JFK era agent--- This is a total embarrassment. We are all red faced about this," says Hamilton Brown, president of the 1,400-strong Association of Former Agents of the United States Secret Service. Mr. Brown, who also protected Kennedy, says code of silence or not, he would have turned down Mr. Hersh's request for an interview based on the poor quality of Hersh's information. "He kept reporting things to me that were patently false. He kept saying he had documentation. I told him the information was false because I was there. At the end of our conversation, I told him never to call again," Brown says of his conversation with Hersh. ------------------------------------------------- From http://www.decentdesigns.com/svlogic/html/past_news_6.html John F. Kennedy Merletti indicated to the court that the assassination in a moving limousine of President John F. Kennedy "might have been thwarted had agents been stationed on the car's running boards." Merletti makes no mention of the proximity of other Secret Service agents during the Kennedy assassination. There was one agent driving Kennedy's car, a man who later testified that he was able to hear every word Kennedy, his wife, and Texas governor Connolly spoke in the moments before the assassination. There were two agents on motorcycles, one on each side of Kennedy's car, and a car of six [sic: eight] agents behind the Kennedy limo. The four times that Kennedy's limo was approached by crowds of pedestrians, agents from the trailing car ran to the limo to better protect the President. More importantly, it is apparent that despite Kennedy's willingness to allow a Secret Service agent to remain within earshot of him, an assassin was still able to shoot Kennedy because the Secret Service had not taken proper precautions to secure buildings with unobstructed views of the parade route. Once again, the primary factor allowing an assassination proved to be lack of vigilance, not lack of proximity. -------------------------------------------------- From http://www.alumni.gatech.edu/news/alummag/spr92/rufus.html Interesting 1992 interview of Rufus Youngblood w/ photo -------------------------------------------------------- (more propaganda) From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/starr051498.htm During private meetings, sources said, Merletti told officials from Starr's office and the Treasury and Justice departments that trust and proximity to a president are crucial to protecting him. If a president asks an agent to stand a few feet away to allow him to talk without being overheard, Merletti reportedly said, it could keep the agent from being close enough to stop a bullet. To make that case, the service ran through the history of assassination attempts, showing instances where they succeeded or failed, possibly depending on how close agents were to an intended victim. Sources said they produced rare photographs of John F. Kennedy's fateful 1963 motorcade through Dallas, where agents were not standing on running boards on the back of his exposed automobile when shots rang out because the president several days before had ordered them not to. By contrast, service officials displayed pictures showing agents standing right next to Ronald Reagan during the 1981 assassination attempt, enabling them to push him immediately into a car and evacuate him before he was hit by more than a single bullet. And from http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1998/dom/980518/nation.keeping_it_secret4.html In the coming days lawyers for both camps expect Judge Norma Holloway Johnson to schedule a hearing on Merletti's claim that there is a "protective function" privilege that excuses his officers from testifying in court. And, if only for effect, Administration lawyers have included in their legal briefs rare photos showing officers, acting on John F. Kennedy's orders, jumping off the rear bumper of his car just minutes before it entered its fatal swing through downtown Dallas in November 1963. ------------------------------- From http://jobs.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/frompost/june98/sidebars/case13.htm HSCA's G. Robert Blakey on Secret Service agent Paul Landis (and Posner): We concentrated on individual witnesses and weighed the testimony of each by the same factors: where they were, how well they perceived what they'd heard and whether they had a motive to lie. For example, the ideal witness in terms of these criteria was Paul Landis, a Secret Service agent who was riding the right running board of the follow-up car. Significantly, Landis was positioned between the book depository and the grassy knoll; he heard shots that came from both directions, and he had no motive to lie. Posner knows about Landis; he quotes him as a credible witness on the timing of the first shot. You would think that he would also accept him on the direction of the third shot, even though Landis's testimony is inconsistent with Posner's thesis. Yet he ignores this aspect of Landis's testimony as he does the testimony of others. Clearly, Posner picks and chooses his witnesses on the basis of their consistency with the thesis he wants to prove. -------------------------------------------------- George Hickey: too late in retrieving the AR-15 and in filing lawsuits--- http://www.parascope.com/articles/cnews/970930.htm -------------------------------------------------------- Secret Service and Dr. Perry--- http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/5955/park2.html ------------------------------------------- Agent Greer and JFK's cuff links--- http://www.startifacts.com/JFK/JFK.htm http://www.startifacts.com/Catalog/4upcat58.htm ---------------------------------- From http://www.marquette.edu/law/course/priv_98/galella.htm Galella is a free-lance photographer specializing in the making and sale of photographs of well-known persons. Defendant Onassis is the widow of the late President, John F. Kennedy, mother of the two Kennedy children, John and Caroline, and is the wife of Aristotle Onassis, widely known shipping figure and reputed multimillionaire. John Walsh, James Kalafatis and John Connelly are U. S. Secret Service agents assigned to the duty of protecting the Kennedy children under 18 U.S.C. ' 3056, which provides for protection of the children of deceased presidents up to the age of 16. compiled by Vince Palamara