Hamster King may have been avoiding the question, but if that were me, I’d go to the FBI, tell them everything I knew, and ask for protection for me and my family.
Here’s the problem, no you can’t. You can see one of them being confused about something he was told but we have no idea what it was. You are stuck on the “given stand down orders” part, something the film does not make clear. More likely, there was a perceived concern elsewhere that he was being ordered to investigate. I’m sure every situation has different protocols and those protocols change over time.
I realize you are straddling the fence trying at once to convince us there was a conspiracy while at the same time proclaiming indifference but do you really think if that agent had stayed Kennedy would not have been shot?
I think there’s only one thing we can do at this point. Jake’s brought up a reasonably valid issue, and we should examine it. Now, the best way would be to ask the Secret Service agents at the Plaza about this. But I dunno if they’re still alive, and I don’t think they’d be horribly willing to respond. Plus, it’s been a few years.
So, what we should do is see if they were debriefed or interviewed at the time.
Say… by Congress.
As soon as I finish reading the rest of the Dope, I’m going to go jump into the Warren Commission Report, and see if I can find their testimony. Then maybe try to investigate anything else they’ve said, now that I will have their names.
Sound good?
Just to provide the requested footage:
Their motorcade is shown in each.
The more I think about your relative’s claim, the less likely I am inclined to believe his veracity. That Continental did not exist in Truman’s presidency, and I haven’t seen another limo with the same steps on the back of it, ever. So, how’s he supposed to know the protocol of riding on them? Except for Johnson’s parade, they’re all either walking along behind the car, or riding on the doors of a car nearby. The presidential limousines after it did not have them, either. Confirmation bias isn’t something that only affects people you disagree with, you know? Since you know this person, you are far more inclined than we are to believe he’s not a liar. He’s nothing but an unnamed stranger to us.
And, by Godfrey, I have an answer!
http://www.jfklancer.com/CHill.html
So, it was at the President’s request that the Agents did not ride on the rear of the lead car.
As we now have a name for the Secret Service step-uncle (Paul Doster), is there evidence that he was familiar with presidential security at the time of the assassination of Kennedy? According to this site Doster was replaced on the White House Detail in August 1954, and was serving in the Nashville field office early in Kennedy’s presidency (no info on whether he was still a Secret Service member anywhere in November 1963). Interestingly, the site also mentions Doster’s widow was interviewed by a Nashville newspaper in 1992, subject not indicated. Was she commenting on the assassination? Was there a big family interest in it?
JFK’s assassination was an Agatha Christie novel with an unsatisfactory denoument. The number of likely suspects would fill the Orient Express, and that some punk who saw his Main Chance might do it was completely bogus as a work of fiction.
ETA: This does not stop me from playing “what if” games with it. The number of suspects with something to gain is too overwhelming.
My uncle was an agent, I seriously doubt that another agent is somehow going to say, “No, it is not the protocol to stay by the presidents side, we take coffee breaks all the time.”
Not sure I’m following ‘it relies on the fact that it would take 3 shots to kill the president’. With agents running along side they offer a partial shield, and when shots are fired they offer full blanket coverage. Doesn’t mean that it’s going to work every time.
I think you’re moving the goal posts out a little too far.
Did you read the links by E-Sabbath? Which goalposts are we talking about?
I didn’t say that he guarded a Continental and I didn’t say anything about my uncle saying he rode on bumpers. I said that you can clearly see the handles on the trunks that they will stand on to be very close to the prez.
There’s no way to prove who would keep quiet and who wouldn’t. If an agent is single and patriotic he would not have nearly as much to loose as an agent who had a family. It’s one thing to sacrifice yourself for your ideals and principles, it’s a totally different to rlsk the lives of loved ones for your principles and ideals.
I offer it up only in answer to the question of why wouldn’t tell their supervisors. Can’t prove it, but I would bet big money on the overwhelming majority keeping quiet and I would bet even bigger money that you would do the same.
They weren’t riding on the running boards, they were walking along side slightly behind JFK and Jackie.
Mr. HILL. I did the same thing approximately four times…The preceding Monday, the President was on a trip in Tampa, Fla., and he requested that the agents not ride on either of those two steps [on the side of the car]. (Hill, who was not present in Florida, heard this from other agents.)
He’s not talking about Texas.
Exactly. Which is why it’s an awful idea for a conspiracy.
And knowing several of them, I can tell you that you’re wrong. Since my personal experience conflicts with your guesswork, I see no reason to put any faith in your statement.
Besides, if you’re planning to kill the president you’re not going to tell Secret Service agents, ones who are willing to give their lives for the cause, to back off in full view of the cameras and then rely on threats to men who are used to dealing with threats and danger to keep them quiet for decades. Sorry, the idea fails the very basic smell test.
He would not be privy to the exact details of the motorcade but his is very privy to the fact that you don’t leave the president unprotected for an instant.
I have no idea what the interview was about.
As far as The Hamster King’s statement, there are two choices:
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Think he is lying, in which case, case closed. Logic would dictate that You wouldn’t want to keep responding to a liar.
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Take him (and several others) at his word, and if you do, his statement must be given some king of weight, especially coming from a highly qualified source.
You don’t understand. No one here is uneasy with anything you’re saying. We’re unimpressed. That’s a very different thing.
We have considered your story and given the other facts in evidence, we simply think your uncle’s opinion is wrong. And I’m taking for the sake of argument that you are relaying the god’s honest truth about what your uncle said, and that he was sincere in saying it.
E-Sabbath’s quote clearly shows that SS assignments could be changed on short notice by a request from the president. And given that, possibly even by others fairly high up in the food chain. So it wasn’t unheard of to move agents at the last minute.
And we don’t even know if the agent is actually being told to stand down. We see him apparently surprised by something, but what? You speculate that he is finding out he’s been mysteriously pulled off his previously assigned post. But that is speculation. Maybe he was expecting to ride part way in the follow car, and has just been told he’s been bumped by someone else.
Your uncle says something looked fishy and this was a serious breach. Is he the only SS agent ever to see this film? And yet we don’t hear any other agents speaking out and saying how fishy it is.
Exactly. There’s no way to prove who would keep quiet. And “the overwhelming majority keeping quiet” is useless. If even one agent talks, the investigative ball starts rolling, and the conspiracy breaks down. The others who were previously cowed into submission (nice opinion of your own uncle there, by the way) now run for cover and start talking.
It just doesn’t hold up from any angle. No offense to your uncle, but he was just wrong about this.
We’ve solved the mystery of the Kennedy assassination.
Kennedy did it.
…duuuude. You have no idea how right you are.
We even have film footage.
Jake, you great silly.
The crowd was back, and the car was apparently moving fast enough that the ‘forward portion of the left hand running board’ rule was in effect.
As for the ‘do not ride on either of those steps’, the sentence is ambiguous as to if the President said it once, or said it as a continuing rule, but the only way it makes sense to be brought up in that testimony is if he said it in Florida, as a continuing rule. Something like ‘I don’t like it when you men ride on the rear of my car. Stay back one, will you?’ would be the simplest explanation and most probably correct.
I believe the man on the scene’s testimony is superior to your uncle’s suspicions. Can you provide something greater than that, or contradicting testimony? If not, I’m afraid I’m simply going to say that testimony provided says that you’re wrong.
There are some details about the selection of the route in Dallas (believe it or not, it was highly controversial between the liberal and conservative parts of the Democrats), and about planning for protection, in the 1979 HSCA investigation:
Which matches Agent Hill’s previous testimony. Well, the agents had good reason to be upset, but, as was said above, it was the President’s express request.