FACT: Roberts called off 2 SS agents that should have ridden on the back of the limo.
Because JFK had made it known, repeatedly, that he did not want the agents obstructing the public's view of him. Nevertheless, there are photographs and films of several agents, including Clint Hill, riding the back of the limousine at certain points in the Dallas motorcade. When they reached Dealy Plaza, they expected to speed up soon as they got on a high speed freeway, and it would have been unsafe to ride on the back of the limo. The crowd was also thinning out, and their primary concern was always the crowd.
FACT: The windows were not secured along the motorcade route.
Because it was totally infeasible. JFK himself realized this but was fatalistic about it. You may have noticed, though, that US Presidents no longer ride in open convertibles through urban areas past tall buildings with many windows.
FACT: SS allowed the route of the motorcade to make a sharp turn from Houston to Elm.
Because that was the only proper way to reach the freeway. Trying to reach it from Main St. would have required driving over a concrete divider. Pretty silly, huh?
FACT: Motorcycle escorts had strict instructions to stay back of the limo.
For the same reason the agents were requested to stay off the back of the limo -- so that people who came to see the President and Jackie could indeed see him. Unfortunately, increasing their visibility to the people meant increasing JFK's visibility to a sniper.
FACT: Known threats of assassination existed.
Yes, and keeping track of them was the job of the Protective Research branch of the Secret Service. They did not have Oswald in their files. You can attribute this to lack of internal governmental communication, particularly between the CIA, FBI and Secret Service. You can even call it incompetence, if you like. Would that be the first known instance of governmental incompetence? Would that mean they were actively involved in the President's murder?
FACT: Miami motorcade had recently been cancelled because of known threats.
Wrong. Miami motorcade went ahead as scheduled.
FACT: Dallas was a conservative hot spot, known to be radically anti JFK.
Right, and that's why they went to Dallas. This was primarily a political trip. Until things turned ugly in Dealy Plaza, it seemed to be paying off, too.
FACT: Many agents recognized JFK was in distress after the first shot, but looked away.
Their job is to protect him, and that's done in several different ways. Only one of those ways involves physically shielding the president, and that is of limited effectiveness since they were not wearing body armor. As we saw from Oswald's second shot, his bullets were quite capable of going completely through one human body (JFK) and inflicting very serious injury on another (Connally). Agents are also trained to spot sources of danger, so when they realized something was happening they began to look for it but were unsuccessful. At that point they decided the best thing was to remove him from the source of danger as quickly as possible, and that's what they did. There was absolutely no point in sending additional agents to the limo after the president has already been hit and the vehicles are speeding up. You'll just get some agents killed for no reason.
You can Monday-morning quarterback all you want, but because you are not trained in their profession your criticisms are meaningless. Criticisms by others who are actually trained and experienced in the job of personal protection would actually be worth listening to.
FACT: Kellerman, knew JFK was hit by first shot, but did nothing.
Exactly what was he
supposed to do? There was a large partition, like a roll bar, between him and the passenger compartment, and additionally Connally and his wife sat between the agents and the President. Roy Kellerman was 48 years old and the senior agent in charge on this trip. Did you really expect him to somersault over the bar, leap over Connally, and cover the president in just a few seconds?
FACT: LBJ was protected immediately, after the 1st report.
Because he had a very alert agent in the seat immediately in front of him, with no obstacles to his quickly going over the seat. Ironic but true, LBJ had better protection that day than the President.
FACT: Not one SS agent could be seen to make a move to protect the President.
Um, you
do see Clint Hill running off the follow-up car and getting on the back of the limousine to cover JFK, don't you?
FACT: Greer slowed the limo down after the first shot, almost to a halt.
At first Greer thought he had a tire blowout. Without your benefit of 20-20 hindsight he had no reason to expect to be shot at. Even when the shooting started, it took a few seconds to realize that fact and to react to it, and sadly that was too long. So Greer was a human being with human reactions. He was startled. Are you going to crucify him for that? By all accounts the man was extremely upset by his reaction. It probably tortured him for the rest of his life even though the vast majority of other people probably would have done much worse in his position.
FACT: Kellerman looked back
How else can you find out what's happening behind you when you have no idea what's going on? I remind you, unlike you these people did not know that they were about to be shot at.
FACT: Greer looked back two times
Again, to find out what had happened. Seems natural to me.
FACT: Greer did not accelerate until after at least the 3rd shot.
Correct, once his and Kellerman's human reaction times had been satisfied. They actually reacted pretty quickly; just not quickly enough.
FACT: The SS did not relay any information to law enforcement concerning the perceived location or direction for the sniper.
There were no Secret Service agents in Dealy Plaza from just after the assassination to something like a half hour later when one of them returned. None of them had seen the sniper, so how could they possibly give that information to the police? Fortunately, we
did have several eyewitnesses who
did see the rifle and who immediately reported what they'd seen to the police. One of them had even seen Oswald as the man shooting it, and he identified him later.
FACT: The SS illegally and forcibly removed JFK body from the hospital.
True. These were extraordinary circumstances, a situation of extreme stress for everyone involved. No one yet knew if the assassination was part of some larger attack on the United States government. The agents were being pressured by the new President to return to Washington as soon as possible; the new President had said he wouldn't leave without Jackie; and Jackie said she wouldn't leave without her husband's body. The only thing standing between them and immediately returning, as they all desperately wished to do, was a local coroner insisting on protocol. Cut them some slack, eh?
The law was quickly changed so that assassination of a senior federal official is a federal crime that pre-empts local jurisdiction, so if this ever happens again it will be entirely legal to immediately return the body to Washington.
FACT: The SS illegally remove JFK body from Dallas and Texas.
You just said that.
FACT: The SS illegally sanitized the crime scene, the limo.
How? Pictures of the interior taken later that night after the limo was returned to DC show plenty of blood all over the inside. Didn't look 'sanitized' to me.
FACT: Only 4 of the 12 agents testified under oath.
So what? They all gave written statements; why waste time having them repeat verbally what they'd already written? You interview a witness like that only when you have additional unanswered questions.
FACT: Not one of the 4 that testified under oath were ever cross examined by Oswald's defense attorney.
Because Oswald never had a defense attorney! He was dead, remember? The United States has an adversarial legal system. Because a dead defendant can hardly act as an adversary in his own defense, that means there's no way to try a dead defendant in our system. But because of the importance of the case, we adopted, ad-hoc, a form of inquiry widely used in countries that don't have an adversarial legal system like ours: a neutral investigative body: the Warren Commission. Their work was not perfect, but I think they did a pretty good job under the circumstances. All of their main conclusions have stood for nearly half a century, notwithstanding a noisy bunch of conspiracy kooks.
