COMMENT: In the wake of the recent scan­dal involv­ing Secret Ser­vice agents assigned to pro­tect Obama par­ty­ing with pros­ti­tutes in Colom­bia, it is worth not­ing that this sort of thing is not with­out precedent.

For­mer Secret Ser­vice agent Abra­ham Bolden (the first African-American mem­ber of the Ser­vice) relates such activ­i­ties in the run-up to Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s assassination.

The Echo from Dealey Plaza by Abra­ham Bolden; Har­mony Books [HC]; Copy­right 2008 by Abra­ham Bolden; 978–0-307–38201-6. 

EXCERPT: . . . . Secret Ser­vice agents used this cot­tage when­ever the pres­i­dent was in Hyan­nis Port [Mass­a­chus­setts]. It had a large wooden porch across the front, a sit­ting area with a num­ber of bed­rooms off it, and a well-equipped kitchen. The large back­yard had a patio and a brick bar­be­cue pit, and led into thick woods. The cot­tage was rel­a­tively secluded, about fifty yards from the near­est house. As we hadn’t eaten since we left Wash­ing­ton, every­body chipped in some money, and Hen­der­son and Fos­ter drove off to buy food and drinks. They came back in about an hour with the gro­ceries, along with a healthy sup­ply of beer and bourbon.

We spent the after­noon and evening eat­ing, drink­ing, chat­ting, and watch­ing tele­vi­sion. About 8:00pm, I over­heard Hen­der­son ask­ing agents–not includ­ing me–if they wanted to go into town. He drove off with a cou­ple of other men. In addi­tion to the drink­ing, the White House detail also had a rep­u­ta­tion for wom­an­iz­ing. Sto­ries cir­cu­lated through­out the ser­vice about arro­gant agents in Wash­ing­ton who fan­cied them­selves play­boys, and sure enough, I was awak­ened at about 2:00 am by the sounds of women’s voices. I got up, used the bath­room, and wan­dered to the win­dows over­look­ing the front of the cot­tage. I heard the laugh­ter of a woman and some men com­ing from one of the bed­rooms, and a lit­tle later on saw two agents drive away with a cou­ple of women in the sta­tion wagon. . . . (The Echo from Dealey Plaza; p. 32.)

COMMENT: Some have felt that this type of behav­ior may have played a role in the assas­si­na­tion. (In a follow-up post, we will dis­cuss more sin­is­ter leads with regard to the Secret Service’s per­for­mance in Dal­las on 11/22/1963.)

EXCERPT: . . . . Imme­di­ately after the assas­si­na­tion, sev­eral news­pa­pers reported the pres­ence of an uniden­ti­fied man in the area now known as the “grassy knoll” in Dealey Plaza. Accord­ing to some of the accounts, a Dal­las police offi­cer had run to the grassy knoll just after the pres­i­dent was shot, and encoun­tered a neatly dressed man there. When ques­tioned, the man report­edly pre­sented a leather-bound com­mis­sion book iden­ti­fy­ing him as an agent of the U.S. Secret Ser­vice. At the same time, rumors of the pos­si­bil­ity of a lost com­mis­sion book were cir­cu­lat­ing within the Ser­vice. The story that we heard from some agents in Wash­ing­ton fea­tured sev­eral of the agents who were trav­el­ing with the pres­i­dent going to a strip club on Novem­ber 21 and stay­ing until the early morn­ing hours of Novem­ber 22. At least one of them was reported to have become quite ine­bri­ated and could have either lost his Secret Ser­vice iden­ti­fi­ca­tion or had it lifted off him that night.

In Jan­u­ary 1964, ASAIC Mar­tineau announced that the Secret Ser­vice intended to update iden­ti­fi­ca­tion books through out the agency, and that all agents needed to turn in their cur­rent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion books right away. We received newly engraved iden­ti­fi­ca­tion books about thirty days after the old ones were sent back to Wash­ing­ton. . . . It seemed fairly obvi­ous to me that the Ser­vice was look­ing to sweep under the rug the fact that some agent had lost his iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, and the best way to do so was to issue new ID to all per­son­nel. The Ser­vice was cir­cling the wag­ons at a time when many mem­bers of Con­gress felt the FBI should take over the pro­tec­tion of the pres­i­dent. . . . (Ibid.; pp. 54–55.)