Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (52 page)

Greer's testimony, like that of all government officials presented to the
Warren Commission, was taken at face value and there was no real attempt
at cross-examination. Likewise, testimony that indicated why the reaction
of the Secret Service agents that day was so sluggish was not examined
closely by the Warren Commission.

Within days of the assassination, it was common knowledge in the Fort
Worth-Dallas area that Kennedy's Secret Service agents were drinking
well into the morning hours of November 22 at a notorious Fort Worth
club, the Cellar.

The story eventually spread nationwide when columnist Drew Pearson
wrote about the incident, adding editorially: "Obviously men who have
been drinking until nearly 3 A.M. are in no condition to be trigger-alert or
in the best physical shape to protect anyone."

The stories set off an investigation within the Secret Service. Chief
James J. Rowley, a former FBI man who had been with the Secret Service
since 1938, obtained statements from the ten agents involved, plus some
Fort Worth news reporters and Pat Kirkwood, the club's owner and an
acquaintance of Jack Ruby.

Several Secret Service agents denied having any alcoholic drinks and the
remainder stated they only had one or two drinks, including beers. Everyone, including Kirkwood, stressed that the Cellar had no license to sell
alcoholic drinks. Rowley told the Warren Commission: "This is a place
that does not serve alcoholic beverages."

Why the concern about alcohol? The Warren Commission cited Section
10 of the Secret Service Manual:

10. Liquor, use of-a. Employees are strictly enjoined to refrain from
the use of intoxicating liquor during the hours they are officially employed at their post of duty, or when they may reasonably expect that
they may be called upon to perform an official duty. During entire
periods of travel status, the special agent is officially employed and
should not use liquor, until the completion of all of his official duties for
the day . . . However, all members of the White House Detail and
Special Agents cooperating with them on Presidential and similar protective assignments are considered to be subject to call for official duty
at any time while in travel status. Therefore, the use of intoxicating
liquor of any kind, including beer and wine, by members of the White House Detail . . . while they are in travel status, is prohibited [Emphasis
added 1.

Paragraph c of this regulation states: "Violation or slight disregard of
the above paragraphs . .. will be cause for removal from the Service."

Several of the agents involved, including four who were riding in the
Secret Service follow-up car behind Kennedy, admitted drinking, but only
two beers at the most. Of those who went to the Cellar, most said they had
one or two drinks called a "salty dick" described as grapefruit juice and
soda. Again, everyone concerned stressed that the Cellar did not sell
alcohol, although alcohol brought in by a patron was allowed.

At least three agents guarding Kennedy's hotel suite took their "coffee
break" at the Cellar, leaving two Fort Worth firemen behind to guard the
President.

Since all the agents turned out at 7 A.M. that morning "sober, alert and
ready for the performance of their duties," Rowley told the Warren
Commission he did not punish them for the violation of regulations.

According to the Warren Commission:

Chief Rowley testified that under ordinary circumstances he would have
taken disciplinary action against those agents who had been drinking in
clear violation of the regulation. However, he felt that any disciplinary
action might have given rise to an inference that the violation of the
regulation had contributed to the tragic events of November 22. Since
he was convinced that this was not the case, he believed that it would be
unfair to the agents and their families to take explicit disciplinary
measures.

Obviously, Rowley and others in the government were very much
concerned that the public might recall that President Lincoln was killed
when his guard left his post to have a drink next door and might
attach some significance to the fact that Kennedy's agents were keeping late hours in a "beatnik" club owned by an associate of Jack
Ruby.

The entire affair was toned down and quietly forgotten-except by
Cellar owner Kirkwood. During the intervening years, Kirkwood has
admitted that, while the Cellar had no license to sell liquor, nothing
prevented him from giving it away. And give it away he did. In a 1984
article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram recalling the wild days of the
Cellar, Kirkwood said: "We had strange rules. We'd give drinks to
doctors, lawyers, politicians, stag girls, policemen, anybody we thought
we might need if something broke out ... "

Kirkwood's mother recalled that sometimes her son would "give away
five hundred dollars' worth of whiskey in a month."

In the newspaper article, Kirkwood mentioned the Secret Service incident:

After midnight the night before [the assassination], some reporters
called me from the Press Club [of Fort Worth], which didn't have a
license to sell drinks after midnight. [They] said they had about 17
members of the Secret Service and asked if they could bring them to my
place. I said sure. About 3:30 [A.M.], these Secret Service men were
sitting around giggling about how the firemen were guarding the President over at the Hotel Texas. That night got the Cellar mentioned in the
Warren Report.

Jimmy Hill, who managed the Cellar for eleven years, was even more to
the point in that same article:

After the agents were there, we got a call from the White House
asking us not to say anything about them drinking because their image
had suffered enough as it was. We didn't say anything, but those guys
were bombed. They were drinking pure Everclear [alcohol].

It might be noted that no one saw the agents in a drunken revelryalthough at least one unmarried female reporter tagged along with them for
company. In fact, according to most present, the agents sat by themselves
talking and drinking. However, the fatigue of the multistop Texas trip
coupled with the alcohol and lack of sleep obviously left the agents in
less-than-optimal condition to perform their duties.

During the wild ride to Parkland Hospital, presidential aide Kenneth
O'Donnell thought about the interval between the final shots. Years later,
he wrote:

.. . if there was an interval of at least five seconds between the
second and third shots, as it seemed, that was long enough for a man to
run 50 yards. If the Secret Service men in the front had reacted quicker
to the first two shots at the President's car, if the driver had stepped on
the gas before instead of after the fatal third shot was fired, would
President Kennedy be alive today?

Former senator Ralph Yarborough echoed O'Donnell's concern when he
wrote the Warren Commission:

.. . All of the Secret Service men seemed to me to respond very
slowly, with no more than a puzzled look. Knowing something of the
training that combat infantrymen and Marines receive, I am amazed at
the lack of instantaneous response by the Secret Service when the rifle
fire began.

The reaction-impairment issue aside, conspiracy-minded researchers,
noting that throughout history a great man's bodyguards usually are the key to a successful coup d'etat, have suggested that Kennedy's guards may
have been aware of the coming events in Dealey Plaza and were under too
much stress to get a quiet night's sleep.

Interestingly, none of Vice President Johnson's Secret Service guards
were in the entourage that drank at the Press Club and then moved on to
the Cellar.

Aside from the sluggish reaction of the Secret Service agents in Dealey
Plaza, other oddities occurred in the motorcade during the assassination.

One agent, John D. Ready, did start to react by jumping off the
follow-up car (a 1956 Cadillac touring sedan convertible). However, he
was recalled by Special Agent-in-Charge Emory Roberts.

Then there is the well-publicized story of Agent Rufus Youngblood,
who reportedly threw himself on top of Vice President Johnson after the
shooting began in Dealey Plaza. Youngblood was considered the hero of
the hour. In his report of that day, Youngblood wrote that upon hearing the
first shot: "I quickly looked all around again and could see nothing to
shoot at, so I stepped over into the back seat and sat on top of the vice
President. "

Johnson, in a statement to the Warren Commission, mentioned the
incident:

I was startled by a sharp report or explosion, but I had no time to
speculate as to its origin because Agent Youngblood turned in a flash,
immediately after the first explosion, hitting me on the shoulder, and
shouted to all of us in the back seat to get down. I was pushed down by
Agent Youngblood. Almost in the same moment in which he hit or
pushed me, he vaulted over the back seat and sat on me. I was bent over
under the weight of Agent Youngblood's body, toward Mrs. Johnson
and Senator Yarborough.

Years later in his book, The Vantage Point, Johnson elaborated:

... it is apparent that there were many reactions to the first shot .. .
I did not know what it was. Agent Youngblood spun around, shoved me
on the shoulder to push me down and shouted to all of us, "Get down!"
Almost in the same movement, he vaulted over the seat, pushed me to
the floor, and sat on my right shoulder to keep me down and to protect
me. Agent Youngblood's quick reaction was as brave an act as I have
ever seen anyone perform. When a man, without a moment's thought or
hesitation, places himself between you and a possible assassin's bullet,
you know you have seen courage. And you never forget it.

However, former Texas senator Ralph Yarborough, who was sitting
beside Johnson that day, told this author: "It just didn't happen. . . . It was a small car, Johnson was a big man, tall. His knees were up against
his chin as it was. There was no room for that to happen."

Yarborough recalled that both Johnson and Youngblood ducked down as
the shooting began and that Youngblood never left the front seat. Yarborough
said Youngblood held a small walkie-talkie over the back of the car's seat
and that he and Johnson both put their ears to the device. He added: "They
had it turned down real low. I couldn't hear what they were listening to."

It would be most interesting to learn what the men listened to, since
Dallas Police radio channel 1 designated for the presidential party was
blocked from radio traffic for about eight minutes beginning at 12:26 P.M.,
about four minutes before the shooting, by a transmitter stuck open. It may
have been that Johnson and Youngblood were listening to a channel
reserved for inter-vehicle radio traffic, but no transcripts of this channel
have been made public.

Obviously, either Yarborough or Johnson and his Secret Service agents
did not tell the truth of what happened in the motorcade.

In reviewing the Secret Service activity in the course of Kennedy's
Dallas trip, even the gullible Warren Commission concluded that, while
"the detailed security measures taken at Love Field and the Trade Mart
were thorough and well-executed, in other respects . . . the advance
preparations for the President's trip were deficient."

The House Select Committee on Assassinations was even harsher, stating:

In summary, the committee concluded that the Secret Service did in
fact possess information that was not properly analyzed and put to use
with respect to a protective investigation in advance of President Kennedy's trip to Dallas. Further, it was the committee's opinion that Secret
Service agents in the Presidential motorcade in Dallas were not adequately prepared for an attack by a concealed sniper. Finally, the
committee found that the investigation by the Secret Service of a
possible assassination conspiracy was terminated prematurely when President Johnson ordered that the FBI assume primary investigative
responsibility.

Lastly, there is the mystery of men encountered by several people in
Dealey Plaza-including at least one policeman-who claimed to be Secret Service agents and even displayed credentials. No government panel
has ever adequately investigated this matter to determine if these men were
bogus or real agents.

There is cause for suspicion that the Secret Service was somehow
involved in the assassination of John Kennedy.

While the President's guards certainly had the opportunity to achieve
Kennedy's death-either through direct action or through inaction-no
motive has been established. And since the Service is a small agency
within the federal government with relatively little power or influence, no one seriously believes that the Secret Service initiated or orchestrated the
assassination.

However, the possibility remains that certain individuals within the
Service may have been working for someone other than John Kennedy on
November 22, 1963.