Friday, Oct. 2, 1964
University Daily Kansan
Page 3
Presidential Protector's View of Kennedy Death
EDITOR'S NOTE—The Warren commission, on sharply criticized the U.S. Secret Service for being an unwarranted protector more than Mrs. Presser and F. Kennedy was assassinated. In the following dispatch a veteran United Press International reporter who has covered the travels of a secret service agent of a secret service agent's life at the time Kennedy was shot.
Rv Merriman Smith
WASHINGTON—(UPI) You're a Secret Service agent and its midnight, Nov. 21, 1963, and you're in Fort Worth, Tex.
President John F. Kennedy has just gone to his suite in the Texas hotel. Through a fog of fatigue, muscular aches and worry about your youngest kid back at home (she had an awful cold when you left), you realize that the work day finally is over.
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You've been on duty since 8 a.m. and you must be on duty again at 8 a.m. tomorrow, ready for the President's trip to Dallas. Parade through town, speech before a huge luncheon at a merchandise mart, and then over to Austin for a night at Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson's ranch.
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THESE 16-HOUR days aren't too tough. But when they go to 18 and 20 hours, it begins to get sticky. They tell you to go out to the target range in Washington and shoot a 265 (out of 300) score every 30 days with either hand. Tonight, you're so bushed that you couldn't hit the side of a barn—unless the barn was very close.
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Going into the hotel at midnight you find the lobby jammed by a lot of screaming, clutching people. A lot of teen-agers. Good excuse to stay up late.
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Watch that old fellow by the elevator. You yell at the agent in front of you, "by the elevator." He nods and shoulders through the people to block an odd-looking fellow holding some wilted flowers in his hands.
You battle to keep the President and his wife from being trampled by the crowd. The police have ropes strung through the place. But the ropes are slack and the crowd bulges out around the Kennedys, the President looks tired, but he lights up when he hears those squeals.
YOU NOTICE that the first lady's hair is drooping. She's trying hard to smile. You know from past experience that this sort of hollering, snatching welcome is for the birds as far as she is concerned.
Shoving (pardon me, lady) and pushing (would you please, sir), you finally get the man into the elevator and—whooey—you're off duty for about seven hours.
You haven't eaten since dawn when you said goodbye to your sick kid. She was half asleep when you left. As you walked out of the room she babbled something that sounded like "No, daddy—don't go."
Well, you're in this hotel lobby, hungry and tired and a guy comes along and says there is chow and beer over at something called the Worth Club. Everybody's invited. The party, being given by the Fort Worth Presses Club for the reporters travelling with us, was set to start two hours ago and the President came in just about two hours late. Why? Hand-shaking at airports along the way.
YOU DON'T want to go to a press club party. You want some sack time. You go to the hotel coffee shop and Texas political bigshots by the dozen have the place overloaded. There's a waiting line. So you remember the thing about the Worth Club, ask a bellhop for directions and walk a few blocks to the place.
no food. We got into town too late and the locals ate up everything. But they're nice people and you fall into a chair beside your buddies and a waiter brings you a beer. Man, that takes off some of the edge, doesn't it? You have a couple more and say to the guys that your gut is growing.
You get a hamburger, some coffee and there is some woman whirling around the center of the place, pulling off her jacket and looking like an over-age stripper. Her husband finally pulls her down and the place subsides.
a place called the Cellar coffee house, couple or three blocks away. And you walk over there with some of the fellows.
Some smiling townie, awfully nice guy, says there's action all night at
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YOU SIT AT this little slick-topped table, talking with a local policeman and you wonder if you're getting anywhere. When Kennedy travels, he moves like an arrow and he hits towns where never is anything decent to eat late at night. It's okay when you're at the Carlyle in New York—good chow joints only a couple of blocks away. But once you're out of the big towns, you know that if you don't eat by 9 or 10 o'clock, you've had it. Hamburgers and gluey lemon pie at the bus station.
NEW YORK—(UPI)—The annual Remsen Stakes on the New York racing circuit was named for Col. Joremus Remsen, leader of the Revolutionary forces during the Battle of Long Island.
You sit around this strange place in Fort Worth. No drinks in this town, but you're curious about the way people at other tables are gulping from their coffee cups. You look at your watch—2:30 a.m. Holy cow. Back to the sack.
You get up at seven. The hotel coffee shop is still crowded. You con a waitress for a quick cup of coffee and then hit the street. Big crowd. The President looks sleepy when he ducks out in the rain to address the people, then back into a ballroom for a Democratic Party breakfast.
Air Force One—the big 707—is in
the air. Not much time for breakfast aloft. You take out your small photo file and study for the millionth time a dozen pictures of the loose nuts—no address—who swear they'll kill Kennedy if given the chance. Almost automatically, you feel for your revolver in its break-away holster on your right hip. You feel for the little leather pouch that contains 10 extra rounds of ammunition.
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THEN YOU HIT Love Field in Dallas. The President and the first lady work the fence. He gets sore if you get between him and the people sticking out their hands. Looks like the fence is going over, so you and a Dallas cop put your shoulders against the cable fencing and hold it up until the President walks toward the car.
Then you run for the follow-up car. Thank heavens they flew out from Washington one of the big open jobs with running boards. You start wheeling toward the mart. Crowds in the center of town are friendly. A few goofs. Check that guy, Lem, the one on your right. The one with the sign saying "I reject you" or is it "I despise you"?
The procession clears the crowd and you're on a parkway. You and your fellows crawl off the running boards and back into the car. Funny sign there—Texas School Book Depository. What do they do—make the kids put their books in a bank at night?
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Pow. You know it came over your right shoulder from the rear. Pow. Damn. He's down. There goes Clint Hill (another agent) for the front car. Watch it, buddy (Clint stumbles, then grabs a guard rail and pulls himself aboard the President's vehicle. Mrs. Kennedy helps him.) You'd like to shoot, but at what? A park, an overpass which looks clear? The car now is moving at 80 miles an hour. The President has disappeared. By God, they got him.
YOU HAVE THAT .38 in your hand and you feel sort of silly. No target. Those shots came from an elevation. Big caliber rifle. In the car ahead, Mrs. Kennedy has disappeared. She's down on the floor. Clint is on the back of the seat. Man, he looks worried.
You can hear the short-wave radio from the front seat. Roy Kellerman, another agent, is saying "We've been hit." Then you zing into the driveway of a building. Big thing, Parkland Hospital.
"Cover the driveway," a guy yells from the lead car. And you race to the roadway to stop other vehicles from entering.
Ten months later, you're reading the Warren commission report and about what a lousy job you did in Dallas. How you should have checked out the buildings along the way. You're only one small cog in a small unit of men who work around the
clock to keep the President alive.
How in God's name can you be responsible for buildings? You check 'em or have the locals do it and five minutes later some nut slips in the back door.
YOU CAN'T close down an entire city. Everybody knows that, but somebody has to take the fall for it.
You sit at home with the wife and you read and listen to all the accounts of the Warren report. You figure that the White House detail of the Secret Service is getting the worst of it. Poor Chief Rowley. Spent most of his adulthood protecting one President or another. Now he's being chopped up by the report.
Your holstered revolver is hanging from the hat-tree just inside the front door. You're frightfully tired and a little sad. Who are you? You're an agent of the United States Secret Service, White House detail—and likely as not you'll have to be at the airport at 6 a.m. to go with the President some place. Speeches, handshaking, motorcades—and back at midnight, or later.
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