The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence by Gerald BlaineMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Former JFK detail Secret Service agents Gerald Blaine and Clint Hill put together an excellent memoir of serving in that detail and basically a Clint Hill professional biography including his service under LBJ and Nixon. From their privileged vantage point this has much touching and personal such as JFK Jr. ("John John")'s obsession with military and saluting culminating in him stepping forward to render a final salute as his father's flag-draped casket was carried out from St. Matthew's Cathedral, Jackie O. smoking on the sly, etc. Also, their professional view explains how the presidential car was for maximized visibility, not security and how JFK demanded close proximity with well-wishers, etc. Pointedly about challenging conspiracy theories, this work is not about evaluating JFK as a president. Still, the quick summary of his presidential political career finally tipped me over into believing him over-rated, at least on foreign policy. It really feels to me like his indecisiveness and lack of resolve around the failed Bay of Pigs invasion leading into failed the 1961 Vienna summit invited further challenge from the USSR leading to The Berlin Wall and the nearly nuclear Cuban Missile Crisis. Sure, he avoided nuclear war and set the stage for less tense U.S.–Soviet relations, but only after ineptly taking us to the brink... I see that a 2014 Washington Post survey of 162 members of the American Political Science Association's Presidents and Executive Politics found Kennedy to be the most overrated U.S. president, so I don't feel so bad of my views.
As for assassination conspiracies. The book roundly denies any Secret Service incompetence or conspiracy resulting in the assassination. Without naming the book, Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK is specifically called out. I still want to read that book, but I wasn't really convinced that a stumbling agent w/an AR-15 could take such a shot without resulting in some vociferous witnesses early on. Condemning the veracity of claims from former agent Abraham Bolden figures in highly here.
As for conspiracy, these authors hold to the Single Bullet Theory, that is the first bullet that hit JFK also hit Connolly. I don't know if this can ever be truly answered, but of all I have read and considered, I hold with Dr. Cyril Wecht's convincing arguments that Connolly too delicately holds his hat to be shot when JFK is. I don't know that Oswald even knew of any other gunman, maybe he only knew what he said, that he was "a patsy."
Interestingly, the failure of Dallas authorities to keep Oswald from being assassinated and the Secret Service refusing to allow proper forensic examination of JFK is not admitted in this book as a Service failing that should not have happened. Maybe we need an assassination protocol with federal requirements for full forensic investigation and federal detainment and protection of chief suspects.
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