> > THE ECHO FROM DEALEY PLAZA

> > The True Story of the First African American on the White House Secret
> > Service Detail and His Quest for Justice After the Assassination of
> > JFK

> > By Abraham Bolden

> > Harmony. 306 pp. $25.95

> > In the vast literature of the John F. Kennedy assassination, Abraham
> > Bolden has long been a footnote of interest mainly to conspiracy
> > theorists. Now, after four decades and hundreds of books probing
> > assassination arcana, the first black agent assigned to guard a
> > president has written his memoir. "The Echo From Dealey Plaza"
> > contains no new information about the assassination, but it is a
> > shocking story of injustice.

> > This much is certain: Bolden was personally appointed by Kennedy in
> > 1961. During the agent's lone month on White House duty, JFK proudly
> > called him "the Jackie Robinson of the Secret Service." Having risen
> > from humble roots in East St. Louis to graduate with honors from
> > Lincoln University in Missouri, Bolden stood in awe of the young
> > president. Though he glosses over Kennedy's mixed record on civil
> > rights, his memoir's fleeting glimpse of the Kennedy clan is charming
> > and heartfelt.

> > Yet after a month protecting Kennedy, Bolden was sent back to Chicago,
> > where he spent the next three years investigating counterfeiters. He
> > was nowhere near Dealey Plaza in Dallas during what Don DeLillo called
> > "the seven seconds that broke the back of the American Century." Nor
> > did he, as one conspiracy buff has claimed, ever hear Lee Harvey
> > Oswald shout, "Ruby hired me!" So what caused the "echo"?

> > Bolden's brief White House duty left him certain that the Secret
> > Service was slacking. While in Hyannis Port, Mass., he had seen agents
> > drinking on the job. Back in Chicago, he saw them drop leads on
> > possible assassins. Bolden also heard stories about Secret Service
> > agents drinking heavily in Dallas the night before the assassination.
> > Armed with these accusations, Bolden was preparing to contact the
> > Warren Commission when he was arrested in May 1964. Overnight, his
> > life turned from a Jackie Robinson story to something out of Kafka.

> > Despite having a spotless record, Bolden found himself charged with
> > selling government information to a suspect. Convicted on testimony
> > from the shadiest of characters, he was denied appeals even when a key
> > trial witness confessed to perjury. Bolden remains certain the
> > frame-up stemmed from his widely known criticism of the Secret Service
> > and his attempts to contact the Warren Commission. Readers, however,
> > might suspect a racial vendetta by some fellow agents rather than a
> > conspiracy related to the assassination.

> > By his own account, Bolden had no shortage of enemies at the Secret
> > Service. These ranged from outright racists to bullying bosses who
> > hated him for not being a "team player." In one all-too-resonant
> > incident, he looked up from his desk in Chicago one afternoon to see a
> > noose hanging from the ceiling. But while it is possible, perhaps even
> > probable, that Bolden was silenced to keep him from leveling a
> > j'accuse, the jury is still out.

> > Bolden clearly is innocent of the charge for which he spent more than
> > three years in jail. But just as he hired a lawyer to defend him in
> > court, he should have hired a ghostwriter to state his case in print.
> > His story, replete with conniving characters, a scandalously biased
> > judge and endless innuendo, would make a great made-for-TV movie.
> > Alas, most of "The Echo From Dealey Plaza" reads like an affidavit.
> > Each character talks like every other character, and complex events
> > are recounted in sequence with little attempt to sort them out. Only
> > when Bolden comes to his ordeal in prison does he make the reader feel
> > his fury:

> > "You hear people talk about the walls closing in on them. Before
> > spending just a few hours in that cell, I had thought it was just a
> > handy expression. . . . The impulse to scream out, to pound my fists
> > against the steel cage, rose inside me, but eventually it passed. With
> > my eyes tightly closed and my arms folded against my chest, I recited
> > verse after verse of scripture, as I had learned to do as a child in
> > East St. Louis, until finally I fell asleep."

> > Bolden suffered greatly at the hands of American jurisprudence, and
> > his memoir helps set the record straight. More than 40 years after his
> > nightmare, he cannot be blamed for merely laying out the basics and
> > punctuating them with understated outrage. He never claims to be a
> > professional writer, just a proud American deeply wronged. But some
> > editor should have enlivened his plodding prose and drab dialogue.
> > With such treatment, "The Echo From Dealey Plaza" might have been the
> > strong indictment Bolden intended. Instead, it is a rather faint echo
> > of the crimes in question.

> > --
> > The Kennedy Assassination Home Pagehttp://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

> I was fortunate enough in my life to be born white but also to have a sort
> of second father when I entered high school . I joined the basketball
> fraternity and was fortunate to play under a coach , that when he retired
> a few years back , was the winningest varsity high school coach in the
> entire United States . His name was coach Tom Danley .

> The one thing he always stressed was being a Team first , second , third
> ......... right down the line . It didn't matter if we lost every single
> game , consistency was what mattered . We were all going to be successful
> or a failure as a Team , that's what counted most , all other priorities
> recinded .

> I can't imagine a black person who would join a organization like the SS
> in the 60's and want to be a cowboy also ? Seems like it was a case of
> being in the wrong profession to begin with and alot of sour grapes
> afterwards . How certain is everyone that he wasn't guilty of the crime he
> was accused of ? To get a person to change his story is not all that hard
> to do if you know how to go about it properly . His whole story seems
> fishy to me , but I can't place my finger on it ..... yet .