The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The true story of the first African American on the White House...

The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The true story of the first African American on the White House Secret Service ... | Abraham Bolden | The Echo From Dealey Plaza

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	The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The true story of the first African American on the White House Secret Service ... Abraham Bolden Harmony, 2008 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

From the first African American assigned to the presidential Secret Service detail comes a gripping and unforgettable true story of bravery and patriotism in the face of bitter hatred and unthinkable corruption.

Abraham Bolden was a young African American Secret Service agent in Chicago when he was asked by John F. Kennedy himself to join the White House Secret Service detail. For Bolden, it was a dream come true?and an encouraging sign of the charismatic president?s vision for a new America.

But the dream quickly turned sour when Bolden found himself regularly subjected to open hostility and blatant racism. He was taunted, mocked, and disparaged but remained strong, and he did not allow himself to become discouraged.

More of a concern was the White House team?s irresponsible approach to security. While on his tour of presidential duty, Bolden witnessed firsthand the White House agents? long-rumored lax approach to their job. Drinking on duty, abandoning key posts?this was not a team that appeared to take their responsibility to protect the life of the president particularly seriously. Both prior to and following JFK?s assassination, Bolden sought to expose and address the inappropriate behavior and negligence of these agents, only to find himself the victim of a sinister conspiracy that resulted in his conviction and imprisonment on a trumped-up bribery charge.

A gripping memoir substantiated by recently declassified government documents, The Echo from Dealey Plaza is the story of the terrible price paid by one man for his commitment to truth and justice, as well as a shocking new perspective on the circumstances surrounding the death of a beloved president.

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Every American should read this

Abraham Bolden joined the Secret Service in October, 1960 and was working out of the Chicago office providing security for an April, 1961 visit by President Kennedy to Chicago. After meeting Bolden during the course of the visit, Kennedy invited Bolden to permanently join the prestigious White House Security Detail. Bolden joins the detail and goes to Washington DC in June, 1960 for a 30-day trial period during which he encounters intense racism from other White House Secret Service agents that leads him to request to return to the Chicago office. During his July, 1961 exit interview with U.E. Baughmann, head of the Secret Service, Bolden described several of the incidents of racism, a lack of training, (Bolden was asked to use an AR-15 rifle but never received training on the weapon) and also mentioned names, dates, and places of agents who were drunking on duty. Baughmann notes this info, agrees that it was unacceptable, and states that he will take it up with his replacement, James J. Rowley, before he retires in a few days. Rowley was at that time the head of the White House Protective Detail and it is his group that Bolden is criticizing. Bolden goes back to Chicago and works on counterfeiting cases and Rowley becomes head of the Secret Service.

Bolden is working in the Chicago office when Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963. One week before, on November 17, Bolden was asked to fly to Washington DC to take a new assignment as an undercover agent for the Internal Revenue Service. As a part of this job, Bolden would get a new name, birth certificate, marriage certificate, employment records, and all references to his former identity would be erased. Bolden is uncomfortable, says he needs to think it over, and goes back to Chicago. A week later, Kennedy is assassinated and Bolden sees repeated suspicious activities by Secret Service personnel. Bolden is the night duty agent for Chicago on November 24 when he receives a call from the Agent Sorrels in the Dallas office asking that the Chicago office begin investigating a guy named John Hurd who was identified by suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald during interrogation at Dallas Police Headquarters. The Chicago agents dutifully investigate for several days and turn up information on a suspect. The Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office, Maurice Martineau, then demands that they stop investigating and turn over every scrap of paper to him personally, whereupon every on Hurd stops...forever. Another suspicious activity occurs when one of the Secret Service agents in Dallas loses his official identification at a strip club on the night before the assassination. The day of the assassination, several police officers report encountering a Secret Service agent with official credentials on the grassy knoll...where no agent was supposed to be. Rather than investigating this, the Secret Service requests that every agent turn in their identification and new identification books are issued in which the front cover says "The Treasury Department" instead of "Treasure Department." Yet another suspicious event occurs when a cuban gun runner for the CIA named Homer S. Echevarria is investigated by the Chicago for having two rifles equipped with sniper scopes in a rooming house along the route of a planned Kennedy visit to Chicago in October, 1963. After Kennedy is killed, SAIC Martineau tells agents to stop investigating Echevarria and personally collects every scrap of paper connected with Echevarria. Then Martineau warns agents to never discuss the case with anyone and to forget that it had ever existed.

Bolden is outspoken in his criticism of the Secret Service regarding the assassination of Kennedy and decides to bypass the Secret Service and contact the then-new Warren Commission investigating the assassination. He attempts to call Warren Commission lawyer J. Lee Rankin on May 17, 1964 from a coffee shop pay phone while on a training assignment in Washington DC but is unsuccessful. Little does he know that he is under surveillance. The next day he is asked to return to Chicago where he is accused by a convicted petty criminal of attempting to sell an investigation file for $50,000. A weird court trial follows in which every witness against Bolden is a convicted felon. Bolden is found guilty and serves six years in federal prisons. After finally being released, he settles down to obscurity and works for private industry for 30 years before finally deciding to write his story. The Secret Service was never investigated after the Kennedy assassination and continues to provide security for presidents and other important public officials to this very day. There is much evidence to suggest Secret Service complicity in the Kennedy killing and Bolden's account provides an important insider view of the Secret Service on November 22, 1963 that further undermines confidence in the integrity of the Secret Service at a time when President Kennedy put his life in its hands. Bolden is a Christian man of integrity who has paid an enormous personal price for speaking out then and now. He deserves to be heard.

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The Echo From Dealey Plaza

What a story of shear guts and determination of a man who paid the price for speaking out against the Secret Service protection for President Kennedy. I wish I had half the guts Mr. Bolden has, and I hope that in the end, those who for the most part framed Mr. Bolden, will be held fully accountable when they meet their maker. There was definitely a breakdown that fateful day in Dallas of Secret Service reaction when the first shots were fired. REading about one of the agents losing his credentials in a bar the night before the assassination definitely makes one wonder about the "phony" Secret Service agent who flashed credentials behind the grassy knoll.

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The Echo is Still Heard

This is an amazing story of injustice, racism, a corrupted justice system, and dogged, courageous persistence to clear his name. Abraham Bolden was clearly his own worst enemy, if only because he wasn't shy about pointing out the shortcomings of his colleagues and bosses. Most of us would shake our heads and pass on by. Not Bolden. If Secret Service agents came to work drunk, he spoke up about it. If they let security relax on President Kennedy's White House detail, he told his superiors. That's not a strategy to warm the hearts of co-workers, but this was the Secret Service, and the President's life was at stake. Bolden took his protective mission to heart. The obvious and blunt racism of his colleagues is surprising forty years later but typical of the sixties. After a stint with the First Family on Nantucket Bay, Bolden writes that his shift supervisor, Harvey Henderson, a good-ol'-boy Southerner, commented to him, "You're a nigger. You were born a nigger, and when you die, you'll still be a nigger. You will always be nothing but a nigger. So act like one!" If that doesn't stagger your perceptions about the Secret Service, nothing would. Imagine trying to do your job with that kind of attitude hovering over you. Transferred back to Chicago, his home base, after a month on the White House detail, Bolden's troubles continued and eventually culminate in charges, conviction, and imprisonment. As he presents the case against him, the corruption, racist conspiracy to destroy him, and the fumbling, blockheaded pursuit of the case by authorities eventually overpower and convict him. It is justice pursued in the most invidious fashion for the most insidious motives. The man is black. Get him. Yet, after all that he and his family endure, Bolden emerges years later undefeated. And that is what makes him a man admired. This is one heck of a story! And the horrifying thing is, it's true.

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Interesting story, but no real substance on JFK assassination

If you are looking for something really new and substantial on the JFK case, I doubt you'll find it here. Or anywhere ! I'd recommend the book if you are interested in the secret service however and the author has a few interesting snippets to tell of his brief meetings with the Kennedy brothers which may be of interest to some. It's a reflective work and highlights some of the prejudices prevalent at the time even within the secret service, but the title is a little bit misleading as the material relating to the assassination is limited. A nice to have book, but there are better recent works on the case.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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