November 22, 1963 is not a date anyone in their late 50s likely will forget.
Most, know exactly where they were when they heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot.
I know I was sitting in my homeroom class in high school when Sister Ronald came in.
“Boys and girls¸ I have a terrible announcement.” This was almost an identical start to the one our football team had heard a year earlier after returning from an away game. After we filed off the bus, dirty and sore, one of our priests told us all to kneel, he started “I have an announcement.” We then learned that five of our nuns had been killed in an automobile accident. The drill was the same that day in November, we started to pray.
For another high school student, Doug Roberts, it is etched in his memory. As a 16 year old in the 11th grade at a suburban Maryland school, Roberts remembers the news vividly. He should. His dad Emory Roberts was there. On that fateful day, Emory Roberts was the secret service agent in charge, riding in the passenger seat of a car right behind the limousine carrying President Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Governor Connally and two others.
Doug Roberts said his teachers held the news of the 12:30 p.m. assassination until last period.
“They knew there would be pandemonium. When they gave us the news they said a secret service agent had also been killed (later identified as a Dallas Policeman J.D. Tippit).
“I thought I lost a president and a father. I jumped up and ran down the hall to a phone.”
Doug Roberts called his mother asking, “Is dad ok?”
Without hesitating, she said, he’s okay.”
Three days later Doug Roberts would find out that at the time of the phone call his mother had no idea if his father was okay or not.
“When I asked her, she said we would’ve dealt with it then.”
Yet, that same day, Robert’s father would return to Washington D.C. on the flight with the new president, Lyndon Johnson. His mother would drive to the White House with Robert’s older brother to pick him up just like she done many, many times after a day on the job.
Doug Roberts remembers his father coming home and going to the Underwood Upright to type up his report which his father would give to the 11th grader to read that night.
“In all due respects, my father was a Joe Friday-just the facts. He wrote that he had heard two three shots.
When I asked him why he didn’t know the exact number, he said, the brain is not a tape recorder.”
Roberts said immediately after the shooting, his father had made the decision to move the rest of the detail to protect Lyndon Johnson and that Emory Roberts was the one who told Johnson he was president.
These are the types of recollections and records that former secret service agent Gerald Blaine used in compiling his non-fiction account of the assassination for the recently published book, “The Kennedy Detail”.
“The Kennedy Detail” delivers a point-by-point personalized account of the assassination details from the men who were charged with protecting the President.
Blaine who at the time of the assassination was in Austin Texas advancing the next leg of the Kennedy trip said that after the agents gave their reports to the Warren Commission “nothing was ever discussed.”
Blaine who went on to a career in private security consulting after serving three presidents said he was motivated to set the record straight by the many conspiracy books and movies that have been produced including Oliver Stone’s “JFK”, Jim Garrison’s “On the Trail of the Assassins” and Mark Lane’s “Rush to Judgment.”
“They made such a mess of history, and this book dispels their conspiracy theories.”
Blaine said he thinks he has read every book (on conspiracy theory) including Vincent Bugliosi’s 1600 page treatise “Reclaiming History” which debunks the many conspiracy theories.
The author who co-wrote “The Kennedy Detail” with professional author Lisa McKubbin said the most difficult aspect of writing the book was the “renewal of old memories”.
He recalls setting down with a number of agents and going over every detail of the day.
“It was quite a healing. They didn’t have trauma counseling then and we were totally dedicated to the President.”
Blaine knows that the book won’t satisfy conspiracy theorists.
“They’ve spent 47 years trying to hang on to their theories and they will always find an enemy.”
Blaine who worked on the Presidential detail for five years said that in addition to 1963 being the country’s “loss of innocence” he believes, the assassination and the resulting conspiracy theories have contributed to the young distrusting government.
Blaine said he and the fellow agents who were on the site that day firmly believe that Oswald was the single gunman operating alone.
Roberts who is the director of the MSU Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and served as the State Treasurer is sponsoring an appearance of Blaine and McCubbin 10 am., Tuesday April 19 at Parlor C of the MSU Union (RSVP required 353-1731). Also in attendance at the event will be former Secret Service Agent Cliff Hill who was the first agent to reach the Presidential limousine following the shooting and former Secret Service Agent Rad Jones, MSU graduate and now a professor in MSU’s Criminal Justice Program. Jones was, at the time of the assassination, the youngest agent to have served on a presidential detail.
For more information on events visit here.
Also, Schuler Books & Music will host a signing at 7 p.m., Tuesday April 19.
