New Book - The Kennedy Detail

[Squad10]

New book co-authored by a USSS PPD SA assigned to POTUS Kennedy.

The Kennedy Detail, JFK Conspiracy, JFK Assassination Story

Anybody know if USSS PPD used a portable radio during the Dallas detail? HT200 maybe? What frequency(s) were used? Maybe Charlie 165.3750?

This is a HT200 in action.

 

[Hooligan]

I think the Kennedy days was mostly the era of mobile (tube type) radios and maybe some 'lunchbox' portables. Handhelds were called "bricks' for obvious reasons & I think that was an era prior to speaker-mics & earpieces, so most SS agents, including PPD agents, wouldn't have nor want a 'brick' to have to hold up to their ear & occupy one of their hands.

If I recall right, the JFK limo is at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan, but as creepy as it sounds, the limo continued to be used by presidents up until the 1970s so had been retrofitted numerous times since the JFK era & I don't know if the museum people tried to convert it back to how it was back in 1963.

 

[diskmonger]

There has been a really good program on the history channel lately called "The Kennedy Assasination - 24 hours after"

They re-play a lot of the communications that took place from AF1 back to "Crown" during the trip back to Andrews from Dallas.

Also, I heard them reference the PPD channels by name a few times in the program which was pretty interesting.

The 1961 Lincoln Continental is indeed on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan along with some of the other Presidental limos. It was modied after the assasination and now has a solid top on it. I agree with Hooligan, pretty creepy it continued to be used by other presidents after that including LBJ, Nixon, Ford and Carter. I think they retired it in the late 1970's.

 

[ff-medic]

Comms in the Kennedy assassination is basically irrevelent. Before my time , But I venture to think that
tactics and procedure was not fully practiced / implemented by the Secret Service. From the documentarys I have seen on TV , Past news footage, as well as books I have read in the past ; My diagnosis is poor counter intelligence and counter surveillance, No pre route security, failing personal security on JFK. But that being said, hard to describe....USSS still did their job...... I believe they just lacked procedure , tactics and knowledge at that specific era of time. You only know what you have been taught..or have learned ( basic psyche folks )

Try today...what happened on the JFK event,, and you most likely will fall prey to a USSS counter sniper - angry Tactical Team. No supervisory Secret Service, or assistant supervisory agent would want to explain to Congress, as well as the White House..How they let a stranding U.S President fall to an assassin.

If you look at the shooting of Ronald Reagan..The footage I have seen, all walked out of the building at the same time......No Secret Service Agent cleared, pre checked, pre surveiled the crowd before Reagan walked out...But I belive the response by USSS as well as other Law Enforcement officials was terrific. Agent McCarthy ( Spelling ?? ) , done an excellent job...OUTSTANDING job.

When Bush went to Ripley, WV - for the Ripley 4th of July ( I believe Shelly Moore Capito sponsored him in a sense --- > ?? 2003 ) ..........Any of the above events " TRY " to occur..It would not have been pretty.

FF-Medic ( prior military )

 

[Squad10]

My guess is USSS used Motorola Twin-V or T-Power mobiles in the early/mid sixties. I've read that the Motorola HT200 was the the popular portable transceiver at the time. The HT100 was smaller than the HT200, but not popular limiting production.

The communications between AF1 and Crown was via the nationwide Echo Fox system. Somewhere in my reel to reel and cassette pile I have my first EF recordings during the Carter administration. I was fortunate that I lived close enough to the AT&T Norway, IL antenna tower to hear the uplink. Here's a good article about Echo Fox.

The Echo-Fox Presidential Aircraft Communications Network

I saw the EF and wideband radio equipment on the retired SAM27000/Air Force One at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library in Simi Valley, CA.

 

[Hooligan]

Comms in the Kennedy assassination is basically irrevelent. Before my time , But I venture to think that
tactics...

WTF, dude! Because you don't know anything about the comms back them you deem the topic irrelevant, and launch into a dissertation about protective tactics?!! Gotta love the forums...


Medic10, are you stating that you know the E/F ("Nationwide") network was in-service in 1963? I think HF SSB & RTTY were the primary modes of communication between the aircraft & the DC area during the era in question.

For anyone wanting to listen to recordings of the HF/SSB phone patches back then, go to:

JFK Assassination in Dallas » Johnson Tapes » Online Exhibit | White House Tapes

 

[SCPD]

... and launch into a dissertation...

Sorry, but I couldn't resist:

"Well, I believe in the soul, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."

Dave
KA6TJF

 

[MFD4305]

Me Too!

You left a couple of "beliefs" out, Dave!
Sorry - I couldn't resist, either....
:wink:

 

[Squad10]

Medic10, are you stating that you know the E/F ("Nationwide") network was in-service in 1963? I think HF SSB & RTTY were the primary modes of communication between the aircraft & the DC area during the era in question.

No, I did not mean to imply that, although the way I wrote my sentence one could infer it. I first discovered EF in 1977. I now know people that monitored EF prior to 1977. In the eighties I visited an underground AT&T long line switching/ fiber optics restoration facility in Medina, OH. I asked the radio technician I was working with if he knew when EF was first used and if he knew all EF TX/RX locations. He smiled and confirmed its existence, and it ended at that.

Thanks for the audio link, I never heard those conversations before.

 

[SCPD]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1-update1; en-us; SPH-M900 Build/ECLAIR) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17)

You left a couple of "beliefs" out, Dave!
Sorry - I couldn't resist, either....
:wink:

Yeah, I know. I decided to give you the version they show on basic cable. Plus, I always did think those particular words used to describe men and women are rather vulgar. And I'm certainly no prude.

 

[rfradioconsult]

In 1968 I worked in a GE shop, we went to a GE seminar in Dallas and they discussed the just completed E/F network outfitted with GE MASTR base stations.

I believe in 1963 the Motorola "draggie talkie" was standard, two-tone brown, with a round hand mic; the first generation used sub-mini tubes in the TX, solid state RX, used a low voltage battery for RX and fiiments and a high (130V) battery for B+; later versions were all solid-state. I seem to remember DPD was still on low-band at that time.

 

[Hooligan]

No, I did not mean to imply that, although the way I wrote my sentence one could infer it. I first discovered EF in 1977. I now know people that monitored EF prior to 1977. In the eighties I visited an underground AT&T long line switching/ fiber optics restoration facility in Medina, OH. I asked the radio technician I was working with if he knew when EF was first used and if he knew all EF TX/RX locations. He smiled and confirmed its existence, and it ended at that.

Thanks for the audio link, I never heard those conversations before.

OK, thanks for clarifying. My understanding is that E/F started in the late 1960s, with sites being added/removed as needed. I was at "CROWN CONTROL" in the late 1980s & they had a nice big, but old map on the wall with lights at each of the AT&T ground sites. If a site was picking up a signal, a light would display on the map by that site. If the aircraft was high enough, it might light up a couple sites & the WHCA operator had to pick which one to try.

Apparently some/most/all of the ground transmitters were surplus low-power Army gear used to provide a back-up radio link between a Nike missile control battery site & the launch battery site.

 

[Squad10]

In 1968 I worked in a GE shop, we went to a GE seminar in Dallas and they discussed the just completed E/F network outfitted with GE MASTR base stations.

Makes sense. The BSPs for EF are dated 03/73 to10/75. The GE Mastr Progress Line base station is mentioned in numerous BSP titles.

 

[Squad10]

OK, thanks for clarifying. My understanding is that E/F started in the late 1960s, with sites being added/removed as needed. I was at "CROWN CONTROL" in the late 1980s & they had a nice big, but old map on the wall with lights at each of the AT&T ground sites. If a site was picking up a signal, a light would display on the map by that site. If the aircraft was high enough, it might light up a couple sites & the WHCA operator had to pick which one to try.

Apparently some/most/all of the ground transmitters were surplus low-power Army gear used to provide a back-up radio link between a Nike missile control battery site & the launch battery site.

Your Crown Control description matches the description of a PPD Agent that was very familiar with the EF network. Maybe the low power Army radio equipment was connected to the two small antennas located on each side of the center antenna to remotely test the operational readiness of the Mastr station? I remember hearing high and low tones during the test.

 

[ff-medic]

WTF, dude! Because you don't know anything about the comms back them you deem the topic irrelevant, and launch into a dissertation about protective tactics?!! Gotta love the forums...

Knowing about the comms, is not entirely what I was talking about. I was talking , stating that secure comms - encrypted comms would not have helped the President. Code words , code phrases , " in teh loop " conversations would not have prevented the assassination.

I was believeing , that the conversation of Secret Service Comms - was started...in reference to the former President. Not as a hobby , info thread.

Yer right...I do not know much about those particular comms, but the radio in general..Maybe. -- > I did not come around till " 68 " ( laugh ) ------ > golly gee , what a great year.


FF- Medic !!!

 

[Hooligan]

Knowing about the comms, is not entirely what I was talking about. I was talking , stating that secure comms - encrypted comms would not have helped the President. Code words , code phrases , " in teh loop " conversations would not have prevented the assassination.

Tru dat! One of the numerous MORONIC things that SS & other federal protection ops (like State DSS) would do is make a radio call from the motorcade lead shortly before they arrived at their destination to the lead agent at the destination, and say "We are BRAVO your location, please pass a SITREP." Bravo was a code that meant they were just a couple (I forget how many, but around 3 or 5) minutes away from the destination.

If anyone, radio-geek or bad-guy, is ^%$#* smart enough to be monitoring that frequency, they're also smart enough to realize after hearing the comms just one time that BRAVO (& also "ALPHA") meant that the protectee vehicle was just X minutes away from the destination, because as soon as they do arrive at the destination, they report on the same freq to the detail command post that they've arrived.

So then what the hell good does it do to use the ALPHA & BRAVO OPSEC codes? NONE, unless they deliberately change them, so that one time BRAVO might mean 3 minutes, but the next day it might mean 10 minutes... It's stupidity like that which makes encryption better than simple encoding.

But no, none of that would have mattered for poor JFK.

 

[Squad10]

Tru dat! One of the numerous MORONIC things that SS & other federal protection ops (like State DSS) would do is make a radio call from the motorcade lead shortly before they arrived at their destination to the lead agent at the destination, and say "We are BRAVO your location, please pass a SITREP." Bravo was a code that meant they were just a couple (I forget how many, but around 3 or 5) minutes away from the destination.

If anyone, radio-geek or bad-guy, is ^%$#* smart enough to be monitoring that frequency, they're also smart enough to realize after hearing the comms just one time that BRAVO (& also "ALPHA") meant that the protectee vehicle was just X minutes away from the destination, because as soon as they do arrive at the destination, they report on the same freq to the detail command post that they've arrived.

So then what the hell good does it do to use the ALPHA & BRAVO OPSEC codes? NONE, unless they deliberately change them, so that one time BRAVO might mean 3 minutes, but the next day it might mean 10 minutes... It's stupidity like that which makes encryption better than simple encoding.

But no, none of that would have mattered for poor JFK.

And the motorcade route being announced by the media so onlookers could possibly get a glimpse of the POTUS.

SITREP - 5 greeters, 100 spectators, 20 press. Then three minutes later, SIGNAL ARRIVE, SIGNAL ARRIVE.


From Wiki:

The Dallas police were recording their radio transmissions over two channels. A frequency designated as Channel One was used for routine police communications. A second channel, designated Channel Two, was an auxiliary channel, which was dedicated to the president's motorcade. Up until the time of the assassination, most of the broadcasts on this channel consisted of Police Chief Jesse Curry's announcements of the location of the motorcade as it wound through the streets of Dallas.

 

[ff-medic]

Tru dat! One of the numerous MORONIC things that SS & other federal protection ops (like State DSS) would do is make a radio call from the motorcade lead shortly before they arrived at their destination to the lead agent at the destination, and say "We are BRAVO your location, please pass a SITREP." Bravo was a code that meant they were just a couple (I forget how many, but around 3 or 5) minutes away from the destination.

If anyone, radio-geek or bad-guy, is ^%$#* smart enough to be monitoring that frequency, they're also smart enough to realize after hearing the comms just one time that BRAVO (& also "ALPHA") meant that the protectee vehicle was just X minutes away from the destination, because as soon as they do arrive at the destination, they report on the same freq to the detail command post that they've arrived.

So then what the hell good does it do to use the ALPHA & BRAVO OPSEC codes? NONE, unless they deliberately change them, so that one time BRAVO might mean 3 minutes, but the next day it might mean 10 minutes... It's stupidity like that which makes encryption better than simple encoding.

But no, none of that would have mattered for poor JFK.

Yep. Today.... You have to worry about more than one bad guy in the scheme - passing info by radio, cellphone - Nextel. That is why the Secret Service has Agents in the crowd, they practice counter - surveillance ( which I believe is a biggie ) as wel as Intel work. I All the folks who look and watch from afar through binoculars , and or TV monitors , who practice profiling...Just as in the Airports.

Early Secret Service ( 1950's to about 1970 ) was basically as I have read and understand the initiation of the organization. Guys wanting to be " Federal " and put on the appearance. Radios were still in the " Ice Age " , realtively new, and like C.B radios...every one wanted to talk on one. Hopes and dreams of college students and folks with Law Enforcement experience wanting to be " G - Men " ( Government men = FBI and others ) .

Secret Agents was a hype - more elated by the press than the " G-Men " of today. Radio shows, news articles , toys......Most every boy about 10 years of age wanted to work for J.Edgar Hoover. Agents were more public back then than today...more flamboyant....and more than likely did not hide nor camofladge the fact that they were " G-Men ".

Did the U.S Secret Service get J.F.K killed ? I don't belive so. A former U.S Marine with a rifle , determined to complete his task ; Did in fact accomplish his mission. His motivations and reasons for such a heinous tragedy is various and even speculated. We will never know...thanks to Jack Ruby. U.S Secret Service actions / operations for protectivve details was a common as well as a prior practice, but as I have read...as well as understood...AFTER that incident....it all changed.

Protection is monontous ( always visually scanning - taking in the sights, noticing if anything is out of place , situational awareness - keep preplanning egress as well as concealment as you move / travel in vehcile / walk) , it cost manpower..and needs the full attention of the individuals whom are protecting. An attack on a protectee might as well be an attack on the individuals protecting to ( chemical attack - explosion / bomb ) . So, in securing an area ; limiting access , practicing Operational Security ( OPSEC ) as well as PERSEC ( Personal Security ) , the protectors are essentially helping keep themselves safe also, as well as the protectee. Everyone wants to go home alive.

Did the Secret Service of the 1960's era consider / think of this back then ? Maybe not.

" Mercy mercy breaker, yer puttin about 5 and a half on me. I'm traveling down this highway in my rollin refinery and seat covers are wall to wall. Picture taker with a looly pop bout 5 mile ahead, better taker on down to double nickles" -----

FF- Medic !!!

 

[SCPD]

There is a rather famous incident where radio hobbyists listened in on Ronald Reagan speaking to Casper Weinberger in the clear while the president was traveling on Air Force One. The subject of the conversation, as I remember it, concerned a critical meeting with the Soviets the president was enroute to.

I remember the tan and dark grey Motorola "pack sets" as the National Forest I worked on from 1974 to 1978 had them the first two years I was there. We had to carry them in one of those old dark green canvas "backpacks." They finally had to start replacing them when batteries for them were no longer available. My first true handheld in the Forest Service was issued to me in 1979 on the Cibola National Forest in New Mexico.

As for the Kennedy assination I don't believe Oswald was the lone gunman. The Warren Commision report is full of assumptions and speculation while ignoring pertinent scientifically gathered data. All of JFK's head movements are not consistent with bullets shot from above and behind. People and police officers ran toward the wall on the grassy knoll. Some film footage shows smoke drifting over the wall. The physics of some of JFK's head movements are consistent with a shot fired from that area. The logistics of a single gunman reloading a bolt action rifle in the time frames of the shots is highly unlikely. JFK and RFK were a very effective team and prevented a nuclear holacost at one point. They were also making some solid advances against organized crime and it is possible that the assinations of both men were connected to it. Ruby had known associations with organized crime.

I belive all of what davidcrocker stated except the for the soft porn, with an addition that there should be a law requiring restaurants include spoons in their table settings and a law against "sporks." I think noise regulations should be strictly enforced so that passing cars don't emit bass noise that vibrates in your chest 150 away and motorcycles three blocks away don't interrupt a conversation you are having inside your house. I don't believe in capital punishment except for people who litter and spit gum on the sidewalks. The most important thing you should remember from now on is "floss."

 

[Hooligan]

OK, thanks for clarifying. My understanding is that E/F started in the late 1960s

I know a guy that installed E/F at Camp David in 1966, so E/F was around --perhaps not yet as a national system though-- well before the late 1960s.