Another Unspun Hero

It's that time again, more book peddling on JFK tinfoil for the 46th anniversary.

This guy, Abraham Bolden, The Echo from Dealey Plaza, published 2008, is an account of Bolden's time as a member of the White House Secret Service. (All 3 months of his WH duty.) His name caught my eye today while prowling around at BAR. I guess Bolden falls into the usual "Mafia" and government did it theory.

But first let me get this silly comment out of the way - BAR : "The American Mafia owes its very existence to the CIA, which protected and promoted the illegal drug trafficking responsible for so much loss of life and destruction of entire communities."

Oh my, someone is spinning - blame the Italians. The Mafia, costa nostra, syndicate, outfit, the mob - was around and doing well looooong before the CIA was established in 1947. ... hahaha "its very existence" .... (Factoid: White folks at one time called Italians/Sicilians "spaghetti niggers.")

Isn't that in opposition to the "left" argument that the Mafia owes its very existence to bootlegging, which is also their argument for why we should legalize drugs? The same drugs that are responsible for loss of life and destruction of entire communities?

Bolden seemed like a decent fellow. He graduated cum laude from Lincoln University, spent a year working for Pinkerton, then became an Illinois State Trooper, a job he held for four years. His record was exemplary and Ike Eisenhower appointed Bolden to the Secret Service in 1959, where he was assigned to investigate Chicago counterfeiting rings.

In 1961, JFK offered Bolden a job in the White House security detail. He accepted, and became the first black Secret Service agent. After 3 months on the job Bolden became disillusioned because white agents used the "n" word and because he was housed separately when the agents traveled through southern states. He complained to his supervisor about those issues and about the unprofessional attitude of other agents who often drank heavily. He was transferred back to Chicago where he returned to counterfeiting cases, until he was convicted of soliciting a bribe from a counterfeiter in 1964.

(I know a retired SS agent who served from 1958 to 1978, protecting presidents, heads of state, foreign dignitaries, etc. He too had stories of the agents drinking and carousing, off duty of course, of the kinky appetites of the men they protected, and that most of them were definitely not worth taking a bullet for, but he convinced me it was an extreme stress job and taken seriously at all times.)

Here's where the tinfoil thickens: The left-wingers are pushing the scenario that Bolden "had heard" of a JFK assassination plot scheduled for November 2 by Cuban nationals in Chicago. But the files for this incident were "lost," conveniently, for Bolden. Famous book selling "investigative" journalist Edwin Black says 2 Cuban men were arrested but later released. Arrested but released, doesn't that sound like the dancing Israelis? Get some new material people. Famous journalists saying something doesn't make it fact, well ... unless your tin is too tight. When Bolden attempted to tell the Warren Commission about what he had "heard" - he was arrested, "framed." You really think the Warren Commission would have taken Bolden's hearsay assertions as a reason to declare anything differently about the JFK assassination?

Here's my favorite "spin" the Left has put on Bolden, which he too has adopted 45 years later: Joseph Spagnoli, the gangster who pointed the finger at Bolden .... drum roll ... "later confessed he lied to the jury to convict Bolden at the request, allegedly, of Prosecutor Richard Sikes."

Whew! And I thought the spin was going to be a new angle - not the same old "recanted" or confessed to lying mantra.

All you need do is read a few boringly official transcripts - isn't the internet great? This is just one, there are others.

First what was defendant Bolden accused of and later convicted of: "On the morning of May 11, the defendant went to the home of Frank Jones. Jones was then under indictment for counterfeiting and had twice been arrested by the defendant. Agent Bolden told Jones a number of facts about the Spagnoli case, including the whereabouts of Sandra Hafford. Hafford, an erstwhile friend of Spagnoli, she had testified against Spag before the grand jury, and was being held in protective custody by the Secret Service in a downtown Chicago hotel. The defendant (Bolden) produced several onionskin papers stapled together and a small, typewritten piece of paper containing an excerpt from the summary report of the Spagnoli investigation. He asked Jones to go to Spagnoli's home, give Spagnoli the piece of paper, and tell him that he could have the entire file for $50,000. The defendant said that the money would be split between Jones and him." ($50,000 is $344,000 in 2008 dollars, not bad for some onionskin.)

But, let's take a peek at this one and see what ol' Spagnoli's confessed lies were.

"At his own trial, Spagnoli testified that he had committed perjury in certain respects as a Government witness in the defendant's (Bolden) trial. He testified that his livelihood was gambling and that he had falsely testified during the defendant's trial that his mother supported him. He stated that this perjury was suborned by Government counsel in order to make him look better in the eyes of the jury. Spagnoli also testified that he had lied during the defendant's trial in reference to the date on which his call to Agent Martineau was placed, and possibly with reference to other dates. Spagnoli was thereafter found guilty and received a fifteen year sentence."

Oh, the liar, the liar. He preferred the jury think his mama supported him rather than his gambling, and on further reading, his dates may have been off by a day, the 12th instead of the 11th - what a liar. That's it folks. The tinfoil's spinning of "confessed he lied to the jury" is so you will assume he lied about Bolden soliciting a bribe.

My questions : Bolden claims the SS did not take guarding JFK seriously. You really believe Bobby and others didn't vet their men any better than that? After the Kennedy boys had just had Diem assassinated - you think they weren't worried about the loyalty of their own detail? As MX said, chickens come home to roost ... but the roosters were not Kennedy's secret service.

If there was a documented plot against JFK in Chicago that November, so what? We know there was supposedly one in Miami that year. There were and are numerous plots against presidents - most by misfits looking for a name, Squeaky Fromm, John Hinckley, or loudmouth barflies - sometimes they succeed.

Why would the government bother to frame a low level still "newbie" agent like Bolden? Because he was allegedly going to tell the Warren Commission about his hearsay of a Chicago plot for which there was no record? What threat did Bolden pose to the mob or the government? None.

Was Bolden just another corrupt petty official in Chi-town - or our latest unsung hero? There must be 344,000 ways to package that distraction.