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| Paul Landis was a few feet behind the Kennedy's when the shots were fired. |
The Association Of Former Intelligence
Officers (AFIO) invited me to meet Paul Landis, a former U.S. presidential
secret service agent, who was with President John Kennedy the day the president
was assassinated. Landis was in Dallas as part of the Kennedy Secret Service
detail November 22, 1963, and one of the bullets came over his right shoulder. I
can't wait to meet him and hear the details of Kennedy's assassination. The
meeting will take place this Sunday, November 15, 2015 in Cleveland.
Landis was within a few feet of the
presidential limousine, the top of which had been removed at the president's
request. He and several other secret service agents were trailing the limousine,
watching for any unusual movement in the crowds of people who lined Dallas
streets to get a view of the nation's chief executive.
When he heard the first shot, his eyes
turned toward where he thought the shot had originated. Still searching the
crowd, there came another shot in quick succession. Landis later reported, "And
when my eyes came back to the president again, it was a third shot and that was
the one that hit him in the head."
After he joined the secret service, he was
transferred to duty at the White House, where his responsibilities included
guarding First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and the couple's children, Caroline and
John Jr. Many newspaper photos from the past show Landis with the Kennedy
children or Mrs. Kennedy. In one photo, he is running alongside a galloping
horse ridden by Caroline, who is now U.S. ambassador to Japan.
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| John F. Kennedy, Jr. with Secret Service Agent Paul Landis on the South Lawn of the White House |
He remembers wearing sunglasses and
standing between the President and Mrs. Kennedy at the Dallas airport. Everyone
was smiling, including the First Couple...then minutes later the smiles through
Dallas and America turned into frowns as the nation, and world, mourned. Paul
Landis said afterwards, "We had a job to do and that was to protect the
president or whomever we were assigned to and if you fail, you fail."
It will be an interesting meeting this
Sunday with Landis and I hope to learn more facts to relay. In the days before the
diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder, he and other secret service agents
were haunted by the assassination. He grieved inwardly for decades. Oddly, he
said, agents rarely spoke of their inner feelings on the death of the president
and there was no professional psychological counseling for the Secret Service
agents who witnessed the murder of the president.
"No, that wasn't even thought of and
heard of," said Landis, matter-of-factly. But the hurt was there in his
mind and in his memory. "Very much so," he added.
The Discovery Channel produced a
documentary, "The Kennedy Detail," where each man told his story of
the assassination and how it had impacted his life. Perhaps, the
documentary provided a therapy for Landis, who said, "That's the best
thing that's happened to me since the assassination." He has recently
stated that he is no longer haunted by the event that day and talks easily of
the Kennedy Detail and of what he saw and heard that November day in Dallas.
After the Dallas assassination of
President Kennedy, all presidents have been secured much more and Landis talks
on how heavily armed agents are these days, although their weapons are not
easily visible under their jackets. On that tragic day in November of 1962, he
was carrying a .38 pistol.
At Parkland Hospital, where President
Kennedy was rushed, Landis sat in a hallway with Mrs. Kennedy. He said she
stared into space and said nothing. We all remember the media photos of her,
dressed in a pink suit covered with her husband's blood stains. The images of
her in the hospital and leaving Dallas on the Air Force One trip back to
Washington sticks in all our minds.
Robert Morton, M.Ed., Ed.S. is a member of the Association Of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes the online spy series "Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster in the Caribbean and Florida Keys". Contact him on the Secure Contact Form
1 comment:
I feel hollow inside, empty, such sad times reminiscing on Camelot, and what could have been.
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