The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The true story of the first African American on the White House Secret Service detail and his quest for justice after the assassination of JFK
by Abraham Bolden
List Price:
Our Price: $15.10
You Save: $10.85 (42%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Abraham BoldenEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-03-04
ISBN: 030738201X
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Harmony
Book Reviews of The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The true story of the first African American on the White House Secret Service detail and his quest for justice after the assassination of JFK
Book Review: A Kafkaesque Trip Through the American Gulag
Summary: 4 Stars
Abe Bolden, a seasoned and decorated law enforcement officer and the first Black to serve on the Presidential detail (handpicked by JFK himself) as a member of the Secret Service, experienced a staggering fall from grace, due in large part to "guilty knowledge" he had that bore on the possible conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Having been alerted by uncommonly vicious backroom verbal attacks against Kennedy (and racist attacks against himself) by his colleagues and the very men sworn to protect JFK, Bolden's antenna were on full alert as he witnessed event-after-event that could only be interpreted as "purposeful laxity" in both the run up to JFK's cancelled visit to Chicago (where an assassination attempt was foiled) and the President's fatal visit to Dallas (where it succeeded).
Bolden, as a seasoned agent, was deep inside the Secret Service's inner loop as an "eye" and "ear" witness to all of the behind the scene maneuverings that resulted in both the failure to apprehend the suspects who conspired unsuccessfully to kill JFK in Chicago a couple of weeks before Dallas, and then as witness to his colleague's laxity during the President's fatal visit to Texas, where they apparently succeeded.
Once it became clear that Bolden was not going to "be a team player" in the cover-up of possible Secret Service complicity in the assassination, things turned very bad for him indeed. Unable to silence him on the outside, Bolden was then framed by his colleagues in an elaborate setup that apparently had the support of the judge who presided over his "railroading" through the U.S. Criminal Court system. After a lengthy sequence of trials that went all the way to the Supreme Court, he eventually landed in a series of increasingly brutal and isolated U.S. jails, work camps, and prisons, ultimately ending in the prison psychiatric ward on heavy and regular doses of psychotropic drugs.
In what can only be considered an epic miscarriage of justice that one would think could never occur in the U.S. -- highlighted by the admitted perjury and recantation of the key witness against him (a low level mobster and snitch affiliated with the Sam Giancana outfit (also implicated in the JFK assassination) named Joseph Spagnoli), combined with the ruthless bias of a federal Judge (J. Sam Perry) bent on prosecuting him at all cost, Bolden used up his savings, his good graces, his reputation, and apparently his nine lives before he was summarily sentenced to six years for having allegedly sold a criminal file to his accuser for $50,000.
The real saga of this tale is not just that justice failed at every turn through a lengthy series of Court battles, but that it was an obvious and blatant "frame-up" from start to finish. Once Bolden was caught-up in the American legal grinding machine, there was nothing anyone could or would do to overturn his situation. Like in Kafka's novel "The Trial" as Bolden moved deeper and deeper into the bowels of the U.S. prison system, almost inexorably, laws were stretched, procedures twisted, and documents disappeared just enough to continue his progression towards, and to ensure, the already pre-determined outcome of either silencing him or changing his mental state so that he would eventually end his campaign to tell what he knew.
Apparently six years in prison and years of heavy medication seems to have succeeded in silencing him, because in this book, which was written after his release, Bolden (beyond telling us about an "all alerts bulletin" for someone with the name "Hurd" immediately after JFK was shot, and the fact that a prime suspect in the Chicago attempt, named Echeverria, just disappeared from the radar screen) Bolden still has not given us a full accounting of, or any additional insights into what he actually knew.
That this travesty could occur in the U.S. against a citizen with an impeccable Law Enforcement record, with not even an eyebrow raised, is just further confirmation that we still live in the post-JFK assassination era, an era that continues to be chilling in ways that we as a nation cannot be very proud of.
Four Stars
More The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The true story of the first African American on the White House Secret Service detail and his quest for justice after the assassination of JFK reviews:
1 2
1 2
Biographies & Memoirs Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Secret Service Vince Palamara : FDR, Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, etc
National Geographic: Inside the U.S. Secret ServiceWarner Brothers; Release date: 2004-11-02; DVD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Secret Service (4pc)A&E Home Video; Release date: 1997-09-16; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Inside the Secret ServiceKultur Video; Release date: 1995-05-23; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Secret Service (High Interest Books: Top Secret)by Mark Beyer
Children's Press (CT); Published: 2003-03; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman--and the Shoot-out that Stopped Itby Stephen Hunter, John Jr. Bainbridge
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2005-10-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops:
In the Line of Fire (Special Edition)Sony; Release date: 2001-02-27; DVD
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Protecting the President: The Inside Story of a Secret Service Agentby Dennis V. N. McCarthy, Philip W. Smith
William Morrow & Co; Published: 1985-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Secret Service Agents: Life Protecting the President (Extreme Careers)by David Seidman
Rosen Publishing Group; Published: 2002-05; Library Binding; Book
Best price: $15.90
Price in other shops:
20 years in the Secret Service;: My life with five Presidentsby Rufus W Youngblood
Simon and Schuster; Published: 1973; Unknown Binding; Book
Confessions of an Ex-Secret Service Agentby George Rush
Dutton Adult; Published: 1988-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.45
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Definitive Proof: The Secret Service Murder of President John Fitzgerald Kennedyby Dan Robertson
Lulu.com; Published: 2007-07-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $23.96
Price in other shops:
Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth Anout the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFKby John Newman
Skyhorse Publishing; Published: 2008-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.86
Price in other shops:
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Yearsby David Talbot
Free Press; Published: 2007-05-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.74
Price in other shops:
Praise from a Future Generation: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and the First Generation Critics of the Warren Reportby John Kelin
Wings Press; Published: 2007-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.00
Price in other shops:
RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby KennedyRelease date: 2007-11-20; DVD
Best price: $13.00
Price in other shops:
Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassinationby Lamar Waldron, Thom Hartmann
Counterpoint; Published: 2008-11-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.78
Price in other shops:
Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIAby Jefferson Morley
University Press of Kansas; Published: 2008-03-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.25
Price in other shops:
Who Killed Bobby?: The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedyby Shane O'Sullivan
Union Square Press; Published: 2008-06-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedyby David Kaiser
Belknap Press; Published: 2008-03-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.48
Price in other shops:
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Mattersby James W. Douglass
Orbis Books; Published: 2008-04-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.79
Price in other shops: