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
January 28, 2008
Conspiracy theories haunt the Kennedy assassination; Bolden offers a new one, concerning discrimination and evidence suppression. Becoming, in JFK's words, the “Jackie Robinson of the Secret Service,” Bolden joined the White House detail in 1961. Already beset by racism (he once found a noose suspended over his desk), his idealism is further shattered by “the drinking and carousing” of other agents. Soon after the assassination, he receives orders that hint at “an effort to withhold, or at least to the color, the truth.” He discovers that evidence is being kept from the Warren Commission and when he takes action, finds himself charged with “conspiracy to sell a secret government file” and sentenced to six years in prison, where both solitary confinement and the psychiatric ward await. That there was a conspiracy to silence him seems unarguable, but Bolden's prose is flat; so is his dialogue. This story is more enthralling than Bolden's telling of it, but the reader who sticks with it will enter a world of duplicitous charges and disappearing documents fit for a movie thriller.
February 1, 2008
Forty-five years after the JFK assassination, the interest in his murder continues unabated, and these two excellent books show in different waysone scholarly and one personalthe assassination's relentless grip. Kaiser (history, Naval War Coll.; "American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War") presents a scrupulously researched account, which may be one of the best books yet on the assassination. Unlike David Talbot's "Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years", Kaiser posits that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman although he did not act alone: the murder plot was hatched by Mafia bosses Santo Trafficante, John Roselli, and Sam Giancana as revenge for Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's relentless pursuit of the mob and for the vast sums of money they lost when Castro closed Cuba's mob-controlled casinos. Other startling revelations are that Oswald might have been a CIA agent, even though he was promised a large sum of money by the mob to kill Kennedy, and that Jack Ruby killed Oswald on orders from the Mafia, to which Ruby was connected. This detailed, often chilling account stands out among the overwhelming number of assassination books. Highly recommended for most public and all academic libraries.
Bolden's autobiography includes little mention of Kennedy's murder yet the assassination affected his life tragically. He was appointed personally by JFK as the first African American on the White House Secret Service detail (196064), and although he was a conscientious agent his role angered racist agents. Bolden was not on the Dallas detail but he was well aware of the lax security the agents provided because of their drinking and womanizing. He first blew the whistle in October 1963 and then again reported poor security after the assassination. In 1964 he was convicted on trumped up charges of selling a government file and spent six years in jail. Much of the book engrossingly describes the trials and his harrowing years in prison. Ultimately, Bolden was vindicated when the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1976 that the Secret Service's protection was inadequate. He has worked for the last decades in private industry. Recommended for all public libraries.Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 1, 2008
As the first black Secret Service officer and an admirer ofnewly elected president John F. Kennedy, Bolden was excited when a chance meeting with the president in 1961 ended with a personal invitation for him to join the White House detail. Mindful of his pioneering status, he braved the racism he encounteredfrom some agents, responding with dignified challenges. Bolden also challenged what he saw as shortcomings in the agencya culture of hard drinking, carousing, and inattention to duty. Though he was not on duty in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated, he wondered how irresponsibility in the Secret Service might have factored into the presidents death. When he began making inquiries, he found himself the object of an investigation that eventually led to his conviction and imprisonment on a trumped-up bribery charge. Drawing on declassified government documents, Bolden offers a compelling look at the price he paid for challenging the Secret Service and an interesting angle on the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of President Kennedy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)