Vince Palamara
Vincent Palamara was born in Pittsburgh and graduated from Duquesne University with a degree in Sociology.
Although not even born when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Vince brings fresh eyes to an old case. In fact, Vince would go on to study the largely overlooked actions - and inactions - of the United States Secret Service in unprecedented detail, as well as achieving a world's record in the process, having interviewed and corresponded with over seventy former agents (the House Select Committee on Assassinations had the old record of 46 with a 6 million dollar budget and supboena power from Congress), not to mention many surviving family members, White House aides, and even quite a few Parkland and Bethesda medical witnesses for a corresponding project. The result was Survivor's Guilt; The Secret Service & The Failure To Protect The President, a very successful self-published book that sold thousands of copies in the 1990's before becoming a free online e-book in 2006.
In addition, the aforementioned corresponding project on the John F. Kennedy assassination medical evidence, JFK: The Medical Evidence Reference, Vince's second book, although almost an afterthought to Vince's main area of research, still sold hundreds of copies and was favorably mentioned in books by William Law, R. Andrew Kiel, James Fetzer, and even Vince Bugliosi. Like his first book, Vince's medical evidence tome became a free online e-book in 2006.
All told, Vince has been favorably mentioned in over 42 JFK and Secret Service related books to date (including two whole chapters in Murder in Dealey Plaza, The Secret Service: The Hidden History Of An Enigmatic Agency by Philip Melanson, and the Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board, among many others), often at length, in the bibliographies, and in the Secret Service - and even medical evidence - areas of these works.
Vince has appeared on the History Channel, local cable access television, YouTube, radio, newspapers, print journals, at national conferences, and all over the internet. Also, Vince's original research materials, or copies of said materials, are stored in the National Archives (by request under Deed Of Gift by the ARRB), the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Harvard University, the Assassination Archives and Research Center, and the Dallas Public Library.
Vince Palamara has become known (as he was dubbed by the History Channel in 2003) "the Secret Service expert." As former JFK Secret Service agent Joe Paolella proclaimed: "You seem to know a lot about the Secret Service, maybe even more than I do," while fellow JFK Secret Service agent Chuck Zboril stated: "You might be helpful to the official Secret Service historian who works out of Washington!"
Primary Sources
(1) Vincent Palamara, The Secret Service: On the Job in Dallas, included in Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000)
Agent Roberts would later write (28 April 1964) that "there was no question in my mind as to (the agents') physical and mental capacity to function effectively in their assigned duties". Like Chief Rowley and Inspector Kelley before both the WC and the HSCA, Agent Roberts covered up the drinking incident, despite Secret Service regulations which stated that this was grounds for removal from the agency. Sleep deprivation and alcohol consumption wreak havoc on even the best trained reflexes. While leaving Love Field, Agent Roberts rose from his seat and, using his voice and several hand gestures, forced agent Henry J. Rybka fall back from the rear area of JFK's limousine, causing a perplexed Rybka to stop and raise his arms several times in disgust. Rybka would then remain at the airport during the murder, having been effectively neutralized. Although Paul Landis made room for him on the right running board of the follow-up car, Agent Rybka did not budge. Although Rybka worked the follow-up in Houston the day before [18] and was a gun-carrying protective agent, he was not allowed to do his job on 22 November 1963.
(2) Vincent Palamara, Fair Play Magazine, For History's Sake (May, 1998)
I wanted to share my views on the state of the JFK case that I think are important for everyone to read. In my humble opinion (and you know what they say about opinions) I think, with all due respect, that the days of big-time, formal conferences are over. Between the networking going on via the "information superhighway" and the expense of these formal venues, there no longer seems to be a burning need or desire to have these type of conferences (unlike even up to the early 1990's, when the print journals - particularly the Third Decade - ruled and "snail mail" was it). With the advent of technology, the average researcher can get all the "state-of-the-art" information he/she may care to get, and then some. In addition, there is a wide variety to choose from: websites, e-mail, newsgroups, etc.
This is NOT to cast any aspersions against COPA's impressive-looking Fall conference; I wish them nothing but the best and I hope they get 1,000+ people ... but don't bet on it. The attendance has fallen drastically at all conferences since the very early nineties and, again, the expense, coupled with the information options available to everyone who can handle a computer mouse, has greatly curtailed the need for formalities, so to speak.
What is needed - especially as we approach the new Millenium - is a different course of action. The general public, while overwhelmingly on our side, does not attend any of our conferences. The days of best-selling JFK books are probably a thing of the past (not so much because of Posner but because of the muddying of the waters caused by so many conflicting theories - another problem in and of itself). There are many, many researchers/authors doing great work out there, and the ARRB/the Archives is supplying us with millions of pages of documents we never dreamed we would get our hands on even up to a short four or five years ago (pre-Stone film/legislation). However, the press rarely reports on anything released, much less of anything significant, and, when they do, they report on "straw men" that are easily toppled over (i.e. the long-dismissed ruminations that the KGB had a hand in the plot in Dallas on 11/22/63).
It is time to stop living in denial: there definitely was a conspiracy. The public believes it ... they just do not know it. Why? Because the "state-of-the-art" research is restricted via expensive conferences and many conflicting theories (again, unlike some recent writers, I am not casting aspersions on these conflicting theorists or even the sponsors of these expensive conferences - I have indulged both many times; we all have).
It seems to me, at this late date, that we should concentrate all our efforts on reporting, to the best of our abilities, the facts as we see and know them, not necessarily just to the media, the public, or to the government... but to history. Ultimately, what history writes about this case - not the media pundits, the mortal men alive today, or the transitory public officials - will be the accepted, final word; not the Warren Commission, the HSCA, or Posner (thank God).
What can we do? Keep active on this information superhighway, share your information with all who request it (within reason), and stay on course about what we can all agree with and that which we know to be true:
1. JFK was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
2. The government covered up much in regard to this case.
You want specifics? Here they are:
1. Lee Harvey Oswald, if he "acted" in any fashion, did not act alone;
2. J. Edgar Hoover, who hated the Kennedys, covered up much in this case;
3. The CIA did not share much information about their joint efforts with the Mafia (to kill Castro);
4. The government investigations were seriously biased/flawed;
5. The Secret Service was extremely negligent in Dallas (this author goes beyond this, but that's another story);
6. JFK suffered a non-penetrating back wound and a separate neck wound: an entrance wound from the front;
7. The majority of the witnesses indicated that a shot or shots came from the front. This, coupled with the majority of witnesses at Parkland and Bethesda who stated that JFK had a gaping exit wound in the right rear of his head (including SS agent Kinney), and the timing/ sequence of the shots themselves (and the wound patterns on all three men - JFK, Connally, and Tague (remember him?), indicates, in and of itself, a conspiracy (more than one gunman).