Presidential Assassinations | Interview | 5

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 January 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The job of guarding the President’s life belongs to the men and women of the United States Secret Service. There have been many highs and lows in the agency’s more than 150-year history – most poignantly the assassination of JFK in 1963. On today’s show Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig joins host Lindsay Graham to discuss the agency’s response to assassination attempts over the years, and her book Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon Music,
0:05.6	download the app today.
0:09.6	Imagine its June 18th, 1964, in Washington, D.C.
0:22.8	You are the head of the Secret Service, and today you're testifying before the Warren
0:26.7	Commission, the panel created by President Lyndon Johnson, to investigate the assassination
0:31.7	of John F. Kennedy.
0:33.2	The agency you've served for 27 years has been criticized for not doing enough to protect
0:37.7	President Kennedy, that awful day in Dallas.
0:40.8	You're hoping to use today's testimony to lobby for much needed improvements to the
0:44.7	service, so you can rebuild the public's trust and your agents' morale.
0:49.4	What after an hour of questioning, it seems the commission is mostly interested in your
0:53.8	agents' drinking the night before Kennedy's murder?
0:56.9	The lead investigator, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, glowers at you through
1:01.5	his wire-rimmed glasses.
1:03.4	Now, do you really expect us to believe that these men, drinking and beat Nick joints
1:08.0	into the early morning hours, whereas alert the next day as they should be when charged
1:12.3	with the tremendous responsibility of protecting the President?
1:15.6	I do not condone the drinking, sir, but I think these men responded as well as anyone
1:19.8	could under the circumstances.
1:21.6	Don't you think they would have been a bit sharper that afternoon, had they not been
1:24.6	drinking the night before?
1:26.0	Sir, I do not believe their reaction time was the deciding factor.
	...

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