Monday, July 11, 2011
Former Secret Service agent: Betty Ford looked after us
Written by
The Associated Press
GRAND RAPIDS — An ex-Secret Service agent says former First Lady Betty Ford was like “a mother” to him and his colleagues.
Mike Shannon signed a condolence book for Ford at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids. He was among many who came to express their sympathy to the Ford family after Betty Ford’s death in California on Friday.
Shannon told WOOD-TV that he protected the Fords, and Betty Ford was always concerned about the agents and their families. He says she once sent him home with a bag of oranges for his wife.
The museum says its lobby will be open around the clock until further notice so people can sign the book.
Her body will be sent to Michigan for burial at the museum alongside her husband.
http://www.thetimesherald.com
<b>Michael J. Shannon (V.P./ LBJ Detail): on duty at LBJ Ranch on
11/21/63; went to Hotel Texas on the night of 11/21/63 [12 Mid-8 a.m.
11/22/63]; went back to Johnson City, TX afterwards
<i></i></b>
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About vincepalamara
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 80 former agents (the House Select Committee on Assassinations had the old record of 46 with a 6 million dollar budget and subpoena 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 President Kennedy.
Vince is also the author of the books JFK: From Parkland To Bethesda, The Not-So-Secret Service, Who's Who in the Secret Service, and Honest Answers about the Murder of President John F. Kennedy: A New Look at the JFK Assassination.
All told, Vince has been favorably mentioned in over 140 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's THE MEN WHO KILLED KENNEDY (VHS and DVD), C-SPAN, Newsmax TV, A COUP IN CAMELOT (DVD/BLU RAY), KING KILL '63, THE MAN BEHIND THE SUIT (DVD), National Geographic's JFK: THE FINAL HOURS (including on DVD), PCN, BPTV, 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!" Agent Dan Emmett calls Vince a Secret Service expert in his new book.
Vince Palamara 