At the weekend I watched a TV programme called ‘The Kennedy Detail’ it was on the Discovery Channel and based on the book written by one of the special agents that had been assigned to the Kennedy family, Jerry Blaine.
Usually at this point when I’m writing I would give a bit of background information about my subject matter. Though even after a short bit of research I couldn’t find anyone at work that had not heard of the Kennedy’s, America’s answer to the royal family.
The Kennedy Detail was a fascinating insight into the lives of the men who put themselves in the line of fire. Some of these guys were ex-servicemen who had fought in the Korean War, others came from an intelligence background and one was even an expert marksman so they were used to tactical fighting, combat situations and all familiar with how detached they would have to be in order to be professional.
I could write for decades on the subject of JFK, his wife Jackie, the Kennedy clan and all sorts of controversies and conspiracies that goes along with the subject but that is not what this blog is about. It is about the President’s men and how close they became to the Kennedy family.
In 1963 when John F Kennedy was assassinated there were only 34 agents responsible for his protection and as a result the documentary was based around the stories of eight of them. Some were assigned to the President, some to Jackie and some to the kids, but the purpose of the job was the same.
It became evident throughout the documentary that these guys had become emotionally invested in the Kennedy clan. These hardened and trained professionals were so upset when re-living the stories of death of Patrick Kennedy in the August of 1963 at 2 days old that by the time it came round to sharing the events of Kennedy’s assassination in November of the same year you could tell how much they thought they had failed the family.
It is widely accepted that the world changed when Walter Kronkite announced From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official: President Kennedy died at one p.m. Central Standard Time, two o’clock Eastern Standard Time, some thirty-eight minutes ago.
America went from having and living the dream to living the nightmare, like a loss of innocence.
There isn’t a person I spoke to who was alive at the time of Kennedy’s death that can’t tell you where they were or what they were doing at the time when they heard.
This documentary was about the men who still to this day consider themselves to blame for America’s fall from grace.
That’s a bit harsh in my opinion but to be honest if I give you my reasoning for that then you’ll never attempt to read the book of watch the documentary and I really think you should.
