SS ‘imposters' spotted by JFK Witnesses by Earl Golz, Dallas Morning News

              SS ' imposters' spotted
}y JFK witnesses
By EARL GOLZ
'^be DiilUs Morning Ness, 1978
Several men posing as Secret Ser­vice
agents were in Dealey Plaza
shortly before and after President
John P. Kennedy was assassinated, The
Dallas News has learned.
Shortly before the shooting, one of
•'ie apparent imposters discouraged a
soTUier from walking behind a wooden
fence atop the grassy knoll from which
ti.e House Assassinations Committee
recently test-fired a rifle and a pistol.
The soldier — and at least four
other people — say they met men who
either shov/ed identification as Secret
Service agents or said they were.
All but one of the encounters were
in the parking lot west of the Texas
School Book Depository Building from
where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly
shot the president on Nov. 22,1963.
ALL BUT ONE of the counterfeit
agents wore business suits. One man
was in sportsclothes and "had dirty
looking bands or dirty fingernails,"
according to a Dallas policeman who
confronted him.
None of the 28 Secret Service agents
protecting President Kennedy were on
foot at the scene shortly before or after
the shooting, the Warren Commission
Report said.
"None (in the presidential motor­cade)
stayed at the scene of the shoot­ing,
and none entered the Texas School
Book Depository Building at or imme­diately
after the shooting," the Warren
Report stated. "Secret Service proce­dure
requires that each agent stay with
the person being protected and not be
diverted unless it is necessary to
accomplish the protective assign­ment."
GORDON L. ARNOLD, the former
Dallas soldier, said he was stopped by a
man wearing a lighKolored suit as he
was walking behind the fence on top of
the grassy knoll minutes before the
assassination. Arnold, now an investi­gator
for the Dallas Department of Con­sumer
Affairs, was not called by the
Warren Commission and has not been
interviewed by the House Assassina­tions
Committee.
Arnold said he was moving toward
the railroad bridge over the triple
underpass to take movie film of the
presidential motorcade when "this guy
just walked towards me and said that I
shouldn't be up there."
Arnold challenged the man's
authority, he said, and the man
"showed me a badge and said he was
with the Secret Service and that he
didn't want anybody up there."
Arnold then retreated to fhe front of
the picket fence high up on the grassy
knoll just to the west of the pergola on
the north side of Elm Street.
AS THE PRESIDENTIAL limousine
came down Elm toward the triple
underpass. Arnold stood on a mound of
fresh dirt and started rolling his film.
He said he "felt" the first shot come
from behind him, only inches over his
left shoulder, he said.
"I had just gotten out of basic
training," Arnold said. "In my mind
live ammunition was being fired. It
was being fired over my head. And I hit
the din"
Arnold, then 22, said the first two
shots came from behind the fence
"close enough for me to fall down on
my face." He stayed there for the dura­tion
of the shooting.
HIS PRONE position, under the
shade of a tree, may have locked away
his story for IS years as the Warren
Commission and later other assassina­tion
researchers scanned photographs
and movie footage of Dealey Plaza for
witnesses to the shooting.
The first two shots that Arnold
heard didn't come from the Texas
School Book Depository Building
because "you wouldn't hear a whiz go
over the top of your head like that." he
said. "I say a whiz — you don't really
hear a whiz of a bullet, you hear just
like a shock wave. You feel it . . . You
feet something and then a report
comes right behind it It's just like ine
August 27,1978
enu ui a muzzle blast."
He said he heard two shots "and
then there was a blend. For a single
b61t action, he had to have been firing
dam good because I dont'think any­body
could fire that rapid a bolt action.
"The next thing I knew someone
was kicking my butt and telling me to
get up," Arnold said. "It was a police-nian
And I told him to go jump in the
rtver. And then this other guy — a
policeman — comes up with a shotgun
and he was crying and that thing was
waving back and forth. I said you can
have everything I've got. Just point it
sqmeplaceelse."
ARNOLD TOOK his film~ from the
canister and threw it to the policeman.
"It wasn't worth three dollars and
something to l)e shot. All I wanted
them to do was to take that blooming
picture (film) and get out of there, just
let me go. That shotgun and the guy
crying over there was enough to
unnerve me for anything."
Two days later. Arnold was on a
plane reporting for duty at Fort Wain-wright
in Alaska. He hadn't given
police in Dealey Plaza his name and
never told his story to authorities
"because I heard"after that there were
a lot of people making claims about pic­tures
and stuff and they were dying
sort of peculiarly. I just said. well, the
devil with it, forget it. Besides, 1
couldn't claim my pictures anyway;
how did I know what were mine?"
TWO U7«F0RMED Dallas policemen
had been assigned to guard the rail­road
bridge. The Warren Report,
however, said the two policemen —
jiist as fellow officers guarding over­passes
along the motorcade route —
were not assisted by federal agents.
Police officer James C. White told The
News that he and James W. Foster were
keeping unauthorized people off the
bridge.
"If there was one (Secret Service
agent) up there, we didn't know it,"
White said. "He wasn't on that bridge, I