\

Brave Former Law Enforcer Abraham Bolden Once Scorned, Now Honored

By Andrew Kreig and Wayne Madsen

Abraham W. Bolden, Sr., the first African American to serve on the White House Secret Service details guarding a president, helped launch the new investigative podcast District Insiders with his powerful memories of President John F. Kennedy, left, including disturbing security threats foreshadowing JFK’s 1963 assassination.

Bolden, now 88 and living in Chicago (and shown at right in a file photo), described in rare detail several historically important interactions with JFK, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) and such little-known intrigues as a planned 1963 assassination to target JFK in Chicago three weeks before a similar shooting killed the president in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

Bolden, loyal to JFK during a period when the president’s background and policies enraged some Americans, sought to alert his chain of command to security threats he had witnessed. These included a volcanic 1961 temper tantrum by LBJ two years before JFK's death. Instead of pursuing his warnings, authorities instead framed Bolden with perjured testimony on corruption charges in 1964 and promptly imprisoned him with a six-year sentence.

In 2022, President Joe Biden (shown in a file photo) pardoned Bolden on April 26 as one of just three to receive pardons in Biden's first presidential clemency order.

The District Insiders hosts, both investigative reporters long based in Washington, DC, recognized during the show Bolden's remarkable courage and patriotism along with Biden’s boldness in granting a pardon. Most officials and mainstream media since 1963 have ignored, downplayed or otherwise suppressed any suggestion conflicting with the FBI’s steadfast contention, first expressed soon after JFK's murder in 1963, that former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald, shown at left, killed JFK, acting alone. Rarely mentioned in standard accounts is Oswald's documented history of serving in the Marines with a high-level security clearance for work as a radar technician on the U-2 spy plane operation and also learning how to speak fluent Russian while serving in the Marines during the height of the Cold War.

Current implications of such experiences and relationships are worth exploring even today regarding key figures and such organizations as the Secret Service. The public, for example, has not been able so far to get clear-cut answers about Secret Service operations -- and massive missing text messages -- during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that endangered the lives of Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and Capitol staff, including police officers. The Washington Post published a recent update on that, Probe widens into federal watchdog over missing Jan. 6 Secret Service texts, amplified in an appendix to this column.

Click for 'District Insiders'

• Spotify: https://sptfy.com/N8eC
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/district-insiders/id1679198072
• Podbean: https://districtinsiders.podbean.com

Co-host Wayne Madsen provided the introduction to the show. During the interview, Bolden shared in his first-ever detailed public description how he overheard through a closed door while guarding the Oval Office in June 1961 that an enraged LBJ (shown below in a file photo on a separate occasion) threatened and cursed the president and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), with language including, “You bastards trying to send me to jail?” RFK is shown at right in a photo of a separate meeting at the White House with his brother and then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, an ally and close neighbor of the vice president.

Bolden, who had experienced pioneering job hires as a Black Pinkerton detective and Black Illinois State policeman before JFK personally recruited him to integrate the White House Secret Service, said he was so concerned about LBJ's outburst that he reported the remarks to a supervisor.

Only later, he said, did he understand from news accounts and history researchers that the vice president was probably concerned about then-ongoing state and federal investigations of the corrupt cotton broker Billy Sol Estes and the mysterious shooting death on June 3 that month in Texas of Henry Marshall, right, the U.S. Department of Agriculture agent leading the Estes probe. Authorities ruled Marshall’s death from five shots from a bolt-action rifle plus carbon monoxide poisoning as a suicide until Marshall’s family and a sympathetic U.S. marshal succeeded in more than two decades of advocacy in obtaining a 1985 court ruling of homicide, not suicide.

Estes, after serving a long prison sentence, filed an affidavit in 1984 with the Justice Department swearing that LBJ had recruited him to help arrange eight murders, including those of Marshall, LBJ’s estranged sister, Josefa Johnson (1961), her boyfriend John Kinser (1951) and JFK (1963).

U.S. Justice officials failed to prosecute in any of the cases. Bolden said he hesitated until now to discuss his overheard 1961 confrontation between LBJ, JFK and RFK because he wanted to ensure that explosive details could be sufficiently corroborated by others.

The new details are highly significant because, along with other parts of Bolden's experiences, they tend to support scholars who argue that Johnson had means, motive and opportunity to assist if not enable the assassination or at least its cover-up despite a heavy focus by authorities and mainstream media on Oswald to the near-exclusion of other avenues of research. As further context, Johnson's press secretary as vice president and then president, Bill Moyers (shown at left with Johnson in a 1963 photo at the White House), promptly after the assassination led efforts to focus authorities and the media solely on Oswald as the killer, 1963 documents now reveal.

The late James Wagenvoord, left, a former executive at Life Magazine and later author of 43 books, has said the magazine spiked immediately after the assassination a major investigative story documenting corruption by the incoming president, Lyndon Johnson, involving Estes and other Johnson associates, including Bobby Baker and Fred Korth.

Wagenvoord said the already edited investigative story had been expected to run shortly after the Dallas trip but was killed to help the country adjust as smoothly as possible to a transition after JFK's murder and LBJ's succession. Robert Kennedy's Justice Department was helping Life Magazine's reporters prepare the story and LBJ, as the primary target, was well aware that the story was in the works and ready for publication, according to Wagenvoord in speaking at two research conferences of Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA) that were moderated by District Insider co-host and CAPA board member Andrew Kreig). JFK's former secretary Evelyn Lincoln wrote in her memoirs that the projected Life Magazine story, capping previous Life Magazine stories on LBJ's money-making schemes and henchmen, would have provided grounds for the Kennedys to remove LBJ from JFK's 1964 re-election ticket.

New: 

OpEd News, Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival Announces Slate of Films and Screenplays for 11th Annual Film & Writing Competition, Michael McCray, June 29-30, 2023. Pentagon Papers Whistleblower to be Remembered During 11th Annual Event Featuring Film Screenings, Screenplay Contest, and a Tribute to Famed Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg at the National Press Club.

ACORN 8, in collaboration with the Justice Integrity Project, announced feature, documentary, short film, and screenplay selections premiering virtually at the Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival (www.WhistleblowerSummit.com). The hybrid event, set for July 22-33 in Washington, DC, will include live events and virtual screenings of featured films and panels. The theme for the annual conference is "Unraveling the Truth: 60 Years after the Assassination of JFK." The annual festival is a globally recognized platform amplifying free speech, social justice, and civil & human rights advocacy. Festival passes, and single tickets are on sale now.

For more information about the summit hosts and film festival, click here -.whistleblowersummit.com/tickets

The National Whistleblower Day (July 30) feature screenings include The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Additional screenings include District Insiders: Former JFK Secret Service Protector Describes Shocking JFK Assassination and other industry panels (filmmaker and screenwriter). This year's programming illuminates a wide array of storytelling that showcases the talent of writers and filmmakers alike.

"We are proud to be back live for the 11th year to bring audiences, both in-person and virtually, an inspiring selection of events celebrating free speech in all its forms "film, books, journalism, and advocacy," said Michael McCray, Managing Director. "We're thrilled to spotlight transformative storytelling that demonstrates the power of equity in entertainment media."

"We are honored to recognize Abraham Bolden (African American) an important JFK Secret Service Agent turned whistleblower at this year's summit," said Andrew Kreig, Executive Director for the Justice Integrity Project.

"We're excited to come together for the 11th year running to share unique and untold stories, showcasing diverse and inclusive content to the masses. This year's filmmakers are unmatched in their refreshing narratives," Marcel Reid, Festival Director. We are pleased to announce the 2023 Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival lineup.