I think I've offered ample detail for my opinion that Dallas FBI agent James Hosty merits our suspicion in a Dallas plot to assassinate JFK. The main evidence that I offer for my opinion is a topic which recurred so many times in the Warren Commission (WC) volumes that I've lost count -- namely -- that the FBI failed to supply adequate information to the Secret Service in Washington DC about dangerous people in Dallas.
If I'm right, then there's simply no way for Dallas Secret Service agent Forrest Sorrels to escape the same suspicion.
Let's step back and review the Dallas roles here. In every major city in the USA, the FBI and the Secret Service -- with headquarters in Washington DC -- maintain what I call "branch offices" in those cities. In those branch offices they also maintain a local staff who might live in that city for a lifetime. They'd raise their families there, and they'd often retire in those cities.
Furthermore, the local FBI and Secret Service in these cities work very closely with the local officials of the Police and Sheriff's office in these cities. These FBI and Secret Service officers also work very closely with each other, because they have something in common with each other that city law enforcement officers lack, namely, a tight line of reporting to their headquarters in Washington DC.
I want to emphasize that FBI agent James Hosty and SS agent Forrest Sorrels had known each other in Dallas since at least 1953, when Hosty moved to Dallas as an FBI agent. Sorrels had already lived in Dallas as an SS agent since 1941. They had worked closely together in those offices since 1953.
The Secret Service (SS) in general has one overriding duty --- to protect the US President. For Protective Research in any given city, the person with the most responsibility -- even beyond the FBI -- would be the local SS. The head of the Dallas branch of the SS in 1963 was Forrest Sorrels.
The duty of the local SS would be to work closely with the local FBI in that city, to identify anybody who might be a danger to the President. This was not an optional job for the SS -- it was always Job One. So, if (and only if) FBI agent James Hosty failed to relay to the SS the names of all the dangerous people in Dallas during November 1963, then an equal share of the blame must fall on Dallas SS agent Forrest Sorrels.
In my next few blog posts I'll focus on the WC testimony of Forrest Sorrels. I'll focus intently on the relationship between the Dallas SS with the Dallas FBI, and also with the SS Protective Research required for any US President's visit.
This means that I'll minimize or even ignore his testimony about the protection of Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) in custody and about Jack Ruby's killing of LHO. Much of the WC testimony of Forrest Sorrels centered on those topics, but those are of minimal interest to me, since I see no direct connection between an original Dallas plot to assassinate JFK, and the emergency cleanup task of Jack Ruby.
In addition to my focus on the SS Protective Research regarding JFK in Dallas, I'll focus on the contradictions between the WC testimony of other Dallas officials and Forrest Sorrels. In particular, I'll look deeper into the reasons why the WC obliged Sorrels to make a sworn Affidavit to protect himself from suspicions of perjury, since he blatantly contradicted multiple WC witnesses regarding what LHO had said during his final police interview, just minutes before LHO was slain in police custody.
Regards,
--Paul Trejo