All in the Family?
The AR-15 was carried on the Dallas motorcade, but apparently not since.
McLaren states that the rifle was removed from use (“retired”) by the Secret Service immediately after the assassination. He doesn’t document the source for this, but he must have been referring to a portion of Secret Service Chief James Rowley’s Warren Commission testimony, which was re-enacted in the Reelz Channel documentary.
A transcript of Rowley’s Warren Commission testimony shows the following exchange (http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh5/pdf/ wh5_rowley.pdf):
The Chairman: Well, I am thinking of this. As you go along in the motorcade, you have men who are scanning the buildings along the way, don't you?
Mr. Rowley. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. And they have submachineguns in one of the cars.
Mr. Rowley. No; for security reasons, I would like to--we don't have machineguns noow, sir.
The Chairman. I just thought I heard that from the record here, that they had some kind of guns.
Mr. Rowley. They had a weapon, a new weapon; yes, sir.
The faltering in the middle of Rowley’s statement is interesting, to say the least, as is his mention of “for security reasons.”
To many who saw it, the new and state-of-the-art AR-15 looked like a “machine gun” or “submachine gun.” Witnesses who saw Hickey with the AR-15 described it as a “machine gun” or “submachine gun.” Rowley’s response that “we don’t have machineguns now, sir” was in response to a question about “submachine guns,” so Rowley was lumping “machine guns” and “submachine guns” together when he made that statement. However, he had to be referring to the AR-15 when he said “We don’t have machineguns now, sir.” His statement could not have applied to the Thompson submachine gun, which was in use at the time of the assassination (Gerald Blaine’s book provides a fascinating account of how Blaine almost shot Lyndon Johnson with one on the night of the assassination) and was still in service until the 1970’s. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ United_States_Secret_Service#Weapons_and_equipment (which cites as the source Ronald Kessler’s book In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect), in describing Secret Service weaponry, “The Thompson submachine gun was replaced by the Uzi submachine gun in the 1970s.”
So Rowley had to have been referring to the “new weapon” being taken out of service: the AR-15. Rowley’s statement had to mean that they did use the AR-15, but after the assassination didn’t use it any more.
Also very interesting (and telling) is the Secret Service’s refusal to adopt assault rifles in the 50+ years since the assassination. The same article above describes the Secret Service’s current choice of weaponry (below, with source “16” again being Kessler’s book, emphasis mine):
Agents and officers are trained on standard shoulder weapons that include the FN P90 submachine gun,[45] the 9mm Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, and the 12-gauge Remington 870 shotgun.[45] The continued use of the MP5 remains a source of controversy as many other federal agencies have moved away from submachine guns altogether and replaced them with assault rifles. Despite this, the agency has no current plans to replace this weapon.[16]
Could there be a reason for the Secret Service’s refusal to adopt assault rifles? One that, oh, say, dates back to 1963?
The AR-15 was carried on the Dallas motorcade, but apparently not since.
McLaren states that the rifle was removed from use (“retired”) by the Secret Service immediately after the assassination. He doesn’t document the source for this, but he must have been referring to a portion of Secret Service Chief James Rowley’s Warren Commission testimony, which was re-enacted in the Reelz Channel documentary.
A transcript of Rowley’s Warren Commission testimony shows the following exchange (http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh5/pdf/ wh5_rowley.pdf):
The Chairman: Well, I am thinking of this. As you go along in the motorcade, you have men who are scanning the buildings along the way, don't you?
Mr. Rowley. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. And they have submachineguns in one of the cars.
Mr. Rowley. No; for security reasons, I would like to--we don't have machineguns noow, sir.
The Chairman. I just thought I heard that from the record here, that they had some kind of guns.
Mr. Rowley. They had a weapon, a new weapon; yes, sir.
The faltering in the middle of Rowley’s statement is interesting, to say the least, as is his mention of “for security reasons.”
To many who saw it, the new and state-of-the-art AR-15 looked like a “machine gun” or “submachine gun.” Witnesses who saw Hickey with the AR-15 described it as a “machine gun” or “submachine gun.” Rowley’s response that “we don’t have machineguns now, sir” was in response to a question about “submachine guns,” so Rowley was lumping “machine guns” and “submachine guns” together when he made that statement. However, he had to be referring to the AR-15 when he said “We don’t have machineguns now, sir.” His statement could not have applied to the Thompson submachine gun, which was in use at the time of the assassination (Gerald Blaine’s book provides a fascinating account of how Blaine almost shot Lyndon Johnson with one on the night of the assassination) and was still in service until the 1970’s. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ United_States_Secret_Service#Weapons_and_equipment (which cites as the source Ronald Kessler’s book In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect), in describing Secret Service weaponry, “The Thompson submachine gun was replaced by the Uzi submachine gun in the 1970s.”
So Rowley had to have been referring to the “new weapon” being taken out of service: the AR-15. Rowley’s statement had to mean that they did use the AR-15, but after the assassination didn’t use it any more.
Also very interesting (and telling) is the Secret Service’s refusal to adopt assault rifles in the 50+ years since the assassination. The same article above describes the Secret Service’s current choice of weaponry (below, with source “16” again being Kessler’s book, emphasis mine):
Agents and officers are trained on standard shoulder weapons that include the FN P90 submachine gun,[45] the 9mm Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, and the 12-gauge Remington 870 shotgun.[45] The continued use of the MP5 remains a source of controversy as many other federal agencies have moved away from submachine guns altogether and replaced them with assault rifles. Despite this, the agency has no current plans to replace this weapon.[16]
Could there be a reason for the Secret Service’s refusal to adopt assault rifles? One that, oh, say, dates back to 1963?