Presidential security

[Jim Woodall]

(12-01-2014 02:57 PM)L Verge Wrote:  As for any more specifics on John Parker's assignment that night, may I wish you all the luck in the world trying to pin that down. Frankly, if two of the greatest Lincoln assassination researchers in the world (James O. Hall and Michael W. Kauffman) couldn't pin it down, I fear they are lost - or so far underground that it will take a miracle to get them released.

Now, before someone goes off on a tangent and decides that my last sentence must indicate a great conspiracy, let me say that the records were supposedly still with the Metro Police until sometime in the 1960s, at which time some tidy supervisor suggested that the files needed to be cleaned out. I have been told by two separate sources that they ended up in the circular file. However, one source (who was then serving as the department's historian) told me that the Parker file and others supposedly were seen in the trash by someone who saved them for his own collection. When I last spoke with the historian (who now has another job), the "owner" was still alive. He did not know - or would not divulge - who the owner was.

I found a blog entry up on Slate discussing the MPD log entries regarding the assassination. Of note, the story of the log book history parallels the comments above. Was this all part of the same incident of house cleaning? If so, maybe the Parker info is now available.

The log book is now back at NARA as of 2008. The NARA link embedded in the article takes you to a magazine, "Prologue", article titled "To Protect and to Server: The Records of the D.C. Metropolitan Police, 1861-1930" by John P. Deeben.