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Three High School Boys Trick Secret Service, Meet President

Oct. 9, 1962 - Three high school boys said today they had tricked Secret Service guards, deceived Senator Hubert Humphrey, and bluffed President Kennedy into greeting them as “German exchange students.” The students — Bill Watters, Roger Magnuson, and Daniel Norstedt — all 17-year-old students at Johnson High School in St. Paul, Minn., said they crashed the Presidential party Saturday during Mr. Kennedy’s overnight stay in Minneapolis at the Leamington Hotel. Senator Humphrey introduced them to the President outside a room where a $500-a-couple cocktail party was being held, young Watters said, and the President shook hands and told them: “Welcome to this country.” The three youths said that before Mr. Kennedy arrived, they had walked into the hotel, taken an elevator to the 12th floor, walked upstairs to the 14th floor, and “saw a bunch of guards in the middle of the hall.” “We thought we would be forward and ask where Senator Humphrey’s suite was,” young Watters said. He did this, he said, in his best German accent. Then Senator Humphrey introduced them to the President.

© 2024 by Joe Rubenstein

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