James Joseph Rowley

Who was James Joseph Rowley?

James Joseph Rowley was the head of the United States Secret Service between 1961 and 1973, under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.

An Irish-American origins, Rowley was born in the Bronx, New York and had in fact been working for the Secret Service since 1938 during the days of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration after first joining the FBI in 1936. On June 18, 1964, Rowley provided testimony to the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy. After the assassination, Secret Service training was regularized and systematized. The James J. Rowley Training Center in Beltsville, Maryland is named after him.

Rowley was a Roman Catholic. His brother Francis, was a Catholic priest who belonged to the largest all-male religious order in the Roman Catholic Church, the Jesuits.

Rowley died of congestive heart failure at his home in Leisure World, Maryland.