Subject: Re: Chicago Plot
Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 02:14:14 -0700
From: "Vincent M. and Jessica K. Palamara" <palamara@telerama.com>
Organization: startext.net
Newsgroups: startext.jfk

D.Boylan wrote:

> Vince, Martin, and anyone else.
>
> I've read a little about the Chicago plot but I'm still
> pretty much in the dark about it. I've seen the names Mosley (an
> FBI informant) Homer Echeverria, and Paulino Sierra mentioned.
>
> Can anyone supply any more details?
>
> Dave

In addition to Chapter 10 of my book[excerpt below] as well as my
article in the April 1997 issue of JFK/ Deep Politics Quarterly, the
following will (I hope) help you:

1) Two former Secret Service agents I interviewed who served in the
Chicago office in November 1963, Abraham Bolden and Maurice Martineau,
both are fervent believers---based on KNOWLEDGE---that there was a
conspiracy to kill JFK on 11/22/63 because of
2) Their knowledge of a plot to kill JFK in Chicago earlier that month;
3) Bolden said that, totally seperate from Thomas Arthur Vallee (the
suspect ["patsy"?] arrested by the Chicago police), there was a team of
four men involved...

EXCERPT:

When JFK was scheduled to be in Chicago on 11/2/63 for the Army/Air
Force game at Soldier Field, Mr. Bolden was a member of the Chicago
office of the Secret Service handling security.  As Warren Swindall
noted, "The visit had political implications as JFK has 'stood up' Mayor
Daley on a similar scheduled visit the previous year, and the President
was most anxious to mend his fences before the next year's election."
(AARC files)

- The eleven-mile parade from O'Hare Airport to Soldier Field caused
considerable misgivings to the Secret Service:

1. JFK's limousine "would pass through a warehouse district- which
Secret Service advance men consider ten times more deadly than any
building corridor".(Chicago Independent, November 1975).

2. involve a "slow, difficult left-hand turn";

3. "a difficult 90 degree turn that would slow (JFK) to practically a
standstill"

- However, prior to the scheduled visit, Chief James J. Rowley himself
phoned SAIC Maurice G. Martineau with word that, via J. Edgar Hoover and
the FBI, they had word of an assassination plot involving a four-man
team of gunmen.  According to Bernard Fensterwald's memo from his
interview with Mr. Bolden, "Martineau called in all men in his charge in
Chicago and told them of Rowley's call.  He also informed them of the
following as to this matter:  (1)  there were to be no written reports;
any information was to be given to Martineau orally; (2)  Nothing was to
be sent by TWX (interoffice teletype); he (Martineau) was to report only
by phone to Rowley, personally; (3)  no file number was to be given to
this case.  All Secret Service agents in Chicago (including Bolden) were
shown four photos of the men allegedly involved in the plot (of the
four, Bolden remembers two names:  Bradley and Gonzalez)".(memo dated
3/29/68 via AARC)

- Mr. Bolden named six other agents involved in the meeting with
Martineau:  James Griffiths, Joseph Noonan, Steven B. Maynard, Robert J.
Motto, Thomas D. Strong, and J. Lloyd Stocks (the last three were named
and contacted by the Chicago Independent).

- Corroboration for Mr. Bolden's account of the 11/2/63 plot in Chicago
to kill President Kennedy comes from the following sources:

 1. "one (unnamed) agent did state there had been a threat in Chicago
during that period, but he was unable to recall details".  Separate from
this agent, Mr. Bolden was called to testify as well.(HSCA report, page
231)

2. an unnamed agent who was the main source of the Chicago Independent
story (this agent could not be Mr. Bolden - he flew in from the East
Coast for the story, while Mr. Bolden already lived in Chicago for
years);

3. J. Lloyd Stocks - remembered "something about a guy called Vallee" -
this was Thomas Arthur Vallee, a man arrested apart from the four-man
team.

4. FBI agent Thomas B. Coll - "I remember that case.  Some people were
picked up.  And I'm telling you it wasn't ours.  That was strictly a
Secret Service affair.  That whole Soldier Field matter was a Secret
Service affair... You'll get no more out of me.  I've said as much as
I'm going to on that subject.  Get the rest from the Secret Service".

5. Captain Robert Linsky (the security liaison between the Chicago
Police and the Secret Service) - remembered the Vallee arrest (backed up
by government reports on file at the AARC).

6. Sergeant Lawrence Coffey - "Naturally, I remember every detail...How
often is anyone involved in a threat against the President's life?"

7. Thomas Arthur Vallee - "Soldiers Field.  The plot against John F.
Kennedy."  Mr. Vallee claimed he was framed by someone with special
knowledge about him, such as his "CIA assignment to train exiles to
assassinate Castro". (Chicago Independent, November 1975)

(June Kellerman told the author that Roy's only television interview was
on 11/2/63, during the Army/Air Force game, the only documentation for
Kellerman's presence in Chicago.) [see end of Chapter XX; for info. on a
pre-Nov. ’63 Chicago threat, see former Secret Service Agent George J.
McNally’s book “A Million Miles of Presidents”, p. 204]

- Furthermore, Mr. Bolden told the HSCA that Mr. Vallee was independent
of the four-man team, and he told the author the same thing, adding that
the confusion was "done intentionally by the government agencies."(HSCA
Report, pages 231 - 232)

 - The motorcade was cancelled at the last minute, ostensibly for two
different reasons:  a cold (the same made-up alibi JFK gave to Salinger
in reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis) and the Diem assassination
(although Salinger himself "announced at 9:30 a.m. that a special
communications facility would be rush constructed under the Soldiers
Field bleachers to keep the President informed on up-to-the-minute
developments in coup-torn South Vietnam.  He reiterated Kennedy would
not cancel the trip".(Chicago Independent, November 1975)  Since  Mr.
Vallee was arrested and off the streets, it appears obvious what the
real reason was for the cancellation of the trip:  the threat of the
four-man team, two of which eluded surveillance and escaped!  Mr. Bolden
managed to get information about the plot out into the public domain:
before any conspiracy book footnoted his tale, the New York Times of
12/6/67 documented it for the record.

Maurice G. Martineau - was the SAIC of the Chicago field office, and as
a member of the Secret Service from 1941 to 1972, served some 32 years
with the agency.(interview with Martineau, 9/21/93)  The agent was a
member of the White House Detail during the FDR years, and on temporary
assignments during the Eisenhower administration.  Mr. Martineau stated,
"Any time they (the White House Detail) came thru Chicago, (he) worked
very close with the advance team from Washington."

Importantly, Mr. Martineau confirmed that the motorcade was cancelled
"at the last minute - I was already out at the airport" to meet JFK's
plane when this occurred, he said.  Mr. Bolden was a touchy subject:
"As far as Bolden is concerned, I'd rather not discuss it."

Interestingly, Mr. Martineau revealed that he "was subpoenaed to testify
before" the HSCA, which he declared "a lot more valid than the Warren
Commission."  He believed "there was more than one assassin" on
11/22/63, stemming from the HSCA's report, his own role in the
investigation, his extensive experience in firearms (agency and
recreational), as well as his own gut feelings on 11/22/63:  "As soon as
I learned some of the details..."  When the author conveyed to him Agent
Kinney's own beliefs (see previous pages), including Agent Kinney's
qualification that his own "outfit was clean," Mr. Martineau stated:
"Well...ah...(long pause)...I've got some theories, too, but,
ah...without any actual data to back them up, I think I'll keep them to
myself."

VINCE PALAMARA