Subject: Re: Chicago Plot Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 02:14:14 -0700 From: "Vincent M. and Jessica K. Palamara" 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