I.
EARLIER 1963 CHICAGO TRIP THREATS (PRIOR
CHICAGO TRIP OF 3/23/63):
Col. George J. McNally, Head of WH Signal Corps and
former Secret Service agent; on Texas trip and countless other ones FDR-LBJ:
“But during the Chicago visit [3/23/63], the motorcade was slowed to the pace
of a mounted Black Horse Troop, and the police got a warning of Puerto Rican
snipers. Helicopters searched the roofs along the way, and no incidents
occurred.” A Million Miles of Presidents by Col. George J. McNally, p.
204 (1982 manuscript released by his widow; McNally died in 1970)---sounds
amazingly like the one for 11/2/63!
Yet another 3/23/63 Chicago threat (documents
released by the ARRB in 1996):
II.
11/2/63 CHICAGO TRIP WAS CANCELLED
(FROM ARRB RELEASED IN 1996):
The motorcade was cancelled at the last minute,
ostensibly for two reasons:
1. JFK had a cold. This is the same made-up excuse JFK gave Salinger
in reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis the year before, also in Chicago. Salinger
even famously called Kennedy out on this: “Mr. President, you don’t have a
cold.” [Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, pp. 371-372; Agent Gary McLeod said
JFK having a cold was the reason for the cancellation of the 11/2/63 trip
(3/6/78 HSCA interview), while Agent David Grant called it an “illness” (2/3/78
HSCA interview)]
2. The Diem assassination. However, 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]
From the November 1975 Edwin Black Chicago Independent
article: sources IN ADDITION TO Bolden (HE STILL COUNTS) and SEPARATE
from the arrest of Thomas Arthur Vallee, who was arrested and off the street
before JFK came to Chicago for the motorcade, so he obviously was no longer a
threat:
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.”
Chicago Police Sergeant Lawrence Coffey: “Naturally,
I remember every detail … How often is anyone involved in a threat against the
President’s life?”
Thomas Arthur Vallee himself brought up: “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.”--!
HSCA
Report: “One agent [Robert Motto] did state there had been a threat
in Chicago during that period, but he was unable to recall details.” [HSCA
report, pp. 231 & 636. 12/30/77 HSCA interview with Robert Motto (JFK
Document 008482)] Specifically, Robert J. Motto told the HSCA: “The trip was
cancelled. I think they told us at the [Air Force/ Army game at Soldier’s Field],
but we decided to watch it anyway … When I got back to the office, someone said
there had been threats.” 12/30/77 HSCA interview with Motto [HSCA RIF#
180-10113-10038].
Maurice Martineau was the SAIC of the
Chicago field office, and served some 32 years with the agency, from 1941
to 1972. He was a member of the White House Detail during the FDR years, and on
temporary assignments during the Eisenhower administration. Mr. Martineau
stated to Vince Palamara, “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 [11/2/63] 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. He was a blight on the agency.” 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 with
firearms, and 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,
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.” [Author’s interviews with Martineau, 9/21/93 & 6/7/96; Executive
Session testimony of Martineau, HSCA, 3/15/78: RIF# 180-10116-10084; 2/1/78 HSCA
interview with Martineau; see also 3 HSCA 339] FROM MARTINEAU’S HSCA STAFF
INTERVIEW: “Martineau said that he was in Chicago when President John F.
Kennedy made a visit prior to November 1963. He could not recall the precise
date. “We got a telephone threat. The caller was not identified, that Kennedy
was going to be killed when he got to Jackson Street. We adjusted the routine
to rely on the Chicago Police to cover the area. The threat did not
materialize,” he said … We asked Martineau about threats against JFK in [the]
Chicago area [for] November 1963. Martineau visibly stiffened. “I can recall no
threat that was significant enough to cause me to recollect it at this time” he
said. In contrast to the wealth of detail which flooded his earlier
recollections, his answers became vague and less responsive.” [2/1/78 HSCA
interview with Martineau: HSCA RIF# 180-10087-10191]
III.
ALSO-Interesting potentially relevant Chicago
(threat) information:
Agent Louis B. Sims told the HSCA: “ … he could not
remember dates but he recalls it could have been any time up to a year prior to
the assassination, he was assigned to conduct a surveillance on a subject that
was either Puerto Rican or Cuban. He does not remember any specific details other
than it involved gun running and it appeared to be a very sensitive
investigation. He stated the names Echevarria and Manuel Rodriquez were
familiar; but he couldn’t place them.” [5/22/78 HSCA interview with Sims: HSCA
RIF # 180-10093-10022].
Chicago (and former JFK White House Detail) agent Joseph
E. Noonan, Jr. told the HSCA: “he participated
directly in surveillance involving Tom Mosely and Homer Echevarria … he and
[the] other agents were uneasy that the Cubans might have some ties to the CIA
and they called Assistant Chief Paul Paterni ***in Washington and asked
him to check on this possibility. Paterni assured them shortly thereafter that
it was all right to proceed with their investigation. A little later they
received a call from Headquarters to drop everything on Mosely and Echevarria
and send all memos, files, and their notebooks to Washington and not to discuss
the case with anyone.” [4/13/78 HSCA interview of Noonan Re: Mosely and
Echevaria – 12/19/63 USSS report: HSCA RIF # 180-10087-10136; 11/27/63 USSS
report (Martineau to Paterni)-HSCA RIF # 180-10087- 10137; 12/13/63 USSS report-HSCA
RIF # 180-10087-10138. See also HSCA Report, p. 236]
***at Secret Service headquarters at that time: Deputy
Chief Paul J. Paterni, Chief Rowley’s direct assistant who, like another
deputy, ASAIC of the WHD #2 man Floyd Boring, was a major behind-the-scenes
player in the aftermath of the assassination. Paterni was a member of the OSS,
the predecessor of the CIA, during WWII and served in Milan, Italy with fellow
OSS men James Jesus Angleton, and Ray Rocca, later liaison to the Warren
Commission [ Julius Mader, Who’s Who in the CIA (Berlin: Julius Mader,
1968); Cloak and Gown, p. 363; Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The
American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (New York: Scribner’s, 1992), p.
182. ] Paterni was also the former SAIC of the Chicago office from 1957-1961 [Survivor’s
Guilt by Vince Palamara, page 324]
In addition, the administrative assistant of the
Intelligence Division (formerly known as PRS) made an interesting
observation to Agent Bob Ritter soon after the Reagan assassination attempt
(3/30/81), “She [unnamed] came to me later in the day and said she wanted to
‘warn me’ … She’s been around a long time. She started in the Chicago Field
Office and worked there during the JFK assassination [This had to be either Charlotte
Klapkowski or June Marie Terpinas]. She told me that ‘funny things’
went on back then and she has the same feeling again … she wouldn’t elaborate
on that. She did say that SAIC Richards told her to type only an original of my
report. No copies were to be made, not even the standard agent’s copy. And she
was ordered to shred my original handwritten submission! She knew how strange
that was. She warned me to look out for myself.” [Breaking Tecumsah’s Curse
by Jan and Bob Ritter (2013), p. 414]
Chicago’s American, 11/26/63: “Daly Diary” by Maggie
Daly: “The word is that the assassination of President Kennedy was planned at a
meeting on Chicago’s west side in the early part of February … That a
dissident Cuban group financed Lee Harvey Oswald and that he lived on
occasional money from the members and occasional money from his mother.” [As
reproduced in HSCA RIF #180-10087-10137; In this same HSCA collection, there is
a reproduction of a Chicago Daily News article dated 11/26/63. In the
article, Mrs. Ruth Paine, the woman who was instrumental in getting Oswald the
Book Depository job, while lodging Marina Oswald & the two children in her
house, is quoted as saying: “I understand there are people in the Chicago
area who are talking of helping [Marina], too.”]
