CHICAGO PLOTS AND THREATS: 3/23/63 and 11/2/63

 

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):

SEE TWO IMAGES BELOW

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.”--!

Bolden was a former Kennedy White House Detail agent who served from Ike-LBJ and was on all the Chicago trips JFK made-here is the one for 3/23/63:

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.”]