Vince Palamara's new book, The Plot to Kill President Kennedy in Chicago and other Traces of Conspiracy Leading to the Assassination of JFK, is an epic failure. Despite the enticing title, Palamara does not provide any evidence of a plot in Chicago in November 1963.
Palamara relies on Abraham Bolden for details of the supposed plot: (page 204 of the Kindle edition)
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 wind 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).”
All of the information from this paragraph comes from Bernard Fensterwald's interview with Bolden from March 1968.
But Bolden's story about the Chicago plot has changed over the years:
1967 Mark Lane Press Conference
Mark Lane held a press conference in December 1967 along with Richard Burnes from Jim Garrison’s office. They had spent several hours with Bolden, and he told them that he was given the names of the people involved in the Chicago plot. At least one of the men was followed through the streets of Chicago. Lane told the press that “The identities of those who planned the assassination (in Chicago) of President Kennedy are known to the United States Secret Service. One of these men has been sought by District Attorney Jim Garrison for some time.”
1968 Interview by Bud Fensterwald
Bolden said that the Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office, Maurice Martineau, received a personal phone call from James Rowley, head of the Secret Service. He supposedly told Agent Martineau that the Secret Service “had word of an assassination plot” which was supposed to take place during JFK’s visit to Chicago. The agents were told to keep it all hush-hush and were shown pictures of the four men who were allegedly in the plot. The agents investigated and found that the four men were staying with a landlady.
1975 Article by Edwin Black
A phone call came in from the FBI in Washington which was taken by agent Jay Stocks. He was warned about a “serious and dangerous four-man conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy at the Army-Air Force game.” The assassination would take place at an expressway overpass. A telex then came in from Rowley about the plot. A tip came in from a landlady who said four men were renting rooms and she had seen four rifles with telescopic scopes. She told the police that “perhaps there was some threat there.” Two of the men were followed and then brought in for questioning.
1978 Interview by the HSCA
Bolden claimed a telex came in from the FBI, and then a phone call came in from the FBI. Bolden was not sure if the call was from the local office or Washington. Two of the four suspects were put under surveillance and were apprehended and brought into the Chicago office. Bolden saw one of the men and he picked out the picture of ex-mobster Jim Braden as being similar. He did not recognize a picture of Vallee.
2008 Bolden Book, The Echo from Dealey Plaza
This time the phone call came in for Martineau from the Chicago office of the FBI who had information about JFK’s upcoming trip: “A woman who owned a rooming house on the city’s North Side had gone into one of the rooms to do some housekeeping and had discovered two rifles equipped with telescopic sights. She had rented the room to two men she believed to be Hispanic and had also seen two white men going in and out of the room. Knowing that the president was due to visit Chicago, she grew concerned and called the authorities.”
Notice that there is no threat to JFK. In fact, Bolden writes “Martineau professed to believe that this was not yet a Secret Service matter, in that there had been no direct threat to the President in connection with the rifles.”
In a book of over 300 pages, Bolden devoted only one page to this supposed plot.
Now, of course, memories fade over time. But what makes this even more suspicious is that when Bolden talked to Lane in 1967 and Fensterwald in 1968, he tied the Chicago plot to the Garrison investigation. Here is an excerpt from his interview with Bud Fensterwald:
In December 1967, Jim Garrison indicted Edgar Eugene Bradley for conspiring to kill JFK, a charge that had absolutely no foundation. Garrison also believed that Manuel Garcia Gonzalez was one of the gunmen on the grassy knoll.
Of course there is no corroboration for this plot. Not one document has emerged and no witnesses have ever come forward to corroborate the claim.
Palamara then includes this incredible quote from Bolden: (page 206 in the Kindle edition)
However, Abraham Bolden and Nemo Ciochina are far from the only sources for the Chicago plot. Bolden wrote to the author: “I do not believe Oswald acted alone because evidence is that there were at least 3 riflemen following the President just 3 weeks before he was assassinated in Dallas.”
At least three riflemen following the President?
Edwin Black said there were four rifles in Chicago; Bolden said there were two. Is he including Lee Harvey Oswald? What about the grassy knoll assassin?
Palamara then includes this sentence: (page 206 in the Kindle edition)
Direct and indirect corroboration for Mr. Bolden’s accounts of threats to JFK’s life in Chicago, in general, and the 11/2/63 plot in Chicago, in particular, comes from the following sources:
He footnotes this sentence with the following:
From Chicago Independent article by Edwin Black, November 1975; Stocks, Coll, Linsky, Coffey, and Vallee himself. See also Last Word (2011) by Mark Lane, pages 162 - 163, and 2022 book JFK Revisited by James DiEugenio (and the documentary with the same name), pages 69 - 70.
The sole source for Black's article was Abraham Bolden. The source for Mark Lane's account of the Chicago plot is Abraham Bolden. The source for DiEugenio's section on the Chicago plot is Edwin Black's article, Jim Douglass' book JFK and the Unspeakable, and Abraham Bolden's book.
If you go to JFK and the Unspeakable, you will see that Douglass spoke to Bolden several times, and then there is footnote 131 on page 200:
Investigative journalist Edwin Black wrote a breakthrough article, "The Plot to Kill JFK in Chicago November 2, 1963," in the November 1975 issue of the Chicago Independent magazine. Edwin Black would later become famous for his series of book on the Holocaust: The Transfer Agreement (New York: Macmillan, 1984), IBM and The Holocaust (New York, Crown Publishers, 2001), and War against the Weak (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003). Black's revealing JFK article, accessible only to the readers of a short-lived magazine and ignored by the mainstream media, soon disappeared from public view. (I found a copy in the basement of the University of Chicago Library a quarter of a century later.) The article drew on the initial research of Chicago court investigator Sherman Skolnick. Black devoted eight months to interviewing witnesses and digging through government documents. Crucial to his article was the firsthand information provided at great risk by an unidentified Secret Service agent -- Abraham Bolden.
It all circles back to the Edwin Black article, and his source was Abraham Bolden. Here is a short excerpt from Bolden's interview with the HSCA:
Here is another quote from JFK and the Unspeakable: (page 201)
"[Secret Service agent] Martineau set up a twenty-four hour surveillance of the men's boarding house. He passed out to his agents four photos of the men allegedly involved in the plots."
His source for the photos is Sherman Skolnick's suit against the National Archives in 1970.
Of course, no one has ever seen any photos.
Skolnick was the first to discuss Chicago plot but his source was Abraham Bolden. He disseminated a lot of nonsense.
And then there is this:
Here is a copy of Skolnick's complaint.
So, as you can see, there are no sources for a Chicago plot other than Abraham Bolden, and even he can't keep the story straight.
My next post will examine Palamara's sixteen pieces of information which he claims corroborate the Chicago plot.
Update
Here is a letter that Mary Ferrell sent to Bernard Fensterwald with some choice words about Sherman Skolnick. See the third paragraph:
Previous Relevant Blog Posts
A look at Homer Echeverria.
A look at Lloyd John Wilson.
Chad Nagle tries to argue that there was a plot.
The HSCA did speak to Edwin Black. It was a memorable interview.
There is no evidence of a plot in Chicago against JFK.
Bolden's story about the supposed Chicago plot has changed over the years.
An examination of supposed other plots against JFK.
Bolden didn't say one word about a supposed plot against JFK in Chicago.