The Chicago Plot to Assassinate President Kennedy

By Edwin Black

Chicago Independent

November 1975

Forward by Edwin Black:

Five years ago, on commission from Atlantic Monthly, I began investigating a Chicago conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy just twenty days before Dallas. When I asked the wrong questions and came too close to sensitive information, I was followed and investigated by a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) operative. By examining my own files, I identified him and embarrassed the DIA into halting the harassment. There’s a record of their "project" in the credit bureau where it began, Credit Information Corporation (named Cook County Credit Bureau at the time). The DIA’s inquiry listed my employer as Atlantic Monthly, although that assignment was my only work for the magazine.

Unfortunately, the harassment didn’t end until after my apartment was broken into. No valuables were taken. But all my files were obviously and clumsily searched.

But that was five years ago, before Watergate, a different era. Today, when reporters edge close to dirty government secrets, it is the agencies that become nervous. And they think thrice before attempting the retaliation and tactics once common to the game.

My investigation, revived within the past eight months, took me to New York, Long Island, Houston and Washington as well as through courts, warehouses, police stations and federal offices in Chicago.

Hundreds of hours scrutinizing federal, state and local documents, dozens of interviews, hundreds of leads. And always with the Secret Service and FBI working against me. Doing what they could do make the investigation tedious, time-consuming and expensive. Perhaps they hoped the investigation would just disappear for all the obstructions.

I hope they now know they must come up with the answers. It is simply unacceptable to wait until the 21st Century for the release of seventy or so top secret Warren Commission documents.

Edwin Black

***

The Scenario

There are strong indications that four men were in Chicago to assassinate John F. Kennedy on November 2, 1963, twenty days before Dallas. Here’s how it happened:

November 2, 1963, JFK was scheduled to attend the Army-Air Force game at Soldiers Field. Plans called for him to arrive at O’Hare around 11 a.m., motorcade down what was then known as the Northwest Expressway to the Loop.

At Jackson, the caravan would lumber up the Jackson exit, make that slow difficult left-hand turn onto the street and shuttle over to the stadium. The Jackson exit would be crowded with no fewer than 45 local school and civic organizations anxious to see the President.

As in Dallas, JFK’s limousine would pass through a warehouse district – which Secret Service advance men consider ten times more deadly than any office building corridor.

As in Dallas, JFK’s limousine would be forced to make a difficult 90-degree turn that would slow him to practically a standstill. As in Dallas, triangulation of fire would be simple because of the unobstructed view. As in Dallas, the crowd would panic, allowing the assassins to escape unnoticed.

Wednesday, October 30, three days before, a coordination meeting was held in the anteroom to Mayor Daley’s fifth floor City Hall office. Attending were various Secret Service officials, three Deputy Chiefs of Police and Captain Robert Linsky, the security liaison between the Chicago Police and the Secret Service. As the security plans for Kennedy’s visit were mapped, each Deputy Chief was assigned an area of responsibility. Patrol Deputy Rochford took the motorcade route and its precarious passage under those deadly overpasses; Captain Linsky took the Conrad Hilton, the stadium itself and various street security functions. Mayor Daley’s special events man, Jack Reilly, stopped in to extend his boss’ hope for a safe visit.

A few hours after that meeting adjourned, the phone rang in the Chicago office of the Secret Service. Agent Jay Lawrence Stocks was for a few hours the ranking agent, so he took the call. It was the Federal Bureau of Investigation calling from Washington. The FBI man warned Stocks of a serious and dangerous four-man conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy at the Army-Air Force game. The suspects were rightwing paramilitary fanatics, armed with rifles and telescopic sights. The assassination itself would probably be attempted at one of the Northwest Expressway overpasses. This information came from an informant named "Lee."

Stocks turned to the other people in the office and with disbelief related the information, adding words to the effect that the FBI wasn’t sure how to handle the threat. These men were not the typical nuts with a cheap handgun or some irrational score to settle.

They were organized, paramilitary assassins. It wasn’t a federal crime to kill a president or even threaten him (at that time). And J. Edgar Hoover had decided since it was the Secret Service’s province to protect the President, the FBI would not, could not, participate in the investigation.

Shortly thereafter, the TWX, or inter-office teletype, clanged out confirmation of the conspiracy from the office of Chief James Rowley, head of the Secret Service in Washington. His instructions were to call every available man in from every other detail and concentrate them in a coordinated blanket investigation to locate the assassins. The teletype added that this would not be an FBI matter, but would be handled strictly by the Secret Service. The buck had officially been passed.

The Chicago office was critically understaffed and unprepared for such a crisis – only eight men for all assignments were sent in from other offices around the country: most notable, Myron Weinstein, a crack agent called in from Minneapolis.

A break came the next day, Thursday, October 31. A near north rooming house landlady telephoned the Chicago Police with a tip. Four men were renting rooms, and in one of them, she observed four rifles with telescopic sights. Inasmuch as she knew the President was coming to Chicago in two days, perhaps there was some threat here. Would the police look into it. The police immediately informed the Secret Service Acting agent-in-charge Maurice G. Martineau scooped up the message and made the connection. This was it.

A 24-hour surveillance was set up on the rooming house. Agent Jay L. Stocks spotted and followed two men fitting the landlady’s description, all the time maintaining radio contact with Martineau. Stocks was growing tired when the subject’s vehicle headed back to their rooming house in the vicinity of Clark and Division, Stocks, maintaining a discreet distance, followed their car into an alley behind the rooming house. Unfortunately, it was a one-way alley. When suddenly the subjects decided not to park in the alley and turned around to exit, they were forced to squeeze past Stock’s car.

Stocks saw the men driving his way. Tried to maneuver his car around in time, but couldn’t. A message came across the radio before Stocks could reach over and turn the volume down. As the subjects passed Stock’s car, they heard the radio message, looked him in the eye and took off. Stocks reluctantly reported to Martineau that the surveillance was blown – before any real evidence could be amassed. Martineau thought. Bust them now, with or without the evidence.

The two men were taken into custody (but not actually arrest or booked) in the very early Friday hours and brought to the Secret Service headquarters. There are no records that any weapons were found in their possession or back at the rooming house.

The interviews and interrogation were conducted by Agent Stocks in the front interrogation office and Agent Robert Motto in the rear interrogation office. Motto’s suspect was of large build with an extremely short waist-jacket. By 10 a.m., the interviewing agents had coaxed nothing out of their suspected assassins. The only record of their effort was the dozens of half-empty Styrofoam coffee cups scattered throughout the office.

When the other agents in the office heard of Stock’s rookie error, they couldn’t believe it. Every time Stocks emerged from interviewing his suspect, the agents would drop comments, crack jokes and make fun. Blocking the alley on a surveillance! Thomas D. Strong, who fashioned himself above such mistakes, led the ribbing. Over and over again he took the opportunity to get a little dig. Stocks hated it.

The Patsy

Meanwhile, two other agents had been following up a highly suspicious yet bum lead. The man’s name was Thomas Arthur Vallee, a 30-year-old ex-Marine classified extreme paranoid schizophrenic by military doctors. Vallee worked as an apprentice at IPP Litho-Plate at 625 West Jackson. As a patsy, he was perfect – as perfect for the Chicago assassination plot as Lee Harvey Oswald was for the Dallas assassination plot.

Vallee was born and raised in Chicago. Like Oswald, he joined the Marines in the mid-fifties during the Korean War period. Like Oswald, Vallee was assigned to a U-2 base in Japan; Oswald at Camp Atsugi, Vallee at Camp Otsu. The cover reference for the U-2 project at these bases Joint Technical Advisory Group (JTAG). Since the CIA exerted a strong presence at these two bases, they were prime recruitment stations.

Both Vallee and Oswald appear to have been recruited by the CIA for "black missions" or otherwise unsavory, personally discrediting assignments. In Oswald’s case, at the height of the cold war, he was instructed and helped to defect to Russia. With him he carried top secret radar codes. Oswald’s mission, probably unbeknownst to him, may have been to reveal this information for some complex CIA intelligence stratagem. Warren Commission testimony documents that all these radar codes had to be revised because of Oswald’s defection.

Vallee was recruited about the same time to train members of a fiercely anti-Castro guerrilla group. Objective: the assassination of Fidel Castro. Training locale: in and around Levittown, Long Island.

Neither Vallee nor Oswald received the money for their clandestine duties. The surreptitious nature of the business was ego-building to their personalities… inherently rewarding.

Both Vallee and Oswald had recently taken jobs in warehouses at the planned assassination sites. Oswald at the fifth floor book depository on Elm Street in Dallas – Vallee on the third floor IPP Printing Company looking out over the Jackson Street exit ramp where Kennedy’s limousine would have been hit.

Both Vallee and Oswald could be shown to have extremist political views. Both owned rifles. Both were basically loners, basically drifters. Basically lowlife. The dregs of society. Perfect for the work they were recruited for. Perfect for the frame-up. They even resembled one another physically.

Arrested by Daniel Groth

While Agent Stocks was chasing his suspects around town, two other agents were acting on their tip about Thomas Arthur Vallee, a violence-prone John Bircher. Information received accused Vallee of threatening to assassinate Kennedy during his Chicago visit. The source of the tip is unknown, but whoever pointed out Vallee knew his history and personality and how law enforcement would react to him.

In fact, Vallee had spoken bitterly of JFK, blaming him for pulling air support off the Bay of Pigs invaders. "We lost a lot of good men down there," Vallee would say. In his mental state he may have verbalized death threats against the President. But he does not appear to have been connected to the real threat: four other men referred to in the Secret Service teletype.

Problem was, when two Secret Service agents surreptitiously visited Vallee’s Uptown fleabag at Paulina and Wilson, they observed weaponry that classed Vallee as more than a loudmouth. An M-1, a carbine, a handgun and 2500 rounds of ammunition.

With other members of Chicago’s dismally understaffed Secret Service office following other leads. The two agents telephoned Captain Robert Linsky for 24-hour surveillance on Vallee, requesting he be "gotten off the street." Linsky was just about to enter a second special security coordination meeting, this one in the auditorium of police headquarters at 11th and State. The President was due in tomorrow and Linsky had the massive security task of Soldiers Field, the Conrad Hilton and downtown streets to cope with. He made some telephone calls, requesting two "sharp cops." One of the city’s "sharpest" teams was selected: Daniel Groth and Peter Schurla, both working out of the Task Force – specifically the "pickpocket detail." They were alert, sensitive, street-tough, and efficient. They took orders like sponges take water.

Groth and Schurla dropped everything and whipped over the 11th and State to attend this second security conference. Linsky gave them their instructions. They left the meeting and set out to find Vallee. He hadn’t committed any crime yet. Remember, in those days, threatening a President’s life was no specific crime. The gun laws probably allowed him to keep the weapons in his home. The surreptitious visiting agents had nothing more on Vallee than a tip. But Groth and Schurla knew their job. "Get Vallee of the street."

November 2, Saturday morning, Groth and Schurla had been tailing Valle for some time when they decided the moment was right. Vallee’s white Ford Falcon was curbed by their unmarked car as he turned west onto Wilson from Damen, heading toward the expressway entrance. Excuse: a left turn without a proper signal. Time: 9 a.m., just two hours before Kennedy was scheduled to parade down the Northwest.

On Vallee’s front seat, in open view, a hunting knife. Perfect. Groth charged Vallee with unlawful use of a weapon, the knife, and failure to signal a left turn. A search of Vallee’s person and the front of his car revealed no firearms. But when they opened the trunk, they found 750 rounds of ammunition. Vallee had purchased the ammo at the Lawrence Avenue Sears just a short time before.

Diem Brothers Assassinated

The international dateline places an imaginary day between Chicago and Saigon. Our November 2 is their November 1. And it was very early that Saturday morning, November 2, when the news hit Chicago. The Diem brothers – the corrupt rulers of South Vietnam – had been assassinated by a CIA-backed coup, by CIA-sponsored assassins. Obviously, the situation there could no longer be tolerated by a powerful rightwing military faction in America. The Diem brothers just weren’t running an efficient anti-Communist campaign. They refused to operate as American powers-that-be dictated. They were an obstacle. They were eliminated. Method: Executive Action, terminate with extreme prejudice.

At home, the same powers were frustrated and unbelieving. This JFK must be some sort of traitor! In addition to this Civil Rights nonsense; this silliness about moving to repeal the oil depletion tax; this traitorous deal with Khrushchev promising never to invade Cuba and is so doing selling out the Cuban people and tacitly endorsing Dr. Castro – in addition to all that, this son-of-a-bitch Kennedy was soon to announce that Vietnam was a great mistake for America. The bastard was soon to announce all our troops would be brought home by Christmas! First he sold out Cuba to the Russians. Now South Vietnam to the Red Chinese. Like Diem, Kennedy was an obstacle.

At the Last Minute

Captain Linsky was in his downtown office when his phone rang with the notice of Vallee’s capture. Groth and Schurla were already escorting Vallee to the Damen Avenue police station where he was interrogated about his political views by detectives John Madden and Lawrence Coffey. Vallee warned them that the country was in "serious trouble" unless Barry Goldwater would be elected over Kennedy, and ranted about how "only Mayor Richard Daley’s crooked machine could insure Kennedy the ghost votes" he needed to beat the conservative Republican.

Madden "invited" Vallee to take them back to his Paulina Street apartment and permit them to search. There was no time for a warrant, the President would be in Chicago in under an hour. When refused, Madden threatened to drag Vallee into the "backroom" Vallee chose to open his apartment to their search. Madden and Coffey sped with Vallee over to the Uptown address, not knowing they were worried about the wrong man. With information supplied by the two Secret Service men, they knew exactly what they were looking for. They seized Vallee’s M-1, his matched carbine and 2500 rounds, all purchased in New York. Vallee was transported to the 20th District where he was locked up during the hours the President was expected to be in town.

Back at Secret Service headquarters, Motto and Stocks still couldn’t break their suspected conspirators. The minutes were counting down until Kennedy’s arrival at O’Hare. Less than an hour away. And still the two remaining conspirators – if they existed – couldn’t be found, couldn’t be traced. The two suspects pinched the day before remained in custody while Motto raced over to Soldiers Field, checking the area around Kennedy’s seats. Two sections were reserved for him. One on the Air Force side, a second on the Army side. The President was scheduled to change sides during halftime.

Word from Washington

The assassination of the Diem brothers shocked Kennedy and his close advisors. But the Chicago visit would not be cancelled. Instead, Pierre Salinger announced at 9:30 a.m., 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.

But developments in downtown Chicago apparently were far more threatening than what was going on in Saigon. Two men were in custody in Secret Service headquarters. This Thomas Arthur Vallee character was in custody, his weapons confiscated. But if the original FBI information was accurate, two of the four alleged conspirators were still at large, probably armed. They were not frenzied maniacs racing across hallways or intersections with cheap pistols in their hands. They were cool, militarized assassins – identity completely unknown. Waiting somewhere in Chicago with loaded rifles.

JFK Cancels

At 10:15, Saturday, November 2, people in Washington, aware of the unsettled security problem in Chicago, absolutely refuse to allow the President to fly to Chicago. The visit is cancelled at the very last moment. The press corps jet has even taken off. The excuse: Kennedy had to stay close to developments in Southeast Asia.

Phones rang in Chicago bringing the news of JFK’s cancellation. This was unheard of! No notice at all? Someone hired sound trucks to cruise up and down the motorcade route announcing the cancellation over loudspeakers to the waiting crowds. Mayor Daley was piqued. Thousands more who had lined the streets especially on Jackson Boulevard were sorely disappointed.

But a handful of agents and investigators were intensely relieved. The two suspects could no longer be held without an iota of evidence. They were released from Secret Service custody. However, the shadow of the assassins followed JFK wherever he went from that moment on. An identical warning of an assassination conspiracy was teletyped to the New Orleans office of the FBI just before Kennedy’s planned visit there November 17. (A copy of the teletype was recently acquired by CBS news and televised along with an interview of the man on duty when it came across.) That plot was either neutralized or aborted for some reason. It didn’t stop JFK from safely visiting New Orleans.

It also didn’t stop him from visiting Dallas, November 22, just twenty days after Chicago. As he drove routes, through a warehouse district on Elm Street that had not even been covered by the Secret Service advance men, as the motorcade lumbered to a fatal pause in Dealey Square, shots split through the cheering crowd, Kennedy’s head exploded into tremendous bloody bits.

They finally got him.

Ken Lynch and Tom Coll

The next morning I turned to Thomas D. Strong, the man who reportedly led the office ribbing the morning after Stocks muffled the surveillance. We traced Strong to an intelligence unit of the Secret Service. We were expecting him to return our call when the telephone rang with Ken Lynch at the other end.

Who is Ken Lynch? He is a Secret Service agent assigned to deal with unpleasant media inquiries. He insisted that Strong would not make any comment to us about any possible assassination against JFK, but could we give him the details.

We did and he promised to contact Strong and within a day or two respond in the following manner, and we quote: “If the teletype and the conspiracy existed, we’ll answer truthfully that it did, if we can. If it did not exist, we will of course immediately inform you that you that it did not. If the teletype and/or this conspiracy did exist but for some reason I wouldn’t be permitted to discuss it with you, rather than lie to you and say it didn’t, I would merely respond ‘No comment.’ That’s our procedure around here.”

Shortly before that, we had filed a Freedom of Information action to gain access to the teletype in question, and other documents relating to the surveillance and custody. Soon after, we were contacted by the Freedom of Information officer, Robert Goff, who claimed the Secret Service could locate no records that might confirm or deny the existence of any such teletype warning of a Chicago conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. Nor could the Secret Service find records of Stocks’ surveillance or the interrogation of two suspects by Stocks and Motto. Nor could they determine if agent Thomas D. Strong had joked about the foiled surveillance the next day. I asked Goff is anyone had actually contacted Stocks, Motto, or Strong to check the information. Somewhat embarrassed he answered, “Well, actually no one had contacted them, no.” I came back, “Then how the hell do you know it isn’t possible to determine if the surveillance or interrogation occurred?” Goff mumbled something, sputtered and then blurted, “Well, that’s all can say. We’re not going to give you this information so you may as well give up.”

We scurried back to Ken Lynch, remember? They guy who wouldn’t tell us the truth, unless he couldn’t, in which case he would “no comment.” Lynch delivered his official response to our inquiry. “No comment on anything!” Can’t you even tell me if we’re right or wrong, if this teletype exists? He repeated his frozen answer.

At one point, we demanded a reason for the “no comment.” Lynch retorted, “Here’s one reason. There’s Freedom of Information Act inquiry on the entire subject. And therefore we cannot divulge any information.” Who submitted the inquiry? “Sorry,” he came back, “I can’t discuss that.”

Wait a minute. You’re not by any stretch of the imagination referring to my own FOI action, are you? “Actually, I am,” Lynch answered. Incredulous, I told him I had already been turned down on my request – and even if I hadn’t, what difference did it make. I was the same person seeking the same documents, whether through a press inquiry of though a Freedom of Information action. Lynch seemed a bit startled to learn I had already been turned down on my FOI action. “Really?” he said. “But I was told you were still studying just how we would respond to you. No decision has been made.” After that last slip, however, Ken Lynch declared he had nothing more to say, period.

We tried the FBI, the agency said to have originated the conspiracy information through their informant named “Lee.” Here was a serious hole in our source’s story. As everyone in the law enforcement and the intelligence community knows, informants are never given name-codes, only number-codes. So why was the FBI’s informant in this conspiracy name-coded? Even our own man though this was illogical.

An unofficial source of our in the FBI explained why once in a great while non-numerical codes are assigned to informants. All Secret Service and FBI informants routinely receive a number-code such as “834.” The Service or Bureau maintains an extensive file on each such informant identifiable by number-code only. However, it’s not difficult for any federal intelligence agent to discover the identity of such an informant through a cross-index which lists the number-coded informants and their true identities. This cross-index is supposed to be secret.

Therefore, once in a great while an informant is so highly placed, so vital or so vulnerable, he is assigned a non-numerical code. His identity is known only to his control in the Bureau or Service. Such was the case with an informant known only as “D,” whose classified testimony about Lee Harvey Oswald in the American Embassy in Mexico was only recently revealed through a Freedom of Information Act suit.

This thinking may have also been the case with Lee, the man or woman supplying the information on the Chicago assassination plot. For an official response, we contacted the official Washington smoke screener, agent Thomas B. Coll, in charge of press relations. Coll at first refused to check our claim, denying that FBI originated the Chicago conspiracy tip. I kept asking how he knew this for a fact without checking. He final blurted out, “Because 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 Soldiers Field matter was a Secret Service affair.” When pressed on his specific knowledge of the Chicago plot, Coll grunted, “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.”

Robert Linsky Remembers

Having been stonewalled and no-commented by everyone we contacted in the Secret Service and FBI, we turned to local sources. First on the list was Robert Linsky. We found him working as a supervisor with Burns Security in Evergreen Plaza. After the police tavern shakedowns that scandalized his entire unit and sent many of his direct subordinates to jail, Linksy resigned.

Linsky was reluctant to talk, but he finally consented to a taped sitdown in his far Southside office. Linsky remembered the planned November 2 JFK visit. He supplied information about the security meetings in the Mayor’s office and the police headquarters auditorium. And he confirmed information we had developed on the events lead to Thomas Arthur Vallee’s arrest, from the Secret Service request, to the selection and assignment of arresting Chicago police officers Groth and Schurla, to the actual surveillance and arrest of Vallee. The only area in which his information on Vallee failed was in the ammunition found in the automobile. He refused to believe 750 rounds of ammo were recovered, even after we showed him federal documents to prove it.

While Linsky supplied much information about security in general, and Vallee in particular, he denied any knowledge whatsoever about a four-man conspiracy. He said, “For all I know there could have been such a conspiracy, but I wasn’t in a position to be aware of it.” Linsky maintained this position no matter how hard pressed.

Later, the interview tape was subjected to Psychological Stress Evaluation (voice stress analysis), which is a lie detection technique analogous to the polygraph. While John E. Reid’s machine measures respiration and blood pressure, the PSE measure micro-tremors in the voice which are affected in much the same way when a person is deceitful. Anthony Pellicano Association, a nationally recognized voice stress expert located in Westchester, subjected the Linsky interview tape to PSE and adjudged his responses to be truthful.

Groth and Schurla Get Nervous

Next stop, Dan Groth and Peter Schurla. Very touchy. You see, Dan Groth has quite a name in Chicago. A few years later “this sharp cop” had done the Secret Service a favor by getting Vallee of the streets, he kicked down Fred Hampton’s apparent door and 99 bullets later two Black Panther leaders were massacred – which many claim was another favor… this one to the FBI. In fact, Groth has repeatedly been accused of being some sort of a CIA or intelligence operative brought out of the deep freeze for special assignments when necessary. He has even been taken to court by a number of legal activities who claim that Groth and the other State’s Attorney raiders that dawn were really pulling a deadly dirty trick, black mission, whatever euphemism you call it, for the CIA or FBI. And they’ve predicated these suits on Groth’s save-the-day involvement in the Vallee affair. The claim: if Groth wasn’t a special federal agent, why would he of all people have been chosen to pinch Vallee.

In all fairness to Dan Groth, there has been no substantiation to these charges beyond rhetoric and supposition. In the process, however, Groth has transformed from a cool, tough cop to a nervous pity of a man. His hair has greyed considerably. His family life has been ruined. He’s run out of answers for his children. And he works two full jobs a day to pay off a massive legal expensive bill in excess of $17,000.

The Vallee affair has been enmeshed in suspicion because Groth and Schurla – either on assumed or express orders from the government – covered up the exact nature of the Vallee arrest. Vallee’s arrest report indicates nothing about the 750 rounds of ammunition and Groth and Schurla have repeatedly denied arresting Vallee for anything more than a turn signal violation. Even though the words M-1 rifle appear incongruously at the top right hand corner of the arrest report. Groth has always dismissed that as a “freak typo.”

Groth was once a very good source of mine. During the height of the Black Panther raid controversy, he granted me exclusive interviews. But when I contacted him this time, he accused me of plotting against him. In a coffee shop across from the Chicago Avenue police station where he works, Groth and I tried to negotiate terms for conveying information. He rejected any and all guarantees of anonymity or confidentiality. But he did end the discussion with this telling emotional outburst: “Dammit! I had the weight of my country on my shoulders when I went out to arrest Vallee. Why is everyone trying to make me out a sonovabitch now!”

I had no better luck with Schurla. While he hadn’t suffered the stigma Groth had (since Schurla was not a part of that infamous State’s Attorney raiding party), he was still extremely jittery. This Vallee business had brought him to the attention of legal activists who knew fragments of the Vallee story and he subpoenaed him to testify, trying to prove his former partner was CIA. That meant legal fees for Schurla as well. So Schurla refused to acknowledge one word.

Until one day I visited him in his office on the eighth floor of police headquarters. Oh he, Schurla had gone up in the world. Now part of Chicago’s massive police intelligence apparatus. I sneaked into the eighth floor complex, where all the surveillance photos are developed and confronted Schurla personally. Up until this time we had conversed only on the phone. Before Schurla had a chance to back away, I fired the facts at him. He looked at me nervously and admitted, “Okay, if you got all that information, you’ve got the Vallee story. Go ahead and print it.” I thanked him for his permission.

Coffey Confirms Details

We received greater cooperation from Sergeant Lawrence Coffey, who with his partner Sergeant James Madden, interrogated Vallee, searched Vallee’s Uptown apartment and seized rifles. Madden had died a few years before, but Coffey’s memory was one of the most helpful. “Naturally I remember every detail,” he said. “How often is anyone involved in a threat against the President’s life? One involving a lot of heavy weapons like this Vallee character.” Coffey supplied most of the details quoted in our scenario about Vallee’s interrogation. He ended his recollection with the statement, “You know, with the President being murdered like that just a few weeks later in Dallas, I often wondered if Vallee had anything to do with it. But I suppose the Secret Service talked to the guy and checked him out pretty thoroughly. Ruled it out, huh?” I answered, “No. You and your partner were the only law enforcement people to interrogate Vallee. They didn’t even contradict him after the assassination to check on his weapons or association.” Coffey shrugged and capped, “I wonder what that means?”

Undercover in Houston

The last step was to locate Vallee himself. Shortly after 1963, Vallee drifted to Indianapolis where he found a good-paying printing job. Confidential Secret Service records we examined showed that when he moved, the Chicago office forwarded his file to Indianapolis. A few years later, he moved on again. This time to Columbus. Once again the file was forwarded to the next city. His file reveals that in the fall of 1966, the Secret Service conducted its first interrogation of Vallee. Agent Manpell called him in for questioning about his rifle serial numbers. Apparently, Vallee had quickly replaced the weapons Coffee and Madden had confiscated. The file sections we saw did not indicate exactly why Manpell was checking Vallee’s new weapons, but one Secret Service source reported it involved a subsequent threat by Vallee against a Secret Service protectee, perhaps LBJ. But even then not a single question was raised about Vallee’s 1963 activities in Chicago.

Recently, Vallee again drifted, this time to Houston. His Secret Service file did not list his current address. But by checking with a source in the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, we determined Vallee had applied for a driver’s license just a few months ago and was now living in the rural outskirts of Houston. And a survey of printers turned up his place of employ.

A few weeks ago, my barber gave me a crew-cut, then I boarded a Braniff jet for Houston. I carried noting more than my toothbrush and some tape recording equipment. I would pose as a rightwing reactionary – which some of my friends joked required no pretending! My name would be Eddie Brokaw. My objective: to coax out of Vallee all the details of the incidents surrounding JFK’s planned November 2, 1963 visit.

Vallee’s place wasn’t far from the airport. He lived in a ramshackled mobile home park. A guard dog chained to his door kept visitors away. I waited down the highway for his VW van to pass on his way home from work. It was 7 p.m. when I knocked on the door. Restraining the dog with one hand, and holding a rosary in the other, he answered and then invited me in.

It was a dump. Just a shabby sofa, a discarded coffee table and a few chairs in the trailer’s front room. The cooking area was piled with dishes, half empty cans and packages, garbage spilling out of bags. His bedroom was simply two mattresses, not even sheets. Cigarette butts and ash heaps littered over everything. An oiled, polished M-1 leaned against his mattress. A high-powered hunter’s crossbow was visible underneath. A Springfield rifle was stored elsewhere in the trailer.

I explained that Eddie Brokaw was part of some imaginary clandestine group. I called it Special Operations Group. I was recruiting riflemen for a special operation involving Cuba. But first I would have to check his “security ratings,” which meant re-hashing all the details of the 1963 episode. I made it clear the entire account must be taped which we would then subject to voice stress analysis to determine his truthfulness. The entire matter appealed to Vallee and he was happy to join.

I began with the simple question: “What happened November 2, 1963?” He answered quickly and curtly: “Soldiers Field. The plot against John F. Kennedy. I was arrested.” He then supplied confirming details about his whereabouts, the arrest, the interrogation, the weapons, the ammunition, where he purchased them, and his political beliefs about JFK and Mayor Daley. His staccato account was punctuated with stereotypical military clichés such as “negative,” “affirmative,” and “nine-er” for the number nine.

But while Vallee admitted everything about the guns and his whereabouts, he patently denied he actually threatened the President or even considered doing him any harm, Vallee claimed he was framed. Framed because with is openly anti-Kennedy sentiments, he could easily be believed to have threatened the President. Framed by someone with special knowledge about him. It seems the first information about Vallee identified his middle name as “Patrick.” His middle name was actually Arthur, but he once used the middle name Patrick to enlist at an early age in the Marine Corps.

He also gave specifics about his CIA assignment to train exiles to assassinate Castro. And he confirmed that he was never called before the Warren Commission or even interviewed by the Secret Service on anything until 1966. Even Vallee thought that was remiss on general principles.

His information checked out with everything we had compiled independently. And when we voice-stressed the tape, we found is account to register truthful. Although truthfulness is difficult if not impossible to accurately gauge (even within the normal margin of error) when the subject is so far from reality he may believe his own fabrications to be the purest truth.

Yet if Vallee was just a lone nut who wasn’t dangerous to anyone, and if our investigation wasn’t turning up anything substantial, why is it that while I was talking to Vallee in Houston, a Chicago Secret Service agent named Tom Hampton, was discreetly investigating Eddie Brokaw. Hampton called our office, identified himself and asked whether we employed a reporter named Eddie Brokaw and could we furnish any information on him. Hampton was told his call would be returned.

When I arrived back in Chicago, I was told of Hampton’s inquiries. I called him and asked how he knew Eddie Brokaw was a reporter for Chicago Independent when Eddie Brokaw had only come into existence a few days before and then in an undercover role. Hampton snapped, “Well, he’s been asking a lot of sensitive questions and we want to know why.” Speed is a quality the Secret Service was indispensable… after the assassination of the President.

Compiling the Scenario

By playing one man’s information off against another’s, by comparing reactions to accusations, by the use of voice stress analysis and the polygraph (not as foolproof evidence, but merely as a good gauge within limitations), by document analysis and other means, we were able to piece together the scenario. A scenario which has not been contradicted or even criticized by either the authorities or the principle players alleged to have taken part. “No comments,” memory lapses, yes. But specific denials or contradictions – not a one.

In fact, the more pieces we put together, the more reluctant the Secret Service or FBI people were. If that was any barometer of the reliability of our sources, then the scenario we recounted is accurate.

And so, without using the world proof, we repeat: there are strong indications there were four men in Chicago to assassinate John F. Kennedy, November 2, 1963, twenty days before Dallas.

III The Cover-up

Looking at all the events, in perspective, we can easily see how covered up and why.

Remember that in 1963, presidential protection was disorganized. Under the law. Among federal agencies. After the assassination, the various agencies squabbled over exactly who would take charge of the investigation: Secret Service, FBI, CIA, City of Dallas, State of Texas. Finger-pointing and buck-passing escalated into a race to avoid blame for the President’s death under the flimsiest of security precautions conceivable.

So of course, no one wanted it known that prior to the Dallas trip there had been high alerts, reasons for special caution. Otherwise, how does it look that the Secret Service routed Kennedy through the most physically obvious of traps, with his bubble top down, in the hostile Dallas environment. And even then not securing the warehouse as the customarily do.

So of course no one wants to admit the teletypes warned of serious assassination conspiracies throughout the month of November. In New Orleans on the 17th (documented by CBS). In Chicago on the second of the month. No one wants to admit the FBI conveyed advance tips about these conspiracies, but then under orders from J. Edgar Hoover (who bitterly hated the Kennedy brothers), didn’t lift a finger to stop it.

Even today, you can call Thomas B. Coll of the FBI in Washington and you’ll hear the bitter rivalry and buck-passing. Listen to him as he coldly defends the FBI’s right to do nothing about presidential threats because of something Coll calls “jurisdiction.”

Even today, you can call Ken Lynch of the Secret Service in Washington and listen to him coldly ignore the fact that the FBI destroyed the threat Oswald delivered ten days before the assassination. He’ll say, “That’s the FBI’s problem. Not ours. Talk to them about it.”

Why doesn’t one agency go after the other when these disclosures come out? Or is it that all of them are in bed together, and only if everyone covers up can they all avoid exposure?

If you approach that problem with the cold war government mentality of dirty tricks, cover stories, cover-ups, evidence destruction, you can see when the whitewash investigations of what really happened during the month of November, 1963, was just another of the misdeeds of that era: the Bay of Pigs, attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, Mafia murder contracts, break-ins, mail interceptions, the assassination of the Diem brothers on November 1. Why should JFK’s murder be any different?

Begin in Chicago, November 2. First the Secret Service launches an all-out investigation against a four-man conspiracy, blows the surveillance and can’t crack their two suspects. Then comes the second tip about Thomas Arthur Vallee.

But wait a minute. A quick check of Vallee’s past with the CIA shows his involvement in anti-Castro assassination squads in Long Island. Back off. Get this nut off the street, but don’t squeeze him too hard. We wouldn’t want that embarrassing information leaked. So just have the local police pinch the guy. We don’t even want to talk to him. A few days after Kennedy leaves Chicago, Vallee and everyone else will feel better.

The Chicago Police oblige by covering up any information about weapons and ammunition. Somewhere along the way, however, someone leaked it and the rumors began. Who cares? The government can always deal with rumors.

But now these four other guys. Two of them are still at large. The situation is so unsecured. JFK cancels his visit. The investigation continues. Literally hundreds of Cubans and Mexicans in Chicago are contacted in the next week, hoping to pin down information.

In the middle of the investigation a separate group is suspected in New Orleans on November 17. What the hell is going on? How many guys out there are trying to kill him? How many teams? What kind of money behind them? What’s the organization? They’d never encountered anything remotely as sophisticated, professional and persistent. They couldn’t cope with it.

Just five days later, their protectee was gunned down at noon. The ground shook under the feet of every Secret Service man. Hoover sat back and smiled at their incompetence. Out of the smoke and screams emerges the fall guy – Lee Harvey Oswald. Like an embarrassed police department looking to wrap up their case and quickly hand the culprit’s head on a pike for all to see, Oswald was seized upon. As their Messiah. The man who would take all the hate, all the blame. Then before he could speak up, they crucified him in the basement of the Dallas police station. How many millions reeled in horror? Yes, but how many dozens in the government realized they had in fact been saved.

Like all other cover-ups before and after, the small omission, deletions, distortions, extractions begot larger and larger crimes. Until like a powerful man trying to cover a petty burglary, all the resources available were subtly used to stonewall. To stonewall in so massive a way, that the edifice began tumbling down out of sheer size. Then came rushed and nervous support to patch up the cracks.

Far more than Watergate, it was the biggest betrayal of the American people in their history. Its dimensions may never be known. But even the little we can see is awesome.

And dammit, it’s still going full speed. Gerald Ford, who sat on the original Warren Commission, refuses to take another look. Ken Lynch and Thomas B. Coll are sitting there in Washington afraid to answer questions, afraid to give the least indications. Preferring instead to adopt Goebbel’s tactics of harassing the investigators rather than responding to the investigation.

If anyone wants to find out the truth, if anyone wants to disprove that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK in Chicago, twenty days before Dallas, it’s easy. 1) Show us the teletypes received by the Chicago office during the week of November 2. There were only a few. 2) Give us the case titles on every CO file (any investigation controlled directly by the Secret Service Chief’s Office in Washington) that originated the week of November 2. 3) Have Motto, Stocks, Martineau and Strong submit to a polygraph examination. That’s all. Just those three things and the Secret Service can prove all this is nonsense, just some disgruntled sources within their own ranks, just some journalist in Chicago trying to make a name for himself. Okay, smart guys? Prove the conspiracy never happened. We have some of your own who swear it did.

They swear that it was just the chance of split-second decision that kept Kennedy from actually flying to Chicago. That kept Thomas Arthur Vallee from falsely becoming one of history’s “lone assassins” because he worked in a well-located warehouse and fit a convenient personality stereotype. Split seconds from the world remembering Chicago as the place they killed the President of the United States.

Edwin Black is coordinating writer of Chicago Independent.