[Guest post by DRJ]

A former Secret Service Agent that protected President John F. Kennedy claims an assassination plot by a Lee Harvey Oswald look-a-like and Cuban nationalists was thwarted in Chicago just weeks before JFK was assassinated in Dallas:

“A former Secret Service agent says there was a plot to kill president John F. Kennedy in Chicago three weeks before he was assassinated in Dallas. President Kennedy was murdered on November 22, 1963. Thursday is the 44th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. But Lee Harvey Oswald would never have had the chance to kill Kennedy in Dallas, had an assassination plot in Chicago succeeded three weeks earlier, a plot that has been mentioned over the years.

Kennedy was due to arrive in Chicago the morning of Saturday, November 2 to attend the Army-Air Force football game at Soldier Field and ride in a parade. Newspapers had even printed JFK’s detailed travel plan from O’Hare to the Loop. Although police were preparing to line the motorcade route, Secret Service officials in Chicago were deeply troubled about the visit because of two secret threats.

Right-wing radical and Kennedy denouncer Thomas Vallee, had arranged to be off work for JFK’s visit, Vallee, an expert marksman, was arrested with an M1 rifle, a handgun and 3,000 rounds of ammo.

But then there was the phone call to federal agents from a motel manager concerning what was she saw in a room rented by two Cuban nationals. “Had seen lying on the bed several automatic rifles with telescopic sights, with an outline of the route that President Kennedy was supposed to take in Chicago that would bring him past that building,” said former Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden.”

Bolden claims the Secret Service agents bungled surveillance on the Cubans and, as a result, Kennedy’s trip to Chicago was canceled:

“Chicagoan Bolden, now 72, was a young agent in 1963. After a few years as an Illinois state trooper, Bolden had joined he Secret Service and was invited by President Kennedy onto the prestigious White House detail – the first black agent ever assigned to protect a president.

Bolden recalled how agents bungled surveillance of those two suspected Cuban hitmen. They disappeared and were never even identified. “No one was sent to the room to fingerprint it or get an I.D. The case was lost and that was the end of it,” Bolden said.

On November 2, the president was about to leave the White House for Chicago, and Bolden says a Cuban murder squad here was unaccounted for. “The morning of the game, the special agent in charge of the Chicago office called the White House and recommended the president cancel his trip to Chicago,” Bolden said.”

Bolden alleges this information may not have been given to JFK assassination investigation. He also claims that agents were sometimes drunk on the job:

“Information about Vallee, his similarity in appearance and background to Lee Harvey Oswald and details of the Cuban hit squad in Chicago were never given to federal agents in Dallas, Texas. Bolden said the information was not known to have been passed on to Dallas.

In a book that Bolden wrote with his late wife, due out next spring, he will cite another contributing factor in the JFK murder: on-duty drunkenness by Secret Service agents. “I told the chief of the Secret Service this, that if anything happens, an emergency situation develops with President Kennedy, that their reflexes are going to be in a condition that they won’t be in a condition to respond, and Dallas, Texas proved I was right,” he said. “The president’s life was in grave danger because of the inefficiency of security around him, too many weaknesses.

“When that bullet struck the head of the president, it struck me too because I saw it coming,” Bolden said.”

That would be a memorable quote to put on the dust jacket of Bolden’s forthcoming book.

Bolden also claims he tried to notify the Warren Commission but was framed with a bribery charge that was manufactured to silence him:

“When the Warren Commission began investigating JFK’s assassination, Bolden says, he attempted to inform members about the Chicago plot and misconduct by his fellow agents.

During that time Bolden himself was arrested and prosecuted for soliciting a bribe from a counterfeiter and served a six-year sentence. He claims it was a set-up to silence him. The main witness has since recanted, and Bolden hopes now to clear his name.”

President Kennedy died 44 years ago but the JFK assassination theories never die.

— DRJ